FROM THE RESUMPTION OF DIRECT HOSTILITIES BETWEEN ATHENS AND SPARTA,
DOWN TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ATHENIAN ARMAMENT IN SICILY.
The Syracusan war now no longer stands apart, as an event by itself,
but becomes absorbed in the general war rekindling throughout Greece.
Never was any winter so actively and extensively employed in military
preparations, as the winter of 414-413 B.C., the months immediately
preceding that which Thucydidês terms the nineteenth spring of the
Peloponnesian war, but which other historians call the beginning of
the Dekeleian war.[415] While Eurymedon went with his ten triremes
to Syracuse, even in midwinter, Demosthenês exerted himself all the
winter to get together the second armament for early spring. Twenty
other Athenian triremes were farther sent round Peloponnesus to
the station of Naupaktus, to prevent any Corinthian reinforcements
from sailing out of the Corinthian gulf. Against these latter, the
Corinthians on their side prepared twenty-five fresh triremes, to
serve as a convoy to the transports carrying their hoplites.[416]
In Corinth, Sikyôn, and Bœotia, as well as at Lacedæmon, levies of
hoplites were going on for the armament to Syracuse, at the same time
that everything was getting ready for the occupation of Dekeleia.
Lastly, Gylippus was engaged with not less activity in stirring up
all Sicily to take a more decisive part in the coming year’s struggle.
[415] Diodor. xiii, 8.
[416] Thucyd. vii, 17.
From Cape Tænarus in Laconia, at the earliest moment of spring,
embarked a force of six hundred Lacedæmonian hoplites—Helots and
Neodamodes—under the Spartan Ekkritus, and three hundred Bœotian
hoplites under the Thebans Xenon and Nikon, with the Thespian
Hegesandrus. They were directed to cross the sea southward to Kyrênê
in Libya, and from thence to make their way along the African coast
to Sicily. At the same time a body of seven hundred hoplites under
Alexarchus, partly Corinthians, partly hired Arcadians, partly
Sikyonians, under constraint from their powerful neighbors,[417]
departed from the northwest of Peloponnesus and the mouth of the
Corinthian gulf for Sicily, the Corinthian triremes watching them
until they were past the Athenian squadron at Naupaktus.
[417] Thucyd. vii, 19-58. Σικυώνιοι ἀναγκαστοὶ στρατεύοντες.
These were proceedings of importance: but the most important of all
was the reinvasion of Attica at the same time by the great force
of the Peloponnesian alliance, under the Spartan king Agis son of
Archidamus. Twelve years had elapsed since Attica last felt the
hand of the destroyer, a little before the siege of Sphakteria. The
plain in the neighborhood of Athens was now first laid waste, after
which the invaders proceeded to their special purpose of erecting
a fortified post for occupation at Dekeleia. The work, apportioned
among the allies present, who had come prepared with the means
of executing it, was completed during the present summer, and a
garrison was established there composed of contingents relieving
each other at intervals, under the command of king Agis himself.
Dekeleia was situated on an outlying eminence belonging to the range
called Parnês, about fourteen miles to the north of Athens, near the
termination of the plain of Athens, and commanding an extensive view
of that plain as well as of the plain of Eleusis. The hill on which
it stood, if not the fort itself, was visible even from the walls
of Athens. It was admirably situated both as a central point for
excursions over Attica, and for communication with Bœotia; while the
road from Athens to Orôpus, the main communication with Eubœa, passed
through the gorge immediately under it.[418]
[418] Thucyd. vii, 19-28, with Dr. Arnold’s note.
We read with amazement, and the contemporary world saw with yet
greater amazement, that while this important work was actually going
on, and while the whole Peloponnesian confederacy was renewing its
pressure with redoubled force upon Athens, at that very moment,[419]
the Athenians sent out, not only a fleet of thirty triremes under
Chariklês to annoy the coasts of Peloponnesus, but also the great
armament which they had resolved upon under Demosthenês, to push
offensive operations against Syracuse. The force under the latter
general consisted of sixty Athenian and five Chian triremes; of
twelve hundred Athenian hoplites of the best class, chosen from the
citizen muster-roll; with a considerable number of hoplites besides,
from the subject-allies and elsewhere. There had been also engaged
on hire fifteen hundred peltasts from Thrace, of the tribe called
Dii; but these men did not arrive in time, so that Demosthenês
set sail without them.[420] Chariklês having gone forward to take
aboard a body of allies from Argos, the two fleets joined at Ægina,
inflicted some devastations on the coasts of Laconia, and established
a strong post on the island of Kythêra to encourage desertion
among the Helots. From hence Chariklês returned with the Argeians,
while Demosthenês conducted his armament round Peloponnesus to
Korkyra.[421] On the Eleian coast, he destroyed a transport carrying
hoplites to Syracuse, though the men escaped ashore: from thence he
proceeded to Zakynthus and Kephallenia, from whence he engaged some
additional hoplites, and to Anaktorium, in order to procure darters
and slingers from Akarnania. It was here that he was met by Eurymedon
with his ten triremes, who had gone forward to Syracuse in the
winter with the pecuniary remittance urgently required, and was now
returning to act as colleague of Demosthenês in the command.[422] The
news brought by Eurymedon from Sicily was in every way discouraging.
Yet the two admirals were under the necessity of sparing ten triremes
from their fleet to reinforce Konon at Naupaktus, who was not
strong enough alone to contend against the Corinthian fleet which
watched him from the opposite coast. To make good this diminution,
Eurymedon went forward to Korkyra, with the view of obtaining from
the Korkyræans fifteen fresh triremes and a contingent of hoplites,
while Demosthenês was getting together the Akarnanian darters and
slingers.[423]
[419] Thucyd. vii, 20. ἅμα τῆς Δεκελείας τῷ τειχισμῷ, etc.
Compare Isokratês, Orat. viii, De Pace, s. 102, p. 236, Bekk.
[420] Thucyd. vii, 20-27.
[421] Thucyd. vii, 26.
[422] Thucyd. vii, 31. Ὄντι δ’ αὐτῷ (Demosthenês) περὶ ταῦτα
(Anaktorium) Εὐρυμέδων ἀπαντᾷ, ὃς τότε τοῦ χειμῶνος ~τὰ χρήματα
ἄγων τῇ στρατιᾷ ἀπεπέμφθη~, καὶ ἀγγέλλει, etc.
The meaning of this passage appears quite unambiguous, that
Eurymedon had been sent to Sicily in the winter, to carry the sum
of one hundred and twenty talents to Nikias, and was now on his
return (see Thucyd. vii, 11). Nor is it without some astonishment
that I read in Mr. Mitford: “At Anactorium, Demosthenês found
Eurymedon _collecting provisions_ for Sicily,” etc. Mr. Mitford
then says in a note (quoting the Scholiast, Ἤτοι τὰ πρὸς τροφὴν
χρήσιμα, καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ συντείνοντα αὐτοῖς, Schol.): “This is not
the only occasion on which Thucydidês uses the term χρήματα for
_necessaries in general_. Smith has translated accordingly:
but the Latin has _pecuniam_, which does not express the sense
intended here,” (ch. xviii, sect. vi, vol. iv, p. 118.)
There cannot be the least doubt that the Latin is here right.
The definite article makes the point quite certain, even if it
were true (which I doubt) that Thucydidês sometimes uses the word
χρήματα to mean “necessaries in general.” I doubt still more
whether he ever uses ἄγων in the sense of “collecting.”
[423] Thucyd. vii, 31.
Eurymedon not only brought back word of the distressed condition
of the Athenians in the harbor of Syracuse, but had also learned,
during his way back, their heavy additional loss by the capture of
the fort at Plemmyrium. Gylippus returned to Syracuse early in the
spring, nearly about the time when Agis invaded Attica and when
Demosthenês quitted Peiræus. He returned with fresh reinforcements
from the interior, and with redoubled ardor for decisive operations
against Nikias before aid could arrive from Athens. It was his first
care, in conjunction with Hermokratês, to inspire the Syracusans
with courage for fighting the Athenians on shipboard. Such was the
acknowledged superiority of the latter at sea, that this was a task
of some difficulty, calling for all the eloquence and ascendency of
the two leaders: “The Athenians (said Hermokratês to his countrymen)
have not been always eminent at sea as they now are: they were once
landsmen like you, and more than you, they were only forced on
shipboard by the Persian invasion. The only way to deal with bold
men like them, is to show a front bolder still. _They_ have often by
their audacity daunted enemies of greater real force than themselves,
and they must now be taught that others can play the same game with
them. Go right at them before they expect it; and you will gain more
by thus surprising and intimidating them, than you will suffer by
their superior science.” Such lessons, addressed to men already in
the tide of success, were presently efficacious, and a naval attack
was resolved.[424]
[424] Thucyd. vii, 21. Among the topics of encouragement dwelt
upon by Hermokratês, it is remarkable that he makes no mention of
that which the sequel proved to be the most important of all, the
confined space of the harbor, which rendered Athenian ships and
tactics unavailing.
