In the spring Athens and Sparta signed a one-year truce. The Athenians needed time to fortify their towns against future attacks by Brasidas, and the Spartans hoped Athens would return the prisoners taken at Sphacteria. Two days after the signing of the treaty, Brasidas, unaware of the armistice, received Scione, on the western prong of the Chalcidice, into alliance. Athens demanded that Scione be returned. Brasidas offered to submit the matter to arbitration. Cleon carried a proposal to execute all the citizens of Scione. Nearby Mende went over to Brasidas, and Athens extended her sentence of execution to include the citizens of that city. Chalcidice thus remained a theatre of war, but the armistice held elsewhere.
During the summer Brasidas agreed to again join forces with Perdiccas in order to resume campaigning in western Macedonia. Arrhabaeus’ main force was defeated, but instead of following up immediately they decided to wait for Perdiccas’ Illyrian allies. When the news arrived that the Illyrians had joined Arrhabaeus, the Macedonian troops deserted and Brasidas had to fight his way back into Perdiccas’ territory. With his usual duplicity Perdiccas now allied himself with Athens and brought the Bottiaean cities over with him.
Meanwhile, an Athenian force under Nicias and Nicostratus (d.418 BC) had arrived, and operating from Potidaea had captured Mende and was besieging Scione. Some reinforcements had reached Brasidas, but the now pro-Athenian Perdiccas arranged to prevent the main body of Peloponnesians from travelling through Thessaly.
In the winter the Mantineans and Tegeans fought a battle at Laodocium, south of later Megalopolis (371 BC). In the wider conflict Tegea was an ally of Sparta, while Mantinea had fought alongside Sparta earlier in the war, but then sided with Athens. After heavy losses with each side routing one of the wings opposed to them the battle was undecided, yet the Tegeans passed the night on the field, while the Mantineans withdrew to Bucolion in Arcadia. At the close of winter Brasidas made an unsuccessful attack on Potidaea
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