In the meantime came in from all quarters to the Syracusans, as well as

from their own officers sent to reconnoitre, the positive tidings that

the fleet was at Rhegium; upon which they laid aside their incredulity

and threw themselves heart and soul into the work of preparation.

Guards or envoys, as the case might be, were sent round to the Sicels,

garrisons put into the posts of the Peripoli in the country, horses and

arms reviewed in the city to see that nothing was wanting, and all

other steps taken to prepare for a war which might be upon them at any

moment.

Meanwhile the three ships that had been sent on came from Egesta to the

Athenians at Rhegium, with the news that so far from there being the

sums promised, all that could be produced was thirty talents. The

generals were not a little disheartened at being thus disappointed at

the outset, and by the refusal to join in the expedition of the

Rhegians, the people they had first tried to gain and had had had most

reason to count upon, from their relationship to the Leontines and

constant friendship for Athens. If Nicias was prepared for the news

from Egesta, his two colleagues were taken completely by surprise. The

Egestaeans had had recourse to the following stratagem, when the first

envoys from Athens came to inspect their resources. They took the

envoys in question to the temple of Aphrodite at Eryx and showed them

the treasures deposited there: bowls, wine-ladles, censers, and a large

number of other pieces of plate, which from being in silver gave an

impression of wealth quite out of proportion to their really small

value. They also privately entertained the ships’ crews, and collected

all the cups of gold and silver that they could find in Egesta itself

or could borrow in the neighbouring Phoenician and Hellenic towns, and

each brought them to the banquets as their own; and as all used pretty

nearly the same, and everywhere a great quantity of plate was shown,

the effect was most dazzling upon the Athenian sailors, and made them

talk loudly of the riches they had seen when they got back to Athens.

The dupes in question—who had in their turn persuaded the rest—when the

news got abroad that there was not the money supposed at Egesta, were

much blamed by the soldiers.

Meanwhile the generals consulted upon what was to be done. The opinion

of Nicias was to sail with all the armament to Selinus, the main object

of the expedition, and if the Egestaeans could provide money for the

whole force, to advise accordingly; but if they could not, to require

them to supply provisions for the sixty ships that they had asked for,

to stay and settle matters between them and the Selinuntines either by

force or by agreement, and then to coast past the other cities, and

after displaying the power of Athens and proving their zeal for their

friends and allies, to sail home again (unless they should have some

sudden and unexpected opportunity of serving the Leontines, or of

bringing over some of the other cities), and not to endanger the state

by wasting its home resources.

Alcibiades said that a great expedition like the present must not

disgrace itself by going away without having done anything; heralds

must be sent to all the cities except Selinus and Syracuse, and efforts

be made to make some of the Sicels revolt from the Syracusans, and to

obtain the friendship of others, in order to have corn and troops; and

first of all to gain the Messinese, who lay right in the passage and

entrance to Sicily, and would afford an excellent harbour and base for

the army. Thus, after bringing over the towns and knowing who would be

their allies in the war, they might at length attack Syracuse and

Selinus; unless the latter came to terms with Egesta and the former

ceased to oppose the restoration of Leontini.

Lamachus, on the other hand, said that they ought to sail straight to

Syracuse, and fight their battle at once under the walls of the town

while the people were still unprepared, and the panic at its height.

Every armament was most terrible at first; if it allowed time to run on

without showing itself, men’s courage revived, and they saw it appear

at last almost with indifference. By attacking suddenly, while Syracuse

still trembled at their coming, they would have the best chance of

gaining a victory for themselves and of striking a complete panic into

the enemy by the aspect of their numbers—which would never appear so

considerable as at present—by the anticipation of coming disaster, and

above all by the immediate danger of the engagement. They might also

count upon surprising many in the fields outside, incredulous of their

coming; and at the moment that the enemy was carrying in his property

the army would not want for booty if it sat down in force before the

city. The rest of the Siceliots would thus be immediately less disposed

to enter into alliance with the Syracusans, and would join the

Athenians, without waiting to see which were the strongest. They must

make Megara their naval station as a place to retreat to and a base

from which to attack: it was an uninhabited place at no great distance

from Syracuse either by land or by sea.