The town of Syracuse had two ports, one on each side of the island
of Ortygia. The lesser port—as it was called afterwards, the Portus
Lakkius—lay northward of Ortygia, between that island and the low
ground or Nekropolis near the outer city: the other lay on the
opposite side of the isthmus of Ortygia within the Great Harbor. Both
of them, it appears, were protected against attack from without,
by piles and stakes planted in the bottom in front of them. But
the lesser port was the more secure of the two, and the principal
docks of the Syracusans were situated within it; the Syracusan
fleet, eighty triremes strong, being distributed between them. The
entire Athenian fleet was stationed under the fort of Plemmyrium,
immediately opposite to the southern point of Ortygia.
Gylippus laid his plan with great ability, so as to take the
Athenians completely by surprise. Having trained and prepared the
naval force as thoroughly as he could, he marched out his land-force
secretly by night, over Epipolæ and round by the right bank of the
Anapus, to the neighborhood of the fort of Plemmyrium. With the first
dawn of morning, the Syracusan fleet sailed out, at one and the same
signal, from both the ports; forty-five triremes out of the lesser
port, thirty-five out of the other. Both squadrons tried to round the
southern point of Ortygia, so as to unite and to attack the enemy at
Plemmyrium in concert. The Athenians, though unprepared and confused,
hastened to man sixty ships; with twenty-five of which, they met the
thirty-five Syracusans sailing forth from the Great Harbor, while
with the other thirty-five they encountered the forty-five from the
lesser port, immediately outside of the mouth of the Great Harbor. In
the former of these two actions the Syracusans were at first victors;
in the second also, the Syracusans from the outside forced their
way into the mouth of the Great Harbor, and joined their comrades.
But being little accustomed to naval warfare, they presently fell
into complete confusion, partly in consequence of their unexpected
success: so that the Athenians, recovering from the first shock,
attacked them anew and completely defeated them; sinking or disabling
eleven ships, of three of which the crews were made prisoners, the
rest being mostly slain.[425] Three Athenian triremes were destroyed
also.
[425] Thucyd. vii, 23; Diod. xiii, 9; Plut. Nikias, c. 20.
But this victory, itself not easily won, was more than
counterbalanced by the irreparable loss of Plemmyrium. During the
first excitement at the Athenian naval station, when the ships were
in course of being manned to meet the unexpected onset from both
ports at once, the garrison of Plemmyrium went to the water’s edge to
watch and encourage their countrymen, leaving their own walls thinly
guarded, and little suspecting the presence of their enemy on the
land side. This was just what Gylippus had anticipated. He attacked
the forts at daybreak, taking the garrison completely by surprise,
and captured them after a feeble resistance; first the greatest
and most important fort, next the two smaller. The garrison sought
safety as they could, on board the transports and vessels of burden
at the station, and rowed across the Great Harbor to the land-camp
of Nikias on the other side. Those who fled from the greater fort,
which was the first taken, ran some risk from the Syracusan triremes,
which were at that moment victorious at sea. But by the time that
the two lesser forts were taken, the Athenian fleet had regained its
superiority, so that there was no danger of similar pursuit in the
crossing of the Great Harbor.
This well-concerted surprise was no less productive to the captors
than fatal as a blow to the Athenians. Not only were many men slain,
and many made prisoners, in the assault, but there were vast stores
of every kind, and even a large stock of money found within the fort;
partly belonging to the military chest, partly the property of the
trierarchs and of private merchants, who had deposited it there as
in the place of greatest security. The sails of not less than forty
triremes were also found there, and three triremes which had been
dragged up ashore. Gylippus caused one of the three forts to be
pulled down, and carefully garrisoned the other two.[426]
[426] Thucyd. vii, 23, 24.
Great as the positive loss was here to the Athenians at a time when
their situation could ill bear it, the collateral damage and peril
growing out of the capture of Plemmyrium was yet more serious,
besides the alarm and discouragement which it spread among the
army. The Syracusans were now masters of the mouth of the harbor on
both sides, so that not a single storeship could enter without a
convoy and a battle. What was of not less detriment, the Athenian
fleet was now forced to take station under the fortified lines of
its own land-force, and was thus cramped up on a small space in the
innermost portion of the Great Harbor, between the city-wall and the
river Anapus; the Syracusans being masters everywhere else, with full
communication between their posts all round, hemming in the Athenian
position both by sea and by land.
To the Syracusans, on the contrary, the result of the recent
battle proved every way encouraging; not merely from the valuable
acquisition of Plemmyrium, but even from the sea-fight itself, which
had indeed turned out to be a defeat, but which promised at first
to be a victory, had they not thrown away the chance by their own
disorder. It removed all superstitious fear of Athenian nautical
superiority; while their position was so much improved by having
acquired the command of the mouth of the harbor, that they began even
to assume the aggressive at sea. They detached a squadron of twelve
triremes to the coast of Italy, for the purpose of intercepting some
merchant vessels coming with a supply of money to the Athenians. So
little fear was there of an enemy at sea, that these vessels seem to
have been coming without convoy, and were for the most part destroyed
by the Syracusans, together with a stock of ship-timber which the
Athenians had collected near Kaulonia. In touching at Lokri, on their
return, they took aboard a company of Thespian hoplites who had made
their way thither in a transport. They were also fortunate enough to
escape the squadron of twenty triremes which Nikias detached to lie
in wait for them near Megara, with the loss of one ship, however,
including her crew.[427]
[427] Thucyd. vii, 25.
One of this Syracusan squadron had gone forward from Italy with
envoys to Peloponnesus, to communicate the favorable news of the
capture of Plemmyrium, and to accelerate as much as possible,
the operations against Attica, in order that no reinforcements
might be sent from thence. At the same time, other envoys went
from Syracuse—not merely Syracusans, but also Corinthians and
Lacedæmonians—to visit the cities in the interior of Sicily. They
made known everywhere the prodigious improvement in Syracusan affairs
arising from the gain of Plemmyrium, as well as the insignificant
character of the recent naval defeat. They strenuously pleaded for
farther aid to Syracuse without delay, since there were now the best
hopes of being able to crush the Athenians in the harbor completely,
before the reinforcements about to be despatched could reach
them.[428]
[428] Thucyd. vii, 25.
While these envoys were absent on their mission, the Great Harbor was
the scene of much desultory conflict, though not of any comprehensive
single battle. Since the loss of Plemmyrium, the Athenian naval
station was in the northwest interior corner of that harbor,
adjoining the fortified lines occupied by their land-army. It was
inclosed and protected by a row of posts or stakes stuck in the
bottom and standing out of the water.[429] The Syracusans on their
side had also planted a stockade in front of the interior port of
Ortygia, to defend their ships, their ship-houses, and their docks
within. As the two stations were not far apart, each party watched
for opportunities of occasional attack or annoyance by missile
weapons to the other; and daily skirmishes of this sort took place,
in which on the whole the Athenians seem to have had the advantage.
They even formed the plan of breaking through the outworks of the
Syracusan dockyard, and burning the ships within. They brought up
a ship of the largest size, with wooden towers and side defences,
against the line of posts fronting the dockyard, and tried to force
the entrance, either by means of divers, who sawed them through at
the bottom, or by boat-crews, who fastened ropes round them and thus
unfixed or plucked them out. All this was done under cover of the
great vessel with its towers manned by light-armed, who exchanged
showers of missiles with the Syracusan bowmen on the top of the
ship-houses, and prevented the latter from coming near enough to
interrupt the operation. The Athenians contrived thus to remove many
of the posts planted, even the most dangerous among them, those which
did not reach to the surface of the water, and which therefore a
ship approaching could not see. But they gained little by it, since
the Syracusans were able to plant others in their room. On the
whole, no serious damage was done, either to the dockyard or to the
ships within. And the state of affairs in the Great Harbor stood
substantially unaltered, during all the time that the envoys were
absent on their Sicilian tour, probably three weeks or a month.[430]
[429] Thucyd. vii, 38.
[430] Thucyd. vii, 25.
These envoys had found themselves almost everywhere well received.
The prospects of Syracuse were now so triumphant, and those of Nikias
with his present force so utterly hopeless, that the waverers thought
it time to declare themselves; and all the Greek cities in Sicily,
except Agrigentum, which still remained neutral (and of course
except Naxos and Katana), resolved on aiding the winning cause.
From Kamarina came five hundred hoplites, four hundred darters,
and three hundred bowmen; from Gela, five triremes, four hundred
darters, and two hundred horsemen. Besides these, an additional force
from the other cities was collected, to march to Syracuse in a body
across the interior of the island, under the conduct of the envoys
themselves. But this part of the scheme was frustrated by Nikias,
who was rendered more vigilant by the present desperate condition
of his affairs, than he had been in reference to the cross march of
Gylippus. At his instance, the Sikel tribes Kentoripes and Halikyæi,
allies of Athens, were prevailed upon to attack the approaching
enemy. They planned a skilful ambuscade, set upon them unawares, and
dispersed them with the loss of eight hundred men. All the envoys
were also slain, except the Corinthian, who conducted the remaining
force, about fifteen hundred in number, to Syracuse.[431]
[431] Thucyd. vii, 32, 33.
