CHAPTER LIX.

FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIEGE OF SYRACUSE BY NIKIAS, DOWN TO THE

SECOND ATHENIAN EXPEDITION UNDER DEMOSTHENES, AND THE RESUMPTION OF

THE GENERAL WAR.

The Athenian troops at Katana, probably tired of inaction, were

put in motion in the early spring, even before the arrival of the

reinforcements from Athens, and sailed to the deserted walls of

Megara, not far from Syracuse, which the Syracusans had recently

garrisoned. Having in vain attacked the Syracusan garrison, and laid

waste the neighboring fields, they reëmbarked, landed again for

similar purposes at the mouth of the river Terias, and then, after an

insignificant skirmish, returned to Katana. An expedition into the

interior of the island procured for them the alliance of the Sikel

town of Kentoripa; and the cavalry being now arrived from Athens,

they prepared for operations against Syracuse. Nikias had received

from Athens two hundred and fifty horsemen fully equipped, for whom

horses were to be procured in Sicily,[365] thirty horse-bowmen,

and three hundred talents in money. He was not long in furnishing

them with horses from Egesta and Katana, from which cities he also

received some farther cavalry, so that he was presently able to

muster six hundred and fifty cavalry in all.[366]

[365] Horses were so largely bred in Sicily, that they even found

their way into Attica and Central Greece, Sophoklês, Œd. Kolon.

312:—

γυναῖχ’ ὁρῶ

Στείχουσαν ἡμῖν, ἆσσον, Αἰτναίας ἐπὶ

Πῶλου βεβῶσαν.

If the Scholiast is to be trusted, the Sicilian horses were of

unusually great size.

[366] Thucyd. vi, 95-98.

Even before this cavalry could be mounted, Nikias made his first

approach to Syracuse. For the Syracusan generals on their side,

apprized of the arrival of the reinforcement from Athens, and aware

that besieging operations were on the point of being commenced, now

thought it necessary to take the precaution of occupying and guarding

the roads of access to the high ground of Epipolæ which overhung

their outer city.

Syracuse consisted at this time of two parts, an inner and outer

city. The former was comprised in the island of Ortygia, the original

settlement founded by Archias, and within which the modern city is

at this moment included: the latter or outer city, afterwards known

by the name of Achradina, occupied the high ground of the peninsula

north of Ortygia, but does not seem to have joined the inner city, or

to have been comprised in the same fortification. This outer city was

defended, on the north and east, by the sea, with rocks presenting

great difficulties of landing, and by a sea-wall; so that on these

sides it was out of the reach of attack. Its wall on the land-side,

beginning from the sea somewhat eastward of the entrance of the cleft

now called Santa Bonagia, or Panagia, ran in a direction westward of

south as far as the termination of the high ground of Achradina, and

then turned eastward along the stone quarries now known as those of

the Capucins and Novanteris, where the ground is in part so steep,

that probably little fortification was needed. This fortified high

land of Achradina thus constituted the outer city; while the lower

ground, situated between it and the inner city, or Ortygia, seems at

this time not to have been included in the fortifications of either,

but was employed (and probably had been employed even from the first

settlement in the island), partly for religious processions, games,

and other multitudinous ceremonies; partly for the burial of the

dead, which, according to invariable Grecian custom, was performed

without the walls of the city. Extensive catacombs yet remain to mark

the length of time during which this ancient Nekropolis served its

purpose.

To the northwest of the outer city wall, in the direction of the port

called Trogilus, stood an unfortified suburb which afterwards became

enlarged into the distinct walled town of Tychê. West of the southern

part of the same outer city wall, nearly southwest of the outer city

itself, stood another suburb, afterwards known and fortified as

Neapolis, but deriving its name, in the year 415 B.C., from having

within it the statue and consecrated ground of Apollo Temenitês,[367]

which stood a little way up on the ascent of the hill of Epipolæ,

and stretching from thence down southward in the direction of the

Great Harbor. Between these two suburbs lay a broad open space, the

ground rising in gradual acclivity from Achradina to the westward,

and diminishing in breadth as it rose higher, until at length it

ended in a small conical mound, called in modern times the Belvedere.

This acclivity formed the eastern ascent of the long ridge of high

ground called Epipolæ. It was a triangle upon an inclined plane, of

which Achradina was the base: to the north as well as to the south,

it was suddenly broken off by lines of limestone cliff (forming the

sides of the triangle), about fifteen or twenty feet high, and quite

precipitous, except in some few openings made for convenient ascent.

From the western point or apex of the triangle, the descent was easy

and gradual—excepting two or three special mounds, or cliffs—towards

the city, the interior of which was visible from this outer slope.

[367] At the neighboring city of Gela, also, a little without the

walls, there stood a large brazen statue of Apollo; of so much

sanctity, beauty, or notoriety, that the Carthaginians in their

invasion of the island, seven years after the siege of Syracuse

by Nikias, carried it away with them and transported it to Tyre

(Diodor. xiii, 108).

According to the warfare of that time, Nikias could only take

Syracuse by building a wall of circumvallation so as to cut off

its supplies by land, and at the same time blockading it by sea.

Now looking at the inner and outer city as above described, at the

moment when he first reached Sicily, we see that—after defeating

the Syracusans and driving them within their walls, which would be

of course the first part of the process—he might have carried his

blockading wall in a direction nearly southerly from the innermost

point of the cleft of Santa Bonagia, between the city wall and the

Temenitês so as to reach the Great Harbor at a spot not far westward

of the junction of Ortygia with the main land. Or he might have

landed in the Great Harbor, and executed the same wall, beginning

from the opposite end. Or he might have preferred to construct two

blockading walls, one for each city separately: a short wall would

have sufficed in front of the isthmus joining Ortygia, while a

separate wall might have been carried to shut up the outer city,

across the unfortified space constituting the Nekropolis, so as to

end not in the Great Harbor, but in the coast of the Nekropolis

opposite to Ortygia. Such were the possibilities of the case at the

time when Nikias first reached Rhegium. But during the many months

of inaction which he had allowed, the Syracusans had barred out both

these possibilities, and had greatly augmented the difficulties of

his intended enterprise. They had constructed a new wall, covering

both their inner and their outer city,—stretching across the whole

front which faced the slope of Epipolæ, from the Great Harbor to

the opposite sea near Santa Bonagia,—and expanding westward so as

to include within it the statue and consecrated ground of Apollo

Temenitês, with the cliff near adjoining to it known by the name

of the Temenite Cliff. This was done for the express purpose of

lengthening the line indispensable for the besiegers to make their

wall a good blockade.[368] After it was finished, Nikias could not

begin his blockade from the side of the Great Harbor, since he would

have been obstructed by the precipitous southern cliff of Epipolæ.

He was under the necessity of beginning his wall from a portion of

the higher ground of Epipolæ, and of carrying it both along a greater

space and higher up on the slope, until he touched the Great Harbor

at a point farther removed from Ortygia.

[368] Thucyd. vi, 75. Ἐτείχιζον δὲ καὶ οἱ Συρακόσιοι ἐν τῷ

χειμῶνι τούτῳ πρός τε τῇ πόλει, τὸν Τεμενίτην ἐντὸς ποιησάμενοι,

~τεῖχος παρὰ πᾶν τὸ πρὸς τὰς Ἐπιπολὰς ὁρῶν, ὅπως μὴ δι’ ἐλάσσονος

εὐαποτείχιστοι ὦσιν~, ἢν ἄρα σφάλλωνται, etc.

Syracuse having thus become assailable only from the side of Epipolæ,

the necessity so created for carrying on operations much higher up on

the slope, gave to the summit of that eminence a greater importance

than it had before possessed. Nikias, doubtless furnished with good

local information by the exiles, seems to have made this discovery

earlier than the Syracusan generals, who—having been occupied in

augmenting their defences on another point, where they were yet more

vulnerable—did not make it until immediately before the opening

of the spring campaign. It was at that critical moment that they

proclaimed a full muster, for break of day, in the low mead on the

left bank of the Anapus. After an inspection of arms, and probably

final distribution of forces for the approaching struggle, a chosen

regiment of six hundred hoplites was placed under the orders of an

Andrian exile named Diomilus, in order to act as garrison of Epipolæ,

as well as to be in constant readiness wherever they might be

wanted.[369] These men were intended to occupy the strong ground on

the summit of the hill, and thus obstruct all the various approaches

to it, seemingly not many in number, and all narrow.

[369] Thucyd. vi, 96.

But before they had yet left their muster, to march to the summit,

intelligence reached them that the Athenians were already in

possession of it. Nikias and Lamachus, putting their troops on board

at Katana, had sailed during the preceding night to a landing-place

not far from a place called Leon, or the Lion, which was only six or

seven furlongs from Epipolæ, and seems to have lain between Megara

and the peninsula of Thapsus. They here landed their hoplites, and

placed their fleet in safety under cover of a palisade across the

narrow isthmus of Thapsus, before day and before the Syracusans had

any intimation of their arrival. Their hoplites immediately moved

forward with rapid step to ascend Epipolæ, mounting seemingly from

the northeast, by the side towards Megara and farthest removed from

Syracuse; so that they first reached the summit called Euryalus, near

the apex of the triangle above described. From hence they commanded

the slope of Epipolæ beneath them, and the town of Syracuse to the

eastward. They were presently attacked by the Syracusans, who broke

up their muster in the mead as soon as they heard the news. But as

the road by which they had to march, approaching Euryalus from the

southwest, was circuitous, and hardly less than three English miles

in length, they had the mortification of seeing that the Athenians

were already masters of the position; and when they hastened up to

retake it, the rapid pace had so disordered their ranks, that the

Athenians attacked them at great advantage, besides having the higher

ground. The Syracusans were driven back to their city with loss,

Diomilus with half his regiment being slain; while the Athenians

remained masters of the high ground of Euryalus, as well as of the

upper portion of the slope of Epipolæ.[370]

[370] Thucyd. vi, 97.

This was a most important advantage; indeed, seemingly essential to

the successful prosecution of the siege. It was gained by a plan

both well laid and well executed, grounded upon the omission of the

Syracusans to occupy a post of which they did not at first perceive

the importance, and which in fact only acquired its preëminent

importance from the new enlargement made by the Syracusans in

their fortifications. To that extent, therefore, it depended upon

a favorable accident which could not have been reasonably expected

to occur. The capture of Syracuse was certain, upon the supposition

that the attack and siege of the city had been commenced on the

first arrival of the Athenians in the island, without giving time

for any improvement in its defensibility. But the moment such delay

was allowed, success ceased to be certain, depending more or less

upon this favorable turn of accident. The Syracusans actually did

a great deal to create additional difficulty to the besiegers, and

might have done more, especially in regard to the occupation of

the high ground above Epipolæ. Had they taken this precaution, the

effective prosecution of the siege would have been rendered extremely

difficult, if not completely frustrated.