After speaking to this effect, Lamachus nevertheless gave his support

to the opinion of Alcibiades. After this Alcibiades sailed in his own

vessel across to Messina with proposals of alliance, but met with no

success, the inhabitants answering that they could not receive him

within their walls, though they would provide him with a market

outside. Upon this he sailed back to Rhegium. Immediately upon his

return the generals manned and victualled sixty ships out of the whole

fleet and coasted along to Naxos, leaving the rest of the armament

behind them at Rhegium with one of their number. Received by the

Naxians, they then coasted on to Catana, and being refused admittance

by the inhabitants, there being a Syracusan party in the town, went on

to the river Terias. Here they bivouacked, and the next day sailed in

single file to Syracuse with all their ships except ten which they sent

on in front to sail into the great harbour and see if there was any

fleet launched, and to proclaim by herald from shipboard that the

Athenians were come to restore the Leontines to their country, as being

their allies and kinsmen, and that such of them, therefore, as were in

Syracuse should leave it without fear and join their friends and

benefactors the Athenians. After making this proclamation and

reconnoitring the city and the harbours, and the features of the

country which they would have to make their base of operations in the

war, they sailed back to Catana.

An assembly being held here, the inhabitants refused to receive the

armament, but invited the generals to come in and say what they

desired; and while Alcibiades was speaking and the citizens were intent

on the assembly, the soldiers broke down an ill-walled-up postern gate

without being observed, and getting inside the town, flocked into the

marketplace. The Syracusan party in the town no sooner saw the army

inside than they became frightened and withdrew, not being at all

numerous; while the rest voted for an alliance with the Athenians and

invited them to fetch the rest of their forces from Rhegium. After this

the Athenians sailed to Rhegium, and put off, this time with all the

armament, for Catana, and fell to work at their camp immediately upon

their arrival.

Meanwhile word was brought them from Camarina that if they went there

the town would go over to them, and also that the Syracusans were

manning a fleet. The Athenians accordingly sailed alongshore with all

their armament, first to Syracuse, where they found no fleet manning,

and so always along the coast to Camarina, where they brought to at the

beach, and sent a herald to the people, who, however, refused to

receive them, saying that their oaths bound them to receive the

Athenians only with a single vessel, unless they themselves sent for

more. Disappointed here, the Athenians now sailed back again, and after

landing and plundering on Syracusan territory and losing some

stragglers from their light infantry through the coming up of the

Syracusan horse, so got back to Catana.

There they found the Salaminia come from Athens for Alcibiades, with

orders for him to sail home to answer the charges which the state

brought against him, and for certain others of the soldiers who with

him were accused of sacrilege in the matter of the mysteries and of the

Hermae. For the Athenians, after the departure of the expedition, had

continued as active as ever in investigating the facts of the mysteries

and of the Hermae, and, instead of testing the informers, in their

suspicious temper welcomed all indifferently, arresting and imprisoning

the best citizens upon the evidence of rascals, and preferring to sift

the matter to the bottom sooner than to let an accused person of good

character pass unquestioned, owing to the rascality of the informer.

The commons had heard how oppressive the tyranny of Pisistratus and his

sons had become before it ended, and further that that had been put

down at last, not by themselves and Harmodius, but by the

Lacedaemonians, and so were always in fear and took everything

suspiciously.

Indeed, the daring action of Aristogiton and Harmodius was undertaken

in consequence of a love affair, which I shall relate at some length,

to show that the Athenians are not more accurate than the rest of the

world in their accounts of their own tyrants and of the facts of their

own history. Pisistratus dying at an advanced age in possession of the

tyranny, was succeeded by his eldest son, Hippias, and not Hipparchus,

as is vulgarly believed. Harmodius was then in the flower of youthful

beauty, and Aristogiton, a citizen in the middle rank of life, was his

lover and possessed him. Solicited without success by Hipparchus, son

of Pisistratus, Harmodius told Aristogiton, and the enraged lover,

afraid that the powerful Hipparchus might take Harmodius by force,

immediately formed a design, such as his condition in life permitted,

for overthrowing the tyranny. In the meantime Hipparchus, after a

second solicitation of Harmodius, attended with no better success,

unwilling to use violence, arranged to insult him in some covert way.

