Athenian expedition against Sicily—Siege of Syracuse—Retreat and
destruction of the army—Retreat of Ney in Russia—Retreat of Sir John
Hawkwood in Italy.
We now come to the Sicilian expedition, and request the reader’s
patience if we dwell longer than usual on the closing scene of an
undertaking, described by its historian as “the greatest that happened
in this war, or at all, that we have heard of, among the Grecians,
being to the victors most glorious, and most calamitous to the
vanquished.”[140] The total destruction of the army of Athens struck a
deadly blow at her greatness, though she struggled most energetically
to retrieve her loss, and, through the want of able leaders at Sparta,
nearly succeeded. But the scale was turned against her, and from this
time forwards she fought an uphill battle.
In the seventeenth year of the war, B.C. 415, the Athenians, at the
suggestion of Alcibiades, resolved to send a very powerful armament
to Sicily, nominally to protect the little republic of Egesta against
Selinus and Syracuse, but really to re–establish the Ionian interest
in the island. We may observe that Sicily was colonized partly by
Ionian, partly by Dorian Greeks, and that the former naturally favoured
the Athenians, the latter the Lacedæmonians, as the heads of their
respective races. At present the Dorian race, at the head of which
stood Syracuse, was by far the more powerful: and alarm was felt, or
at least pretended, that unless checked by a powerful diversion at
home, they might get all Sicily into their hands, and then unite with
their Peloponnesian kinsmen to pull down that object of universal
jealousy, the Athenian empire. Moved therefore by the entreaties of the
Egestans, by these political arguments, and most of all by the desire
of conquest, the Athenians “resolved to go again to Sicily, and if they
could, wholly to subdue it, being for the most part ignorant both of
the greatness of the island and of the multitude of people, as well
Greeks as Barbarians, that inhabited the same, and that they undertook
a war, not much less than the war against the Peloponnesians.”[141]
Nicias, of whose cautious and unenterprising temper we have before
spoken, saw and remonstrated against the impolicy of hazarding the
flower of the state in a distant and dangerous warfare, while many of
its revolted subjects remained unsubdued: but his warning was unheeded,
and he was required, in conjunction with Alcibiades and Lamachus,
to assume the command of this expedition, which he so entirely
disapproved. Nicias, a man of courage in the field, was too timid to
struggle against the popular will: he submitted, but still endeavoured
to damp the eagerness of his countrymen, by exaggerating the force
requisite to ensure success. A hundred triremes, he said, with 5000
heavy armed infantry, and archers and slingers in proportion, were
the least they could send. Here he rather overshot himself; the force
demanded was immediately voted, and no further pretext for dissuasion
or denial remained. The armament, including the crews of the triremes,
is estimated by Mitford to have contained at least 30,000 men.
Never was an enterprise undertaken with better will. Those who were
engaged in it vied with each other in the splendour of their armour and
equipment, and far from finding any difficulty to complete the levy,
the whole of the citizens would willingly have gone in a body; “the old
men, upon hope to subdue the place they went to, or that at least so
great a power could not miscarry; and the young men, upon desire to see
a foreign country, and to gaze, making little doubt but to return with
safety. As for the common sort, and the soldiers, they made account to
gain by it not only their wages for the time, but also so to amplify
the state in power as that their stipend should endure for ever. So
that, through the vehement desire thereunto of the most, they also that
liked it not, for fear, if they held up their hands against it, to be
thought evil affected to the state, were content to let it pass.”[142]
“The summer being now half spent, they put to sea for Sicily. The
Athenians themselves, and as many of their confederates as were at
Athens upon the day appointed, betimes in the morning came down into
Peiræus, and went aboard to take sea. With them came down in a manner
the whole multitude of the city, as well inhabitants as strangers: the
inhabitants, to follow after such as belonged unto them, some their
friends, some their kinsmen, and some their children: filled both
with hope and lamentations; hope of conquering what they went for,
and lamentation as being in doubt whether ever they should see each
other any more, considering what a way they were to go from their own
territory.
“And now when they were to leave one another to danger, they
apprehended the greatness of the same more than they had done before,
when they decreed the expedition. Nevertheless their present strength,
by the abundance of every thing before their eyes prepared for the
journey, gave them heart again in beholding it. But the strangers
and other multitude came only to see the show, as of a worthy and
incredible design. For this preparation, being the first Grecian power
that ever went out of Greece from one only city, was the most sumptuous
and the most glorious of all that ever had been set forth before it, to
that day.
“For the shipping, it was elaborate with a great deal of cost, both of
the captains[143] of galleys, and of the city. For the state allowed
a drachma[144] a day to every mariner, and gave of unequipped galleys
sixty swift ships of war and forty transports for the conveyance of
soldiers. And the captains of galleys both put into them the most able
servants,[145] and besides the wages of the state, unto the [uppermost
bank of oars, called the] Thranitæ,[146] and to the servants, gave
somewhat of their own; and bestowed great cost otherwise every one upon
his own galley, both in the badges[147] and other rigging, each one
striving to the utmost to have his galley, both in some ornament, and
also in swiftness, to exceed the rest.