On the next morning, Nikias and Lamachus marched their army down the

slope of Epipolæ near to the Syracusan walls, and offered battle,

which the enemy did not accept. They then withdrew the Athenian

troops; after which their first operation was to construct a fort

on the high ground called Labdalum, near the western end of the

upper northern cliffs bordering Epipolæ, on the brink of the cliff,

and looking northward towards Megara. This was intended as a place

of security wherein both treasures and stores might be deposited,

so as to leave the army unencumbered in its motions. The Athenian

cavalry being now completed by the new arrivals from Egesta, Nikias

descended from Labdalum to a new position called Sykê, lower down

on Epipolæ, seemingly about midway between the northern and southern

cliffs. He here constructed, with as much rapidity as possible,

a walled inclosure, called the Circle, intended as a centre from

whence the projected wall of circumvallation was to start northward

towards the sea at Trogilus, southward towards the Great Harbor. This

Circle appears to have covered a considerable space, and was farther

protected by an outwork in front covering an area of one thousand

square feet.[371] Astounded at the rapidity with which the Athenians

executed this construction,[372] the Syracusans marched their forces

out, and prepared to give battle in order to interrupt it. But

when the Athenians, relinquishing the work, drew up on their side

in battle order, the Syracusan generals were so struck with their

manifest superiority in soldier-like array, as compared with the

disorderly trim of their own ranks, that they withdrew their soldiers

back into the city without venturing to engage; merely leaving a body

of horse to harass the operations of the besiegers, and constrain

them to keep in masses. The newly-acquired Athenian cavalry, however,

were here brought for the first time into effective combat. With the

aid of one tribe of their own hoplites, they charged the Syracusan

horse, drove them off with some loss, and erected their trophy. This

is the only occasion on which we read of the Athenian cavalry being

brought into conflict; though Nikias had made the absence of cavalry

the great reason for his prolonged inaction.

[371] Thucyd. vi, 98. ἐχώρουν πρὸς τὴν Συκῆν οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι, ἵναπερ

καθεζόμενοι ἐτείχισαν τὸν κύκλον διὰ τάχους.

[372] The Athenians seem to have surpassed all other Greeks in

the diligence and skill with which they executed fortifications:

see some examples, Thucyd. v, 75-82; Xenoph. Hellen. iv, 4, 18.

Interruption being thus checked, Nikias continued his blockading

operations; first completing the Circle,[373] then beginning his

wall of circumvallation in a northerly direction from the Circle

towards Trogilus: for which purpose a portion of his forces were

employed in bringing stones and wood, and depositing them in proper

places along the intended line. So strongly did Hermokratês feel

the inferiority of the Syracusan hoplites in the field, that he

discouraged any fresh general action, and proposed to construct a

counter-wall, or cross-wall, traversing the space along which the

Athenian circumvallation must necessarily be continued so as to

impede its farther progress. A tenable counter-wall, if they could

get time to carry it sufficiently far to a defensible terminus, would

completely defeat the intent of the besiegers: but even if Nikias

should interrupt the work by his attacks, the Syracusans calculated

on being able to provide a sufficient force to repel them, during the

short time necessary for hastily constructing the palisade, or front

outwork. Such palisade would serve them as a temporary defence, while

they finished the more elaborate cross-wall behind it, and would,

even at the worst, compel Nikias to suspend all his proceedings and

employ his whole force to dislodge them.[374]

[373] Dr. Arnold, in his note on Thucyd. vi, 98, says that the

Circle is spoken of, in one passage of Thucydidês, as if it had

_never been completed_. I construe this one passage differently

from him (vii, 2, 4)—τῷ ἄλλῳ τοῦ κύκλου πρὸς τὸν Τρώγιλον ἐπὶ τὴν

ἑτέραν θάλασσαν: where I think τῷ ἄλλῳ τοῦ κύκλου is equivalent

to ἑτέρωθι τοῦ κύκλου, as plainly appears from the accompanying

mention of Trogilus and the northern sea. I am persuaded that

the Circle was finished; and Dr. Arnold himself indicates two

passages in which it is distinctly spoken of as having been

completed.

[374] Thucyd. vi, 99. ~Ὑποτειχίζειν~ δὲ ἄμεινον ἐδόκει εἶναι

(τοῖς Συρακουσίοις) ᾗ ἐκεῖνοι (the Athenians) ἔμελλον ἄξειν τὸ

τεῖχος· καὶ εἰ φθάσειαν, ἀποκλῄσεις γίγνεσθαι, καὶ ἅμα καὶ ἐν

τούτῳ εἰ ἐπιβοηθοῖεν, μέρος ἀντιπέμπειν αὐτοὶ τῆς στρατιᾶς, καὶ

φθάνειν ἂν αὐτοὶ τοῖς σταυροῖς ~προκαταλαμβάνοντες τὰς ἐφόδους~·

ἐκείνους δὲ ἂν παυομένους τοῦ ἔργου πάντας ἂν πρὸς σφᾶς τρέπεσθαι.

The Scholiast here explains τὰς ἐφόδους to mean τὰ βάσιμα;

adding ὀλίγα δὲ τὰ ἐπιβαθῆναι δυνάμενα, διὰ τὸ τελματῶδες εἶναι

τὸ χωρίον. Though he is here followed by the best commentators,

I cannot think that his explanation is correct. He evidently

supposes that this first counter-wall of the Syracusans was

built—as we shall see presently that the second counter-work

was—across the marsh, or low ground between the southern cliff

of Epipolæ and the Great Harbor. “The ground being generally

marshy (τελματῶδες) there were only a few places where it could

be crossed.” But I conceive this supposition to be erroneous. The

first counter-wall of the Syracusans was carried, as it seems

to me, up the slope of Epipolæ, between the Athenian circle and

the southern cliff: it commenced at the Syracusan newly-erected

advanced wall, inclosing the Temenitês. This was all hard, firm

ground, such as the Athenians could march across at any point:

there might perhaps be some roughness here and there, but they

would be mere exceptions to the general character of the ground.

It appears to me that τὰς ἐφόδους means simply, “the attacks

of the Athenians,” without intending to denote any special

assailable points; προκαταλαμβάνειν τὰς ἐφόδους, means “to get

beforehand with the attacks,” (see Thucyd. i, 57, v, 30.) This is

in fact the more usual meaning of ἔφοδος (compare vii, 5; vii,

43; i, 6; v, 35; vi, 63), “attack, approach, visit,” etc. There

are doubtless other passages in which it means, “the way or road

through which the attack was made:” in one of these, however

(vii, 51), all the best editors now read ἐσόδου instead of ἐφόδου.

It will be seen that arguments have been founded upon the

inadmissible sense which the Scholiast here gives to the word

ἔφοδοι: see Dr. Arnold, Memoir on the Map of Syracuse, Appendix

to his ed. of Thucyd. vol. iii, p. 271.

Accordingly, they took their start from the postern-gate near the

grove of Apollo Temenitês; a gate in the new wall, erected four or

five months before, to enlarge the fortified space of the city. From

this point, which was lower down on the slope of Epipolæ than the

Athenian circle, they carried their palisade and counter-wall up

the slope, in a direction calculated to intersect the intended line

of hostile circumvallation southward of the Circle. The nautical

population from Ortygia could be employed in this enterprise, since

the city was still completely undisturbed by sea, and mistress of the

great harbor, the Athenian fleet not having yet moved from Thapsus.

Besides this active crowd of workmen, the sacred olive-trees in the

Temenite grove were cut down to serve as materials; and by such

efforts the work was presently finished to a sufficient distance for

traversing and intercepting the blockading wall intended to come

southward from the Circle. It seems to have terminated at the brink

of the precipitous southern cliff of Epipolæ, which prevented the

Athenians from turning it and attacking it in flank; while it was

defended in front by a stockade and topped with wooden towers for

discharge of missiles. One tribe of hoplites was left to defend it,

while the crowd of Syracusans who had either been employed on the

work or on guard, returned back to the city.

During all this process, Nikias had not thought it prudent to

interrupt them.[375] Employed as he seems to have been on the

Circle, and on the wall branching out from his Circle northward,

he was unwilling to march across the slope of Epipolæ to attack

them with half his forces, leaving his own rear exposed to attack

from the numerous Syracusans in the city, and his own Circle only

partially guarded. Moreover, by such delay, he was enabled to

prosecute his own part of the circumvallation without hindrance,

and to watch for an opportunity of assaulting the new counter-wall

with advantage. Such an opportunity soon occurred, just at the time

when he had accomplished the farther important object of destroying

the aqueducts, which supplied the city, partially at least, with

water for drinking. The Syracusans appear to have been filled with

confidence, both by the completion of their counter-wall, which

seemed an effective bar to the besiegers, and by his inaction. The

tribe left on guard presently began to relax in their vigilance:

instead of occupying the wall, tents were erected behind it to

shelter them from the midday sun; while some even permitted

themselves to take repose during that hour within the city walls.

Such negligence did not escape the Athenian generals, who silently

prepared an assault for midday. Three hundred chosen hoplites,

with some light troops clothed in panoplies for the occasion,

were instructed to sally out suddenly and run across straight to

attack the stockade and counter-wall; while the main Athenian force

marched in two divisions under Nikias and Lamachus; half towards

the city walls, to prevent any succor from coming out of the gates,

half towards the Temenite postern-gate from whence the stockade

and cross-wall commenced. The rapid forward movement of the chosen

three hundred was crowned with full success. They captured both the

stockade and the counter-wall, feebly defended by its guards; who,

taken by surprise, abandoned their post and fled along behind their

wall to enter the city by the Temenite postern-gate. Before all of

them could get in, however, both the pursuing three hundred, and the

Athenian division which marched straight to that point, had partially

come up with them: so that some of these assailants even forced

their way along with them through the gate into the interior of the

Temenite city wall. Here, however, the Syracusan strength within

was too much for them: these foremost Athenians and Argeians were

thrust out again with loss. But the general movement of the Athenians

had been completely triumphant. They pulled down the counter-wall,

plucked up the palisade, and carried the materials away for the use

of their own circumvallation.

[375] Thucyd. vi, 100.

As the recent Syracusan counter-work had been carried to the brink

of the southern cliff, which rendered it unassailable in flank,

Nikias was warned of the necessity of becoming master of this cliff,

so as to deprive them of this resource in future. Accordingly,

without staying to finish his blockading wall, regularly and

continuously from the Circle southward, across the slope of Epipolæ,

he left the Circle under a guard, and marched across at once to

take possession of the southern cliff, at the point where the

blockading wall was intended to reach it. This point of the southern

cliff he immediately fortified as a defensive position, whereby

he accomplished two objects. First, he prevented the Syracusans

from again employing the cliff as a flank defence for a second

counter-wall.[376] Next, he acquired the means of providing a safe

and easy road of communication between the high ground of Epipolæ

and the low marshy ground beneath, which divided Epipolæ from the

Great Harbor, and across which the Athenian wall of circumvallation

must necessarily be presently carried. As his troops would have to

carry on simultaneous operations, partly on the high ground above,

partly on the low ground beneath, he could not allow them to be

separated from each other by a precipitous cliff which would prevent

ready mutual assistance. The intermediate space between the Circle

and the fortified point of the cliff, was for the time left with an

unfinished wall, with the intention of coming back to it, as was

in fact afterwards done, and this portion of wall was in the end

completed. The Circle, though isolated, was strong enough for the

time to maintain itself against attack, and was adequately garrisoned.

[376] Thucyd. vi, 101. Τῇ δ’ ὑστεραίᾳ ~ἀπὸ τοῦ κύκλου~ ἐτείχιζον

οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι τὸν κρημνὸν τὸν ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἕλους, ὃς τῶν Ἐπιπολῶν

ταύτῃ πρὸς τὸν μέγαν λιμένα ὁρᾷ, καὶ ᾗπερ αὐτοῖς βραχύτατον

ἐγίγνετο καταβᾶσι διὰ τοῦ ὁμάλου καὶ τοῦ ἕλους ἐς τὸν λιμένα τὸ

περιτείχισμα.