Indeed, generally their government was not grievous to the multitude,

or in any way odious in practice; and these tyrants cultivated wisdom

and virtue as much as any, and without exacting from the Athenians more

than a twentieth of their income, splendidly adorned their city, and

carried on their wars, and provided sacrifices for the temples. For the

rest, the city was left in full enjoyment of its existing laws, except

that care was always taken to have the offices in the hands of some one

of the family. Among those of them that held the yearly archonship at

Athens was Pisistratus, son of the tyrant Hippias, and named after his

grandfather, who dedicated during his term of office the altar to the

twelve gods in the market-place, and that of Apollo in the Pythian

precinct. The Athenian people afterwards built on to and lengthened the

altar in the market-place, and obliterated the inscription; but that in

the Pythian precinct can still be seen, though in faded letters, and is

to the following effect:

Pisistratus, the son of Hippias, Sent up this record of his archonship

In precinct of Apollo Pythias.

That Hippias was the eldest son and succeeded to the government, is

what I positively assert as a fact upon which I have had more exact

accounts than others, and may be also ascertained by the following

circumstance. He is the only one of the legitimate brothers that

appears to have had children; as the altar shows, and the pillar placed

in the Athenian Acropolis, commemorating the crime of the tyrants,

which mentions no child of Thessalus or of Hipparchus, but five of

Hippias, which he had by Myrrhine, daughter of Callias, son of

Hyperechides; and naturally the eldest would have married first. Again,

his name comes first on the pillar after that of his father; and this

too is quite natural, as he was the eldest after him, and the reigning

tyrant. Nor can I ever believe that Hippias would have obtained the

tyranny so easily, if Hipparchus had been in power when he was killed,

and he, Hippias, had had to establish himself upon the same day; but he

had no doubt been long accustomed to overawe the citizens, and to be

obeyed by his mercenaries, and thus not only conquered, but conquered

with ease, without experiencing any of the embarrassment of a younger

brother unused to the exercise of authority. It was the sad fate which

made Hipparchus famous that got him also the credit with posterity of

having been tyrant.

To return to Harmodius; Hipparchus having been repulsed in his

solicitations insulted him as he had resolved, by first inviting a

sister of his, a young girl, to come and bear a basket in a certain

procession, and then rejecting her, on the plea that she had never been

invited at all owing to her unworthiness. If Harmodius was indignant at

this, Aristogiton for his sake now became more exasperated than ever;

and having arranged everything with those who were to join them in the

enterprise, they only waited for the great feast of the Panathenaea,

the sole day upon which the citizens forming part of the procession

could meet together in arms without suspicion. Aristogiton and

Harmodius were to begin, but were to be supported immediately by their

accomplices against the bodyguard. The conspirators were not many, for

better security, besides which they hoped that those not in the plot

would be carried away by the example of a few daring spirits, and use

the arms in their hands to recover their liberty.

At last the festival arrived; and Hippias with his bodyguard was

outside the city in the Ceramicus, arranging how the different parts of

the procession were to proceed. Harmodius and Aristogiton had already

their daggers and were getting ready to act, when seeing one of their

accomplices talking familiarly with Hippias, who was easy of access to

every one, they took fright, and concluded that they were discovered

and on the point of being taken; and eager if possible to be revenged

first upon the man who had wronged them and for whom they had

undertaken all this risk, they rushed, as they were, within the gates,

and meeting with Hipparchus by the Leocorium recklessly fell upon him

at once, infuriated, Aristogiton by love, and Harmodius by insult, and

smote him and slew him. Aristogiton escaped the guards at the moment,

through the crowd running up, but was afterwards taken and dispatched

in no merciful way: Harmodius was killed on the spot.

When the news was brought to Hippias in the Ceramicus, he at once

proceeded not to the scene of action, but to the armed men in the

procession, before they, being some distance away, knew anything of the

matter, and composing his features for the occasion, so as not to

betray himself, pointed to a certain spot, and bade them repair thither

without their arms. They withdrew accordingly, fancying he had

something to say; upon which he told the mercenaries to remove the

arms, and there and then picked out the men he thought guilty and all

found with daggers, the shield and spear being the usual weapons for a

procession.

