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triumphs. Though the seventh year was marked by the usual enterprise on
the part of the Lacedaemonians--the invasion of Attica--Corcyra promised to
be the principal scene of military operations. Both an Athenian and
Spartan fleet was sent thither. But an unforeseen incident gave a new
character to the war. In the course of the voyage to Corcyra, Demosthenes,
the Athenian general, stopped at Pylus, with the intention of erecting a
fort on the uninhabited promontory, since it protected the spacious basin
now known as the bay of Navarino, and was itself easily defended.
Eurymedon, the admiral, insisted on going directly to Corcyra, but the
fleet was driven by a storm into the very harbor which Demosthenes
proposed to defend. The place was accordingly fortified by Demosthenes,
where he himself remained with a garrison, while the fleet proceeded to
Corcyra. Intelligence of this insult to Sparta--the attempt to plant a
hostile fort on its territory--induced the Lacedaemonians to send their
fleet to Pylus, instead of Corcyra. Forty-three triremes, under
Thrasymelidas, and a powerful land force, advanced to attack Demosthenes,
intrenched with his small army on the rocky promontory. When the news of
this new diversion reached the Athenian fleet at Corcyra, it returned to
Pylus, to succor Demosthenes. Here a naval battle took place, in which the
Lacedaemonians were defeated. This defeat jeopardized the situation of the
Spartan army which had occupied the island of Shacteria, cut off from
supplies from the main land, as well as the existence of the fleet. So
great was this exigency, that the ephors came from Sparta to consult on
operations. They took a desponding view, and sent a herald to the Athenian
generals to propose an armistice, in order to allow time for envoys to go
to Athens and treat for peace. But Athens demanded now her own terms,
elated by the success. Cleon, the organ of the popular mind, excited and
sanguine, gave utterance to the feelings of the people, and insisted on
the restoration of all the territory they had lost during the war. The
Lacedaemonian envoys, unable to resist a vehement speaker like Cleon, which
required qualities they did not possess, and which could only be acquired
from skill in managing popular assemblies, to which they were unused,
returned to Pylus. And it was the object of Cleon to prevent a hearing of
the envoys by a select committee (what they desired) for fear that Nicias
and other con