I give in the text what I believe to be the meaning of this

sentence, though the words ἀπὸ τοῦ κύκλου are not clear, and have

been differently construed. Göller, in his first edition, had

construed them as if it stood ~ἀρξάμενοι~ ἀπὸ τοῦ κύκλου: as if

the fortification now begun on the cliff was continuous and in

actual junction with the Circle. In his second edition, he seems

to relinquish this opinion, and to translate them in a manner

similar to Dr. Arnold, who considers them as equivalent to ἀπὸ

τοῦ κύκλου ὁρμώμενοι, but not at all implying that the fresh work

performed was continuous with the Circle, which he believes not

to have been the fact. If thus construed, the words would imply,

“starting from the Circle as a base of operations.” Agreeing with

Dr. Arnold in his conception of the event signified, I incline,

in construing the words, to proceed upon the analogy of two

or three passages in Thucyd. i, 7; i, 46; i, 99; vi, 64—Αἱ δὲ

παλαιαὶ πόλεις διὰ τὴν λῃστείαν ἐπιπολὺ ἀντισχοῦσαν ~ἀπὸ θαλάσσης

μᾶλλον ᾠκίσθησαν~ ... Ἐστὶ δὲ λιμὴν, καὶ πόλις ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ ~κεῖται

ἀπὸ θαλάσσης~ ἐν τῇ Ἐλαιάτιδι τῆς Θεσπρώτιδος, Ἐφύρη. In these

passages ἀπὸ is used in the same sense as we find ἄποθεν, iv,

125, signifying “apart from, at some distance from;” but not

implying any accompanying idea of motion, or proceeding from,

either literal or metaphorical.

“The Athenians began to fortify, at some distance from their

Circle, the cliff above the marsh,” etc.

By this new movement, the Syracusans were debarred from carrying a

second counter-wall on the same side of Epipolæ, since the enemy

were masters of the terminating cliff on the southern side of the

slope. They now turned their operations to the lower ground or marsh

between the southern cliff of the Epipolæ and the Great Harbor;

being as yet free on that side, since the Athenian fleet was still

at Thapsus. Across that marsh—and seemingly as far as the river

Anapus, to serve as a flank barrier—they resolved to carry a palisade

work with a ditch, so as to intersect the line which the Athenians

must next pursue in completing the southernmost portion of their

circumvallation. They so pressed the prosecution of this new cross

palisade, beginning from the lower portion of their own city walls,

and stretching in a southwesterly direction across the low ground

as far as the river Anapus, that, by the time the new Athenian

fortification on the cliff was completed, the new Syracusan obstacle

was completed also, and a stockade with a ditch seemed to shut out

the besiegers from reaching the Great Harbor.

Lamachus overcame the difficulty before him with ability and bravery.

Descending unexpectedly, one morning before daybreak, from his fort

on the cliff of Epipolæ into the low ground beneath,—and providing

his troops with planks and broad gates to bridge over the marsh

where it was scarcely passable,—he contrived to reach and surprise

the palisade with the first dawn of morning. Orders were at the same

time given for the Athenian fleet to sail round from Thapsus into

the Great Harbor, so as to divert the attention of the enemy, and

get on the rear of the new palisade work. But before the fleet could

arrive, the palisade and ditch had been carried, and its defenders

driven off. A large Syracusan force came out from the city to sustain

them, and retake it, so that a general action now ensued, in the

low ground between the cliff of Epipolæ, the harbor, and the river

Anapus. The superior discipline of the Athenians proved successful:

the Syracusans were defeated and driven back on all sides, so that

their right wing fled into the city, and their left (including the

larger portion of their best force, the horsemen), along the banks

of the river Anapus, to reach the bridge. Flushed with victory, the

Athenians hoped to cut them off from this retreat, and a chosen

body of three hundred hoplites ran fast in hopes of getting to the

bridge first. In this hasty movement they fell into disorder, so

that the Syracusan cavalry turned upon them, put them to flight,

and threw them back upon the Athenian right wing, to which the

fugitives communicated their own panic and disorder. The fate of the

battle appeared to be turning against the Athenians, when Lamachus,

who was on the left wing, hastened to their aid with the Argeian

hoplites and as many bowmen as he could collect. His ardor carried

him incautiously forward, so that he crossed a ditch with very few

followers, before the remaining troops could follow him. He was here

attacked and slain,[377] in single combat with a horseman named

Kallikratês: but the Syracusans were driven back when his soldiers

came up, and had only just time to snatch and carry off his dead

body, with which they crossed the bridge and retreated behind the

Anapus. The rapid movement of this gallant officer was thus crowned

with complete success, restoring the victory to his own right wing: a

victory dearly purchased by the forfeit of his own life.[378]

[377] Thucyd. vi, 102; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 18. Diodorus

erroneously places the battle, in which Lamachus was slain,

_after_ the arrival of Gylippus (xiii, 8).

[378] Thucyd. vi, 102.

Meanwhile the visible disorder and temporary flight of the Athenian

right wing, and the withdrawal of Lamachus from the left to reinforce

it, imparted fresh courage to the Syracusan right, which had fled

into the town. They again came forth to renew the contest; while

their generals attempted a diversion by sending out a detachment from

the northwestern gates of the city to attack the Athenian circle on

the mid-slope of Epipolæ. As this Circle lay completely apart and

at considerable distance from the battle, they hoped to find the

garrison unprepared for attack, and thus to carry it by surprise.

Their manœuvre, bold and well-timed, was on the point of succeeding.

They carried with little difficulty the covering outwork in front,

and the Circle itself, probably stripped of part of its garrison to

reinforce the combatants in the lower ground, was only saved by the

presence of mind and resource of Nikias, who was lying ill within it.

He directed the attendants immediately to set fire to a quantity of

wood which lay, together with the battering engines of the army, in

front of the circle-wall, so that the flames prevented all farther

advance on the part of the assailants, and forced them to retreat.

The same flames also served as a signal to the Athenians engaged in

the battle beneath, who immediately sent reinforcements to the relief

of their general; while at the same time the Athenian fleet, just

arrived from Thapsus, was seen sailing into the Great Harbor. This

last event, threatening the Syracusans on a new side, drew off their

whole attention to the defence of their city, so that both their

combatants from the field and their detachment from the Circle were

brought back within the walls.[379]

[379] Thucyd. vi, 102.

Had the recent attempt on the Circle succeeded, carrying with it the

death or capture of Nikias, and combined with the death of Lamachus

in the field on that same day, it would have greatly brightened the

prospects of the Syracusans, and might even have arrested the farther

progress of the siege, from the want of an authorized commander.

But in spite of such imminent hazard, the actual result of the

day left the Athenians completely victorious, and the Syracusans

more discouraged than ever. What materially contributed to their

discouragement, was, the recent entrance of the Athenian fleet

into the Great Harbor, wherein it was henceforward permanently

established, in coöperation with the army in a station near the left

bank of the Anapus.

Both the army and the fleet now began to occupy themselves seriously

with the construction of the southernmost part of the wall of

circumvallation; beginning immediately below the Athenian fortified

point of descent from the southern cliff of Epipolæ, and stretching

across the lower marshy ground to the Great Harbor. The distance

between these two extreme points was about eight stadia or nearly an

English mile: the wall was double, with gates, and probably towers,

at suitable intervals, inclosing a space of considerable breadth,

doubtless roofed over in part, since it served afterwards, with the

help of the adjoining citadel on the cliff, as shelter and defence

for the whole Athenian army. The Syracusans could not interrupt this

process, nor could they undertake a new counter-wall up the mid-slope

of Epipolæ, without coming out to fight a general battle, which they

did not feel competent to do. Of course the Circle had now been put

into condition to defy a second surprise.

But not only were they thus compelled to look on without hindering

the blockading wall towards the Harbor. It was now, for the first

time, that they began to taste the real restraints and privations

of a siege.[380] Down to this moment, their communication with the

Anapus and the country beyond, as well as with all sides of the Great

Harbor, had been open and unimpeded; whereas now, the arrival of the

Athenian fleet, and the change of position of the Athenian army, had

cut them off from both,[381] so that little or no fresh supplies

of provision could reach them except at the hazard of capture from

the hostile ships. On the side of Thapsus, where the northern

cliff of Epipolæ affords only two or three practicable passages of

ascent, they had before been blocked up by the Athenian army and

fleet; and a portion of the fleet seems even now to have been left

at Thapsus: so that nothing now remained open, except a portion,

especially the northern portion, of the slope of Epipolæ. Of this

outlet the besieged, especially their numerous cavalry, doubtless

availed themselves, for the purpose of excursions and of bringing

in supplies. But it was both longer and more circuitous for such

purposes than the plain near the Great Harbor and the Helôrine road:

moreover, it had to pass by the high and narrow pass of Euryâlus,

and might thus be rendered unavailable to the besieged, whenever

Nikias thought fit to occupy and fortify that position. Unfortunately

for himself and his army, he omitted this easy but capital

precaution, even at the moment when he must have known Gylippus to be

approaching.

[380] Thucyd. vi, 103. οἷα δὲ εἰκὸς ἀνθρώπων ἀπορούντων καὶ

μᾶλλον ἢ πρὶν πολιορκουμένων, etc.

[381] Diodorus, however, is wrong in stating (xiii, 7) that the

Athenians occupied the temple of Zeus Olympius and the polichnê,

or hamlet, surrounding it, on the right bank of the Anapus. These

posts remained always occupied by the Syracusans, throughout the

whole war (Thucyd. vii, 4, 37).

In regard to the works actually undertaken, the order followed

by Nikias and Lamachus can be satisfactorily explained. Having

established their fortified post on the centre of the slope of

Epipolæ, they were in condition to combat opposition and attack any

counter-wall on whichever side the enemy might erect it. Commencing

in the first place the execution of the northern portion of the

blockading line, they soon desist from this and turn their attention

to the southern portion, because it was here that the Syracusans

carried their two first counter-works. In attacking the second

counter-work of the Syracusans, across the marsh to the Anapus,

they chose a suitable moment for bringing the main fleet round from

Thapsus into the Great Harbor, with a view to its coöperation. After

clearing the lower ground, they probably deemed it advisable, in

order to establish a safe and easy communication with their fleet,

that the double wall across the marsh, from Epipolæ to the Harbor,

should stand next for execution; for which there was this farther

reason, that they thereby blocked up the most convenient exit and

channel of supply for Syracuse. There are thus plausible reasons

assignable why the northern portion of the line of blockade, from

the Athenian camp on Epipolæ to the sea at Trogilus, was left to

the last, and was found open, at least the greater part of it, by

Gylippus.

While the Syracusans thus began to despair of their situation, the

prospects of the Athenians were better than ever, promising certain

and not very distant triumph. The reports circulating through the

neighboring cities all represented them as in the full tide of

success, so that many Sikel tribes, hitherto wavering, came in to

tender their alliance, while three armed pentekonters also arrived

from the Tyrrhenian coast. Moreover, abundant supplies were furnished

from the Italian Greeks generally. Nikias, now sole commander

since the death of Lamachus, had even the glory of receiving and

discussing proposals from Syracuse for capitulation, a necessity

which was openly and abundantly canvassed within the city itself.