This reverse—which seems to have happened about the time when
Demosthenês with his armament were at Korkyra, on the way to
Syracuse—so greatly dismayed and mortified the Syracusans, that
Gylippus thought it advisable to postpone awhile the attack which he
intended to have made immediately on the reinforcement arriving.[432]
The delay of these few days proved nothing less than the salvation of
the Athenian army.
[432] Thucyd. vii, 33.
It was not until Demosthenês was approaching Rhegium within two or
three days’ sail of Syracuse, that the attack was determined on
without farther delay. Preparation in every way had been made for
it long before, especially for the most effective employment of the
naval force. The captains and ship-masters of Syracuse and Corinth
had now become fully aware of the superiority of Athenian nautical
manœuvre, and of the causes upon which that superiority depended.
The Athenian trireme was of a build comparatively light, fit for
rapid motion through the water, and for easy change of direction:
its prow was narrow, armed with a sharp projecting beak at the end,
but hollow and thin, not calculated to force its way through very
strong resistance. It was never intended to meet, in direct impact
and collision, the prow of an enemy: such a proceeding passed among
the able seamen of Athens for gross awkwardness. In advancing against
an enemy’s vessel, they evaded the direct shock, steered so as to
pass by it, then, by the excellence and exactness of their rowing,
turned swiftly round, altered their direction and came back before
the enemy could alter his: or perhaps rowed rapidly round him, or
backed their ship stern foremost, until the opportunity was found
for driving the beak of their ship against some weak part of his,
against the midships, the quarter, the stern, or the oarblades
without. In such manœuvres the Athenians were unrivalled: but none
such could be performed unless there were ample sea-room, which
rendered their present naval station the most disadvantageous that
could be imagined. They were cooped up in the inmost part of a
harbor of small dimensions, close on the station of their enemies,
and with all the shore, except their own lines, in possession of
those enemies: so that they could not pull round from want of space,
nor could they back water, because they durst not come near shore.
In this contracted area, the only mode of fighting possible was by
straightforward collision, prow against prow; a process which not
only shut out all their superior manœuvring, but was unsuited to the
build of their triremes. On the other hand, the Syracusans, under
the advice of the able Corinthian steersman Aristo, altered the
construction of their triremes to meet the special exigency of the
case, disregarding all idea of what had been generally looked upon
as good nautical manœuvring.[433] Instead of the long, thin, hollow,
and sharp, advancing beak, striking the enemy considerably above
the water-level, and therefore doing less damage, they shortened
the prow, but made it excessively heavy and solid, and lowered the
elevation of the projecting beak: so that it became not so much
calculated to pierce, as to break in and crush by main force all the
opposing part of the enemy’s ship, not far above the water. What
were called the epôtids, “ear-caps,” or nozzles, projecting forwards
to the right and left of the beak, were made peculiarly thick, and
sustained by under-beams let in to the hull of the ship. In the Attic
build, the beak stood forward very prominent, and the epôtids on
each side of it were kept back, serving the same purpose as what are
called catheads, in modern ships, to which the anchors are suspended:
but in the Corinthian build, the beak projected less, and the epôtids
more, so that they served to strike the enemy: instead of having
one single beak, the Corinthian ship might be said to have three
nozzles.[434] The Syracusans relied on the narrowness of the space,
for shutting out the Athenian evolutions, and bringing the contest to
nothing more than a straightforward collision; in which the weaker
vessel would be broken and stove in at the prow, and thus rendered
unmanageable.
[433] Thucyd. vii, 36. τῇ δὲ πρότερον ἀμαθίᾳ τῶν κυβερνητῶν
δοκούσῃ εἶναι, τὸ ἀντίπρωρον ξυγκροῦσαι, μάλιστ’ ἂν αὐτοὶ
χρήσασθαι· πλεῖστον γὰρ ἐν αὐτῷ σχήσειν, etc.
Diodor. xiii, 10.
[434] Compare Thucyd. vii, 34-30; Diodor. xiii. 10; Eurip. Iph.
Taur. 1335. See also the notes of Arnold, Poppo, and Didot, on
the passages of Thucydidês.
It appears as if the ἀντηρίδες or sustaining beams were something
new, now provided for the first time, in order to strengthen the
epôtid and render it fit to drive in collision against the enemy.
The words which Thucydidês employs to describe the position of
these ἀντηρίδες, are to me very obscure, nor do I think that any
of the commentators clear them up satisfactorily.
It is Diodorus who specifies that the Corinthians lowered the
level of their prows, so as to strike nearer to the water, which
Thucydidês does not mention.
A captive ship, when towed in as a prize, was disarmed by being
deprived of her beak (Athenæus, xii, p. 535). Lysander reserved
the beaks of the Athenian triremes captured at Ægospotami to
grace his triumphal return (Xenoph. Hellen. ii. 3, 8).
Having completed these arrangements, their land-force was marched
out under Gylippus to threaten one side of the Athenian lines, while
the cavalry and the garrison of the Olympieion marched up to the
other side. The Athenians were putting themselves in position to
defend their walls from what seemed to be a land attack, when they
saw the Syracusan fleet, eighty triremes strong, sailing out from
its dock prepared for action: upon which they too, though at first
confused by this unexpected appearance, put their crews on shipboard,
and went out of their palisaded station, seventy-five triremes in
number, to meet the enemy. The whole day passed off, however, in
desultory and indecisive skirmish, with trifling advantage to the
Syracusans, who disabled one or two Athenian ships, yet merely tried
to invite the Athenians to attack, without choosing themselves to
force on a close and general action.[435]
[435] Thucyd. vii, 37, 38.
It was competent to the Athenians to avoid altogether a naval action,
at least until the necessity arose for escorting fresh supplies into
the harbor, by keeping within their station; and as Demosthenês
was now at hand, prudence counselled this reserve. Nikias himself,
too, is said to have deprecated immediate fighting, but to have
been outvoted by his two newly-appointed colleagues Menander and
Euthydemus, who were anxious to show what they could do without
Demosthenês, and took their stand upon Athenian maritime honor, which
peremptorily forbade them to shrink from the battle when offered.[436]
[436] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 20. Diodorus (xiii, 10) represents the
battle as having been brought on against the wish and intention
of the Athenians generally, not alluding to any difference of
opinion among the commanders.
Though on the next day the Syracusans made no movement, yet Nikias
foreseeing that they would speedily recommence, and noway encouraged
by the equal manifestations of the preceding day, caused every
trierarch to repair what damage his ship had sustained, and even
took the precaution of farther securing his naval station by mooring
merchant-vessels just alongside of the openings in the palisade,
about two hundred feet apart. The prows of these vessels were
provided with dolphins, or beams lifted up on high and armed at
the end with massive heads of iron, which could be so let fall as
to crush any ship entering:[437] any Athenian trireme which might
be hard-pressed, would thus be enabled to get through this opening
where no enemy could follow, and choose her own time for sailing out
again. Before night these arrangements were completed, and at the
earliest dawn of next day, the Syracusans reappeared, with the same
demonstrations both of land force and naval force as before. The
Athenian fleet having gone forth to meet them, several hours were
spent in the like indecisive and partial skirmishes, until at length
the Syracusan fleet sailed back to the city again without bringing
on any general or close combat. The Athenians, construing this
retirement of the enemy as evidence of backwardness and unwillingness
to fight,[438] and supposing the day’s duty at an end, retired on
their side within their own station, disembarked, and separated to
get their dinners at leisure, having tasted no food that day.
[437] Thucyd. vii, 41. αἱ κεραῖαι δελφινοφόροι: compare Pollux,
i, 85, and Fragment vi, of the comedy of the poet Pherekratês,
entitled Ἄγριοι; Meineke, Fragm. Comic. Græc. vol. ii, p. 258,
and the Scholiast. ad Aristoph. Equit. 759.
[438] Thucyd. vii, 40. Οἱ δ’ Ἀθηναῖοι, νομίσαντες αὐτοὺς ὡς
ἡσσημένους σφῶν πρὸς τὴν πόλιν ἀνακρούσασθαι, etc.
But ere they had been long ashore, they were astonished to see the
Syracusan fleet sailing back to renew the attack, in full battle
order. This was a manœuvre suggested by the Corinthian Aristo, the
ablest steersman in the fleet; at whose instance, the Syracusan
admirals had sent back an urgent request to the city authorities,
that an abundant stock of provisions might for that day be brought
down to the sea-shore, and sale be rendered compulsory; so that no
time should be lost, when the fleet returned thither, in taking a
hasty meal without dispersion of the crews. Accordingly the fleet,
after a short but sufficient interval allowed for refreshment thus
close at hand, was brought back unexpectedly to the enemy’s station.
