ABSTRACT
The peace concluded early in 421 and usually called the ‘Peace of Nikias’ after the Athenian general of that name, was unsatisfactory from the start. It came about, as Thucydides makes clear (5.14), only because the two principal belligerents had temporarily lost their nerve. The Athenians had suffered defeat at Delion and Amphipolis, and were worried about revolt in their empire. The Spartans were disillusioned by their failure to win by the usual means, dismayed by what had happened on Sphakteria, and alarmed by the helot situation. In addition, their Thirty Years’ Peace with the Argives was on the point of expiring, and they suspected, rightly as it turned out, that some of their disaffected Peloponnesian allies might seek to join their rivals. In Athens, finally, the death of Kleon left the way open for the more peaceably inclined Nikias, while in Sparta, similarly, King Pleistoanax was anxious to exploit the removal of Brasidas to put an end to talk that Sparta’s disasters were due to the illegal way he had been restored (5.16-17.1).