The ill-success of Hermokratês and his colleagues had caused them

to be recently displaced from their functions as generals, to which

Herakleidês, Euklês, and Tellias, were appointed. But this change

did not give them confidence to hazard a fresh battle, while the

temper of the city, during such period of forced inaction, was

melancholy in the extreme. Though several propositions for surrender,

perhaps unofficial, yet seemingly sincere, were made to Nikias,

nothing definitive could be agreed upon as to the terms.[382] Had

the Syracusan government been oligarchical, the present distress

would have exhibited a large body of malcontents upon whom he could

have worked with advantage; but the democratical character of the

government maintained union at home in this trying emergency.[383]

[382] Thucyd. vi, 103. πολλὰ ἐλέγετο πρός τε ἐκεῖνον καὶ πλείω

ἔτι κατὰ τὴν πόλιν.

[383] Thucyd. vii, 55.

We must take particular note of these propositions in order to

understand the conduct of Nikias during the present critical

interval. He had been from the beginning in secret correspondence

with a party in Syracuse;[384] who, though neither numerous nor

powerful in themselves, were now doubtless both more active and more

influential than ever they had been before. From them he received

constant and not unreasonable assurances that the city was on the

point of surrendering, and could not possibly hold out. And as the

tone of opinion without, as well as within, conspired to raise such

an impression in his mind, so he suffered himself to be betrayed

into a fatal languor and security as to the farther prosecution of

the besieging operations. The injurious consequences of the death

of Lamachus now became evident. From the time of the departure from

Katana down to the battle in which that gallant officer perished,—a

period seemingly of about three months, from about March to June

414 B.C.,—the operations of the siege had been conducted with great

vigor as well as unremitting perseverance, and the building-work,

especially, had been so rapidly executed as to fill the Syracusans

with amazement. But so soon as Nikias is left sole commander, this

vigorous march disappears and is exchanged for slackness and apathy.

The wall across the low ground near the harbor might have been

expected to proceed more rapidly, because the Athenian position

generally was much stronger, the chance of opposition from the

Syracusans was much lessened, and the fleet had been brought into the

Great Harbor to coöperate. Yet in fact it seems to have proceeded

more slowly; Nikias builds it at first as a double wall, though it

would have been practicable to complete the whole line of blockade

with a single wall before the arrival of Gylippus, and afterwards, if

necessary, to have doubled it either wholly or partially, instead of

employing so much time in completing this one portion that Gylippus

arrived before it was finished, scarcely less than two months after

the death of Lamachus. Both the besiegers and their commander now

seem to consider success as certain, without any chance of effective

interruption from within, still less from without; so that they may

take their time over the work, without caring whether the ultimate

consummation comes a month sooner or later.

[384] Thucyd. vii, 49-86.

Though such was the present temper of the Athenian troops, Nikias

could doubtless have spurred them on and accelerated the operations,

had he himself been convinced of the necessity of doing so. Hitherto,

we have seen him always overrating the gloomy contingencies of the

future, and disposed to calculate as if the worst was to happen which

possibly could happen. But a great part of what passes for caution in

his character, was in fact backwardness and inertia of temperament,

aggravated by the melancholy addition of a painful internal

complaint. If he wasted in indolence the first six months after his

arrival in Sicily, and turned to inadequate account the present two

months of triumphant position before Syracuse, both these mistakes

arose from the same cause; from reluctance to act except under the

pressure and stimulus of some obvious necessity. Accordingly, he was

always behindhand with events; but when necessity became terrible,

so as to subdue the energies of other men, then did he come forward

and display unwonted vigor, as we shall see in the following chapter.

But now, relieved from all urgency of apparent danger, and misled

by the delusive hopes held out through his correspondence in the

town, combined with the atmosphere of success which exhilarated his

own armament, Nikias fancied the surrender of Syracuse inevitable,

and became, for one brief moment preceding his calamitous end, not

merely sanguine, but even careless and presumptuous in the extreme.

Nothing short of this presumption could have let in his destroying

enemy, Gylippus.[385]

[385] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 18.

That officer—named by the Lacedæmonians commander in Sicily, at

the winter-meeting which Alkibiadês had addressed at Sparta—had

employed himself in getting together forces for the purpose of the

expedition. But the Lacedæmonians, though so far stimulated by the

representations of the Athenian exile as to promise aid, were not

forward to perform the promise. Even the Corinthians, decidedly the

most hearty of all in behalf of Syracuse, were yet so tardy, that in

the month of June, Gylippus was still at Leukas, with his armament

not quite ready to sail. To embark in a squadron for Sicily, against

the numerous and excellent Athenian fleet now acting there, was a

service not tempting to any one, and demanding both personal daring

and devotion. Moreover, every vessel from Sicily, between March

and June 414 B.C., brought intelligence of progressive success on

the part of Nikias and Lamachus, thus rendering the prospects of

Corinthian auxiliaries still more discouraging.

At length, in the month of June, arrived the news of that defeat

of the Syracusans wherein Lamachus was slain, and of its important

consequences in forwarding the operations of the besiegers. Great

as those consequences were, they were still farther exaggerated by

report. It was confidently affirmed, by messenger after messenger,

that the wall of circumvallation had been completed, and that

Syracuse was now invested on all sides.[386] Both Gylippus and the

Corinthians were so far misled as to believe this to be the fact,

and despaired, in consequence, of being able to render any effective

aid against the Athenians in Sicily. But as there still remained

hopes of being able to preserve the Greek cities in Italy, Gylippus

thought it important to pass over thither at once with his own little

squadron of four sail, two Lacedæmonians and two Corinthians, and

the Corinthian captain Pythên; leaving the Corinthian main squadron

to follow as soon as it was ready. Intending then to act only in

Italy, Gylippus did not fear falling in with the Athenian fleet. He

first sailed to Tarentum, friendly and warm in his cause. From hence

he undertook a visit to Thurii, where his father Kleandridas, exiled

from Sparta, had formerly resided as citizen. After trying to profit

by this opening for the purpose of gaining the Thurians, and finding

nothing but refusal, he passed on farther southward, until he came

opposite to the Terinæan gulf near the southeastern cape of Italy.

Here a violent gust of wind off the land overtook him, exposed his

vessels to the greatest dangers, and drove him out to sea, until at

length, standing in a northerly direction, he was fortunate enough to

find shelter again at Tarentum.[387] But such was the damage which

his ships had sustained, that he was forced to remain here while they

were hauled ashore and refitted.[388]

[386] Thucyd. vi, 104. ὡς αὐτοῖς αἱ ἀγγελίαι ἐφοίτων δειναὶ καὶ

πᾶσαι ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἐψευσμέναι, ὡς ἤδη παντελῶς ἀποτετειχισμέναι αἱ

Συράκουσαί εἰσι, τῆς μὲν Σικελίας οὐκέτι ἐλπίδα οὐδεμίαν εἶχεν

ὁ Γύλιππος, τὴν δὲ Ἰταλίαν βουλόμενος περιποιῆσαι, etc. Compare

Plutarch, Nikias. c. 18.

It will be seen from Thucydidês, that Gylippus heard this news

while he was yet at Leukas.

[387] Thucyd. vi, 104. Ἄρας (Γύλιππος) παρέπλει τὴν Ἰταλίαν καὶ

ἁρπασθεὶς ὑπ’ ἀνέμου κατὰ τὸν Τεριναῖον κόλπον, ὃς ἐκπνεῖ ταύτῃ

μέγας, κατὰ Βορέαν ἑστηκὼς ἀποφέρεται ἐς τὸ πέλαγος, καὶ πάλιν

χειμασθεὶς ἐς τὰ μάλιστα Τάραντι προσμίσγει.

Though all the commentators here construe the words κατὰ Βορέαν

ἑστηκὼς as if they agreed with ὃς or ἄνεμος, I cannot but

think that these words really agree with Γύλιππος. Gylippus is

overtaken by this violent off-shore wind while he is sailing

southward along the eastern shore of what is now called Calabria

Ultra: “setting his ship towards the north or _standing to the

north_ (to use the English nautical phrase), he is carried out

to sea, from whence, after great difficulties, he again gets

into Tarentum.” If Gylippus was carried out to sea when in this

position, and trying to get to Tarentum, he would naturally lay

his course northward. What is meant by the words κατὰ Βορέαν

ἑστηκὼς, as applied _to the wind_, I confess I do not understand;

nor do the critics throw much light upon it. Whenever a point

of the compass is mentioned in conjunction with any wind, it

always seems to mean the point _from whence_ the wind blows.

Now, that κατὰ Βορέαν ἑστηκὼς means “a wind which blows steadily

from the north,” as the commentators affirm, I cannot believe

without better authority than they produce. Moreover, Gylippus

could never have laid his course for Tarentum, if there had been

a strong wind in this direction; while such a wind would have

forwarded him to Lokri, the very place whither he wanted to go.

The mention of the _Terinæan_ gulf is certainly embarrassing.

If the words are right (which perhaps may be doubted), the

explanation of Dr. Arnold in his note seems the best which can

be offered. Perhaps, indeed,—for though improbable, this is

not wholly impossible,—Thucydidês may himself have committed a

geographical inadvertence, in supposing the Terinæan gulf to be

on the east side of Calabria.

[388] Thucyd. vi, 104.

So untoward a delay threatened to intercept altogether his farther

progress. For the Thurians had sent intimation of his visit as well

as of the number of his vessels, to Nikias at Syracuse; treating with

contempt the idea of four triremes coming to attack the powerful

Athenian fleet. In the present sanguine phase of his character,

Nikias sympathized with the flattering tenor of the message, and

overlooked the gravity of the fact announced. He despised Gylippus

as a mere privateer, nor would he even take the precaution of

sending four ships from his numerous fleet to watch and intercept

the new-comer. Accordingly Gylippus, after having refitted his ships

at Tarentum, advanced southward along the coast without opposition

to the Epizephyrian Lokri. Here he first learned, to his great

satisfaction, that Syracuse was not yet so completely blockaded but

that an army might still reach and relieve it from the interior,

entering it by the Euryâlus and the heights of Epipolæ. Having

deliberated whether he should take the chance of running his ships

into the harbor of Syracuse, despite the watch of the Athenian fleet,

or whether he should sail through the strait of Messina to Himera at

the north of Sicily, and from thence levy an army to cross the island

and relieve Syracuse by land, he resolved on the latter course,

and passed forthwith through the strait, which he found altogether

unguarded. After touching both at Rhegium and Messênê, he arrived

safely at Himera. Even at Rhegium, there was no Athenian naval force;

though Nikias had, indeed, sent thither four Athenian triremes, after

he had been apprized that Gylippus had reached Lokri, rather from

excess of precaution, than because he thought it necessary. But this

Athenian squadron reached Rhegium too late: Gylippus had already

passed the strait; and fortune, smiting his enemy with blindness,

landed him unopposed on the fatal soil of Sicily.

The blindness of Nikias would indeed appear unaccountable, were

it not that we shall have worse yet to recount. To appreciate his

misjudgment fully, and to be sensible that we are not making him

responsible for results which could not have been foreseen, we have

only to turn back to what had been said six months before by the

exile Alkibiadês at Sparta: “Send forthwith an army to Sicily (he

exhorted the Lacedæmonians); _but send at the same time, what will

be yet more valuable than an army, a Spartan to take the supreme

command_.” It was in fulfilment of this recommendation, the wisdom of

which will abundantly appear, that Gylippus had been appointed. And

had he even reached Syracuse alone in a fishing-boat, the effect of

his presence, carrying the great name of Sparta, and full assurance

of Spartan intervention to come, not to mention his great personal

ability, would have sufficed to give new life to the besieged.