“And for the land forces, they were levied with exceeding great
choice, and every man endeavoured to excel his fellow in the bravery
of his arms and utensils that belonged to his person. Insomuch as
amongst themselves it begat quarrel about whose office should be the
most bravely filled, but amongst other Grecians a conceit that it was
an ostentation rather of their power and riches, than a preparation
against an enemy. For if a man enter into account of the expense, as
well of the public as of private men that went the voyage; namely, of
the public, what was spent already in the business, and what was to be
given to the commanders to carry with them; and of private men, what
every one had bestowed and had still to bestow upon his person, and
every captain on his galley; and beside what every one was likely, over
and above his allowance from the state, to expend on provision for so
long a warfare; and what men carried with them on trading speculations,
both soldiers and merchants, he will find the whole sum carried out of
the city to amount to a great many talents. And the armament was no
less noised for the strange boldness of the attempt, and gloriousness
of the show, than for its superiority over those against whom it was to
go, for the length of the voyage, and for that it was undertaken with
so vast future hopes, in respect of their present power.
“After they were all aboard, and all things laid in that they meant to
carry with them, silence was commanded by the trumpet; and after the
wine had been carried about to the whole army, and all, as well the
generals as the soldiers, had poured libations out of gold and silver
cups, they made their prayers, such as by the law were appointed for
before their taking sea; not in every galley apart, but all together,
the herald pronouncing them: and the company from the shore, both of
the city and whosoever else wished them well, prayed with them. And
when they had sung the Pæan, and ended the health, they put forth to
sea.”[148]
For the actions and fortunes of the expedition, we must refer the
reader to the History of Greece, contenting ourselves with such a mere
outline as may render the termination of it, with which alone we are
concerned, intelligible. Alcibiades was recalled almost immediately,
in consequence of the jealousy excited by the mutilation of the Hermæ;
Lamachus was killed in battle, and thus Nicias was left in the sole
charge of an enterprise of which he disapproved and despaired. The
first campaign was wasted in inactivity. In the second, siege was laid
to Syracuse, a city of large extent and great natural strength; and
all promised fairly for success until Gylippus, a Spartan of the royal
blood, arrived with 700 Lacedæmonians, broke through the besiegers’
lines, and threw himself into the city. This reinforcement, and the
skill and enterprise of the Spartan general, turned the fortune of
the siege, which from thenceforth is a series of disasters. In the
following winter, Nicias, weary of his command and broken in health,
sent home to represent the unpromising situation of affairs, and to
request leave to resign; but he received in answer an injunction to
remain, with the assurance that powerful succours should be sent out.
Accordingly, early in the spring, Demosthenes, the victor at Pylos, was
despatched with a strong reinforcement, consisting of seventy–three
triremes and about 5000 heavy–armed infantry. That able general made
one powerful attempt to change the fortune of the siege, and on its
failure recommended an immediate retreat. But Nicias, who was brave
enough in the field, but very deficient in moral courage, dared not to
return unauthorized by the people. He retained his station, therefore,
though hopeless of success, except from the exertions of some
malcontent Syracusans with whom he maintained correspondence. Meanwhile
the army was wasting under sickness, arising from the low and marshy
ground on which it was encamped: and the Syracusans eagerly prosecuted
their success, and at last cut off from the besiegers the possibility
of retreating by sea, by utterly defeating the Athenian fleet. To act
any longer on the offensive was out of the question; the only hope of
safety was instantly to break up the siege and march into the interior,
where the army, yet powerful, might find among the friendly Sicels,
a native race who still occupied the interior of the island, a safe
and plentiful retreat until assistance could be sent them, or further
measures concerted.
“It was a lamentable departure, not only for one point of their
condition, that they marched away with the loss of their whole fleet,
and that instead of their great hopes, they had endangered both
themselves and the state, but also for the dolorous objects which were
presented both to the eye and mind of every of them in particular in
the leaving of their camp. For the dead lying unburied, when any one
saw his friend on the ground, it struck him at once both with fear and
grief. But the living that were sick or wounded, both grieved them
more than the dead, and were more miserable. For with entreaties and
lamentations they put them to a stand, pleading to be taken along by
whomsoever they saw of their followers or familiars, and hanging on the
necks of their comrades, and following as far as they were able. And if
the strength of any person failed him, it was not with few entreaties
or little lamentation that he was there left. Insomuch as the whole
army, filled with tears, and irresolute, could hardly get away, though
the place were hostile, and they had suffered already, and feared to
suffer in the future more than with tears could be expressed, but hung
down their heads and generally blamed themselves. For they seemed
nothing else but even the people of some great city expunged by siege,
and making their escape. For the whole number that marched were no
less one with another than 40,000 men. Of which not only the ordinary
sort carried every one what he thought he should have occasion to use,
but also the heavy infantry and horsemen, contrary to their custom,
carried their victuals under their arms, partly for want, and partly
for distrust of their servants,[149] who from time to time ran over to
the enemy; but at this time went the greatest number: and yet what they
carried was not enough to serve the turn. For not a jot more provision
was left remaining in the camp. Moreover the sufferings of others, and
that equal division of misery, which is some alleviation in that we
suffer with many, were not now thought to contain even thus much of
relief. And the rather, because they considered from what splendour
and glory which they enjoyed before, into how low an estate they were
now fallen: for never had so great a reverse befallen a Grecian army.
For whereas they came with purpose to enslave others, they departed in
greater fear of being made slaves themselves; and instead of prayers
and hymns of victory, with which they put to sea, they abandoned their
undertaking with sounds of very different signification; and whereas
they came out seamen, they departed landmen, and relied not upon their
naval forces, but upon their men of arms. Nevertheless, in respect of
the great danger yet hanging over them, these present miseries seemed
all but tolerable.