Confounded at the sight, the Athenian crews forced themselves again
on board, most of them yet without refreshment, and in the midst
of murmurs and disorder.[439] On sailing out of their station, the
indecisive skirmishing again commenced, and continued for some
time, until at length the Athenian captains became so impatient
of prolonged and exhausting fatigue, that they resolved to begin
of themselves, and make the action close as well as general.
Accordingly, the word of command was given, and they rowed forward
to make the attack, which was cheerfully received by the Syracusans.
By receiving the attack instead of making it, the latter were better
enabled to insure a straightforward collision of prow against prow,
excluding all circuit, backing, or evolutions, on the part of the
enemy: at any rate, their steersmen contrived to realize this plan,
and to crush, stave in, or damage, the forepart of many of the
Athenian triremes, simply by superior weight of material and solidity
on their own side. The Syracusan darters on the deck, moreover, as
soon as the combat became close, were both numerous and destructive;
while their little boats rowed immediately under the sides of the
Athenian triremes, broke the blades of their oars, and shot darts
in through the oar-holes, against the rowers within. At length
the Athenians, after sustaining the combat bravely for some time,
found themselves at such disadvantage, that they were compelled to
give way and to seek shelter within their own station. The armed
merchant-vessels which Nikias had planted before the openings in
the palisade were now found of great use in checking the pursuing
Syracusans; two of whose triremes, in the excitement of victory,
pushed forward too near to them and were disabled by the heavy
implements on board, one of them being captured with all her crew.
The general victory of the Syracusans, however, was complete: seven
Athenian triremes were sunk or disabled, many others were seriously
damaged, and numbers of seamen either slain or made prisoners.[440]
[439] Thucyd. vii, 40.
[440] Thucyd. vii, 41.
Overjoyed with the result of this battle, which seems to have been
no less skilfully planned than bravely executed, the Syracusans now
felt confident of their superiority by sea as well as on land, and
contemplated nothing less than the complete destruction of their
enemies in the harbor. The generals were already concerting measures
for renewed attack both by land and by sea, and a week or two more
would probably have seen the ruin of this once triumphant besieging
armament, now full of nothing but discouragement. The mere stoppage
of supplies, in fact, as the Syracusans were masters of the mouth
of the harbor, would be sure to starve it out in no long time, if
they maintained their superiority at sea. All their calculations
were suspended, however, and the hopes of the Athenians for the time
revived, by the entry of Demosthenês and Eurymedon with the second
armament into the Great Harbor; which seems to have taken place on
the very day, or on the second day, after the recent battle.[441] So
important were the consequences which turned upon that postponement
of the Syracusan attack, occasioned by the recent defeat of their
reinforcing army from the interior. So little did either party think,
at that moment, that it would have been a mitigation of calamity to
Athens, if Demosthenês had _not_ arrived in time; if the ruin of the
first armament had been actually consummated before the coming of the
second!
[441] Thucyd. vii, 42.
Demosthenês, after obtaining the required reinforcements at Korkyra,
had crossed the Ionian sea to the islands called Chœrades on the
coast of Iapygia; where he took aboard a band of one hundred and
fifty Messapian darters, through the friendly aid of the native
prince Artas, with whom an ancient alliance was renewed. Passing on
farther to Metapontum, already in alliance with Athens, he was there
reinforced with two triremes and three hundred darters, with which
addition he sailed on to Thurii. Here he found himself cordially
welcomed; for the philo-Athenian party was in full ascendency,
having recently got the better in a vehement dissension, and passed
a sentence of banishment against their opponents.[442] They not only
took a formal resolution to acknowledge the same friends and the same
enemies as the Athenians, but equipped a regiment of seven hundred
hoplites and three hundred darters to accompany Demosthenês, who
remained there long enough to pass his troops in review and verify
the completeness of each division. After having held this review on
the banks of the river Sybaris, he marched his troops by land through
the Thurian territory to the banks of the river Hylias which divided
it from Kroton. He was here met by Krotoniate envoys, who forbade the
access to their territory: upon which he marched down the river to
the sea-shore, got on shipboard, and pursued his voyage southward
along the coast of Italy, touching at the various towns, all except
the hostile Lokri.[443]
[442] Thucyd. vii, 33-57.
[443] Thucyd. vii, 35.
His entry into the harbor of Syracuse,[444] accomplished in the most
ostentatious trim, with decorations and musical accompaniments,
was no less imposing from the magnitude of his force than critical
in respect to opportunity. Taking Athenians, allies, and mercenary
forces, together, he conducted seventy-three triremes, five
thousand hoplites, and a large number of light troops of every
description,—archers, slingers, darters, etc., with other requisites
for effective operation. At the sight of such an armament, not
inferior to the first which had arrived under Nikias, the Syracusans
lost for a moment the confidence of their recent triumph, and were
struck with dismay as well as wonder.[445] That Athens could be rash
enough to spare such an armament, at a moment when the full burst of
Peloponnesian hostility was reopening upon her, and when Dekeleia
was in course of being fortified, was a fact out of all reasonable
probability, and not to be credited unless actually seen. And
probably the Syracusans, though they knew that Demosthenês was on his
way, had no idea beforehand of the magnitude of his armament.
[444] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 21.
[445] Thucyd. vii, 42.
On the other hand, the hearts of the discomfited and beleaguered
Athenians again revived as they welcomed their new comrades. They
saw themselves again masters by land as well as by sea; and they
displayed their renewed superiority by marching out of their lines
forthwith and ravaging the lands near the Anapus; the Syracusans not
venturing to engage in a general action, and merely watching the
movement with some cavalry from the Olympieion.
But Demosthenês was not imposed upon by this delusive show of power,
so soon as he had made himself master of the full state of affairs,
and had compared his own means with those of the enemy. He found the
army of Nikias not merely worn down with long-continued toil, and
disheartened by previous defeat, but also weakened in a terrible
degree by the marsh fever general towards the close of summer, in the
low ground where they were encamped.[446]
[446] Thucyd. vii, 47-50.
He saw that the Syracusans were strong in multiplied allies, extended
fortifications, a leader of great ability, and general belief that
theirs was the winning cause. Moreover, he felt deeply the position
of Athens at home, and her need of all her citizens against enemies
within sight of her own walls. But above all, he came penetrated with
the deplorable effects which had resulted from the mistake of Nikias,
in wasting irreparably so much precious time, and frittering away the
first terror-striking impression of his splendid armament. All these
considerations determined Demosthenês to act, without a moment’s
delay and while the impression produced by his arrival was yet
unimpaired, and to aim one great and decisive blow, such as might,
if successful, make the conquest of Syracuse again probable. If this
should fail, he resolved to abandon the whole enterprise, and return
home with his armament forthwith.[447]
[447] Thucyd. vii, 42.
By means of the Athenian lines, he had possession of the southernmost
portion of the slope of Epipolæ. But all along that slope from east
to west, immediately in front or to the north of his position,
stretched the counter-wall built by the Syracusans; beginning at
the city wall on the lowest ground, and reaching up first in a
northwesterly, next in a westerly direction, until it joined the fort
on the upper ground near the cliff, where the road from Euryalus
down to Syracuse passed. The Syracusans, as defenders, were on the
north side of this counter-wall; he and the Athenians on the south
side. It was a complete bar to his progress, nor could he stir a step
without making himself master of it: towards which end there were
only two possible means,—either to storm it in front, or to turn it
from its western extremity by marching round up to the Euryalus.
He began by trying the first method; but the wall was abundantly
manned and vigorously defended; his battering machines were all burnt
or disqualified, and every attempt which he made was completely
repulsed.[448] There then remained only the second method, to turn
the wall, ascending by circuitous roads to the heights of Euryalus
behind it, and then attacking the fort in which it terminated.
[448] Thucyd. vii, 43.
But the march necessary for this purpose, first, up the valley of
the Anapus, visible from the Syracusan posts above; next, ascending
to the Euryalus by a narrow and winding path, was so difficult,
that even Demosthenês, naturally sanguine, despaired of being able
to force his way up in the daylight, against an enemy seeing the
attack. He was therefore constrained to attempt a night-surprise, for
which, Nikias and his other colleagues consenting, he accordingly
made preparations on the largest and most effective scale. He took
the command himself, along with Menander and Eurymedon (Nikias being
left to command within the lines),[449] conducting hoplites and light
troops, together with masons and carpenters, and all other matters
necessary for establishing a fortified post; lastly, giving orders
that every man should carry with him provisions for five days.
[449] Thucyd. vii, 43. Diodorus tells us that Demosthenês took
with him ten thousand hoplites, and ten thousand light troops,
numbers which are not at all to be trusted (xiii, 11).