Yet Nikias—having, through a lucky accident, timely notice of his

approach, when a squadron of four ships would have prevented his

reaching the island—disdains even this most easy precaution, and

neglects him as a freebooter of no significance. Such neglect too is

the more surprising, since the well-known philo-Laconian tendencies

of Nikias would have led us to expect, that he would overvalue rather

than undervalue the imposing ascendency of the Spartan name.

Gylippus, on arriving at Himera, as commander named by Sparta, and

announcing himself as forerunner of Peloponnesian reinforcements, met

with a hearty welcome. The Himeræans agreed to aid him with a body

of hoplites, and to furnish panoplies for the seamen in his vessels.

On sending to Selinus, Gela, and some of the Sikel tribes in the

interior, he received equally favorable assurances; so that he was

enabled in no very long time to get together a respectable force.

The interest of Athens among the Sikels had been recently weakened

by the death of one of her most active partisans, the Sikel prince

Archonidês, a circumstance which both enabled Gylippus to obtain

more of their aid, and facilitated his march across the island. He

was enabled to undertake this inland march from Himera to Syracuse

at the head of seven hundred hoplites from his own vessels, seamen

and epibatæ taken together; one thousand hoplites and light troops,

with one hundred horse, from Himera, some horse and light troops

from Selinus and Gela, and one thousand Sikels.[389] With these

forces, some of whom joined him on the march, he reached Euryâlus and

the heights of Epipolæ above Syracuse, assaulting and capturing the

Sikel fort of Ietæ in his way, but without experiencing any other

opposition.

[389] Thucyd. vii, 1.

His arrival was all but too late, and might have been actually too

late, had not the Corinthian admiral Goggylus got to Syracuse a

little before him. The Corinthian fleet of twelve triremes, under

Erasinidês—having started from Leukas later than Gylippus, but as

soon as it was ready—was now on its way to Syracuse. But Goggylus

had been detained at Leukas by some accident, so that he did not

depart until after all the rest. Yet he reached Syracuse the soonest;

probably striking a straighter course across the sea, and favored

by weather. He got safely into the harbor of Syracuse, escaping the

Athenian guardships, whose watch doubtless partook of the general

negligence of the besieging operations.[390]

[390] Thucyd. vii, 2-7.

The arrival of Goggylus at that moment was an accident of unspeakable

moment, and was in fact nothing less than the salvation of the city.

Among all the causes of despair in the Syracusan mind, there was none

more powerful than the circumstance, that they had not as yet heard

of any relief approaching, or of any active intervention in their

favor, from Peloponnesus. Their discouragement increasing from day to

day, and the interchange of propositions with Nikias becoming more

frequent, matters had at last so ripened that a public assembly was

just about to be held to sanction a definitive capitulation.[391]

It was at this critical juncture that Goggylus arrived, apparently

a little before Gylippus reached Himera. He was the first to

announce that both the Corinthian fleet and a Spartan commander were

now actually on their voyage, and might be expected immediately,

intelligence which filled the Syracusans with enthusiasm and with

renewed courage. They instantly threw aside all idea of capitulation,

and resolved to hold out to the last.

[391] Thucyd. vi, 103; vii, 2; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 19.

It was not long before they received intimation that Gylippus had

reached Himera, which Goggylus at his arrival could not know, and

was raising an army to march across for their relief. After the

interval necessary for his preparations and for his march, probably

not less than between a fortnight and three weeks, they learned that

he was approaching Syracuse by the way of Euryâlus and Epipolæ. He

was presently seen coming, having ascended Epipolæ by Euryâlus; the

same way by which the Athenians had come from Katana in the spring,

when they commenced the siege. As he descended the slope of Epipolæ,

the whole Syracusan force went out in a body to hail his arrival and

accompany him into the city.[392]

[392] Thucyd. vii, 2.

Few incidents throughout the whole siege of Syracuse appear so

unaccountable as the fact, that the proceedings and march of

Gylippus, from his landing at Himera to the moment of his entering

the town, were accomplished without the smallest resistance on

the part of Nikias. After this instant, the besiegers pass from

incontestable superiority in the field, and apparent certainty of

prospective capture of the city, to a state of inferiority, not

only excluding all hope of capture, but even sinking, step by step,

into absolute ruin. Yet Nikias had remained with his eyes shut and

his hands tied, not making the least effort to obstruct so fatal a

consummation. After having despised Gylippus, in his voyage along

the coast of Italy, as a freebooter with four ships, he now despises

him not less at the head of an army marching from Himera. If he was

taken unawares, as he really appears to have been,[393] the fault was

altogether his own, and the ignorance such as we must almost call

voluntary. For the approach of Gylippus must have been well known to

him beforehand. He must have learned from the four ships which he

sent to Rhegium, that Gylippus had already touched thither in passing

through the strait, on his way to Himera. He must therefore have been

well aware, that the purpose was to attempt the relief of Syracuse

by an army from the interior; and his correspondence among the Sikel

tribes must have placed him in cognizance of the equipment going on

at Himera. Moreover, when we recollect that Gylippus reached that

place without either troops or arms; that he had to obtain forces not

merely from Himera, but also from Selinus and Gela, as well as to

sound the Sikel towns, not all of them friendly; lastly, that he had

to march all across the island, partly through hostile territory, it

is impossible to allow less interval than a fortnight or three weeks

between his landing at Himera and his arrival at Epipolæ. Farther,

Nikias must have learned, through his intelligence in the interior of

Syracuse, the important revolution which had taken place in Syracusan

opinion through the arrival of Goggylus, even before the landing of

Gylippus in Sicily was known. He was apprized, from that moment, that

he had to take measures, not only against renewed obstinate hostility

within the town, but against a fresh invading enemy without. Lastly,

that enemy had first to march all across Sicily, during which march

he might have been embarrassed and perhaps defeated,[394] and could

then approach Syracuse only by one road, over the high ground of

Euryâlus in the Athenian rear, through passes few in number, easy to

defend, by which Nikias had himself first approached, and through

which he had only got by a well-laid plan of surprise. Yet Nikias

leaves these passes unoccupied and undefended; he takes not a single

new precaution; the relieving army enters Syracuse as it were over a

broad and free plain.

[393] Thucyd. vii, 3. Οἱ δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι, ~αἰφνιδίως~ τοῦ τε Γυλίππου

καὶ τῶν Συρακοσίων σφίσιν ἐπιόντων, etc.

[394] Compare an incident in the ensuing year, Thucyd. vii, 32.

The Athenians, at a moment when they had become much weaker than

they were now, had influence enough among the Sikel tribes to

raise opposition to the march of a corps coming from the interior

to the help of Syracuse. This auxiliary corps was defeated and

nearly destroyed in its march.

If we are amazed at the insolent carelessness with which Nikias

disdained the commonest precautions for repelling the foreknown

approach, by sea, of an enemy formidable even single-handed, what are

we to say of that unaccountable blindness which led him to neglect

the same enemy when coming at the head of a relieving army, and to

omit the most obvious means of defence in a crisis upon which his

future fate turned? Homer would have designated such neglect as a

temporary delirium inflicted by the fearful inspiration of Atê: the

historian has no such explanatory name to give, and can only note it

as a sad and suitable prelude to the calamities too nearly at hand.

At the moment when the fortunate Spartan auxiliary was thus

allowed to march quietly into Syracuse, the Athenian double wall of

circumvallation, between the southern cliff of Epipolæ and the Great

Harbor, eight stadia long, was all but completed: a few yards only of

the end close to the harbor were wanting. But Gylippus cared not to

interrupt its completion. He aimed at higher objects, and he knew,

what Nikias, unhappily, never felt and never lived to learn, the

immense advantage of turning to active account that first impression

and full tide of confidence which his arrival had just infused into

the Syracusans. Hardly had he accomplished his junction with them,

when he marshalled the united force in order of battle, and marched

up to the lines of the Athenians. Amazed as they were, and struck

dumb by his unexpected arrival, they too formed in battle order, and

awaited his approach. His first proceeding marked how much the odds

of the game were changed. He sent a herald to tender to them a five

days’ armistice, on condition that they should collect their effects

and withdraw from the island. Nikias disdained to return any reply

to this insulting proposal; but his conduct showed how much _he_

felt, as well as Gylippus, that the tide was now turned. For when the

Spartan commander, perceiving now for the first time the disorderly

trim of his Syracusan hoplites, thought fit to retreat into more open

ground farther removed from the walls, probably in order that he

might have a better field for his cavalry, Nikias declined to follow

him, and remained in position close to his own fortifications.[395]

This was tantamount to a confession of inferiority in the field.

It was a virtual abandonment of the capture of Syracuse, a tacit

admission that the Athenians could hope for nothing better in the end

than the humiliating offer which the herald had just made to them.

So it seems to have been felt by both parties; for from this time

forward, the Syracusans become and continue aggressors, the Athenians

remaining always on the defensive, except for one brief instant after

the arrival of Demosthenês.

[395] Thucyd. vii, 3.

After drawing off his troops and keeping them encamped for that

night on the Temenite cliff, seemingly within the added fortified

inclosure of Syracuse, Gylippus brought them out again the next

morning, and marshalled them in front of the Athenian lines, as if

about to attack. But while the attention of the Athenians was thus

engaged, he sent a detachment to surprise the fort of Labdalum, which

was not within view of their lines. The enterprise was completely

successful. The fort was taken, and the garrison put to the sword;

while the Syracusans gained another unexpected advantage during

the day, by the capture of one of the Athenian triremes which was

watching their harbor. Gylippus pursued his successes actively, by

immediately beginning the construction of a fresh counter-wall, from

the outer city wall in a northwesterly direction aslant up the slope

of Epipolæ; so as to traverse the intended line of the Athenian

circumvallation on the north side of their Circle, and render

blockade impossible. He availed himself, for this purpose, of stones

laid by the Athenians for their own circumvallation, at the same time

alarming them by threatening attack upon their lower wall, between

the southern cliff of Epipolæ and the Great Harbor, which was now

just finished, so as to leave their troops disposable for action on

the higher ground. Against one part of the wall, which seemed weaker

than the rest, he attempted a nocturnal surprise, but finding the

Athenians in vigilant guard without, he was forced to retire. This

part of the wall was now heightened, and the Athenians took charge of

it themselves, distributing their allies along the remainder.[396]

[396] Thucyd. vii, 4.

