In April 422 the truce with Sparta expired, and in the same summer Cleon was despatched to Thrace, where he stormed Torone and Galepsus and prepared for an attack on Amphipolis. But a carelessly conducted reconnaissance gave Brasidas the opportunity for a vigorous and successful sally. The Athenian army was routed with a loss of 600 men and Cleon was slain. On the Spartan side only seven men are said to have fallen, but amongst them was Brasidas. He was buried at Amphipolis with impressive pomp, and for the future was regarded as the founder ([Greek: oikistaes]) of the city and honoured with yearly games and sacrifices (Thuc. iv. 78-v. 11). At Sparta a cenotaph was erected in his memory near the tombs of Pausanias and Leonidas, and yearly speeches were made and games celebrated in their honour, in which only Spartiates could compete (Paus. in. 14).
Brasidas united in himself the personal courage characteristic of Sparta with those virtues in which the typical Spartan was most signally lacking. He was quick in forming his plans and carried them out without delay or hesitation. With an oratorical power rare amongst the Lacedaemonians he combined a conciliatory manner which everywhere won friends for himself and for Sparta (Thuc. iv. 81).
See in particular Thucydides, ii.-v.; what Diodorus xii. adds is mainly oratorical elaboration or pure invention. A fuller account will be found in the histories of Greece (e.g. those of Grote, Beloch, Busolt, Meyer) and in G. Schimmelpfeng, _De Brasidae Spartani rebus gestis atque ingenio_ (Marburg, 1857).
BRASS, a river, town and district of southern Nigeria, British West Africa. The Brass river is one of the deltaic branches of the Niger, lying east of the Rio Nun or main channel of the river. From the point of divergence from the main stream to the sea the Brass has a course of about 100 m., its mouth being in 6° 20' E., 4° 35' N. Brass town is a flourishing trading settlement at the mouth of the river. It is the headquarters of a district commissioner and the seat of a native court. Its most conspicuous building is a fine church, the gift of a native chief. The capital of the Brass tribes is Nimbé, 30 m. up river.
The Brass river, called by its Portuguese discoverers the Rio Bento, is said to have received its English name from the brass rods and other brass utensils imported by the early traders in exchange for palm-oil and slaves. The Brass natives, of the pure negro type, were noted for their savage character. In 1856 their chiefs concluded a treaty with Great Britain agreeing to give up the slave-trade in exchange for a duty on the palm-oil exported. Finding their profitable business as middlemen between the up-river producer and the exporter threatened by the appearance of European traders, they made ineffective complaints to the British authorities. The establishment of the Royal Niger Company led to further loss of trade, and on the 29th of January 1895 the natives attacked and sacked the company's station at Akassa on the Rio Nun, over forty prisoners being killed and eaten as a sacrifice to the fetish gods. In the following month a punitive expedition partially destroyed Nimbé, and a heavy fine was paid by the Brass chiefs. Since then the country has settled down under British administration. The trade regulations of which complaint had been made were removed in 1900 on the establishment of the protectorate of Southern Nigeria (see NIGERIA).