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The opening of the Pylos campaign*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Robert B. Strassler
Robert B. Strassler
Affiliation:
287 Kent Street, #6 Brookline, Massachusetts 02146, U.S.A.
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Extract

This essay presents a new interpretation of what happened in the opening of the Pylos campaign; one that rests mainly on an attempt to discover, in Thucydides' text, Demosthenes' original plan for the campaign and the Spartan reaction to it. Thucydides says little about plans for Pylos; indeed, he seems to describe this part of the campaign as unusually haphazard and fortuitous. Unfortunately, his account of it (iv 2–16), which is our only real source, is so compressed, obscure, and elliptical that no interpretation of these events can now approach proof or certainty. All scenarios and explanations are therefore speculative. They can be evaluated only by their degree of consistency with all the data, unsatisfactory as these may be, and by their relative plausibility—a subjective and fallible measure at best since human affairs so often turn out less plausibly than we expect. Despite these limitations and caveats, rigorous analysis is possible, and can reveal enlightening and previously unnoticed connections both between events within the Pylos campaign, and between these difficult chapters and other, clearer parts of Thucydides' text.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 110 , November 1990 , pp. 110 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1990

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References

1 In 427 Demosthenes had suffered defeat (iii 94–8) primarily because the Aetolians had learned of his plans in time to concentrate strong forces unexpectedly against him, and in 426 (iii 96) he gained victories in Amphilochia by his own skillful exploitation of surprise (iii 105–113).

2 All Thucydidean passages quoted in this essay are from the translation by Rex Warner (Harmondsworth 1972).

3 The Athenians apparently knew (iv 2) that the Peloponnesian fleet might sail to Corcyra before their own ships left Piraeus, but Demosthenes seems not to have been sufficiently alarmed by this to inform the generals of his plan.

4 If the generals' statement reflects a genuine offer (albeit indirectly expressed here) to take Demosthenes to some other Peloponnesian headland and to fortify it for him, we can only assume, since they were making this ‘offer’ in the context of their refusal to fortify Pylos now, that it was an offer to be carried out ‘in the future’. But if they had been willing to make such an offer, they would surely have been willing (and would have offered first) to fortify Pylos for him in the future as well. Indeed, they might only have suggested the fortification of other headlands as an alternative after (and because) their prior offer to return to Pylos had been rejected by Demosthenes as unacceptable or unfeasible. Finally, such a refusal by Demosthenes to accept postponement for the fortification of Pylos may indicate that timing was a critical element of his plan.

5 Gomme, A. W., HCT (Oxford 1956) i 488.Google Scholar

6 Hunter, Virginia J., Thucydides the artful reporter (Toronto 1973) 69 n. 8Google Scholar, lists a number of scholars of this opinion. See also Kagan, Donald, The Archidamian war (Ithaca, N.Y. 1974) 228.Google Scholar

7 See Gomme (n. 5), iii 438–9, Wilson, J. B., Pylos 425 BC: A historical and topographical study of Thucydides' account of the campaign (Warminster, Wilts. 1979) 62Google Scholar, and Cornford, F. M., Thucydides mythistoricus (London 1907) 88.Google Scholar

8 Morrison, J. S. and Coates, J. F., The Athenian trireme (Cambridge 1986) 111, 130.Google Scholar Each trireme carried a carpenter and tools.

9 See Thucydides' description of the rapid fortification of Delium (iv 90), and of the hasty wall construction near the Olympeium at Syracuse (vi 66).

10 Gomme (n. 5), 442.

11 In three days, the Athenian expedition would travel 210 miles (see 14 below) and be near Pylos, but it would still require one more day to reach Zakynthos and another to prepare for combat there before moving north of Cyllene. The Peloponnesian fleet would travel the 145 miles from Corcyra to Cyllene, even by way of the isthmus of Leucas, in two days or less.

12 Morrison and Coates (n. 8), 103–6 do discuss trireme speeds at oar or sail, stops for meals and sleep, effects of weather, convoys, message boats, etc., but ancient sources and examples are few.

13 See note 12.

14 Morrison and Coates (n. 8), 105, think five knots would be the speed of a fleet of triremes with merchantmen. This gives an average range for a fourteen-hour sailing day of about 75 miles.