These attacks, however, appear to have been chiefly intended as

diversions, in order to hinder the enemy from obstructing the

completion of the counter-wall. Now was the time for Nikias to adopt

vigorous aggressive measures both against this wall and against the

Syracusans in the field, unless he chose to relinquish all hope of

ever being able to beleaguer Syracuse. And, indeed, he seems actually

to have relinquished such hope, even thus early after he had seemed

certain master of the city. For he now undertook a measure altogether

new; highly important in itself, but indicating an altered scheme of

policy. He resolved to fortify Cape Plemmyrium,—the rocky promontory

which forms one extremity of the narrow entrance of the Great Harbor,

immediately south of the point of Ortygia,—and to make it a secure

main station for the fleet and stores. The fleet had been hitherto

stationed in close neighborhood of the land-force, in a fortified

position at the extremity of the double blockading wall between the

southern cliff of Epipolæ and the Great Harbor. From such a station

in the interior of the harbor, it was difficult for the Athenian

triremes to perform the duties incumbent on them, of watching the two

ports of Syracuse—one on each side of the isthmus which joins Ortygia

to the mainland—so as to prevent any exit of ships from within, or

ingress of ships from without, and of insuring the unobstructed

admission by sea of supplies for their own army. For both these

purposes, the station of Plemmyrium was far more convenient; and

Nikias now saw that henceforward his operations would be for the most

part maritime. Without confessing it openly, he thus practically

acknowledged that the superiority of land-force had passed to the

side of his opponents, and that a successful prosecution of the

blockade had become impossible.[397]

[397] Thucyd. vii, 4.

Three forts, one of considerable size and two subsidiary, were

erected on the seaboard of Cape Plemmyrium, which became the station

for triremes as well as for ships of burden. Though the situation

was found convenient for all naval operations, it entailed also

serious disadvantages; being destitute of any spring of water,

such as the memorable fountain of Arethusa on the opposite island

of Ortygia. So that for supplies of water, and of wood also, the

crews of the ships had to range a considerable distance, exposed to

surprise from the numerous Syracusan cavalry placed in garrison at

the temple of Zeus Olympius. Day after day, losses were sustained in

this manner, besides the increased facilities given for desertion,

which soon fatally diminished the efficiency of each ship’s crew.

As the Athenian hopes of success now declined, both the slaves and

the numerous foreigners who served in their navy became disposed to

steal away. And though the ships of war, down to this time, had been

scarcely at all engaged in actual warfare, yet they had been for many

months continually at sea and on the watch, without any opportunity

of hauling ashore to refit. Hence the naval force, now about to be

called into action as the chief hope of the Athenians, was found

lamentably degenerated from that ostentatious perfection in which it

had set sail fifteen months before, from the harbor of Peiræus.

The erection of the new forts at Plemmyrium, while by withdrawing

the Athenian forces it left Gylippus unopposed in the prosecution of

his counter-wall, at the same time emboldened him by the manifest

decline of hope which it implied. Day after day he brought out his

Syracusans in battle-array, planting them near the Athenian lines;

but the Athenians showed no disposition to attack. At length he

took advantage of what he thought a favorable opportunity to make

the attack himself; but the ground was so hemmed in by various

walls—the Athenian fortified lines on one side, the Syracusan front

or Temenitic fortification on another, and the counter-wall now

in course of construction on a third—that his cavalry and darters

had no space to act. Accordingly, the Syracusan hoplites, having

to fight without these auxiliaries, were beaten and driven back

with loss, the Corinthian Goggylus being among the slain.[398] On

the next day, Gylippus had the prudence to take the blame of this

defeat upon himself. It was all owing to his mistake, he publicly

confessed, in having made choice of a confined space wherein neither

cavalry nor darters could avail. He would presently give them another

opportunity, in a fairer field, and he exhorted them to show their

inbred superiority, as Dorians and Peloponnesians, by chasing these

Ionians with their rabble of islanders out of Sicily. Accordingly,

after no long time, he again brought them up in order of battle;

taking care, however, to keep in the open space, beyond the extremity

of the walls and fortifications.

[398] Thucyd. vii, 5; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 19.

On this occasion, Nikias did not decline the combat, but marched

out into the open space to meet him. He probably felt encouraged

by the result of the recent action; but there was a farther and

more pressing motive. The counter-wall of intersection, which the

Syracusans were constructing, was on the point of cutting the

Athenian line of circumvallation, so that it was essential for Nikias

to attack without delay, unless he formally abnegated all farther

hope of successful siege. Nor could the army endure, in spite of

altered fortune, irrevocably to shut themselves out from such hope,

without one struggle more. Both armies were therefore ranged in

battle order on the open space beyond the walls, higher up the slope

of Epipolæ; Gylippus placing his cavalry and darters to the right of

his line, on the highest and most open ground. In the midst of the

action between the hoplites on both sides, these troops on the right

charged the left flank of the Athenians with such vigor, that they

completely broke it. The whole Athenian army underwent a thorough

defeat, and only found shelter within its fortified lines. And in the

course of the very next night, the Syracusan counter-wall was pushed

so far as to traverse and get beyond the projected line of Athenian

blockade, reaching presently as far as the edge of the northern

cliff: so that Syracuse was now safe, unless the enemy should not

only recover their superiority in the field, but also become strong

enough to storm and carry the new-built wall.[399]

[399] Thucyd. vii, 5, 6.

Farther defence was also obtained by the safe arrival of the

Corinthian, Ambrakiotic, and Leukadian fleet of twelve triremes,

under Erasinidês, which Nikias had vainly endeavored to intercept.

He had sent twenty sail to the southern coast of Italy; but the

new-comers had had the good luck to avoid them.

Erasinidês and his division lent their hands to the execution of a

work which completed the scheme of defence for the city. Gylippus

took the precaution of constructing a fort or redoubt on the high

ground of Epipolæ, so as to command the approach to Syracuse from

the high ground of Euryalus; a step which Hermokratês had not

thought of until too late, and which Nikias had never thought of

at all, during his period of triumph and mastery. He erected a

new fort on a suitable point of the high ground, backed by three

fortified positions or encampments at proper distances in the rear

of it, intended for bodies of troops to support the advanced post in

case it was attacked. A continuous wall was then carried from this

advanced post down the slope of Epipolæ, so as to reach and join

the counter-wall recently constructed; whereby this counter-wall,

already traversing and cutting the Athenian line of circumvallation,

became in fact prolonged up the whole slope of Epipolæ, and barred

all direct access from the Athenians in their existing lines up to

the summit of that eminence, as well as up to the northern cliff. The

Syracusans had now one continuous and uninterrupted line of defence;

a long single wall, resting at one extremity on the new-built fort

upon the high ground of Epipolæ, at the other extremity, upon the

city wall. This wall was only single; but it was defended, along

its whole length, by the permanent detachments occupying the three

several fortified positions or encampments just mentioned. One of

these positions was occupied by native Syracusans; a second, by

Sicilian Greeks; a third, by other allies. Such was the improved

and systematic scheme of defence which the genius of Gylippus

first projected, and which he brought to execution at the present

moment:[400] a scheme, the full value of which will be appreciated

when we come to describe the proceedings of the second Athenian

armament under Demosthenês.

[400] Thucyd. vii, 7. Μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο, αἵ τε τῶν Κορινθίων νῆες καὶ

Ἀμπρακιωτῶν καὶ Λευκαδίων ἐσέπλευσαν αἱ ὑπόλοιποι δώδεκα (ἦρχε

δὲ αὐτῶν Ἐρασινίδης Κορίνθιος), καὶ ~ξυνετείχισαν τὸ λοιπὸν τοῖς

Συρακοσίοις μέχρι τοῦ ἐγκαρσίου τείχους~.

These words of Thucydidês are very obscure, and have been

explained by different commentators in different ways. The

explanation which I here give does not, so far as I know,

coincide with any of them; yet I venture to think that it is the

most plausible, and the only one satisfactory. Compare the Memoir

of Dr. Arnold on his Map of Syracuse (Arn. Thucyd. vol. iii, p.

273), and the notes of Poppo and Göller. Dr. Arnold is indeed so

little satisfied with any explanation which had suggested itself

to him that he thinks some words must have dropped out.

Not content with having placed the Syracusans out of the reach of

danger, Gylippus took advantage of their renewed confidence to

infuse into them projects of retaliation against the enemy who had

brought them so near to ruin. They began to equip their ships in

the harbor, and to put their seamen under training, in hopes of

qualifying themselves to contend with the Athenians even on their own

element; while Gylippus himself quitted the city to visit the various

cities of the island, and to get together farther reinforcements,

naval as well as military. And as it was foreseen that Nikias on

his part would probably demand aid from Athens, envoys, Syracusan

as well as Corinthian, were despatched to Peloponnesus, to urge

the necessity of forwarding additional troops, even in merchant

vessels, if no triremes could be spared to convey them.[401] Should

no reinforcements reach the Athenian camp, the Syracusans well knew

that its efficiency must diminish by every month’s delay, while their

own strength, in spite of heavy cost and effort, was growing with

their increased prospects of success.

[401] Thucyd. vii, 7.

If this double conviction was present to sustain, the ardor of the

Syracusans, it was not less painfully felt amidst the Athenian camp,

now blocked up like a besieged city, and enjoying no free movement

except through their ships and their command of the sea. Nikias saw

that if Gylippus should return with any considerable additional

force, even the attack upon him by land would become too powerful

to resist, besides the increasing disorganization of his fleet. He

became fully convinced that to remain as they were was absolute ruin.

As all possibility of prosecuting the siege of Syracuse successfully

was now at an end, a sound judgment would have dictated that his

position in the harbor had become useless as well as dangerous, and

that the sooner it was evacuated the better. Probably Demosthenês

would have acted thus, under similar circumstances; but such

foresight and resolution were not in the character of Nikias, who was

afraid, moreover, of the blame which it would bring down upon him at

home, if not from his own army. Not venturing to quit his position

without orders from Athens, he determined to send home thither an

undisguised account of his critical position, and to solicit either

reinforcements or instructions to return.

It was now, indeed, the end of September (B.C. 414), so that he could

not even hope for an answer before midwinter, nor for reinforcements,

if such were to be sent, until the ensuing spring was far advanced.

Nevertheless, he determined to encounter this risk, and to trust to

vigilant precautions for safety during the interval, precautions

which, as the result will show, were within a hair’s breadth of

proving insufficient. But as it was of the last importance to him to

make his countrymen at home fully sensible of the grave danger of his

position, he resolved to transmit a written despatch; not trusting

to the oral statement of a messenger, who might be wanting either in

courage, in presence of mind, or in competent expression, to impress

the full and sad truth upon a reluctant audience.[402] Accordingly he

sent home a despatch, which seems to have reached Athens about the

end of November, and was read formally in the public assembly by the

secretary of the city. Preserved by Thucydidês verbatim, it stands as

one of the most interesting remnants of antiquity, and well deserves

a literal translation.

[402] Thucyd. vii, 8.

“Our previous proceedings have been already made known to you,

Athenians, in many other despatches;[403] but the present crisis is

such as to require your deliberation more than ever, when you shall

have heard the situation in which we stand. After we had overcome in

many engagements the Syracusans, against whom we were sent, and had

built the fortified lines which we now occupy, there came upon us

the Lacedæmonian Gylippus, with an army partly Peloponnesian, partly

Sicilian. Him too we defeated, in the first action; but in a second,

we were overwhelmed by a crowd of cavalry and darters, and forced to

retire within our lines. And thus the superior number of our enemies

has compelled us to suspend our circumvallation, and remain inactive;

indeed, we cannot employ in the field even the full force which we

possess, since a portion of our hoplites are necessarily required for

the protection of our walls. Meanwhile the enemy have carried out a

single intersecting counter-wall beyond our line of circumvallation,

so that we can no longer continue the latter to completion, unless we

have force enough to attack and storm their counter-wall. And things

have come to such a pass, that we, who profess to besiege others,

are ourselves rather the party besieged, by land at least, since the

cavalry leave us scarce any liberty of motion. Farther, the enemy

have sent envoys to Peloponnesus to obtain reinforcements, while

Gylippus in person is going round the Sicilian cities, trying to

stir up to action such of them as are now neutral, and to get, from

the rest, additional naval and military supplies. For it is their

determination, as I understand, not merely to assail our lines on

shore with their land-force, but also to attack us by sea with their

ships.

