Pylos and Sphacteria Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sophocles

Born in 497, by the time of this expedition the tragedian who dethroned the great Aeschylus as the greatest man of letters in Athens would have been 72 years old. In Athens, where participation in affairs of state was expected, other public intellectuals like Socrates also fought with bravery in the Peloponnesian War.
The other named commanders were Eurymedon and Pythodorus, the latter of which was already in the area of Sicily.

Answer: Demosthenes

While his plans were not always successful, Demosthenes proved more than once that he understood the bigger strategic picture better than most.
Through the early part of the war, Demosthenes had attempted to increase Athens' ifluence around the Gulf of Corinth and its northern shore. While his campaign in Aetolia had proven disastrous, it was an imaginative attempt to outflank Sparta's allies along the Gulf's northern shore. He had succeeded brilliantly in the Arcarnian campaign, however.

Answer: The occupation of Pylos was a threat to Sparta's strategic flank

Pylos on the coast was just 45 miles from Sparta in the south central Peloponnese. While there was little of material value there, its location was in the land of the Messenians. The Spartans had conquered and subdued the Messenians in the late eighth century BC and used them as slaves (helots); the latter were absolutely vital to the Spartan economic and political system.

It was said, by one ancient historian, that the Messenians, who were Greek after all, hated the Spartans so much that they "would have eaten them raw." Demosthenes, who wanted to fortify and man Pylos with Messenian soldiers, knew if he was successful that the rest of Messenia might revolt against Spartan rule, and Sparta would be faced with a two front war. Given that Sparta had fought three wars with the rebellious Messenians in the space of 250 years, it was a good bet.

Answer: Laying waste to Attica

Annually during the war, the Spartan army under one of its kings would cross the isthmus into Attica, the agricultural hinterland around Athens, and attempt to destroy its crops and trees. As Victor Davis Hanson has pointed out, destroying crops and trees-- like grains, olive trees and grape vines was a form of economic warfare akin to World War II strategic bombing-- and was not as easy as it sounds.

But the Spartans really had no alternative plan. The Athenians refused to come out from behind their walls and fight what was considered the best army in Greece, relying instead on their navy and their own form of economic warfare.

Answer: False

To the contrary, it appears that Agis understood the strategic threat posed by the landing immediately and hurried back Sparta as quickily as possible. It probably did not hurt that the campaign was not going well in Attica with wet weather plaguing the Spartans.

Answer: Sphacteria

The Spartan plan was to have a force on Sphacteria, one on the mainland opposite Pylos and the Spartan navy was to control the harbor.

Answer: It was repulsed

Demosthenes accurately predicted exactly where the Spartans under the excellent commander Brasidas would attack and, because the Spartans could not bring all their forces to bear at once, repulsed them with a mere 60 men at the water's edge.

Note: It's not a little ironic that Demosthenes used a narrow piece of terrain to hold off a larger force, not unlike the way the Spartans did against the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 BC.

Answer: Athenian fleet arrives, traps the Spartans on Sphacteria

After Demosthenes repulsed the Spartan attack on the beach, the Athenian fleet returned, surprised and defeated the Spartan fleet. Suddenly things looked very bad for the Spartan force on Sphacteria. They were on an island, with limited supplies, and the enemy controlled the waters around it.

Answer: Many of the men were "Spartiates."

Many historians have concluded that the Spartan government was most concerned with the possible loss of the Spartiates. Spartiates were those Spartans who had been through the Spartan training system and met all requirements for being full citizens of Sparta, including at age 30 the right to vote in the Spartan Assembly.

Moreover, Sparta practised eugenics, did not have a high birth rate due to marriage practices and operated a rigorous cut-throat training method (the agoge) that produced the best warriors in Greece, but not very many of them. Thucydides said that 120 of those Spartans who survived the battle were of the "Spartan officer class." Thus they were a super-select group who were members of the best families and showed the most leadership skills. By some historians' count, these men constituted as much as 10 percent of the Spartan elite--a not inconsiderable number for Sparta.

