After years of stalemate, Sparta agreed to a truce: the rebels at Ithome could depart the Peloponnese. Pausanias records the terms; Diodorus sketches the sequence—earthquake, siege, truce. The mountain emptied, but the problem did not.
What Happened
Sieges can be decided by ladders or words. At Ithome, it was words. After seasons of assault and attrition, with Spartans wary of prolonged proximity to concentrated helots and the mountain’s stores thinning, a settlement was reached. Pausanias writes that the besieged “were allowed to leave under a truce” [2]. The gates opened; men filed out carrying bundles and grief, leaving their stone to the wind.
The procession wound down the slopes facing the Pamisos, crossed the Stenyclerus plain—so often a battlefield between harvests—and moved under guard toward roads that would take them beyond the Isthmus. Diodorus compresses this outcome into a tidy summary: the earthquake and revolt led to a long stand at Ithome, concluded by a truce and resettlement elsewhere [6]. The azure of the Messenian Gulf glittered to the west as a coastline that no longer belonged to them.
For Sparta, the truce solved a tactical problem and preserved a strategic interest. Storming Ithome to the last would have bled the besiegers and possibly sparked new risings among helots watching the carnage from Andania and Dorion. Letting the rebels go thinned the risk at once. It also created a diaspora that could be monitored at a distance, at least in theory. The sound of relief—quiet exhalations in Spartan tents—was real.
And yet, in this arrangement lay a seed of future trouble. Where would the rebels go? Pausanias supplies the answer: Athens received them and settled them at Naupactus, a harbor on the Corinthian Gulf with a clear view of Peloponnesian shores [2]. The truce had shifted the problem from stone to sea, from siege lines at Stenyclerus to ship lanes between Naupactus and Achaea. The mess moved; it did not vanish.
On Ithome, silence returned. The mountain that had hosted watch fires and night alarms now watched only shepherds and eagles. In Andania’s shrines, prayers were recast as farewells; in Sparta’s messes, portions were counted with an ease born of absence. But the political tide had turned outward. The next act would play at Naupactus—and in the councils of Athens and Sparta.
Pausanias’ truce is a hinge: it closes a chapter of mountain war and opens a chapter of maritime and diplomatic maneuver. The creak of wagon axles on the road north became the creak of oarlocks on the gulf.
Why This Matters
The truce defused an immediate threat while creating a new strategic reality. By exporting the rebels, Sparta secured the Messenian plain but produced an Athenian-protected community positioned to harass Peloponnesian coasts and to symbolize Spartan failure to annihilate its enemies [2][6].
This is “Fear as Foreign Policy” in diplomatic form. A domestic worry—helots concentrated at Ithome—forced a compromise that reshaped external alignments. The truce was less mercy than management: better an exile at Naupactus than a martyr at Ithome who might stiffen resistance among those still tied to fields along the Pamisos [2][9].
In the broader arc, the truce flows directly into polarization. Athens’ acceptance of the Messenians and the grant of Naupactus stung Sparta and emboldened Athenian strategists to imagine the Corinthian Gulf as an Athenian lake. The First Peloponnesian War’s lines harden here, traced by ships rather than siege works [2][9][12].
For historians, the truce illustrates how sieges end in classical Greece—not always in sack but in negotiated removal. Pausanias’ matter-of-fact report and Diodorus’ summary help us see strategy at work in mercy’s clothing [2][6].
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