In this way offended love first led Harmodius and Aristogiton to

conspire, and the alarm of the moment to commit the rash action

recounted. After this the tyranny pressed harder on the Athenians, and

Hippias, now grown more fearful, put to death many of the citizens, and

at the same time began to turn his eyes abroad for a refuge in case of

revolution. Thus, although an Athenian, he gave his daughter,

Archedice, to a Lampsacene, Aeantides, son of the tyrant of Lampsacus,

seeing that they had great influence with Darius. And there is her tomb

in Lampsacus with this inscription:

Archedice lies buried in this earth, Hippias her sire, and Athens gave

her birth; Unto her bosom pride was never known, Though daughter, wife,

and sister to the throne.

Hippias, after reigning three years longer over the Athenians, was

deposed in the fourth by the Lacedaemonians and the banished

Alcmaeonidae, and went with a safe conduct to Sigeum, and to Aeantides

at Lampsacus, and from thence to King Darius; from whose court he set

out twenty years after, in his old age, and came with the Medes to

Marathon.

With these events in their minds, and recalling everything they knew by

hearsay on the subject, the Athenian people grow difficult of humour

and suspicious of the persons charged in the affair of the mysteries,

and persuaded that all that had taken place was part of an oligarchical

and monarchical conspiracy. In the state of irritation thus produced,

many persons of consideration had been already thrown into prison, and

far from showing any signs of abating, public feeling grew daily more

savage, and more arrests were made; until at last one of those in

custody, thought to be the most guilty of all, was induced by a fellow

prisoner to make a revelation, whether true or not is a matter on which

there are two opinions, no one having been able, either then or since,

to say for certain who did the deed. However this may be, the other

found arguments to persuade him, that even if he had not done it, he

ought to save himself by gaining a promise of impunity, and free the

state of its present suspicions; as he would be surer of safety if he

confessed after promise of impunity than if he denied and were brought

to trial. He accordingly made a revelation, affecting himself and

others in the affair of the Hermae; and the Athenian people, glad at

last, as they supposed, to get at the truth, and furious until then at

not being able to discover those who had conspired against the commons,

at once let go the informer and all the rest whom he had not denounced,

and bringing the accused to trial executed as many as were apprehended,

and condemned to death such as had fled and set a price upon their

heads. In this it was, after all, not clear whether the sufferers had

been punished unjustly, while in any case the rest of the city received

immediate and manifest relief.

To return to Alcibiades: public feeling was very hostile to him, being

worked on by the same enemies who had attacked him before he went out;

and now that the Athenians fancied that they had got at the truth of

the matter of the Hermae, they believed more firmly than ever that the

affair of the mysteries also, in which he was implicated, had been

contrived by him in the same intention and was connected with the plot

against the democracy. Meanwhile it so happened that, just at the time

of this agitation, a small force of Lacedaemonians had advanced as far

as the Isthmus, in pursuance of some scheme with the Boeotians. It was

now thought that this had come by appointment, at his instigation, and

not on account of the Boeotians, and that, if the citizens had not

acted on the information received, and forestalled them by arresting

the prisoners, the city would have been betrayed. The citizens went so

far as to sleep one night armed in the temple of Theseus within the

walls. The friends also of Alcibiades at Argos were just at this time

suspected of a design to attack the commons; and the Argive hostages

deposited in the islands were given up by the Athenians to the Argive

people to be put to death upon that account: in short, everywhere

something was found to create suspicion against Alcibiades. It was

therefore decided to bring him to trial and execute him, and the

Salaminia was sent to Sicily for him and the others named in the

information, with instructions to order him to come and answer the

charges against him, but not to arrest him, because they wished to

avoid causing any agitation in the army or among the enemy in Sicily,

and above all to retain the services of the Mantineans and Argives,

who, it was thought, had been induced to join by his influence.