[403] Thucyd. vii, 9. ἐν ἄλλαις πολλαῖς ἐπιστολαῖς. The word

_despatches_, which I use to translate ἐπιστολαῖς, is not

inapplicable to oral, as well as to written messages, and thus

retains the ambiguity involved in the original; for ἐπιστολαῖς,

though usually implying, does not necessarily imply, _written_

communications.

The words of Thucydidês (vii, 8) _may_ certainly be construed

to imply that Nikias had never on any previous occasion sent a

written communication to Athens; and so Dr. Thirlwall understands

them, though not without hesitation (Hist. Gr. ch. xxvi, vol.

iii, p. 418). At the same time, I think them reconcilable with

the supposition that Nikias may previously have sent written

despatches, though much shorter than the present, leaving details

and particulars to be supplied by the officer who carried them.

Mr. Mitford states the direct reverse of that which Dr. Thirlwall

understands: “Nicias had used the precaution of frequently

sending despatches in writing, with an exact account of every

transaction.” (Ch. xviii, sect v, vol. iv, p. 100.)

Certainly, the statement of Thucydidês does not imply this.

“Be not shocked when I tell you, that they intend to become

aggressors even at sea. They know well, that our fleet was at first

in high condition, with dry ships[404] and excellent crews; but

now the ships have rotted, from remaining too long at sea, and the

crews are ruined. Nor have we the means of hauling our ships ashore

to refit, since the enemy’s fleet, equal or superior in numbers,

always appears on the point of attacking us. We see them in constant

practice, and they can choose their own moment for attack. Moreover,

they can keep their ships high and dry more than we can; for they

are not engaged in maintaining watch upon others; while to us, who

are obliged to retain all our fleet on guard, nothing less than

prodigious superiority of number could insure the like facility. And

were we to relax ever so little in our vigilance, we should no longer

be sure of our supplies, which we bring in even now with difficulty

close under their walls.

[404] It seems, that in Greek ship-building, moist and unseasoned

wood was preferred, from the facility of bending it into the

proper shape (Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. v, 7, 4).

“Our crews, too, have been and are still wasting away from various

causes. Among the seamen who are our own citizens, many, in going

to a distance for wood, for water, or for pillage, are cut off by

the Syracusan cavalry. Such of them as are slaves, desert, now that

our superiority is gone, and that we have come to equal chances with

our enemy; while the foreigners whom we pressed into our service,

make off straight to some of the neighboring cities; and those who

came, tempted by high pay, under the idea of enriching themselves

by traffic rather than of fighting, now that they find the enemy in

full competence to cope with us by sea as well as by land, either go

over to him as professed deserters, or get away as they can amidst

the wide area of Sicily.[405] Nay, there are even some, who, while

trafficking here on their own account, bribe the trierarchs to

accept Hykkarian slaves as substitutes, and thus destroy the strict

discipline of our marine. And you know as well as I, that no crew

ever continues long in perfect condition, and that the first class of

seamen, who set the ship in motion, and maintain the uniformity of

the oar-stroke, is but a small fraction of the whole number.

[405] Thucyd. vii, 13. Καὶ οἱ ξένοι οἱ μὲν ἀναγκαστοὶ ἐσβάντες,

εὐθὺς κατὰ τὰς πόλεις ἀποχωροῦσιν, οἱ δὲ ὑπὸ μεγάλου μισθοῦ τὸ

πρῶτον ἐπαρθέντες, καὶ οἰόμενοι χρηματιεῖσθαι μᾶλλον ἢ μαχεῖσθαι,

ἐπειδὴ παρὰ γνώμην ναύτικόν τε δὴ καὶ τἄλλα ἀπὸ τῶν πολεμίων

ἀνθεστῶτα ὁρῶσιν, οἱ μὲν ~ἐπ’ αὐτομολίας προφάσει ἀπέρχονται~, οἱ

δὲ ὡς ἕκαστοι δύνανται· πολλὴ δ’ ἡ Σικελία.

All the commentators bestow long notes in explanation of this

phrase ἐπ’ αὐτομολίας προφάσει ἀπέρχονται: but I cannot think

that any of them are successful. There are even some who

despair of success so much, as to wish to change αὐτομολίας by

conjecture; see the citations in Poppo’s long note.

But surely the literal sense of the words is here both

defensible and instructive: “Some of them depart under pretence

(or profession) of being deserters to the enemy.” All the

commentators reject this meaning, because they say, it is absurd

to talk of a man’s announcing beforehand that he intends to

desert to the enemy, and giving _that_ as an excuse for quitting

the camp. Such is not, in my judgment, the meaning of the word

προφάσει here. It does not denote what a man said _before_ he

quitted the Athenian camp, he would of course say nothing of

his intention to any one, but the color which he would put upon

his conduct _after he got within_ the Syracusan lines. He would

present himself to them as a deserter to their cause; he would

profess anxiety to take part in the defence; he would pretend

to be tired of the oppressive Athenian dominion; for it is to

be recollected, that all or most of these deserters were men

belonging to the subject-allies of Athens. Those who passed over

to the Syracusan lines would naturally recommend themselves

by making profession of such dispositions, even though they

did not really feel any such; for their real reason was, that

the Athenian service had now become irksome, unprofitable, and

dangerous; and the easiest manner of getting away from it was, to

pass over as a deserter to Syracuse.

Nikias distinguishes these men from others, “who got away, as

they could find opportunity, to some part or other of Sicily.”

These latter also would of course keep their intention of

departing secret, until they got safe away into some Sicilian

town; but when once there, they would make no profession of any

feeling which they did not entertain. If they said anything, they

would tell the plain truth, that they were making their escape

from a position which now gave them more trouble than profit.

It appears to me that the words ἐπ’ αὐτομολίας προφάσει will bear

this sense perfectly well, and that it is the real meaning of

Nikias.

Even before the Peloponnesian war was begun, the Corinthian

envoy at Sparta affirms that the Athenians cannot depend upon

their seamen standing true to them, since their navy was manned

with hired foreign seamen rather than with natives—ὠνητὴ γὰρ ἡ

Ἀθηναίων δύναμις μᾶλλον ἢ οἰκεία (Thucyd. i, 121). The statement

of Nikias proves that this remark was to a great extent well

founded.

“Among all these embarrassments, the worst of all is, that I as

general can neither prevent the mischief, from the difficulty of

your tempers to govern, nor can I provide supplementary recruits

elsewhere, as the enemy can easily do from many places open to him.

We have nothing but the original stock which we brought out with

us, both to make good losses and to do present duty; for Naxus and

Katana, our only present allies, are of insignificant strength. And

if our enemy gain but one farther point,—if the Italian cities,

from whence we now draw our supplies, should turn against us, under

the impression of our present bad condition, with no reinforcement

arriving from you,—we shall be starved out, and he will bring the war

to triumphant close, even without a battle.

“Pleasanter news than these I could easily have found to send you;

but assuredly nothing so useful, seeing that the full knowledge

of the state of affairs here is essential to your deliberations.

Moreover, I thought it even the safer policy to tell you the truth

without disguise, understanding as I do your real dispositions, that

you never listen willingly to any but the most favorable assurances,

yet are angry in the end if they turn to unfavorable results. Be

thoroughly satisfied, that in regard to the force against which you

originally sent us, both your generals and your soldiers have done

themselves no discredit. But now that all Sicily is united against

us, and that farther reinforcements are expected from Peloponnesus,

you must take your resolution with full knowledge that we here have

not even strength to contend against our present difficulties. You

must either send for us home, or you must send us a second army,

land-force as well as naval, not inferior to that which is now here,

together with a considerable supply of money. You must farther send a

successor to supersede me, as I am incapable of work from a disease

in the kidneys. I think myself entitled to ask this indulgence at

your hands, for while my health lasted I did you much good service

in various military commands. But whatever you intend, do it at the

first opening of spring, without any delay: for the new succors which

the enemy is getting together in Sicily, will soon be here, and those

which are to come from Peloponnesus, though they will be longer

in arriving, yet, if you do not keep watch, will either elude or

forestall you as they have already once done.”[406]

[406] Thucyd. vii, 11-15.

Such was the memorable despatch of Nikias, which was read to the

public assembly of Athens about the end of November, or beginning of

December, 414 B.C., brought by officers who strengthened its effect

by their own oral communications, and answered all such inquiries as

were put to them.[407] We have much reason to regret that Thucydidês

does not give us any idea of the debate which so gloomy a revelation

called forth. He tells us merely the result: the Athenians resolved

to comply with the second portion of the alternative put by Nikias;

not to send for the present armament home, but to reinforce it

by a second powerful armament, both of land and naval force, in

prosecution of the same objects. But they declined his other personal

request, and insisted on continuing him in command; passing a vote,

however, to name Menander and Euthydemus, officers already in the

army before Syracuse, joint commanders along with him, in order to

assist him in his laborious duties. They sent Eurymedon speedily,

about the winter solstice, in command of ten triremes to Syracuse,

carrying one hundred and twenty talents of silver, together with

assurances of coming aid to the suffering army. And they resolved to

equip a new and formidable force, under Demosthenês and Eurymedon,

to go thither as reinforcement in the earliest months of the spring.

Demosthenês was directed to employ himself actively in getting this

larger force ready.[408]

[407] Thucyd. vii, 10.

[408] Thucyd. vii, 16. There is here a doubt as to the reading,

between one hundred and twenty talents, or twenty talents.

I agree with Dr. Arnold and other commentators in thinking that

the money taken out by Eurymedon was far more probably the larger

sum of the two, than the smaller. The former reading seems to

deserve the preference. Besides, Diodorus states that Eurymedon

took out with him one hundred and forty talents: his authority,

indeed, does not count for much, but it counts for something,

in coincidence with a certain force of intrinsic probability

(Diodor. xiii, 8).

On an occasion such as this, to send a very small sum, such as

twenty talents, would produce a discouraging effect upon the

armament.

This letter of Nikias—so authentic, so full of matter, and so

characteristic of the manners of the time—suggests several serious

reflections, in reference both to himself and to the Athenian people.

As to himself, there is nothing so remarkable as the sentence of

condemnation which it pronounces on his own past proceedings in

Sicily. When we find him lamenting the wear and tear of the armament,

and treating the fact as notorious that even the best naval force

could only maintain itself in good condition for a short time,

what graver condemnation could be passed upon those eight months

which he wasted in trifling measures, after his arrival in Sicily,

before commencing the siege of Syracuse? When he announces that the

arrival of Gylippus with his auxiliary force before Syracuse, made

the difference to the Athenian army between triumph and something

bordering on ruin, the inquiry naturally suggests itself, whether he

had done his best to anticipate, and what precautions he had himself

taken to prevent, the coming of the Spartan general. To which the

answer must be, that, so far from anticipating the arrival of new

enemies as a possible danger, he had almost invited them from abroad

by his delay, and that he had taken no precautions at all against

them, though forewarned and having sufficient means at his disposal.

