History of the Peloponnesian War

To this reply the envoys said nothing, but they requested the appointment of commissioners who should confer with them, and after a full discussion of all the details should at their leisure agree upon such terms as they could mutually approve.

Thereupon Cleon attacked them violently, saying that he had known before this that they had no honourable intention, and now it was clear, since they were unwilling to speak out before the people, but wished to meet a few men in conference; he bade them, on the contrary, if their purpose was honest, to declare it there before them all.

But the Lacedaemonians, seeing that it was impossible to announce in full assembly such concessions as they might think it best to make in view of their misfortune, lest they might be discredited with their allies if they proposed them and were rebuffed, and seeing also that the Athenians would not grant their proposals on tolerable conditions, withdrew from Athens, their mission a failure.

When they returned, the truce at Pylos was terminated at once, and the Lacedaemonians demanded the return of their ships according to the agreement; but the Athenians accused them of having made a raid against the fort in violation of the truce, and of other acts that do not seem worth mentioning, and refused to give up the ships, stoutly maintaining that it had been stipulated that, if there should be any violation of the truce whatsoever, it should be at an endforthwith. The Lacedaemonians contradicted this, and after protesting that the detention of the ships was an act of injustice went away and renewed the war.

And so the warfare at Pylos was carried on vigorously by both sides. The Athenians kept sailing round the island by day with two ships going in opposite directions, and at night their whole fleet lay at anchor on all sides of it, except to seaward when there was a wind; while to assist them in the blockade twenty additional ships came from Athens, so that they now had seventy in all. As for the Peloponnesians, they were encamped on the mainland, and kept making assaults upon the fort, watching for any opportunity which might offer of rescuing their men.