Ancient Greece, Middle Classical Period, Second (=Great) Peloponnesian War, Interlude (421-413 BC): Year Eleven (421/420 BC), Peace of Nicias

During the spring Sparta and Athens signed a fifty-year peace treaty. Its conditions had been negotiated by Pleistoanax and Nicias: everything captured during the war to be returned except that Athens would keep Nisaea and Thebes would keep Plataea; Amphipolis to be returned to Athens; the Athenians to release the captives taken at Sphacteria; and Athens to continue to collect tribute from the states as it had since the time of Aristides, but could not force those states to become allies.

All of Sparta’s allies signed the treaty except for Boeotia, Corinth, Elis and Megara who declared themselves dissatisfied with its terms, i.e. that Boeotia was to give up Panactum (a fort on the Attic border seized by Boeotia in 422 BC); Corinth was not to regain Sollium and Anactorium in the northwest (Acarnania may not have been party to the peace); Elis resented Sparta’s support of Lepreum (a district in Elis) against Elis; and Megara was not to regain Nisaea. All objected to the clause that allowed Athens and Sparta by mutual consent to amend the treaty without consulting her allies.

In the negotiations Sparta had spoken for many cities that were not under her control. In the northeast the Chalcidians having revolted against Athenian domination were justifiably aggrieved at what had been decided for them. Sparta sent an order to Clearidas to deliver up Amphipolis, who hastened back to Sparta and declared that he was unable to give up the city against its will. He was ordered to return and to withdraw all Peloponnesian forces from the region, which he did.

During the summer Scione fell after a two-year siege. In accordance with the earlier Athenian decree the adult males were put to death and the women and children sold into slavery. The Athenians gave the emptied town to the Plataeans who had been disappointed in their hopes of having their own city returned to them by Thebes.

As her most important allies refused to ratify the treaty, Sparta changed her course and made a defensive alliance with Athens to last fifty years concurrently with the peace of Nicias. Each state bound itself to go to the other’s aid if its territory was invaded, and it was expressly stipulated that Athens should assist Sparta in quelling any revolt by the helots. Neither Pylos nor Cythera was returned, but as soon as the treaty was ratified the Athenians to display their pacific intentions released the prisoners taken at Sphacteria.

In response to this development Corinth, Elis, Mantinea and the cities of Chalcidice joined Argos in a new alliance. Tegea remained true to Sparta; Boeotia and Megara declined the invitation because their oligarchies distrusted democratic Argos. Sparta felt particularly threatened by Mantinea and in the summer captured Parrhasia, a district in south Arcadia over which Mantinea had imposed her rule.

The Spartans wanted Boeotia to give them Panactum so that they could return it to Athens in exchange for Pylos. Early in 420 BC Boeotia offered to return the city and Athenian prisoners on condition that Sparta granted them an alliance. However, when this was done Boeotia razed the city to the ground before handing it over. Argos, fearing it might be left isolated, sent envoys to Sparta to negotiate a fifty-year truce. 

In the winter Heraclea Trachinia was defeated by neighbouring peoples. To prevent it falling into Athenian hands the Boeotians took it over, much to Sparta’s annoyance. It was apparently under Spartan control again by 413/2 BC.