Alcibiades, with his own ship and his fellow accused, accordingly

sailed off with the Salaminia from Sicily, as though to return to

Athens, and went with her as far as Thurii, and there they left the

ship and disappeared, being afraid to go home for trial with such a

prejudice existing against them. The crew of the Salaminia stayed some

time looking for Alcibiades and his companions, and at length, as they

were nowhere to be found, set sail and departed. Alcibiades, now an

outlaw, crossed in a boat not long after from Thurii to Peloponnese;

and the Athenians passed sentence of death by default upon him and

those in his company.

CHAPTER XX

Seventeenth and Eighteenth Years of the War—Inaction of the Athenian

Army—Alcibiades at Sparta—Investment of Syracuse

The Athenian generals left in Sicily now divided the armament into two

parts, and, each taking one by lot, sailed with the whole for Selinus

and Egesta, wishing to know whether the Egestaeans would give the

money, and to look into the question of Selinus and ascertain the state

of the quarrel between her and Egesta. Coasting along Sicily, with the

shore on their left, on the side towards the Tyrrhene Gulf they touched

at Himera, the only Hellenic city in that part of the island, and being

refused admission resumed their voyage. On their way they took Hyccara,

a petty Sicanian seaport, nevertheless at war with Egesta, and making

slaves of the inhabitants gave up the town to the Egestaeans, some of

whose horse had joined them; after which the army proceeded through the

territory of the Sicels until it reached Catana, while the fleet sailed

along the coast with the slaves on board. Meanwhile Nicias sailed

straight from Hyccara along the coast and went to Egesta and, after

transacting his other business and receiving thirty talents, rejoined

the forces. They now sold their slaves for the sum of one hundred and

twenty talents, and sailed round to their Sicel allies to urge them to

send troops; and meanwhile went with half their own force to the

hostile town of Hybla in the territory of Gela, but did not succeed in

taking it.

Summer was now over. The winter following, the Athenians at once began

to prepare for moving on Syracuse, and the Syracusans on their side for

marching against them. From the moment when the Athenians failed to

attack them instantly as they at first feared and expected, every day

that passed did something to revive their courage; and when they saw

them sailing far away from them on the other side of Sicily, and going

to Hybla only to fail in their attempts to storm it, they thought less

of them than ever, and called upon their generals, as the multitude is

apt to do in its moments of confidence, to lead them to Catana, since

the enemy would not come to them. Parties also of the Syracusan horse

employed in reconnoitring constantly rode up to the Athenian armament,

and among other insults asked them whether they had not really come to

settle with the Syracusans in a foreign country rather than to resettle

the Leontines in their own.

Aware of this, the Athenian generals determined to draw them out in

mass as far as possible from the city, and themselves in the meantime

to sail by night alongshore, and take up at their leisure a convenient

position. This they knew they could not so well do, if they had to

disembark from their ships in front of a force prepared for them, or to

go by land openly. The numerous cavalry of the Syracusans (a force

which they were themselves without) would then be able to do the

greatest mischief to their light troops and the crowd that followed

them; but this plan would enable them to take up a position in which

the horse could do them no hurt worth speaking of, some Syracusan

exiles with the army having told them of the spot near the Olympieum,

which they afterwards occupied. In pursuance of their idea, the

generals imagined the following stratagem. They sent to Syracuse a man

devoted to them, and by the Syracusan generals thought to be no less in

their interest; he was a native of Catana, and said he came from

persons in that place, whose names the Syracusan generals were

acquainted with, and whom they knew to be among the members of their

party still left in the city. He told them that the Athenians passed

the night in the town, at some distance from their arms, and that if

the Syracusans would name a day and come with all their people at

daybreak to attack the armament, they, their friends, would close the

gates upon the troops in the city, and set fire to the vessels, while

the Syracusans would easily take the camp by an attack upon the

stockade. In this they would be aided by many of the Catanians, who

were already prepared to act, and from whom he himself came.

