In the early summer, probably because of the plague at Athens, the Peloponnesians and their allies did not invade Attica but instead marched against Plataea held by just four hundred Plataeans and eighty Athenian allies. When the request for the town’s surrender was rejected, Archidamus ordered the ravaging of the countryside and the trees cut down to be used to build a palisade around the town to prevent any sorties. The Plataeans asked Athens for help, but the Athenians were not prepared to face the Spartans in a land battle and were moving to the northeast to deal with the rebellion in Chalcidice.
Archidamus used his army to move earth against the city walls to construct a ramp. The Plataeans responded by building up their own wall opposite the mound. As the mound grew, Archidamus brought in battering rams. The Plataeans countered this by dropping nooses over the rams and hoisting them up over the walls. They also suspended heavy logs atop their walls to drop on the rams, thus breaking them. Frustrated at this, Archidamus ordered the use of fire. Brush was piled alongside the wall and covered with sulphur and pitch. Unfortunately for the Spartans, the wind did not help and there was possibly a thunderstorm as well. Archidamus eventually sent many of his troops home to tend the harvest, while having the remainder build a stronger encircling wall (circumvallation) as well as a wall of contravallation, five metres outside the first wall, facing outwards to defend against any relief force.
In the summer the Athenians with two thousand cavalry and two hundred infantry arrived at Spartolus, the chief city of the Bottiaeans in northwest Chalcidice. The Chalcidian heavy infantry was forced back inside the city walls, but Chalcidian cavalry and the light-armed troops (peltasts from Olynthus) drove back the Athenian cavalry and hoplites. When the slow-moving hoplites tried to counterattack, the peltasts simply moved away, then as soon as the Athenians resumed their retreat the peltasts rushed after them hurling javelins. The Chalcidian cavalry routed the panicking Athenian infantry. It was the first intelligent use of cavalry and light-armed troops against a hoplite force. After taking refuge in Potidaea, the Athenians recovered their 430 dead and returned to Athens.
Not long after this, Ambracia and Sparta planned a combined operation to conquer Acarnania, Cephalonia, Zacynthus and possibly Naupactus, to deprive Athens of its bases in the west and isolate her ally Corcyra. With a thousand hoplites the Spartan navarch, Cnemus, crossed the Corinthian Gulf and made his way to Ambracian territory. There he accepted under his command hoplites from Ambracia, Leucas and Anactorium, and a large number of light-armed troops recruited from the Chaonians and other Epirote tribesmen, together with some Orestians (from a region between Macedonia and Epirus). The squadrons of Ambracia, Leucas and Anactorium had already assembled at Leucas for the attack by sea. There they waited for the main Peloponnesian fleet.
The Peloponnesians and their allies advanced on the Acarnanian capital, Stratus, in three divisions. The centre was occupied by the Chaonians and the rest of the ‘barbarians’, with the Leucadians and Anactorians on the right, and Cnemus with the Peloponnesians and Ambracians on the left; each division separate from, and sometimes out of sight of the others. The Chaonians rushed ahead with the intention of capturing the town and claiming sole glory for the operation. The Stratians had occupied the environs of the town with ambuscades and as the Chaonians approached they were engaged at close quarters. Many were slain and as they gave way the rest of barbarians fled back to the protection of the Hellenic divisions. The Stratians followed but did not engage, contenting themselves with slinging from a distance. The Chaonians’ defeat disheartened the other troops. Cnemus withdrew to Oeniadae, where the army broke up and dispersed.
Meanwhile, Phormion was waiting at Naupactus for the appearance of the main Peloponnesian fleet. When forty-seven vessels came in sight coasting along the south side of the Corinthian Gulf, he allowed them to pass through the Rhium Strait and into the Patras Gulf but placed his twenty triremes along the north shore to bar the crossing to Acarnania. The Corinthians and their allies, believing that the twenty Athenian ships would not engage their forty-seven, had not planned for fighting at sea and their vessels were more like transports for carrying soldiers. Knowing that enemy ships were heavy with infantry, Phormion rejected boarding tactics and instead chose to attack them in the open sea.
