Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/120

 112 CESSATION OF MILITARY MOVEMENTS [v were staying there when the battle of AmphipoUs occurred. And so the summer came to an end. 13 The following winter Rhamphias and his army went as but is not allowed to far as Pierium in Thessaly, but as the pass through Thessaly. Thessalians would not let them proceed •'», and Brasidas, for whom these reinforcements were intended, was dead, they returned home, thinking that the time for action had gone by. They felt that they were not com- petent to carry out the great designs of Brasidas, and the Athenians had now left the country defeated. But their chief reason for not proceeding was that the Lacedae- monians, at the time when they left Sparta, were inclined towards peace. 14 After the battle of Amphipolis and the return of Rham- „, , ^ , . phias from Thessaly, neither side Both the Athenians ^ /' and Lacedaemonians, Undertook any military operations. being alike disappointed Both alike Were inclined to peace. The in that- hopes, now Athenians had been beaten at Delium, and shortly afterwards at Amphipolis ; and so they had lost that confidence in their own strength which had indisposed them to treat at a time when tem- porary success seemed to make their final triumph certain. They were afraid too that their allies would be elated at their disasters, and that more of them would revolt ; they repented that after the aftair at Pylos, when they might honourably have done so, they had not come to terms. The Lacedaemonians on the other hand inclined to peace because the course of the war had disappointed their expectations. There was a time when they fancied that, if they only devastated Attica, they would crush the power of Athens within a few years i'; and yet they had received a blow at Sphacteria such as Sparta had never experienced until then ; their country was continually ravaged from Pylos and Cythera ; the Helots were deserting, and they were always fearing lest those who had not deserted, • Cp. iv. 132 mcd. *" Cp. i. 81 fin.