The generals of the Syracusans, who did not want confidence, and who

had intended even without this to march on Catana, believed the man

without any sufficient inquiry, fixed at once a day upon which they

would be there, and dismissed him, and the Selinuntines and others of

their allies having now arrived, gave orders for all the Syracusans to

march out in mass. Their preparations completed, and the time fixed for

their arrival being at hand, they set out for Catana, and passed the

night upon the river Symaethus, in the Leontine territory. Meanwhile

the Athenians no sooner knew of their approach than they took all their

forces and such of the Sicels or others as had joined them, put them on

board their ships and boats, and sailed by night to Syracuse. Thus,

when morning broke the Athenians were landing opposite the Olympieum

ready to seize their camping ground, and the Syracusan horse having

ridden up first to Catana and found that all the armament had put to

sea, turned back and told the infantry, and then all turned back

together, and went to the relief of the city.

In the meantime, as the march before the Syracusans was a long one, the

Athenians quietly sat down their army in a convenient position, where

they could begin an engagement when they pleased, and where the

Syracusan cavalry would have least opportunity of annoying them, either

before or during the action, being fenced off on one side by walls,

houses, trees, and by a marsh, and on the other by cliffs. They also

felled the neighbouring trees and carried them down to the sea, and

formed a palisade alongside of their ships, and with stones which they

picked up and wood hastily raised a fort at Daskon, the most vulnerable

point of their position, and broke down the bridge over the Anapus.

These preparations were allowed to go on without any interruption from

the city, the first hostile force to appear being the Syracusan

cavalry, followed afterwards by all the foot together. At first they

came close up to the Athenian army, and then, finding that they did not

offer to engage, crossed the Helorine road and encamped for the night.

The next day the Athenians and their allies prepared for battle, their

dispositions being as follows: Their right wing was occupied by the

Argives and Mantineans, the centre by the Athenians, and the rest of

the field by the other allies. Half their army was drawn up eight deep

in advance, half close to their tents in a hollow square, formed also

eight deep, which had orders to look out and be ready to go to the

support of the troops hardest pressed. The camp followers were placed

inside this reserve. The Syracusans, meanwhile, formed their heavy

infantry sixteen deep, consisting of the mass levy of their own people,

and such allies as had joined them, the strongest contingent being that

of the Selinuntines; next to them the cavalry of the Geloans, numbering

two hundred in all, with about twenty horse and fifty archers from

Camarina. The cavalry was posted on their right, full twelve hundred

strong, and next to it the darters. As the Athenians were about to

begin the attack, Nicias went along the lines, and addressed these

words of encouragement to the army and the nations composing it:

“Soldiers, a long exhortation is little needed by men like ourselves,

who are here to fight in the same battle, the force itself being, to my

thinking, more fit to inspire confidence than a fine speech with a weak

army. Where we have Argives, Mantineans, Athenians, and the first of

the islanders in the ranks together, it were strange indeed, with so

many and so brave companions in arms, if we did not feel confident of

victory; especially when we have mass levies opposed to our picked

troops, and what is more, Siceliots, who may disdain us but will not

stand against us, their skill not being at all commensurate to their

rashness. You may also remember that we are far from home and have no

friendly land near, except what your own swords shall win you; and here

I put before you a motive just the reverse of that which the enemy are

appealing to; their cry being that they shall fight for their country,

mine that we shall fight for a country that is not ours, where we must

conquer or hardly get away, as we shall have their horse upon us in

great numbers. Remember, therefore, your renown, and go boldly against

the enemy, thinking the present strait and necessity more terrible than

they.”

After this address Nicias at once led on the army. The Syracusans were

not at that moment expecting an immediate engagement, and some had even

gone away to the town, which was close by; these now ran up as hard as

they could and, though behind time, took their places here or there in

the main body as fast as they joined it. Want of zeal or daring was

certainly not the fault of the Syracusans, either in this or the other

battles, but although not inferior in courage, so far as their military

science might carry them, when this failed them they were compelled to

give up their resolution also. On the present occasion, although they

had not supposed that the Athenians would begin the attack, and

although constrained to stand upon their defence at short notice, they

at once took up their arms and advanced to meet them. First, the

stone-throwers, slingers, and archers of either army began skirmishing,

and routed or were routed by one another, as might be expected between

light troops; next, soothsayers brought forward the usual victims, and

trumpeters urged on the heavy infantry to the charge; and thus they

advanced, the Syracusans to fight for their country, and each

individual for his safety that day and liberty hereafter; in the

enemy’s army, the Athenians to make another’s country theirs and to

save their own from suffering by their defeat; the Argives and

independent allies to help them in getting what they came for, and to

earn by victory another sight of the country they had left behind;

while the subject allies owed most of their ardour to the desire of

self-preservation, which they could only hope for if victorious; next

to which, as a secondary motive, came the chance of serving on easier

terms, after helping the Athenians to a fresh conquest.

