In 422, with only a handful of helots and mercenary troops, he gained a brilliant victory over Cleon, who had been sent with a powerful Athenian force to recover Amphipolis. Brasidas was slain in the battle. He was buried within the city, and the inhabitants honoured him as a hero by yearly sacrifices and by games.
Thucydides praises alike the eloquence and the liberality and wisdom of Brasidas, and Plato compares him to Achilles. (Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1898)
The most distinguished Spartan in the first part of the Peloponnesian War. In B.C. 424, at the head of a small force, having effected a dexterous march through the hostile country of Thessaly, he gained possession of many of the cities in Macedonia that were subject to Athens; his greatest acquisition was Amphipolis.