Answer: The Spartans asked for a treaty to end the Peloponnesian War

The initial truce allowed for the Spartans to re-supply their men on Sphacteria but in return they had to turn over their ships--around 50--to the Athenians for security. Because the Athenians completely controlled the sea around the island, the Spartans were completely at the former's mercy and had to agree. But once the Spartan delegation reached Athens, the delegates wanted to talk about a general peace to end the war.

They argued that Sparta had suffered a stroke of bad luck but its capacity to wage war was not damaged.

Hence it was better for Athens not to test the fates and chances of more war. It was here however that the domestic politics of Athens intervened.

Answer: Cleon

Cleon does not appear in history to be the most sympathetic of characters. His fellow Athenian, the historian Thucydides, has little good to say about him in his opus. Some believe that Cleon scuttled a chance for peace and guaranteed 20 more years of war.

But as Donald Kagan has argued, and the Spartans themselves stated, a peace treaty in 425 BC did nothing to impair Sparta's ability to make war down the road and thus Athens needed to take advantage of its negotiating leverage. In hindsight Thucydides appears right; but certainly the Athenian demos may have felt quite differently after six years of war already and little to show for it.

Answer: Violating the Pylos truce by attacking Athenian fortifications

The Athenians played hardball and accused the Spartans of attacking their walls. The Spartans denied it. But as a result, the former refused to give the latter's ships back to them.
Things were becoming increasingly difficult for the Spartans on Sphacteria as food and supplies had to be smuggled on to the island. The supply situation was not much better for the Athenians either and so they pressed forward for a final battle.

Answer: Spartan inability to come to grips with Athenian peltasts and archers

After making a surprise landing, the Athenians formed into multiple 200 man formations and the Athenian light infantry consisting of archers, javlineers and slingers harassed the heavy Spartan infantry. When the latter would charge, the former would retreat over the rocky terrain and the Spartans, in full armor, were gradually worn down as the day went on.

The Spartan force retreated to an old fort on the island but were flanked again by Messenian light troops who occupied high ground above and pelted the Spartans below them. Tired, thirsty and cornered, the Spartan commander was asked for the surrender of his men and-- shockingly to all Greece-- it was given.

Answer: That the Spartan surrender was the most surprising event in the war

The Greek world could not believe that the Spartans, who had heroically died to a man at Thermopylae Pass against the Persians in 480 BC, had surrendered to anybody. All Greeks knew that the best army in all Greece, if not the world, was the Spartan army.
Thucydides also states the Athenian troops were afraid at first to come to grips in close-in fighting with the Spartans. But as they began to wear them down with their long distance weapons, their confidence increased.
One captured Spartan said the the Athenian "spindles" (arrows) could not tell the difference between a brave man and a coward and thus it was not a fair fight or a true reflection of Spartan bravery.

Answer: It was largely put into effect for a while.

Athens manned Pylos and fomented a Messenian "revolution" in the Peloponnese. To the Spartans' credit, they did a good job of hiding the guerrilla war being waged and their weakness. They never gave up on getting Pylos and the captured Spartiates back and, after the Spartan victory at Amphipolis in 422 and the death of the war leaders on both sides, Cleon and Brasidas, those conditions were agreed upon at the Peace of Nicias in 421 BC. The Athenians also promised not to promote a Messenian rebellion and even to assist in putting it down. In the end, Sparta got the the Spartiates and Pylos back and the Messenians were put down and the war would resume--indirectly, at first-- in 418 at the Battle of Mantinea.
But other than the later Spartan navarch Lysander, Demosthenes had the clearest strategic vision in the war and the weaknesses of Athen's bitterest rival.
The plan of freeing the Messenian helots and breaking Spartan power would have to wait and be successfully taken up by the Theban General Epimonondas in 370-369 BC, when Messenia was declared free and Megalopolis was established.
One can conclude that Demosthenes' original vision inspired him.