The armies now came to close quarters, and for a long while fought

without either giving ground. Meanwhile there occurred some claps of

thunder with lightning and heavy rain, which did not fail to add to the

fears of the party fighting for the first time, and very little

acquainted with war; while to their more experienced adversaries these

phenomena appeared to be produced by the time of year, and much more

alarm was felt at the continued resistance of the enemy. At last the

Argives drove in the Syracusan left, and after them the Athenians

routed the troops opposed to them, and the Syracusan army was thus cut

in two and betook itself to flight. The Athenians did not pursue far,

being held in check by the numerous and undefeated Syracusan horse, who

attacked and drove back any of their heavy infantry whom they saw

pursuing in advance of the rest; in spite of which the victors followed

so far as was safe in a body, and then went back and set up a trophy.

Meanwhile the Syracusans rallied at the Helorine road, where they

re-formed as well as they could under the circumstances, and even sent

a garrison of their own citizens to the Olympieum, fearing that the

Athenians might lay hands on some of the treasures there. The rest

returned to the town.

The Athenians, however, did not go to the temple, but collected their

dead and laid them upon a pyre, and passed the night upon the field.

The next day they gave the enemy back their dead under truce, to the

number of about two hundred and sixty, Syracusans and allies, and

gathered together the bones of their own, some fifty, Athenians and

allies, and taking the spoils of the enemy, sailed back to Catana. It

was now winter; and it did not seem possible for the moment to carry on

the war before Syracuse, until horse should have been sent for from

Athens and levied among the allies in Sicily—to do away with their

utter inferiority in cavalry—and money should have been collected in

the country and received from Athens, and until some of the cities,

which they hoped would be now more disposed to listen to them after the

battle, should have been brought over, and corn and all other

necessaries provided, for a campaign in the spring against Syracuse.

With this intention they sailed off to Naxos and Catana for the winter.

Meanwhile the Syracusans burned their dead and then held an assembly,

in which Hermocrates, son of Hermon, a man who with a general ability

of the first order had given proofs of military capacity and brilliant

courage in the war, came forward and encouraged them, and told them not

to let what had occurred make them give way, since their spirit had not

been conquered, but their want of discipline had done the mischief.

Still they had not been beaten by so much as might have been expected,

especially as they were, one might say, novices in the art of war, an

army of artisans opposed to the most practised soldiers in Hellas. What

had also done great mischief was the number of the generals (there were

fifteen of them) and the quantity of orders given, combined with the

disorder and insubordination of the troops. But if they were to have a

few skilful generals, and used this winter in preparing their heavy

infantry, finding arms for such as had not got any, so as to make them

as numerous as possible, and forcing them to attend to their training

generally, they would have every chance of beating their adversaries,

courage being already theirs and discipline in the field having thus

been added to it. Indeed, both these qualities would improve, since

danger would exercise them in discipline, while their courage would be

led to surpass itself by the confidence which skill inspires. The

generals should be few and elected with full powers, and an oath should

be taken to leave them entire discretion in their command: if they

adopted this plan, their secrets would be better kept, all preparations

would be properly made, and there would be no room for excuses.

The Syracusans heard him, and voted everything as he advised, and

elected three generals, Hermocrates himself, Heraclides, son of

Lysimachus, and Sicanus, son of Execestes. They also sent envoys to

Corinth and Lacedaemon to procure a force of allies to join them, and

to induce the Lacedaemonians for their sakes openly to address

themselves in real earnest to the war against the Athenians, that they

might either have to leave Sicily or be less able to send

reinforcements to their army there.