15 If construction began on Day 7, it was completed six days later (iv. 5) on Day 13. Allow nine days for news of the fort's construction to reach Agis and for him to return to Sparta (Day 16) and three days more for the first troops from Sparta to reach Pylos (Day 19). We know that the fleet arrived after the army (iv 8), so the earliest it could have arrived would be Day 20.

16 For the timing, see n.15 above, and Wilson (n. 7), 70. Kagan (n. 6), 223 noticed the slow Spartan response to the fort and the contrasting reactions of Agis and the home government but drew no conclusions. Hunter (n. 6), 63–4 correctly saw that the absence of the king and the army was the real reason for Spartan delay, but she is certainly wrong when she says Thucydides here artfully supplies more motives for Spartan behavior than is required.

17 The annual expeditions to Attica seem to have comprised only two-thirds of available forces, Thuc. ii 47, iii 15, so we may assume that a minimum force of 1,500 to 2,500 Spartan hoplites, would have been present at Sparta.

18 Hdt. ix 64.2.

19 Cf. Xen. Hell, vi 4.16; the announcement of the battle of Leuctra at Sparta provides a similar example of Sparta's stiff upper lip when publicly handling bad news.

20 Strassler, R. B., ‘The Harbor at Pylos: 425 BC’, JHS cviii (1988), 198–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar discusses further the Spartan plan and the harbor battle.

21 Diod. xiii. 64.5; in 409–408, (or maybe 410, see Lewis, D. M., Sparta and Persia [Leiden, 1977] 126Google Scholar, n. 112).

22 The Athenian fleet would arrive at Zakynthos one day after the fort's completion (Day 14). If Demosthenes' triremes left Pylos on Day 20 when the Peloponnesian ships arrived (see 14 above), they would have reached Zakynthos on Day 21 about one week after the fleet. See Wilson (n. 7), 67.

23 Gomme (n. 5), 442.

24 Allowing three days for news of the fort's establishment on Day 13 to reach Athens (Day 16), seven days to fit out vessels, gather crews and load supplies (Day 23), and four more for the triremes and cargo ships to reach Pylos (Day 27), the interval between the fort's completion and the arrival of the second Pylos fleet would be about two weeks.

25 These twenty triremes may have remained at Pylos, despite the added strain, because the Athenians believed for some time that the surrender of the Spartans on Sphacteria was imminent (iv 26), and that some triremes would prove useful there after the Athenian fleet left, even though the fort would face no immediate hostile naval threat. Later, when it became clear that Sphacteria would not surrender, the squadrons's manpower would have seemed too valuable in an assault to send away.

26 See note 24.

27 Wilson, John, Corcyra and Athens (Bristol 1987), 135Google Scholar, feels the data will not support the conclusion that the Athenians maintained a permanent fleet at Naupactos. The subject is too complex to take up here, but I read the same record as strong evidence for the organized existence of such a force. See Thuc. ii 69, 80–1, 90, 103; iii 7, 69, 75, 91, 98, 102, 105, 107, 114; iv 49, vii 17, 31, 34.

28 Wilson (n. 27), 106, points out that the Peloponnesian fleet may have remained in port throughout much of 426 in order to avoid Demosthenes' squadron that was operating at Leucas and off the coast of Acarnania that year.

29 A substantial number of Athenian fleet hoplites might have been left at Pylos to build up the garrison because the generals at that time would not have expected to have to fight at sea.

30 Wilson (n. 7), 67. Awdry, H., ‘Pylos and Sphacteria’ JHS xx (1900) 14–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, even suggests the fort was a decoy to draw the Peloponnesian fleet out and destroy it, but he does not explain why the Athenians could assume this Spartan reaction, or its opportune timing.

31 Even at night, the Peloponnesian fleet's passage unobserved through the Zakynthos and Cyllene channel strongly suggests that the Athenians were not looking for them. In 429 a Peloponnesian fleet tried to elude Phormio by slipping its moorings at night, but because Phormio had set a watch for them, they were observed, pursued, and attacked before dawn (Thuc. ii 83).

32 The Spartans may even have been aware of the approach of the second Athenian fleet, and of the need to implement their plan before it could arrive on the scene.