The desertion and demoralization of his naval force, doubtless but

too real, was, as he himself points out, mainly the consequence of

this turn of fortune, and was also the first commencement of that

unmanageable temper of the Athenian soldiery, numbered among his

difficulties. For it would be injustice to this unfortunate army

not to recognize that they first acquiesced patiently in prolonged

inaction, because their general directed it, and next did their duty

most gallantly in the operations of the siege, down to the death of

Lamachus.

If even with our imperfect knowledge of the case, the ruin complained

of by Nikias be distinctly traceable to his own remissness and

oversight, much more must this conviction have been felt by

intelligent Athenians, both in the camp and in the city, as we shall

see by the conduct of Demosthenês[409] hereafter to be related.

Let us conceive the series of despatches, to which Nikias himself

alludes, as having been transmitted home, from their commencement. We

must recollect that the expedition was originally sent from Athens

with hopes of the most glowing character, and with a consciousness

of extraordinary efforts about to be rewarded with commensurate

triumphs. For some months, the despatches of the general disclose

nothing but movements either abortive or inglorious; adorned,

indeed, by one barren victory, but accompanied by an intimation

that he must wait till the spring, and that reinforcements must be

sent to him, before he can undertake the really serious enterprise.

Though the disappointment occasioned by this news at Athens must

have been mortifying, nevertheless his requisition was complied

with; and the despatches of Nikias, during the spring and summer of

414 B.C., become cheering. The siege of Syracuse is described as

proceeding successfully, and at length, about July or August, as

being on the point of coming to a triumphant close, in spite of a

Spartan adventurer, named Gylippus, making his way across the Ionian

sea with a force too contemptible to be noticed. Suddenly, without

any intermediate step to smooth the transition, comes a despatch

announcing that this adventurer has marched into Syracuse at the

head of a powerful army, and that the Athenians are thrown upon

the defensive, without power of proceeding with the siege. This is

followed, after a short time, by the gloomy and almost desperate

communication above translated.

[409] Thucyd. vii, 42.

When we thus look at the despatch, not merely as it stands singly,

but as falling in series with its antecedents, the natural effect

which we should suppose it likely to produce upon the Athenians,

would be a vehement burst of wrath and displeasure against Nikias.

Upon the most candid and impartial scrutiny, he deserved nothing

less. And when we consider, farther, the character generally ascribed

by historians of Greece to the Athenian people, that they are

represented as fickle, ungrateful, and irritable, by standing habit;

as abandoning upon the most trifling grounds those whom they had

once esteemed, forgetting all prior services, visiting upon innocent

generals the unavoidable misfortunes of war, and impelled by nothing

better than demagogic excitements, we naturally expect that the

blame really deserved by Nikias would be exaggerated beyond all due

measure, and break forth in a storm of violence and fury. Yet what

is the actual resolution taken in consequence of his despatch, after

the full and free debate of the Athenian assembly? Not a word of

blame or displeasure is proclaimed. Doubtless there must have been

individual speakers who criticized him as he deserved. To suppose the

contrary, would be to think meanly indeed of the Athenian assembly.

But the general vote was one not simply imputing no blame, but even

pronouncing continued and unabated confidence. The people positively

refuse to relieve him from the command, though he himself solicits it

in a manner sincere and even touching. So great is the value which

they set upon his services, and the esteem which they entertain

for his character, that they will not avail themselves of the easy

opportunity which he himself provides to get rid of him.

It is not by way of compliment to the Athenians that I make these

remarks on their present proceeding. Quite the contrary. The

misplaced confidence of the Athenians in Nikias, on more than one

previous occasion, but especially on this, betrays an incapacity of

appreciating facts immediately before their eyes, and a blindness

to decisive and multiplied evidences of incompetency, which is one

of the least creditable manifestations of their political history.

But we do learn from it a clear lesson, that the habitual defects

of the Athenian character were very different from what historians

commonly impute to them. Instead of being fickle, we find them

tenacious in the extreme of confidence once bestowed, and of schemes

once embarked upon: instead of ingratitude for services actually

rendered, we find credit given for services which an officer ought

to have rendered, but has not: instead of angry captiousness, we

discover an indulgence not merely generous, but even culpable, in

the midst of disappointment and humiliation: instead of a public

assembly, wherein, as it is commonly depicted, the criminative

orators were omnipotent, and could bring to condemnation any

unsuccessful general, however meritorious; we see that even grave

and well-founded accusations make no impression upon the people in

opposition to preëstablished personal esteem; and personal esteem

for a man who not only was no demagogue, but in every respect the

opposite of a demagogue: an oligarch by taste, sentiment, and

position; who yielded to the democracy nothing more than sincere

obedience, coupled with gentleness and munificence in his private

bearing. If Kleon had committed but a small part of those capital

blunders which discredit the military career of Nikias, he would have

been irretrievably ruined. So much weaker was _his_ hold upon his

countrymen, by means of demagogic excellences, as compared with those

causes which attracted confidence to Nikias; his great family and

position, his wealth dexterously expended, his known incorruptibility

against bribes, and even comparative absence of personal ambition,

his personal courage combined with reputation for caution, his

decorous private life and ultra-religious habits. All this assemblage

of negative merits, and decencies of daily life, in a citizen

whose station might have enabled him to act with the insolence of

Alkibiadês, placed Nikias on a far firmer basis of public esteem than

the mere power of accusatory speech in the public assembly or the

dikastery could have done. It entitled him to have the most indulgent

construction put upon all his shortcomings, and spread a fatal

varnish over his glaring incompetence for all grave and responsible

command.

The incident now before us is one of the most instructive in all

history, as an illustration of the usual sentiment, and strongest

causes of error, prevalent among the Athenian democracy, and as

a refutation of that exaggerated mischief which it is common to

impute to the person called a demagogue. Happy would it have been

for Athens had she now had Kleon present, or any other demagogue

of equal power, at that public assembly which took the melancholy

resolution of sending fresh forces to Sicily and continuing Nikias

in the command! The case was one in which the accusatory eloquence

of the demagogue was especially called for, to expose the real past

mismanagement of Nikias, to break down that undeserved confidence in

his ability and caution which had grown into a sentiment of faith or

routine, to prove how much mischief he had already done, and how much

more he would do if continued.[410] Unluckily for Athens, she had

now no demagogue who could convince the assembly beforehand of this

truth, and prevent them from taking the most unwise and destructive

resolution ever passed in the Pnyx.

[410] Plutarch (Nikias, c. 20) tells us that the Athenians had

been disposed to send a second armament to Sicily, even before

the despatch of Nikias reached them: but that they had been

prevented by certain men who were envious (φθόνῳ) of the glory

and good fortune of Nikias.

No judgment can be more inconsistent with the facts of the case

than this, facts recounted in general terms even by Plutarch

himself.

What makes the resolution so peculiarly discreditable, is, that it

was adopted in defiance of clear and present evidence. To persist

in the siege of Syracuse, under present circumstances, was sad

misjudgment; to persist in it with Nikias as commander, was hardly

less than insanity. The first expedition, though even _that_ was

rash and ill-conceived, nevertheless presented tempting hopes

which explain, if they do not excuse, the too light estimate of

impossibility of lasting possession. Moreover, there was at that

time a confusion,—between the narrow objects connected with Leontini

and Egesta, and the larger acquisitions to be realized through the

siege of Syracuse,—which prevented any clear and unanimous estimate

of the undertaking in the Athenian mind. But now, the circumstances

of Sicily were fully known: the mendacious promises of Egesta had

been exposed; the hopes of allies for Athens in the island were

seen to be futile; while Syracuse, armed with a Spartan general and

Peloponnesian aid, had not only become inexpugnable, but had assumed

the aggressive: lastly, the chance of a renewal of Peloponnesian

hostility against Attica had been now raised into certainty. While

perseverance in the siege of Syracuse, therefore, under circumstances

so unpromising and under such necessity for increased exertions

at home, was a melancholy imprudence in itself, perseverance in

employing Nikias converted that imprudence into ruin, which even the

addition of an energetic colleague in the person of Demosthenês was

not sufficient to avert. Those who study the conduct of the Athenian

people on this occasion, will not be disposed to repeat against them

the charge of fickleness which forms one of the standing reproaches

against democracy. Their mistake here arose from the very opposite

quality; from what may be called obtuseness, or inability to get

clear of two sentiments which had become deeply engraven on their

minds; ideas of Sicilian conquest, and confidence in Nikias.

A little more of this alleged fickleness—or easy escape from past

associations and impressibility to actual circumstances—would have

been at the present juncture a tutelary quality to Athens. She would

then have appreciated more justly the increased hazards thickening

around her both in Sicily and at home. War with Sparta, though not

yet actually proclaimed, had become impending and inevitable. Even

in the preceding winter, the Lacedæmonians had listened favorably

to the recommendation of Alkibiadês[411] that they should establish

a fortified post at Dekeleia in Attica. They had not yet indeed

brought themselves to execution of this resolve; for the peace

between them and Athens, though indirectly broken in many ways, still

subsisted in name, and they hesitated to break it openly, partly

because they knew that the breach of peace had been on their side at

the beginning of the Peloponnesian war; attributing to this fault

their capital misfortune at Sphakteria.[412] Athens on her side

had also scrupulously avoided direct violation of the Lacedæmonian

territory, in spite of much solicitation from her allies at Argos.

But her reserve on this point gave way during the present summer,

probably at the time when her prospect of taking Syracuse appeared

certain. The Lacedæmonians having invaded and plundered the Argeian

territory, thirty Athenian triremes were sent to aid in its defence,

under Pythodôrus with two colleagues. This armament disembarked on

the eastern coast of Laconia near Prasiæ and committed devastations:

which direct act of hostility—coming in addition to the marauding

excursions of the garrison of Pylos, and to the refusal of pacific

redress at Athens—satisfied the Lacedæmonians that the peace had

been now first and undeniably broken by their enemy, so that they

might with a safe conscience recommence the war.[413]

[411] Thucyd. vi, 93.

[412] Thucyd. vii, 18.

[413] Thucyd. vi, 105; vii, 18.

Such was the state of feeling between the two great powers of

Central Greece in November 414 B.C., when the envoys arrived from

Syracuse; envoys from Nikias on the one part, from Gylippus and

the Syracusans on the other; each urgently calling for farther

support. The Corinthians and Syracusans vehemently pressed their

claims at Sparta; nor was Alkibiadês again wanting, to renew his

instances for the occupation of Dekeleia. It was in the face of

this impending liability to renewed Peloponnesian invasion that

the Athenians took their resolution, above commented on, to send a

second army to Syracuse and prosecute the siege with vigor. If there

were any hesitation yet remaining on the part of the Lacedæmonians,

it disappeared so soon as they were made aware of the imprudent

resolution of Athens; which not only created an imperative necessity

for sustaining Syracuse, but also rendered Athens so much more

vulnerable at home, by removing the better part of her force.

Accordingly, very soon after the vote passed at Athens, an equally

decisive resolution for direct hostilities was adopted at Sparta.

It was determined that a Peloponnesian allied force should be

immediately prepared, to be sent at the first opening of spring to

Syracuse, and that at the same time Attica should be invaded, and the

post of Dekeleia fortified. Orders to this effect were immediately

transmitted to the whole body of Peloponnesian allies; especially

requisitions for implements, materials, and workmen, towards the

construction of the projected fort at Dekeleia.[414]

[414] Thucyd. vii, 18.