Plutarch (Nikias, c. 21) says that Nikias was extremely averse to
the attack on Epipolæ: Thucydidês notices nothing of the kind,
and the assertion seems improbable.
Fortune so far favored him, that not only all these preliminary
arrangements, but even his march itself, was accomplished without
any suspicion of the enemy. At the beginning of a moonlight night,
he quitted the lines, moved along the low ground on the left
bank of the Anapus and parallel to that river for a considerable
distance, then following various roads to the right, arrived at
the Euryalus, or highest pitch of Epipolæ, where he found himself
in the same track by which the Athenians in coming from Katana a
year and a half before—and Gylippus in coming from the interior
of the island about ten months before—had passed, in order to get
to the slope of Epipolæ above Syracuse. He reached, without being
discovered, the extreme Syracusan fort on the high ground, assailed
it completely by surprise, and captured it after a feeble resistance.
Some of the garrison within it were slain; but the greater part
escaped, and ran to give the alarm to the three fortified camps of
Syracusans and allies, which were placed one below another behind
the long continuous wall,[450] on the declivity of Epipolæ, as well
as to a chosen regiment of six hundred Syracusan hoplites under
Hermokratês,[451] who formed a night-watch, or bivouac. This regiment
hastened up to the rescue, but Demosthenês and the Athenian vanguard
charging impetuously forward, drove them back in disorder upon the
fortified positions in their rear. Even Gylippus and the Syracusan
troops advancing upwards out of these positions, were at first
carried back by the same retreating movement.
[450] Thucyd. vii, 42, 43. Καὶ (Demosthenês) ὁρῶν τὸ παρατείχισμα
τῶν Συρακοσίων, ᾧ ἐκώλυσαν περιτειχίσαι σφᾶς τοὺς Ἀθηναίους,
ἁπλοῦν τε ὂν, καί εἰ ἐπικρατήσειέ τις τῶν τε Ἐπιπολῶν τῆς ἀναβάσεως,
καὶ αὖθις τοῦ ἐν αὐταῖς στρατοπέδου, ῥᾳδίως ἂν αὐτὸ ληφθέν (οὐδὲ
γὰρ ὑπομεῖναι ἂν σφᾶς οὐδένα) ἠπείγετο ἐπιθέσθαι τῇ πείρᾳ.
vii, 43. καὶ ἡμέρας μὲν ἀδύνατα ἐδόκει εἶναι λαθεῖν προσελθόντας
καὶ ἀναβάντας, etc.
Dr. Arnold and Göller both interpret this description of
Thucydidês (see their notes on this chapter, and Dr. Arnold’s
Appendix, p. 275) as if Nikias, immediately that the Syracusan
counter-wall had crossed his blockading line, had evacuated his
circle and works on the slope of Epipolæ, and had retired down
exclusively into the lower ground below. Dr. Thirlwall too is of
the same opinion (Hist. Gr. vol. iii, ch. xxvi, pp. 432-434).
This appears to me unauthorized and incorrect. What conceivable
motive can be assigned to induce Nikias to yield up to the enemy
so important an advantage? If he had once relinquished the slope
of Epipolæ, to occupy exclusively the marsh beneath the southern
cliff, Gylippus and the Syracusans would have taken good care
that he should never again have mounted that cliff; nor could
he ever have got near to the παρατείχισμα. The moment when the
Athenians did at last abandon their fortifications on the slope
of Epipolæ (τὰ ἀνω τείχη) is specially marked by Thucydidês
afterwards, vii, 60: it was at the last moment of desperation,
when the service of all was needed for the final maritime battle
in the Great Harbor. Dr. Arnold (p. 275) misinterprets this
passage, in my judgment, evading the direct sense of it.
The words of Thucydidês, vii, 42—εἰ ἐπικρατήσειέ τις τῶν τε
Ἐπιπολῶν τῆς ἀναβάσεως, καὶ αὖθις τοῦ ἐν αὐταῖς στρατοπέδου—are
more correctly conceived by M. Firmin Didot, in the note to
his translation, than by Arnold and Göller. The στρατόπεδον
here indicated does _not_ mean the Athenian circle, and their
partially completed line of circumvallation on the slope of
Epipolæ. It means the ground higher up than this, which they
had partially occupied at first while building the fort of
Labdalum, and of which they had been substantially masters until
the arrival of Gylippus who had now converted it into a camp or
στρατόπεδον of the Syracusans.
[451] Diodor. xiii, 11.
So far the enterprise of Demosthenês had been successful beyond
all reasonable hope. He was master not only of the outer fort
of the Syracusan position, but also of the extremity of their
counter-wall which rested upon that fort; the counter-wall was no
longer defensible, now that he had got on the north or Syracusan
side of it, so that the men on the parapet, where it joined the
fort, made no resistance, and fled. Some of the Athenians even
began to tear down the parapets, and demolish this part of the
counter-wall, an operation of extreme importance, since it would
have opened to Demosthenês a communication with the southern side
of the counter-wall, leading directly towards the Athenian lines
on Epipolæ. At any rate, his plan of turning the counter-wall was
already carried, if he could only have maintained himself in his
actual position, even without advancing farther, and if he could
have demolished two or three hundred yards of the upper extremity
of the wall now in his power. Whether it would have been possible
for him to maintain himself without farther advance, until day
broke, and thus avoid the unknown perils of a night-battle, we
cannot say. But both he and his men, too much flushed with success
to think of halting, hastened forward to complete their victory,
and to prevent the disordered Syracusans from again recovering a
firm array. Unfortunately, however, their ardor of pursuit—as it
constantly happened with Grecian hoplites—disturbed the regularity
of their own ranks, so that they were not in condition to stand the
shock of the Bœotian hoplites, just emerged from their position, and
marching up in steady and excellent order to the scene of action.
The Bœotians charged them, and after a short resistance, broke them
completely, forcing them to take flight. The fugitives of the van
were thus driven back upon their own comrades advancing from behind,
still under the impression of success, ignorant of what had passed
in front, and themselves urged on by the fresh troops closing up in
their rear.
In this manner the whole army presently became one scene of clamor
and confusion wherein there was neither command nor obedience,
nor could any one discern what was passing. The light of the moon
rendered objects and figures generally visible, without being
sufficient to discriminate friend from foe. The beaten Athenians,
thrown back upon their comrades, were in many cases mistaken for
enemies, and slain. The Syracusans and Bœotians, shouting aloud and
pursuing their advantage, became intermingled with the foremost
Athenians, and both armies thus grouped into knots which only
distinguished each other by mutual demand of the watchword. This
test also soon failed, since each party got acquainted with the
watchword of the other, especially that of the Athenians, among whom
the confusion was the greatest, became well known to the Syracusans,
who kept together in larger parties. Above all, the effect of the
pæan or war-shout on both sides was remarkable. The Dorians in the
Athenian army—from Argos, Korkyra, and other places—raised a pæan not
distinguishable from that of the Syracusans; accordingly, their shout
struck terror into the Athenians themselves, who fancied that they
had enemies in their own rear and centre. Such disorder and panic
presently ended in a general flight. The Athenians hurried back by
the same roads which they had ascended; but these roads were found
too narrow for terrified fugitives, and many of them threw away their
arms in order to scramble or jump down the cliffs, in which most of
them perished. Even of those who safely effected their descent into
the plain below, many—especially the new-comers belonging to the
armament of Demosthenês—lost their way through ignorance, and were
cut off the next day by the Syracusan horse. With terrible loss of
numbers, and broken spirit, the Athenians at length found shelter
within their own lines. Their loss of arms was even greater than
that of men, from the throwing away of shields by those soldiers who
leaped the cliff.[452]
[452] Thucyd. vii, 44, 45.
The overjoyed Syracusans erected two trophies, one upon the road
to Epipolæ, the other upon the exact and critical spot where the
Bœotians had first withstood and first repelled the enemy. By this
unexpected and overwhelming victory, their feelings were restored
to the same pitch of confidence which had animated them before the
arrival of Demosthenês. Again now masters of the field, they again
indulged the hope of storming the Athenian lines and destroying
the armament; to which end, however, it was thought necessary to
obtain additional reinforcements, and Gylippus went in person with
this commission to the various cities of Sicily, while Sikanus with
fifteen triremes was despatched to Agrigentum, then understood to be
wavering, and in a political crisis.[453]
[453] Thucyd. vii, 46. Plutarch (Nikias, c. 21) states that
the number of slain was two thousand. Diodorus gives it at two
thousand five hundred (xiii, 11). Thucydidês does not state it at
all.
These two authors probably both copied from some common
authority, not Thucydidês; perhaps Philistus.