That night the Peloponnesians put out from Patrae, hoping to cross the gulf unobserved, but they were intercepted in the open waters west of Rhium. They formed their warships in a circle, prows outward, for defence and rested their oars on a calm sea. Phormion ordered his ships to form a line and sail round and round the enemy circle, continually feigning attack so that the Peloponnesians contracted their circle. Phormion knew that a wind usually blew out of the gulf in the morning, and when it came the stationary enemy ships were blown foul of one another in the confined space. Phormion gave the signal to attack and using their greater experience the Athenians rammed and disabled all they came across and the rest fled towards Patrae and Dyme. The Athenians captured twelve ships during the pursuit and then returned to Naupactus. The remnants of the Peloponnesian force sailed westwards to Cyllene in Elis, where they were joined by Cnemus and his troops from Acarnania.
Hearing of this defeat the authorities at Sparta sent three advisors (one of whom was Brasidas) to oversee Cnemus as he resumed the offensive. Phormion, meanwhile, sent to Athens for reinforcements. Twenty ships were sent, but were ordered to first sail to Crete to attack Cydonia, and as a result did not arrive in time to participate in the battle. Cnemus and his advisors assembled a fleet of seventy-seven ships and sent it round from Cyllene to take position just within the Rhium Strait, close to Panormus in Achaea, supported by a strong Peloponnesian force encamped on the shore.
Phormion was positioned on the opposite coast, but westward of the narrows, so that he had open water for manoeuvring. As the Peloponnesians were equally determined not to be lured out into the open sea, the two fleets remained confronting each other for seven days, without making an aggressive movement. Finally, fearing if they delayed any longer then Phormion would be reinforced from Athens, the Peloponnesians leaders decided to give battle.
Their plan was to threaten undefended Naupactus (east of Rhium) to draw Phormion into the strait. At daybreak the Peloponnesians put their ships into four lines with the coast of the Peloponnese behind them. Turning eastwards they sailed four abreast towards the inner gulf. When they came opposite to Naupactus they turned towards the northern shore. Phormion, obliged to go to the aid of Naupactus, took his ships in a single file through the narrows.
The Peloponnesian ships rowed full speed at the Athenians, hoping to trap them close inshore where they would be without room for manoeuvre. Nine of the ships were overtaken and driven aground, but the other eleven escaped and were hotly pursued by the Peloponnesians. All but one got safely through to the harbour of Naupactus. But the rearmost vessel, which had been left behind, swept round a merchantman, struck her pursuer amidships, and sank her.
The shock of this single action disheartened the Peloponnesian crews and they stopped their pursuit; some ran aground and others lost way and rested on their oars. The Athenians took heart again and rowed swiftly from the harbour. The Peloponnesians fled back to the southern coast. Six of their vessels were captured and the Athenians, not content with this, fell upon the main fleet and recovered their nine ships that had been lost in the strait.
As the winter was at hand the Peloponnesian fleet retired to Corinth. Cnemus, Brasidas and the other Peloponnesian captains were persuaded by the Megarians to make an attempt upon Piraeus, the port of Athens. The plan was that the men were to go overland from Corinth to Megara. They arrived at night and launched forty vessels from Nisaea, sailing not to Piraeus, which would have been something of a risk, but to Salamis. Signal fires were raised to alarm Athens. At daybreak the Athenians launched a force to Salamis. The Peloponnesians hastily sailed off to Nisaea; their ships were in poor state of repair and were causing some anxiety.
At about the same time and with a force claimed to have been 150,000 strong including about 50,000 cavalry, Sitalces of Thrace overran Chalcidice, Bottiaea and Macedonia. Perdiccas II adopted the strategy of a mobile defence; the population retired to various strongholds and the Thracians were constantly harassed by the superior Macedonian cavalry. After a campaign of thirty days Sitalces, apparently on the advice of his nephew Seuthes-I (r.424-410 BC), returned to his own country having achieved nothing.
In the autumn Pericles died from the plague. Cleon (d.422 BC) came forward as the professed champion and leader of the democracy. He was opposed by Nicias (c.470-413 BC).
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