“Nicias perceiving the army to be dejected, and the great change that
was in it, came up to the ranks, and encouraged and comforted them, as
far as for the present means he was able. And as he went from part to
part, he exalted his voice more and more, both as being earnest in his
exhortation, and because also he desired that the benefit of his words
might reach as far might be.
“‘Athenians and confederates, we must hope still even in our present
estate. Men have been saved ere now from greater dangers than these
are. Nor ought you too much to accuse yourselves, either for your
losses past, or the undeserved miseries we are now in. Even I myself
that have the advantage of none of you in strength of body (for you
see under what sickness I now labour), nor am thought inferior to any
of you for prosperity past, either in respect of my own private person
or otherwise, am nevertheless now in as much danger as the meanest of
you. And yet I have worshipped the gods frequently, according to the
law, and lived justly and unblamably towards men. For which cause, my
hope is still confident of the future; though these calamities, as
being not according to the measure of our desert, do indeed make me
fear. But they may perhaps cease. For both the enemies have already had
sufficient fortune, and the gods, if any of them have been displeased
with our voyage, have already sufficiently punished us. Others have
invaded their neighbours as well as we; and as their offence, which
proceeded of human infirmity, so their punishment also hath been
tolerable. And we have reason now both to hope for more favour from
the gods (for our case deserveth their pity rather than their hatred),
and also not to despair of ourselves, seeing how good and how many men
of arms you are, marching together in order of battle. Make account
of this, that wheresoever you please to sit down, there presently of
yourselves you are a city, such as not any other city in Sicily can
easily sustain if you assault, or remove if you be once seated. Now for
your march, that it may be safe and orderly, look to it yourselves,
making no other account any of you, but what place soever he shall be
forced to fight in, the same if he win it will be his country and his
walls. March you must with diligence, both night and day alike, for our
victual is short; and if we can but reach some amicable territory of
the Siculi (for these are still firm to us for fear of the Syracusans),
then you may think yourselves secure. And notice has been sent to them
with directions to meet us, and to bring us forth some supplies of
victual. In sum, soldiers, let me tell you, it is necessary that you
be valiant; for there is no place near where, being cowards, you can
possibly be saved. Whereas, if you escape through the enemies at this
time, you may every one see again whatsoever anywhere he most desires,
and the Athenians may re–erect the great power of their city, how low
soever fallen. For the men, not the walls nor the empty galleys, are
the city.’
“Nicias, as he used this hortative, went withal about the army, and
restored order wherever he saw it straggling, or the ranks broken.
Demosthenes having spoken to the same or like purpose, did as much to
those soldiers under him; and they marched forward, those with Nicias
in a square battalion, and then those with Demosthenes in the rear.
And the men of arms received those that carried the baggage, and the
other multitude, within them. And when they were come to the ford of
the river Anapus, they there found certain of the Syracusans and their
confederates embattled against them on the bank, but these they put to
flight, and having won the passage, marched forward. But the Syracusan
horsemen pressed still upon them, and their light–armed plied them
with their darts in the flank. This day they marched forty furlongs,
and lodged that night at the foot of a certain hill. The next day, as
soon as it was light, they marched forwards, about twenty furlongs,
and descending into a certain champagne ground, encamped there with
intent both to get victual at the houses (for the place was inhabited),
and to carry water with them thence; for before them, in the way they
were to pass for many furlongs together, there was little to be had.
But the Syracusans in the mean time got before them, and cut off their
passage with a wall. This was at a steep hill, on either side whereof
was the channel of a torrent with steep and rocky banks, and it is
called Acræum Lepas.[150] The next day the Athenians went on. And the
horsemen and darters of the Syracusans and their confederates, being a
great number of both, pressed them so with their horses and darts, that
the Athenians after long fight, were compelled to retire again into the
same camp; but now with less victual than before, because the horsemen
would suffer them no more to straggle abroad.
“In the morning betimes they dislodged, and put themselves on their
march again, and forced their way to the hill which the enemy had
fortified, where they found before them the Syracusan foot embattled
in great depth above the fortification, for the place itself was but
narrow. The Athenians coming up, assaulted the wall, but the shot of
the enemy, who were many, and the steepness of the hill (for they could
easily cast home from above), making them unable to take it, they
retired again and rested. There happened withal some claps of thunder
and a shower of rain, as usually falleth out at this time of the year,
being now near autumn, which further disheartened the Athenians, who
thought that also this did tend to their destruction. Whilst they lay
still, Gylippus and the Syracusans sent part of their army to raise a
wall at their backs in the way they had come, but this the Athenians
hindered by sending against them part of theirs. After this the
Athenians retiring with their whole army into a more champagne ground,
lodged there that night, and the next day went forward again. And the
Syracusans, with their darts from every part round about, wounded many
of them; and when the Athenians charged they retired, and when they
retired the Syracusans charged; and that especially upon the hindmost,
that by putting to flight a few, they might terrify the whole army.
And for a good while the Athenians in this manner withstood them; and
afterwards being gotten five or six furlongs forward, they rested in
the plain; and the Syracusans went from them to their own camp.