During this absence of Gylippus, the Athenian generals were left to
mourn the recent reverse, and to discuss the exigencies of their
untoward position. The whole armament was now full of discouragement
and weariness; impatient to escape from a scene where fever daily
thinned their numbers, and where they seemed destined to nothing but
dishonor. Such painful evidences of increasing disorganization only
made Demosthenês more strenuous in enforcing the resolution which
he had taken before the attack on Epipolæ. He had done his best to
strike one decisive blow; the chances of war had turned out against
him, and inflicted a humiliating defeat; he now therefore insisted
on relinquishing the whole enterprise and returning home forthwith.
The season was yet favorable for the voyage (it seems to have been
the beginning of August), while the triremes recently brought, as
yet unused, rendered them masters at sea for the present. It was
idle, he added, to waste more time and money in staying to carry
on war against Syracuse, which they could not now hope to subdue,
especially when Athens had so much need of them all at home, against
the garrison of Dekeleia.[454]
[454] Thucyd. vi, 47.
This proposition, though espoused and seconded by Eurymedon, was
peremptorily opposed by Nikias; who contended, first, that their
present distress and the unpromising chances for the future, though
he admitted the full reality of both, ought not nevertheless to
be publicly proclaimed. A formal resolution to retire, passed in
the presence of so many persons, would inevitably become known to
the enemy, and therefore could never be executed with silence and
secrecy,[455] as such a resolution ought to be. But farthermore, he
(Nikias) took a decided objection to the resolution itself. He would
never consent to carry back the armament, without specific authority
from home to do so. Sure he was, that the Athenian people would never
tolerate such a proceeding. When submitted to the public assembly at
home, the conduct of the generals would be judged, not by persons
who had been at Syracuse and cognizant of the actual facts, but by
hearers who would learn all that they knew from the artful speeches
of criminative orators. Even the citizens actually serving, though
now loud in cries of suffering, and impatient to get home, would
alter their tone when they were safe in the public assembly; and
would turn round to denounce their generals as having been bribed to
bring away the army. Speaking his own personal feelings, he knew too
well the tempers of his countrymen to expose himself to the danger
of thus perishing under a charge alike unmerited and disgraceful.
Sooner would he incur any extremity of risk from the enemy.[456] It
must be recollected too, he added, that if _their_ affairs were now
bad, those of Syracuse were as bad, and even worse. For more than a
year, the war had been imposing upon the Syracusans a ruinous cost,
in subsistence for foreign allies as well as in keeping up outlying
posts; so that they had already spent two thousand talents, besides
heavy debts contracted and not paid. They could not continue in
this course longer; yet the suspension of their payments would at
once alienate their allies, and leave them helpless. The cost of
the war—to which Demosthenês had alluded as a reason for returning
home—could be much better borne by Athens; while a little farther
pressure would utterly break down the Syracusans. He (Nikias)
therefore advised to remain where they were and continue the
siege;[457] the more so, as their fleet had now become unquestionably
the superior.
[455] Thucyd. vii, 48. Ὁ δὲ Νικίας ἐνόμιζε μὲν καὶ αὐτὸς πονηρὰ
σφῶν τὰ πράγματα εἶναι, τῷ δὲ λόγῳ οὐκ ἐβούλετο αὐτὰ ἀσθενῆ
ἀποδεικνύναι, οὐδ’ ~ἐμφανῶς~ σφᾶς ψηφιζομένους ~μετὰ πολλῶν~ τὴν
ἀναχώρησιν τοῖς πολεμίοις καταγγέλτους γίγνεσθαι· λαθεῖν γὰρ ἂν,
ὁπότε βούλοιντο, τοῦτο ποιοῦντες πολλῷ ἧττον.
It seems probable that some of the taxiarchs and trierarchs
were present at this deliberation, as we find in another case
afterwards, c. 60. Possibly, Demosthenês might even desire that
they _should_ be present, as witnesses respecting the feeling of
the army; and also as supporters, if the matter came afterwards
to be debated in the public assembly at Athens. It is to this
fact that the words ἐμφανῶς μετὰ πολλῶν seem to allude.
[456] Thucyd. vii, 48. Οὐκοῦν βούλεσθαι αὐτός γε, ἐπιστάμενος
τὰς Ἀθηναίων φύσεις, ἐπὶ αἰσχρᾷ γε αἰτίᾳ καὶ ἀδίκως ὑπ’ Ἀθηναίων
ἀπολέσθαι, μᾶλλον ἢ ὑπὸ τῶν πολεμίων, εἰ δεῖ, κινδυνεύσας τοῦτο
παθεῖν, ~ἰδίᾳ~.
The situation of the last word ἰδίᾳ in this sentence is
perplexing, because it can hardly be construed except either with
ἀπολέσθαι or with αὐτός γε: for Nikias could not run any risk of
perishing _separately_ by the hands of the enemy, unless we are
to ascribe to him an absurd rhodomontade quite foreign to his
character. Compare Plutarch Nikias, c. 22.
[457] Thucyd. vii, 48. τρίβειν οὖν ἔφη χρῆναι προσκαθημένους, etc.
Both Demosthenês and Eurymedon protested in the strongest language
against the proposition of Nikias. Especially they treated the plan
of remaining in the Great Harbor as fraught with ruin, and insisted,
at the very least, on quitting this position without a moment’s
delay. Even admitting, for argument, the scruples of Nikias against
abandoning the Syracusan war without formal authority from home,
they still urged an immediate transfer of their camp from the Great
Harbor to Thapsus or Katana. At either of these stations they could
prosecute operations against Syracuse, with all the advantage of a
wider range of country for supplies, a healthier spot, and above
all, of an open sea, which was absolutely indispensable to the naval
tactics of Athenians; escaping from that narrow basin which condemned
them to inferiority even on their own proper element. At all events
to remove, and remove forthwith, out of the Great Harbor, such was
the pressing requisition of Demosthenês and Eurymedon.[458]
[458] Thucyd. vii, 49. Ὁ δὲ Δημοσθένης περὶ μὲν τοῦ ~προσκαθῆσθαι
οὐδ’ ὁπωσοῦν ἐνεδέχετο~—τὸ δὲ ξύμπαν εἰπεῖν, ~οὐδενὶ τρόπῳ οἱ ἔφη
ἀρέσκειν ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ ἔτι μένειν~, ἀλλ’ ~ὅτι τάχιστα ἤδη καὶ μὴ
μέλλειν ἐξανίστασθαι~. Καὶ ὁ Εὐρυμέδων αὐτῷ ταῦτα ξυνηγόρευεν.
But even to the modified motion of transferring the actual position
to Thapsus or Katana, Nikias refused to consent. He insisted
on remaining as they were; and it appears that Menander and
Euthydemus[459]—colleagues named by the assembly at home, before
the departure of the second armament—must have voted under the
influence of his authority; whereby the majority became on his side.
Nothing less than being in a minority, probably, would have induced
Demosthenês and Eurymedon to submit, on a point of such transcendent
importance.
[459] Thucyd. vii, 69; Diodor. xiii, 12.
It was thus that the Athenian armament remained without quitting the
harbor, yet apparently quite inactive, during a period which cannot
have been less than between three weeks and a month, until Gylippus
returned to Syracuse with fresh reinforcements. Throughout the army,
hope of success appears to have vanished, while anxiety for return
had become general. The opinions of Demosthenês and Eurymedon were
doubtless well known, and orders for retreat were expected, but never
came. Nikias obstinately refused to give them, during the whole of
this fatal interval; which plunged the army into the abyss of ruin,
instead of mere failure in their aggressive enterprise.
So unaccountable did such obstinacy appear, that many persons
gave Nikias credit for knowing more than he chose to reveal. Even
Thucydidês thinks that he was misled by that party in Syracuse with
whom he had always kept up a secret correspondence, seemingly apart
from his colleagues, and who still urged him, by special messages,
not to go away; assuring him that Syracuse could not possibly go on
longer. Without fully trusting these intimations, he could not bring
himself to act against them; and he therefore hung back from day to
day, and refused to pronounce the decisive word.[460]
[460] Thucyd. vii, 48. ~Ἃ ἐπιστάμενος, τῷ μὲν ἔργῳ ἔτι ἐπ’
ἀμφότερα ἔχων καὶ διασκοπῶν ἀνεῖχε, τῷ δ’ ἐμφανεῖ τότε λόγῳ οὐκ
ἔφη ἀπάξειν τὴν στρατιάν.~
The insignificance of the party in Syracuse which corresponded
with Nikias may be reasonably inferred from Thucyd. vii, 55. It
consisted in part of those Leontines who had been incorporated
into the Syracusan citizenship (Diodor. xiii, 18).
Polyænus (i, 43, 1) has a tale respecting a revolt of the slaves
or villeins (οἰκέται) at Syracuse during the Athenian siege,
under a leader named Sosikratês, a revolt suppressed by the
stratagem of Hermokratês. That various attempts of this sort
took place at Syracuse during these two trying years, is by no
means improbable. In fact, it is difficult to understand how
the numerous predial slaves were kept in order during the great
pressure and danger, prior to the coming of Gylippus.
