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By the fifth year of the war, events were proving how effective the Athenian plan would be if they stuck to it.
An Athenian expedition was rounding the Peloponnese to assist their allies in Sicily when one of the generals, Demosthenes, recommended they try to capture Pylos, a Spartan port city on the Aegean coast. His fellow generals begrudgingly gave him a small army, with which he began a limited siege of the port. The effort proved promising, and the Athenian fleet out of Naupactus, on the Gulf of Corinth, arrived to assist him.
After several months, the Athenians captured Pylos, as well as a Spartan force of hoplites that had entrenched themselves on the island of Sphacteria, just across the harbor. These dual victories were a disaster for the Spartans. Firstly, no Spartan force in memory had ever surrendered. The capture of hundreds of Spartans was a huge blow to the popular perception of that city’s soldiers. Second, Pylos gave Athens a base from which it could launch raids on Sparta itself and promote the desertion of enslaved Helots. The Athenians then compounded the capture of Pylos by also capturing Cythera, an island off the southeastern coast of the Peloponnese. By the winter of 425/4, the Athenians had multiple bases surrounding Sparta from which they could fuel a guerrilla war deep within the heart of Spartan territory.
A handful of Spartans did realize that a successful conclusion to the war required moving away from traditional conservative and conventional Spartan strategies. Brasidas led a force of both Spartans and Helots into Thrace, the Athenian imperial rear, to ferment uprisings against Athenian rule. His efforts were frequently successful, but the Spartan leadership habitually failed to back his successes in a timely manner.
In all, this middle period of the first phase of the conflict showed how correct Pericles’ initial advice to Athens had been, and how prescient the Spartan king Archidamus’ concerns were. Athens’ naval resources allowed them to descend at will along the Spartan coast, and, as they acquired more bases, provided sustained aid into the Spartan interior. Because enslaved Helots provided the economic and logistical backing of Spartan military dominance, this was a direct attack on the Spartan capacity to make war. Conversely, even when Brasidas had shown a model for striking at Athens’ source of power: its subject territories; the Spartan high command proved reticent to adapt and reform. Most Spartans would not demeane themselves by serving in raiding expeditions and arming too many Helots might give them ideas about their abilities and rights.
Sparta was losing the war that it started.
If you’re interested in the final discussion of the book, check out my Substack.
The History Doctor 
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