“This night it was concluded by Nicias and Demosthenes, seeing
the miserable estate of their army, and the want already of all
necessaries, and that many of their men in many assaults of the enemy
were wounded, to leave as many fires lighted as they could, and
lead away the army,—not the road they purposed before, but toward
the sea, which was the contrary way to that which the Syracusans
guarded. Now this whole journey of the army lay not towards Catana,
but towards the other side of Sicily, Camarina and Gela, and the
cities, as well Grecian as Barbarian, that way. When they had made
many fires accordingly, they marched in the night, and (as usually
it falleth out in all armies, and most of all in the greatest, to be
subject to affright and terror, especially marching by night, and in
hostile ground, and the enemy near) were in confusion. The army of
Nicias leading the way, kept together and got far before; but that of
Demosthenes, which was the greater half, was both severed from the
rest, and marched more disorderly. Nevertheless, by the morning betimes
they got to the sea side, and entering into the Helorine way, they went
on towards the river Cacyparis, to the end when they came thither to
march upwards along the river side, through the heart of the country.
For they hoped that this way the Siculi, to whom they had sent, would
meet them. When they came to the river, here also they found a certain
guard of the Syracusans stopping their passage with a wall and with
piles. When they had quickly forced this guard they passed the river,
and again marched on to another river called Erineus, for that was the
way which the guides directed them.[151]
“In the mean time the Syracusans and their confederates, as soon as
day appeared, and that they knew the Athenians were gone, most of them
accusing Gylippus, as if he had let them go with his consent, followed
them with speed the same way, which they easily understood they were
gone, and about dinner–time overtook them. When they were come up to
those with Demosthenes, who were the hindmost, and had marched more
slowly and disorderly than the other part had done, as having been put
into disorder in the night, they fell upon them and fought. And the
Syracusan horsemen hemmed them in, and forced them up into a narrow
compass, the more easily now, because they were divided from the rest.
Now the army of Nicias was gone by this time one hundred[152] and fifty
furlongs further on. For he led away the faster, because he thought not
that their safety consisted in staying and fighting voluntarily, but
rather in a speedy retreat, and then only fighting when they could not
choose. But Demosthenes was both in greater and in more continual toil,
in respect that he marched in the rear, and consequently was pressed
by the enemy. And seeing the Syracusans pursuing him, he went not on,
but put his men in order to fight, till by his stay he was encompassed
and reduced, he and the Athenians with him, into great disorder. For
being shut up within a place enclosed round with a wall, through which
there was a road from side to side, and in it a considerable number of
olive–trees, they were charged from all sides at once with the enemies’
shot. For the Syracusans assaulted them in this kind, and not in
close battle, upon very good reason. For to hazard battle against men
desperate was not so much for theirs, as for the Athenians’ advantage.
And besides, their success being now manifest, they spared themselves
that they should not waste men, and thought by this kind of fight, to
subdue and take them alive.
“Whereupon after they had plied the Athenians and their confederates
all day long from every side with shot, and saw that with their
wounds and other annoyance, they were already tired, Gylippus and the
Syracusans and their confederates first made proclamation that if any
of the islanders would come over to them, they should be at liberty;
and the men of some few cities went over. And by and by they made
agreement with all the rest that were with Demosthenes, ‘that they
should deliver up their arms, and none of them be put to death, neither
violently nor by bonds, nor by want of the necessaries of life.’ And
they all yielded, to the number of 6000 men, and the silver they had
they laid it all down, casting it into the hollow of targets, and
filled with the same four targets. And these men they carried presently
into the city.
“Nicias and those that were with him attained the same day to the river
Erineus, which passing, he caused his army to sit down upon a certain
ground, more elevated than the rest; where the Syracusans the next
day overtook and told him, that those with Demosthenes had yielded
themselves, and willed him to do the like. But he, not believing it,
took truce for a horseman to inquire the truth. Upon return of the
horseman, and word that they had yielded, he sent a herald to Gylippus
and the Syracusans, saying that he was content to compound on the
part of the Athenians, to repay whatsoever money the Syracusans had
laid out, so that his army might be suffered to depart; and that
till payment of the money were made, he would deliver them hostages,
Athenians, every hostage rated at a talent. But Gylippus and the
Syracusans refusing the condition, charged them, and having hemmed them
in, plied them with shot, as they had done the other army, from every
side, till evening. This part also of the army, was pinched with the
want both of victual and other necessaries. Nevertheless, waiting for
the quiet of the night, they were about to march; but no sooner took
they their arms up, than the Syracusans perceiving it gave the alarm.
Whereupon the Athenians finding themselves discovered, sat down again,
all but 300, who, breaking by force through the guards, marched as far
as they could that night.
“And Nicias when it was day led his army forward, the Syracusans and
their confederates still pressing them in the same manner, shooting
and darting at them from every side. The Athenians hasted to get the
river Asinarus, not only because they were urged on every side by the
assault of the many horsemen, and other multitude, and thought to be
more at ease when they were over the river, but out of weariness also
and desire to drink. When they were come unto the river, they rushed
in without any order, every man striving who should first get over.
But the pressing of the enemy made the passage now more difficult; for
being forced to take the river in heaps, they fell upon and trampled
one another under their feet: and falling amongst the spears and
utensils of the army, some perished presently, and others, catching
hold of one another, were carried away together down the stream. And
not only the Syracusans standing along the farther bank, being a steep
one, killed the Athenians with their shot from above, as they were many
of them greedily drinking, and troubling one another in the hollow of
the river, but the Peloponnesians came also down and slew them with
their swords, and those especially that were in the river.[153] And
very soon the water was corrupted; nevertheless they drunk it, foul as
it was with blood and mire, and many also fought for it.