Nothing throughout the whole career of Nikias is so inexplicable as
his guilty fatuity—for we can call it by no lighter name, seeing that
it involved all the brave men around him in one common ruin with
himself—at the present critical juncture. How can we suppose him
to have really believed that the Syracusans, now in the flood-tide
of success, and when Gylippus was gone forth to procure additional
forces, would break down and be unable to carry on the war? Childish
as such credulity seems, we are nevertheless compelled to admit it
as real, to such an extent as to counterbalance all the pressing
motives for departure, motives enforced by discerning colleagues as
well as by the complaints of the army, and brought home to his own
observation by the experience of the late naval defeat. At any rate,
it served as an excuse for that fatal weakness of his character which
made him incapable of taking resolutions founded on prospective
calculations, and chained him to his actual position until he was
driven to act by imminent necessity.
But we discern on the present occasion another motive, which counts
for much in dictating his hesitation. The other generals think with
satisfaction of going back to their country and rescuing the force
which yet remained, even under circumstances of disappointment
and failure. Not so Nikias: he knows too well the reception which
he had deserved, and which might possibly be in store for him.
Avowedly, indeed, he anticipates reproach from the Athenians against
the generals, but only unmerited reproach, on the special ground
of bringing away the army without orders from home; adding some
harsh criticisms upon the injustice of the popular judgment and
the perfidy of his own soldiers. But in the first place, we may
remark, that Demosthenês and Eurymedon, though as much responsible
as he was for this decision, had no such fear of popular injustice;
or, if they had, saw clearly that the obligation of braving it was
here imperative. And in the next place, no man ever had so little
reason to complain of the popular judgment as Nikias. The mistakes
of the people in regard to him had always been those of indulgence,
over-esteem, and over-constancy. But Nikias foresaw too well that
he would have more to answer for at Athens than the simple fact
of sanctioning retreat under existing circumstances. He could
not but remember the pride and sanguine hopes under which he had
originally conducted the expedition out of Peiræus, contrasted with
the miserable sequel and ignominious close, even if the account had
been now closed, without worse. He could not but be conscious, more
or less, how much of all this was owing to his own misjudgment; and
under such impressions, the idea of meeting the free criticisms and
scrutiny of his fellow-citizens—even putting aside the chance of
judicial trial—must have been insupportably humiliating. To Nikias,—a
perfectly brave man, and suffering withal under an incurable
disease,—life at Athens had neither charm nor honor left. Hence, as
much as from any other reason, he was induced to withhold the order
for departure; clinging to the hope that some unforeseen boon of
fortune might yet turn up, and yielding to the idlest delusions from
correspondents in the interior of Syracuse.[461]
[461] Thucyd. vii, 49. Ἀντιλέγοντος δὲ τοῦ Νικίου, ὄκνος τις
καὶ μέλλησις ἐνεγένετο, καὶ ἅμα ὑπόνοια μή τι καὶ πλέον εἰδὼς ὁ
Νικίας ἰσχυρίζηται.
The language of Justin respecting this proceeding is just and
discriminating: “Nicias, seu pudore male actæ rei, seu metu
destitutæ spei civium, seu impellente fato, manere contendit.”
(Justin, iv, 5.)
Nearly a month after the night-battle on Epipolæ,[462] Gylippus and
Sikanus both returned to Syracuse. The latter had been unsuccessful
at Agrigentum, where the philo-Syracusan party had been sent
into banishment before his arrival; but Gylippus brought with
him a considerable force of Sicilian Greeks, together with those
Peloponnesian hoplites who had started from Cape Tænarus in the early
spring, and who had made their way from Kyrênê first along the coast
of Africa, and then across to Selinus. Such increase of strength
immediately determined the Syracusans to resume the aggressive both
by land and by sea. In the Athenians, as they saw the new allies
marching in over Epipolæ, it produced a deeper despondency, combined
with bitter regret that they had not adopted the proposition of
departing immediately after the battle of Epipolæ, when Demosthenês
first proposed it. The late interval of lingering hopeless inaction
with continued sickness, had farther weakened their strength,
and Demosthenês now again pressed the resolution for immediate
departure. Whatever fancies Nikias may have indulged about Syracusan
embarrassments, were dissipated by the arrival of Gylippus; nor did
he venture to persist in his former peremptory opposition, though
even now he seems to have assented against his own conviction.[463]
He however insisted, with good reason, that no formal or public
vote should be taken on the occasion, but that the order should be
circulated through the camp, as privately as possible, to be ready
for departure at a given signal. Intimation was sent to Katana that
the armament was on the point of coming away, with orders to forward
no farther supplies.[464]
[462] This interval may be inferred (see Dodwell, Ann. Thucyd.
vii, 50) from the state of the moon at the time of the battle of
Epipolæ, compared with the subsequent eclipse.
[463] Thucyd. vii, 50. ὡς αὐτοῖς οὐδὲ ὁ Νικίας ~ἔτι ὁμοίως
ἠναντιοῦτο~, etc. Diodor. xiii, 12. Ὁ Νικίας ἠναγκάσθη
συγχωρῆσαι, etc.
[464] Thucyd. vii, 60.
This plan was proceeding successfully: the ships were made ready,
much of the property of the army had already been conveyed aboard
without awakening the suspicion of the enemy, the signal would have
been hoisted on the ensuing morning, and within a few hours this
fated armament would have found itself clear of the harbor, with
comparatively small loss,[465] when the gods themselves—I speak
in the language and feelings of the Athenian camp—interfered to
forbid its departure. On the very night before, the 27th August, 413
B.C., which was full moon, the moon was eclipsed. Such a portent,
impressive to the Athenians at all times, was doubly so under their
present despondency, and many of them construed it as a divine
prohibition against departure until a certain time should have
elapsed, with expiatory ceremonies to take off the effect. They made
known their wish for postponement to Nikias and his colleagues;
but their interference was superfluous, for Nikias himself was
more deeply affected than any one else. He consulted the prophets,
who declared that the army ought not to decamp until thrice nine
days, a full circle of the moon, should have passed over.[466] And
Nikias took upon himself to announce, that until after the interval
indicated by them, he would not permit even any discussion or
proposition on the subject.
[465] Diodor. xiii, 12. Οἱ στρατιῶται τὰ σκεύη ἐνετίθεντο, etc.
Plutarch, Nikias, c. 23.
[466] The moon was totally eclipsed on this night, August 27, 413
B.C., from twenty-seven minutes past nine to thirty-four minutes
past ten P.M. (Wurm, De Ponderib. Græcor. sect. xciv, p. 184),
speaking with reference to an observer in Sicily.
Thucydidês states that Nikias adopted the injunction of the
prophets, to tarry _thrice nine_ days (vii, 50). Diodorus says
_three_ days. Plutarch intimates that Nikias went beyond the
injunction of the prophets, who only insisted on _three_ days,
while he resolved on remaining for an entire lunar period
(Plutarch, Nikias, c. 23).
I follow the statement of Thucydidês: there is no reason to
believe that Nikias would lengthen the time beyond what the
prophets prescribed.
The erroneous statement respecting this memorable event, in so
respectable an author as Polybius, is not a little surprising
(Polyb. ix, 19).
The decision of the prophets, which Nikias thus made his own, was a
sentence of death to the Athenian army, yet it went along with the
general feeling, and was obeyed without hesitation. Even Demosthenês,
though if he had commanded alone, he might have tried to overrule
it, found himself compelled to yield. Yet according to Philochorus,
himself a professional diviner, skilful in construing the religious
meaning of events, it was a decision decidedly wrong; that is, wrong
according to the canonical principles of divination. To men planning
escape, or any other operation requiring silence and secrecy, an
eclipse of the moon, as hiding light and producing darkness, was, he
affirmed, an encouraging sign, and ought to have made the Athenians
even more willing and forward in quitting the harbor. We are told,
too, that Nikias had recently lost by death Stilbidês, the ablest
prophet in his service, and that he was thus forced to have recourse
to prophets of inferior ability.[467] His piety left no means
untried of appeasing the gods, by prayer, sacrifice, and expiatory
ceremonies, continued until the necessity of actual conflict
arrived.[468]
[467] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 22; Diodor. xiii, 12; Thucyd. vii,
50. Stilbidês was eminent in his profession of a prophet: see
Aristophan. Pac. 1029, with the citations from Eupolis and
Philochorus in the Scholia.
Compare the description of the effect produced by the eclipse of
the sun at Thebes, immediately prior to the last expedition of
Pelopidas into Thessaly (Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 31).
[468] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 24.
The impediment thus finally and irreparably intercepting the
Athenian departure, was the direct, though unintended, consequence
of the delay previously caused by Nikias. We cannot doubt, however,
that, when the eclipse first happened, he regarded it as a sign
confirmatory of the opinion which he had himself before delivered,
and that he congratulated himself upon having so long resisted the
proposition for going away. Let us add, that all those Athenians
who were predisposed to look upon eclipses as signs from heaven of
calamity about to come, would find themselves strengthened in that
belief by the unparalleled woes even now impending over this unhappy
army.
