ight
from their ships. After great exertions and numerous wounds on both
sides they separated, the Lacedaemonians saving their empty ships,
except those first taken; and both parties returning to their camp, the
Athenians set up a trophy, gave back the dead, secured the wrecks, and
at once began to cruise round and jealously watch the island, with its
intercepted garrison, while the Peloponnesians on the mainland, whose
contingents had now all come up, stayed where they were before Pylos.

When the news of what had happened at Pylos reached Sparta, the disaster
was thought so serious that the Lacedaemonians resolved that the
authorities should go down to the camp, and decide on the spot what was
best to be done. There, seeing that it was impossible to help their men,
and not wishing to risk their being reduced by hunger or overpowered by
numbers, they determined, with the consent of the Athenian generals,
to conclude an armistice at Pylos and send envoys to Athens to obtain
a convention, and to endeavour to get back their men as quickly as
possible.

The generals accepting their offers, an armistice was concluded upon the
terms following:

That the Lacedaemonians should bring to Pylos and deliver up to the
Athenians the ships that had fought in the late engagement, and all
in Laconia that were vessels of war, and should make no attack on the
fortification either by land or by sea.

That the Athenians should allow the Lacedaemonians on the mainland to
send to the men in the island a certain fixed quantity of corn ready
kneaded, that is to say, two quarts of barley meal, one pint of wine,
and a piece of meat for each man, and half the same quantity for a
servant.

That this allowance should be sent in under the eyes of the Athenians,
and that no boat should sail to the island except openly.

That the Athenians should continue to the island same as before,
without however landing upon it, and should refrain from attacking the
Peloponnesian troops either by land or by sea.

That if either party should infringe any of these terms in the slightest
particular, the armistice should be at once void.

That the armistice should hold good until the return of the
Lacedaemonian envoys from Athens--the Athenians sending them thither
in a galley and bringing them back again--and upon the arrival of the
envoys should be at an end, and the ships be restored by the Athenians
in the same state as they received them.

Such were