“In the end, when many dead lay heaped in the river, and the army was
utterly defeated, part at the river, and part (if any got away) by the
horsemen, Nicias yielded himself unto Gylippus (having more confidence
in him than in the Syracusans), ‘to be for his own person at the
discretion of him and the Lacedæmonians, and no further slaughter to
be made of the soldiers.’ Gylippus from thenceforth commanded to take
prisoners. So the residue, except such as they secreted[154] (which
were many), they carried alive into the city. They sent also to pursue
the 300, which had broken out from the camp in the night, and took
them. That which was left together of this army to the public was not
much; but they that were conveyed away by stealth were very many: and
all Sicily was filled with them, because they were not taken as those
with Demosthenes were, upon terms of capitulation. Besides, a great
part of these were slain; for the slaughter at this time was exceeding
great, none greater in all the Sicilian war. They were also not a few
that died in those other assaults in their march. Nevertheless many
also escaped, some then presently, and some by running away after
servitude, the rendezvous of whom was Catana.[155]
“The Syracusans and their confederates being come together, returned
with their prisoners, all they could get, and with the spoil, into
the city. As for all the other prisoners of the Athenians and their
confederates, they put themselves into the quarries, as the safest
custody. But Nicias and Demosthenes they killed against Gylippus’s
will. For Gylippus thought the victory would be very honourable, if,
over and above all his other success, he could carry home both the
generals of the enemy of Lacedæmon. And it fell out that the one of
them, Demosthenes, was their greatest enemy, for the things he had
done in the island,[156] and at Pylus; and the other, upon the same
occasion, their greatest friend. For Nicias had earnestly laboured
to have those prisoners which were taken in the island to be set at
liberty, by persuading the Athenians to the peace. For which cause the
Lacedæmonians were inclined to love him; and it was principally in
confidence of that that he surrendered himself to Gylippus. But certain
Syracusans (as it is reported), some of them for fear (because they
had been tampering with him), lest being examined upon this matter,
he should disclose something to disturb their present enjoyment; and
others (especially the Corinthians) fearing he might get away by
corruption of one or other (being wealthy), and work them some mischief
afresh, having persuaded their confederates to the same, killed him.
For these, or for causes near unto these, was he put to death; being
the man that, of all the Grecians of my time, had least deserved to
be brought to so great a degree of misery, on account of his regular
observance and respect towards the gods.
“As for those in the quarries, the Syracusans handled them at first but
ungently; for in this hollow place, first the sun and suffocating air
(being without roof), annoyed them one way; and on the other side, the
nights coming upon that heat, autumnal and cold, put them (by reason of
the alteration) into strange diseases. Especially because for want of
room they did all things in one and the same place, and the carcases of
such as died of their wounds, or vicissitudes of weather, or the like,
lay there in heaps. Also the smell was intolerable, besides that they
were afflicted with hunger and thirst. For for eight months together
they allowed them no more but to every man a cotyle[157] of water by
the day, and two cotyles of corn: and whatsoever misery is probable
that men in such a place may suffer, they suffered. Some seventy days
they lived thus thronged. Afterwards retaining the Athenians, and such
Sicilians and Italians as were of the army with them, they sold the
rest. How many were taken in all, it is hard to say exactly; but they
were seven thousand[158] at the fewest. And this, in my opinion, was
the greatest action that happened in all this war, or at all, that we
have heard of among the Grecians, being to the victors most glorious,
and most calamitous to the vanquished. For being wholly overcome in
every kind, and receiving small loss in nothing, their army and fleet,
and all that ever they had, perished (as they used to say) with an
universal destruction. Few of many returned home. And thus passed the
business concerning Sicily.”
A pleasing anecdote, related by Plutarch, relieves in part the fate of
these unhappy men. Many Athenians, who fell into the hands of private
masters, found the means of procuring kinder treatment by recitations
of the masterpieces of literature, with which the minds even of the
poorest Athenians were usually stored; especially the tragedies of
Euripides, the favourite dramatic poet of the Sicilian Greeks. Many are
said to have visited him on their return to Attica, to own themselves
indebted to him for liberty, granted as a recompense for communicating
what they recollected of his works. This is strong testimony to the
scarcity of manuscripts, and the consequent value of knowledge to its
possessor. The same cause enabled these captive Athenians to purchase
freedom, and the philosophers and sophists to reap such golden harvests
from their lectures; literature was entirely dependent upon oral
communication.
Forty thousand men, of whom a large proportion were veteran soldiers
of the second military power in Greece, ought to have made a better
defence. But they were dispirited, and commanded by a general unequal
to the emergency. Nicias possessed many admirable qualities; respect
for the gods, honesty, personal courage, and dignity of character when
not confronted with an Athenian assembly; and they shone perhaps
more brightly in the concluding than in any other scene of his life;
but his courage was of the passive rather than the active sort, and
he did not possess the power of rapid observation and decision which
mark the accomplished general, and are most especially required to
extricate an army from a false position. So far from pursuing the
plan laid down in his speech, the first day’s retreat did not exceed
five miles, the next was less than three; and when, after eight days
of marching and fighting, the Athenian army surrendered, it was not
twenty miles distant from Syracuse. Want of promptitude in the first
instance suffered the Syracusans to pre–occupy the passes. How far the
obstacles which Nicias had then to surmount may justify his tardiness
it is difficult to say. Superior numbers and discipline in the hands of
an able general might have done much to counterbalance the advantage of
position. The Athenians were placed in difficult circumstances; yet not
so difficult as the 10,000 in Persia, or many others who have yet lived
to laugh at their enemy.