What interpretation the Syracusans, confident and victorious,
put on the eclipse, we are not told. But they knew well how to
interpret the fact, which speedily came to their knowledge, that the
Athenians had fully resolved to make a furtive escape, and had only
been prevented by the eclipse. Such a resolution, amounting to an
unequivocal confession of helplessness, emboldened the Syracusans
yet farther, to crush them as they were in the harbor, and never to
permit them to occupy even any other post in Sicily. Accordingly,
Gylippus caused his triremes to be manned and practised for several
days: he then drew out his land-force, and made a demonstration of
no great significance against the Athenian lines. On the morrow, he
brought out all his forces, both land and naval; with the former
of which he beset the Athenian lines, while the fleet, seventy-six
triremes in number, was directed to sail up to the Athenian naval
station. The Athenian fleet, eighty-six triremes strong, sailed out
to meet it, and a close, general, and desperate action took place.
The fortune of Athens had fled. The Syracusans first beat the centre
division of the Athenians; next, the right division under Eurymedon,
who in attempting an evolution to outflank the enemy’s left, forgot
those narrow limits of the harbor which were at every turn the ruin
of the Athenian mariner, neared the land too much, and was pinned
up against it, in the recess of Daskon, by the vigorous attack of
the Syracusans. He was here slain, and his division destroyed:
successively, the entire Athenian fleet was beaten and driven ashore.
Few of the defeated ships could get into their own station. Most of
them were forced ashore or grounded on points without those limits;
upon which Gylippus marched down his land-force to the water’s edge,
in order to prevent the retreat of the crews as well as to assist
the Syracusan seamen in hauling off the ships as prizes. His march,
however, was so hurried and disorderly, that the Tyrrhenian troops,
on guard at the flank of the Athenian station, sallied out against
them as they approached, beat the foremost of them, and drove them
away from the shore into the marsh called Lysimeleia. More Syracusan
troops came to their aid; but the Athenians also, anxious above all
things for the protection of their ships, came forth in greater
numbers; and a general battle ensued in which the latter were
victorious. Though they did not inflict much loss upon the enemy,
yet they saved most of their own triremes which had been driven
ashore, together with the crews, and carried them into the naval
station. Except for this success on land, the entire Athenian fleet
would have been destroyed: as it was, the defeat was still complete,
and eighteen triremes were lost, all their crews being slain. This
was probably the division of Eurymedon, which having been driven
ashore in the recess of Daskon, was too far off from the Athenian
station to receive any land assistance. As the Athenians were hauling
in their disabled triremes, the Syracusans made a last effort to
destroy them by means of a fireship, for which the wind happened to
be favorable. But the Athenians found means to prevent her approach,
and to extinguish the flames.[469]
[469] Thucyd. vii, 52, 53; Diodor. xiii, 13.
Here was a complete victory gained over Athens on her own element,
gained with inferior numbers, gained even over the fresh and yet
formidable fleet recently brought by Demosthenês. It told but
too plainly on which side the superiority now lay, how well the
Syracusans had organized their naval strength for the specialties
of their own harbor, how ruinous had been the folly of Nikias in
retaining his excellent seamen imprisoned within that petty and
unwholesome lake, where land and water alike did the work of their
enemies. It not only disheartened the Athenians, but belied all
their past experience, and utterly confounded them. Sickness of
the whole enterprise, and repentance for having undertaken it, now
became uppermost in their minds: yet it is remarkable that we hear
of no complaints against Nikias separately.[470] But repentance came
too late. The Syracusans, fully alive to the importance of their
victory, sailed round the harbor in triumph as again their own,[471]
and already looked on the enemy within it as their prisoners. They
determined to close up and guard the mouth of it, from Plemmyrium to
Ortygia, so as to leave no farther liberty of exit.
[470] Thucyd. vii, 55. Οἱ μὲν Ἀθηναῖοι ἐν παντὶ δὴ ἀθυμίας ἦσαν,
καὶ ὁ παράλογος αὐτοῖς μέγας ἦν, πολὺ δὲ μείζων ἔτι τῆς στρατείας
ὁ μετάμελος.
[471] Thucyd. vii, 56. Οἱ δὲ Συρακόσιοι τόν τε λιμένα εὐθὺς
παρέπλεον ἀδεῶς, etc. This elate and visible manifestation of
feeling ought not to pass unnoticed, as an evidence of Grecian
character.
Nor were they insensible how vastly the scope of the contest was
now widened, and the value of the stake before them enhanced. It was
not merely to rescue their own city from siege, nor even to repel
and destroy the besieging army, that they were now contending. It
was to extinguish the entire power of Athens, and liberate the half
of Greece from dependence; for Athens could never be expected to
survive so terrific a loss as that of the entire double armament
before Syracuse.[472] The Syracusans exulted in the thought that this
great achievement would be theirs, that their city was the field,
and their navy the chief instrument of victory: a lasting source of
glory to them, not merely in the eyes of contemporaries, but even in
those of posterity. Their pride swelled when they reflected on the
Pan-Hellenic importance which the siege of Syracuse had now acquired,
and when they counted up the number and variety of Greek warriors
who were now fighting, on one side or the other, between Euryalus
and Plemmyrium. With the exception of the great struggle between
Athens and the Peloponnesian confederacy, never before had combatants
so many and so miscellaneous been engaged under the same banners.
Greeks, continental and insular, Ionic, Doric, and Æolic, autonomous
and dependent, volunteers and mercenaries, from Miletus and Chios in
the east to Selinus in the west, were all here to be found; and not
merely Greeks, but also the barbaric Sikels, Egestæans, Tyrrhenians,
and Iapygians. If the Lacædemonians, Corinthians, and Bœotians were
fighting on the side of Syracuse, the Argeians and Mantineians, not
to mention the great insular cities, stood in arms against her. The
jumble of kinship among the combatants on both sides, as well as
the cross action of different local antipathies, is put in lively
antithesis by Thucydidês.[473] But amidst so vast an assembled
number, of which they were the chiefs, the paymasters, and the centre
of combination, the Syracusans might well feel a sense of personal
aggrandizement, and a consciousness of the great blow which they were
about to strike, sufficient to exalt them for the time above the
level even of their great Dorian chiefs in Peloponnesus.
[472] Thucyd. vii, 56.
[473] Thucyd. vii, 57, 58.
It was their first operation, occupying three days, to close up
the mouth of the Great Harbor, which was nearly one mile broad,
with vessels of every description, triremes, traders, boats, etc.,
anchored in an oblique direction, and chained together.[474] They at
the same time prepared their naval force with redoubled zeal for the
desperate struggle which they knew to be coming. They then awaited
the efforts of the Athenians, who watched their proceedings with
sadness and anxiety.
[474] Thucyd. vii, 59; Diodor. xiii, 14.
Nikias and his colleagues called together the principal officers to
deliberate what was to be done. As they had few provisions remaining,
and had counter-ordered their farther supplies, some instant and
desperate effort was indispensable; and the only point in debate was,
whether they should burn their fleet and retire by land, or make a
fresh maritime exertion to break out of the harbor. Such had been
the impression left by the recent sea-fight, that many in the camp
leaned to the former scheme.[475] But the generals resolved upon
first trying the latter, and exhausted all their combinations to give
to it the greatest possible effect. They now evacuated the upper
portion of their lines, both on the higher ground of Epipolæ, and
even on the lower ground, such portion as was nearest to the southern
cliff; confining themselves to a limited fortified space close to the
shore, just adequate for their sick, their wounded, and their stores;
in order to spare the necessity for a large garrison to defend them,
and thus leave nearly their whole force disposable for sea-service.
They then made ready every trireme in the station, which could be
rendered ever so imperfectly seaworthy, constraining every fit man
to serve aboard them, without distinction of age, rank, or country.
The triremes were manned with double crews of soldiers, hoplites as
well as bowmen and darters, the latter mostly Akarnanians; while the
hoplites, stationed at the prow with orders to board the enemy as
quickly as possible, were furnished with grappling-irons to detain
the enemy’s ship immediately after the moment of collision, in order
that it might not be withdrawn and the collision repeated, with all
its injurious effects arising from the strength and massiveness
of the Syracusan epôtids. The best consultation was held with the
steersmen as to arrangement and manœuvres of every trireme, nor was
any precaution omitted which the scanty means at hand allowed. In
the well-known impossibility of obtaining new provisions, every
man was anxious to hurry on the struggle.[476] But Nikias, as he
mustered them on the shore immediately before going aboard, saw but
too plainly that it was the mere stress of desperation which impelled
them; that the elasticity, the disciplined confidence, the maritime
pride, habitual to the Athenians on shipboard, was extinct, or dimly
and faintly burning.
[475] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 24.
[476] Thucyd. vii, 60.