[1] Demosthenes held no official position at the time, but was a strategos-elect for the Hellenic year that would begin in midsummer 425, and the two generals had been instructed to allow him to use the fleet around the Peloponnese if he wished.

Once the fleet was at sea, Demosthenes revealed his plan, which he had previously kept secret; he wished to land at and fortify Pylos, which he believed to be a particularly promising site for a forward outpost.

[3] The generals rejected this plan, but Demosthenes caught a stroke of luck when a storm blew and drove the fleet to the shore at Pylos.

Once it became clear, however, that Demosthenes and his men intended to hold the site, the Eurypontid king of Sparta, Agis, who was at the head of an army ravaging Attica, turned for home, cutting his invasion short after only 15 days in Athenian territory.

Pylos, meanwhile, had been reinforced by the arrival of a privateer with a cargo of arms, which were distributed to the sailors, and by a Messenian pinnace, which brought 40 more hoplites to defend the peninsula.

It was too late that day to attack, so the Athenians spent the night on a nearby island, hoping to draw the Spartans out into the open sea to battle.

A fierce fight ensued, in which the Athenians were eventually unable to seize more than a few ships, withdrawing after heavy casualties had been suffered by both sides.

[8] This reaction to the potential capture of a mere 420 soldiers may seem extreme, but is explained by the fact that the 120 Spartiates on the island composed probably one tenth of that elite class, on which the Spartan government was based.

The Spartans, they claimed, had suffered a misfortune not through incapacity or overreaching, but through mere bad luck; the Athenians should seize this opportunity to have peace with them on good terms.

This proposal, however, met with derision from the Athenian statesman Cleon; he demanded far harsher terms, which would have given Athens control over Megara and compelled Sparta to abandon several important allies.

In his speech, he recalled the concessions Athens had been forced to make in the Thirty Years' Peace of 445 BC, when the Athenians had been at a similar momentary disadvantage.

By doing so, he guaranteed that the Spartans would be forced to cut off the negotiations (since they could hardly discuss betraying their allies in public), hastening the moment when the Athenians would be free to move against Sphacteria.