It is not fair to estimate the character of this expedition by its
results, for no foresight could have anticipated that Athens, the
mistress of the sea, would be so completely foiled on her own element,
as that even the power of return should be denied to her defeated army.
But without judging things by their events, a method which renders
criticism of the past comparatively easy, there are ample grounds to
prove the impolicy of entering upon such a scheme of conquest at such
a time. The Athenians were already engaged in a war fully commensurate
with their strength, and which their utmost exertions had been unable
to bring to a happy close. Their wealth and power were derived
chiefly from colonies and subject cities, of which several were in
open revolt, and all more or less disaffected. Eubœa itself, the most
important, and from its situation the most easily controlled, of these
dependencies, was so discontented, that to prevent its defection was
the first care of the administration, as soon as news arrived of the
Sicilian defeat. It was under these circumstances that they undertook
a war, characterized by Thucydides as not much less than that against
the Peloponnesians,[159] and having for its object the conquest[160]
of an island about nine times as large as Attica, and inhabited not
by a rude or effeminate population, but by rich and powerful cities
of their own countrymen. The enterprise, hazardous in itself, was
rendered more so by the length of the voyage, according to the methods
of navigation then in use, which prevented succour being sent, or
remedy applied to any sudden reverse; and on this hazardous service,
at this critical time, a body of troops was sent, not too large for
its object, but far larger than the state could afford to lose. That
their destruction was believed to be a deathblow is evident from
Thucydides. “Everything from every place grieved them, and fear and
astonishment, the greatest that ever they were in, beset them round.
For they were not only grieved for the loss, which both every man
in particular and the whole city sustained, of so many men–at–arms,
horsemen and serviceable men, the like whereof they saw was not left:
but seeing they had neither galleys enough in their haven, nor money
in their treasury, nor able seamen[161] in their galleys, were even
desperate at that present of their safety, and thought the enemy
out of Sicily would come forthwith with their fleet into Piræus
(especially after vanquishing of so great a navy), and that the enemy
here would surely now, with double preparation in every kind, press
them to the utmost both by sea and land, and be aided therein by their
revolting confederates.”[162] Thanks to their own activity and to the
supineness of their enemy, this loss did not immediately prove fatal;
but the result of the war would probably have been very different,
had the lives and treasure wasted in Sicily been devoted for their
country in some better chosen cause.
“Nick, young Nick, the deacon used to say to me (his name was Nicol
as well as mine; sae folk ca’d us in their daffin’, young Nick and
auld Nick), Nick, said he, never put your arm out further than you can
easily draw it back again.” Baillie Jarvie’s maxim is as applicable to
political affairs as to commercial and good in both. He whose fortune
is already desperate may stake all on one cast; for the prosperous and
powerful to do so is madness. Had Napoleon’s ambition not blinded him
to this simple rule of caution, he might have died on the imperial
throne: he stretched his arm too far when he marched to Moscow. No
two persons could be more unlike than Napoleon and Nicias: and it is
worth observing that tempers diametrically opposite led these two
generals into the same error. Both tempted their fortune after the
hour of success was past, and, when active measures could no longer be
pursued, remained in idleness, from mere want of resolution to confess
a failure by their actions; Nicias, for want of moral courage to face
an unreasonable master, whose mortification was not likely to be
anywise lessened by being reminded that the defeated general had always
disapproved of his commission; Napoleon, from his sensitive pride,
which clung to any pretence, however thin, which could conceal from
himself, if not from others, that the victor of a hundred battles was
at length foiled. The celebrated campaign of 1812 bears indeed a nearer
resemblance to the Sicilian than to the Scythian war, and on that
account might better have been reserved for this place. But there is
one portion of it still unnoticed, which displays in their perfection
those military qualities, the want of which proved fatal to Nicias and
the Athenian army.
We allude to the remarkable skill, courage, and good fortune with
which Marshal Ney extricated himself from circumstances apparently as
hopeless as any that men could be placed in. It has already been stated
that the French army on quitting Smolensk was distributed into four
divisions, which marched on different days.[163] Ney commanded the
last. The Russian army lay in strength between that city and Oreza, but
their opposition was undecided, and the three first divisions forced
their way past, though with severe loss. When he had only the rear
guard to deal with, Kutusoff came to a resolution which if adopted
in the first instance might have ended at once the campaign and the
reign of Napoleon, and took post across the road, so as to bar all
passage, except such as should be cut through the centre of his army.
On the second afternoon after he left Smolensk, Ney came in view of
the Russians. They consisted of 80,000 men, with a powerful artillery.
The two armies were posted on opposite sides of a deep ravine, which
at this point intersected the plain. Kutusoff sent an officer to
summon Ney to surrender, stating the amount of his force, and offering
permission to send one of his officers to verify his representations
by inspection. While the envoy was still speaking, forty guns opened
their fire upon the French. Ney exclaimed in anger, “A marshal never
surrenders; neither do men treat under fire. You are my prisoner.” The
artillery redoubled their thunder; the hills, before cold and silent,
resembled volcanoes in eruption, and then, said the French soldiers,
enthusiastic in praise of their favourite leader, this man of fire
seemed to feel in his true element.
His whole force consisted of only 5000 men and six guns. Opposed were
80,000, well armed and well fed, and strong in cavalry and artillery.
The French vanguard of 1500 men passed along the road into the ravine,
and dashed gallantly up the opposite side; but the front line of the
Russians met them at the top, and at once shattered their feeble
column. Ney rallied them, and caused them to be formed in reserve,
while he led on in person the main body of 3000 men. He made no
speeches; he advanced at their head, which is worth all the oratorical
flourishes in the world. Meanwhile 400 Illyrians had been detached
to take the enemy in flank. The impetuosity of his charge broke and
scattered the first opposing line, and without stop or hesitation he
advanced upon the second; but ere they reached it, a tempest of cannon
and musket–balls whistled through the column: it staggered, broke, and
retreated.
Convinced that it was impossible to force his way, he returned to his
former position on the other side of the ravine, drew up what remained
of his troops, and awaited the attack. Russian inactivity (we cannot
call it caution) saved him, as it had saved those who went before. A
single corps might have forced Ney’s position against the weak body
who now defended it; but the enemy contented himself with maintaining
a murderous cannonade, to which the six guns feebly replied. Still the
soldiers, though falling thickly, remained constant at their posts,
deriving comfort and confidence from the tranquillity of their chief.
At nightfall Ney gave orders to retreat towards Smolensk. All who heard
it were struck with amazement. The Emperor, and their comrades, and
France, lay in front: he proposed to turn back into a country which
they had too much reason to detest and fly. Even the aide–de–camp to
whom the command was issued stood as if he could hardly believe his
ears, until it was repeated in a brief and decided tone. They marched
backwards for an hour, and then stopped; and the Marshal, who had
remained in the rear, rejoined them. Their situation may be thus summed
up. Between them and the Emperor lay an army, which they had tried
in vain to force. Guides they had none: on the left the country was
open, but there was little chance of turning unobserved the flank of
an enemy furnished with a numerous and active cavalry; besides that
the time consumed in such an operation would have left little hope of
ever rejoining the main body of the French. On the right the liberty of
movement was curtailed by the Dnieper, which flowed in that direction;
its precise situation and the possibility of crossing it being unknown.
Ney’s plan was already conceived. He descended into a ravine, and
caused the snow to be cleared away until the course of a rivulet was
exposed. “This,” he said, “must be one of the feeders of the Dnieper.
It will conduct us to the river, and on the further bank of that river
lies our safety.” They followed it as their guide, and about eight
o’clock in the evening arrived upon the bank of the Dnieper. Their
joy was complete on seeing the river frozen over. Above and below it
was still open, but just at the spot where they reached it a sharp
bend in its course had stopped the floating ice, which the frost
had connected into a continuous though a slight bridge. An officer
volunteered to try its strength. He reached the opposite bank, and
returned. “It would bear the men,” he said, “and some few horses. But
a thaw was commencing, and there was no time to be lost.” The fatigue
and difficulty of a nocturnal march had scattered the troops, as well
as the disorganized band of stragglers which attended on them; and Ney,
though pressed to cross at once, resolved to give three hours’ time for
rallying. This interval of repose, even at so critical a moment, he
spent, wrapped in his cloak, in deep and placid sleep upon the river
bank.
Towards midnight they began to pass. Those who first tried the ice
warned their companions that it bent under them, and sunk so low that
they were up to their knees in water. The deep, threatening sound of
cracks was heard on all sides, and those who still remained on the bank
hesitated to trust themselves to so frail a support. Ney ordered them
to pass one by one. Much precaution was necessary, for large chasms
had opened, doubly concealed by the darkness of night, and by the
general covering of water. Men hesitated, but they were driven on by
the impatient cries of those who remained on the bank, still ignorant
of the dangers of the passage, and goaded by the constant fear of the
enemy’s approach.
The carriages and cannon attendant on the army were of necessity left
behind, and those of the wounded who were unable to make their way
across. The chief of the hospital department tried the experiment of
sending some waggon–loads of sick and wounded men across the ice. A
scream of agony was heard when they had reached the middle of the
stream, succeeded by a deep silence. The ice had given way, and all
perished except one officer, severely wounded, who supported himself
upon a sheet of ice, and, crawling from one piece to another, reached
the bank.
Ney had now placed the river between himself and the Russian army by a
stroke of promptitude and courage rarely equalled. But his situation
was far from enviable. He was in a desert of forests, without roads and
without guides, two days’ march from Orcza, where he expected to meet
Napoleon. As the troops advanced, the foremost men observed a beaten
way; but there was little comfort to be derived from this, for they
distinguished the marks of artillery and horses proceeding in the same
direction as themselves. Ney as usual took the lion’s counsel, and
followed those menacing tracks to a village, which he surrounded and
assaulted, in which there were 100 cossacks, who were roused from their
sleep only to find themselves prisoners. Here the French found comforts
of which they had known little since their departure from Moscow; food,
clothes, comfortable quarters, and rest. What a blessed relief to men
who within the last twelve hours had been hopeless of escape from death
in battle, and then exposed to scarce less imminent danger of perishing
in a half–frozen river!
From hence it was two days’ march to Orcza, where Ney arrived on
November 20, his followers being reduced to 1500 men. He had baulked
the Russian regular troops; but he found Platoff and his cossacks
upon the right bank of the Dnieper, and suffered severely from their
marauding warfare. Napoleon had given him up for lost; when he heard
that he had rejoined the army he leaped for joy, as he exclaimed, “Then
I have saved my eagles! I have 200,000,000 in the Tuileries: I would
have given them all rather than lose such a man!”[164]
An anecdote of similar resolution and readiness, curious on account
of the nature of the danger to be avoided, is told by the Florentine
historians of the fourteenth century. At that time Italian warfare was
chiefly carried on by hired soldiers, men usually of profligate lives
and broken fortunes, unfitted by the licence of a camp for peaceful
industry, or driven to forsake it by the insecurity of property in
those calamitous times, when he who sowed the seed had no assurance
that he should reap the harvest. The long wars between France and
England under Edward III. swelled the numbers of these men to a fearful
extent; and the reader who will consult Froissart concerning the state
of France at this period, will there find a fearful picture of the
misrule and misery produced by men of this description, who, when there
was no regular war to occupy their swords, formed themselves into
troops, took possession by force or fraud of some castle or stronghold,
and lived by levying contributions on the peasantry, and plundering
all persons who came in their way. Such spirits readily flocked round
the banner of any soldier of repute who offered a price for their
services; nor were men of birth and reputation wanting to lead them
into the foreign market, who readily overlooked the character of their
followers in consideration of the wealth and consequence to be derived
from their support. Among the most distinguished, and also the most
honourable of this class, was an Englishman, named Sir John Hawkwood,
long practised in the Italian wars, and at the time we speak of, in the
service of Florence. In the year 1391, that city being at war with the
Duke of Milan, planned a double invasion of his dominions. The Count
d’Armagnac, a French nobleman of high military renown, was hired to
invade Milan from the west, while on the east Hawkwood advanced from
Vicenza, through Verona and Brescia. The two armies were intended to
unite and lay siege to Milan; but the scheme was deranged by the defeat
and total destruction of the Count d’Armagnac, and Hawkwood, who,
before he heard that news, had advanced within fifteen miles of the
city, on a sudden found himself in imminent danger.
On looking at a map, the reader will observe that all the country
between the Alps and Po is intersected by numerous rivers; which, like
those of Holland, for the most part flow at a higher level than the
neighbouring plains, and are kept within their course by lofty dikes.
Hawkwood had crossed the Adige, Mincio, and Oglio; and consequently
when Jacopo del Verme, the Milanese general, marched against him at
the head of a superior force elated with victory, his situation became
very uncomfortable. To give battle was hazardous, for a defeat with
three large rivers in his rear would have been utter destruction; and
it was scarcely less dangerous to attempt to cross them, without having
first gained some advantages, and struck terror into the enemy. In this
dilemma he remained quiet for a time, retained his soldiers strictly
within the camp, without regarding the insults and provocations of the
enemy, until this apparent timidity led them into an imprudent bravado,
which gave him an opportunity of attacking to advantage and routing
them with considerable slaughter.
He judged rightly that this blow would keep his adversary quiet for a
little while, and immediately broke up his camp and crossed the Oglio
without hindrance; the enemy following, but being too late, or too
much cowed to molest him. He passed the Mincio also, and was then in a
plain, enclosed by the dikes of the Po, Mincio, and Adige, and lying
below the level of those rivers. The last was still to be crossed; and
it presented greater difficulties than the Oglio and Mincio, both on
account of the greater volume and velocity of its stream, and because
the enemy had pre–occupied and fortified its dikes. Hawkwood was
encamped on a small eminence in the plain,—we may suppose rather at a
loss how to prosecute his retreat,—when suddenly the whole of the low
country was flooded. They had cut the dikes of the Adige, in hope of
drowning or starving the invader into submission. The inundation gained
ground every hour, and threatened the camp itself. As far as the eye
could reach all was water. Provisions began to fail; and Del Verme,
who with his troops shut up the only road to escape, sent Hawkwood
the enigmatical present of a fox in a cage. The Englishman received
the gift, and requested the messenger to carry back word that the fox
seemed nothing dismayed, and probably knew very well by what door he
should get out of his cage.
“It is generally confessed,” says Poggio, “that no other captain,
except Hawkwood, whose sayings and doings deserve to be commemorated
among the subtleties of ancient generals and orators, could have
overcome the difficulties and dangers in which the Florentine army
was now involved.” It is not every one assuredly that would have
nerve to adopt the measure which he adopted. In the middle of the
night he abandoned his camp, trusting himself and his army boldly to
the inundated plain, and shaped his course parallel to the dikes of
the Adige. He advanced all the next day, and part of the succeeding
night, through water up to the horses’ bellies; his progress delayed by
the deep mud, and by numerous trenches which intersected the fields;
and which, beneath the universal covering of water, could no longer
be distinguished from the solid ground. In this manner he traversed
all the valley of Verona; at length, opposite to Castel Baldo, he
crossed the dry bed of the Adige, there exhausted of its waters, and
found repose and refreshment for his exhausted army within the Paduan
frontier. The weaker horses, and a large part of the infantry, perished
in this march by suffocation, fatigue, and cold; some saved themselves
by clinging to the horses’ tails. But the bulk of the army was saved,
and Jacopo del Verme took care not to tempt the waters by engaging in
so hazardous a pursuit.[165]