The Athenian forces at Catana now at once sailed against Messina, in

the expectation of its being betrayed to them. The intrigue, however,

after all came to nothing: Alcibiades, who was in the secret, when he

left his command upon the summons from home, foreseeing that he would

be outlawed, gave information of the plot to the friends of the

Syracusans in Messina, who had at once put to death its authors, and

now rose in arms against the opposite faction with those of their way

of thinking, and succeeded in preventing the admission of the

Athenians. The latter waited for thirteen days, and then, as they were

exposed to the weather and without provisions, and met with no success,

went back to Naxos, where they made places for their ships to lie in,

erected a palisade round their camp, and retired into winter quarters;

meanwhile they sent a galley to Athens for money and cavalry to join

them in the spring. During the winter the Syracusans built a wall on to

the city, so as to take in the statue of Apollo Temenites, all along

the side looking towards Epipolae, to make the task of circumvallation

longer and more difficult, in case of their being defeated, and also

erected a fort at Megara and another in the Olympieum, and stuck

palisades along the sea wherever there was a landing Place. Meanwhile,

as they knew that the Athenians were wintering at Naxos, they marched

with all their people to Catana, and ravaged the land and set fire to

the tents and encampment of the Athenians, and so returned home.

Learning also that the Athenians were sending an embassy to Camarina,

on the strength of the alliance concluded in the time of Laches, to

gain, if possible, that city, they sent another from Syracuse to oppose

them. They had a shrewd suspicion that the Camarinaeans had not sent

what they did send for the first battle very willingly; and they now

feared that they would refuse to assist them at all in future, after

seeing the success of the Athenians in the action, and would join the

latter on the strength of their old friendship. Hermocrates, with some

others, accordingly arrived at Camarina from Syracuse, and Euphemus and

others from the Athenians; and an assembly of the Camarinaeans having

been convened, Hermocrates spoke as follows, in the hope of prejudicing

them against the Athenians:

“Camarinaeans, we did not come on this embassy because we were afraid

of your being frightened by the actual forces of the Athenians, but

rather of your being gained by what they would say to you before you

heard anything from us. They are come to Sicily with the pretext that

you know, and the intention which we all suspect, in my opinion less to

restore the Leontines to their homes than to oust us from ours; as it

is out of all reason that they should restore in Sicily the cities that

they lay waste in Hellas, or should cherish the Leontine Chalcidians

because of their Ionian blood and keep in servitude the Euboean

Chalcidians, of whom the Leontines are a colony. No; but the same

policy which has proved so successful in Hellas is now being tried in

Sicily. After being chosen as the leaders of the Ionians and of the

other allies of Athenian origin, to punish the Mede, the Athenians

accused some of failure in military service, some of fighting against

each other, and others, as the case might be, upon any colourable

pretext that could be found, until they thus subdued them all. In fine,

in the struggle against the Medes, the Athenians did not fight for the

liberty of the Hellenes, or the Hellenes for their own liberty, but the

former to make their countrymen serve them instead of him, the latter

to change one master for another, wiser indeed than the first, but

wiser for evil.

“But we are not now come to declare to an audience familiar with them

the misdeeds of a state so open to accusation as is the Athenian, but

much rather to blame ourselves, who, with the warnings we possess in

the Hellenes in those parts that have been enslaved through not

supporting each other, and seeing the same sophisms being now tried

upon ourselves—such as restorations of Leontine kinsfolk and support of

Egestaean allies—do not stand together and resolutely show them that

here are no Ionians, or Hellespontines, or islanders, who change

continually, but always serve a master, sometimes the Mede and

sometimes some other, but free Dorians from independent Peloponnese,

dwelling in Sicily. Or, are we waiting until we be taken in detail, one

city after another; knowing as we do that in no other way can we be

conquered, and seeing that they turn to this plan, so as to divide some

of us by words, to draw some by the bait of an alliance into open war

with each other, and to ruin others by such flattery as different

circumstances may render acceptable? And do we fancy when destruction

first overtakes a distant fellow countryman that the danger will not

come to each of us also, or that he who suffers before us will suffer

in himself alone?

“As for the Camarinaean who says that it is the Syracusan, not he, that

is the enemy of the Athenian, and who thinks it hard to have to

encounter risk in behalf of my country, I would have him bear in mind

that he will fight in my country, not more for mine than for his own,

and by so much the more safely in that he will enter on the struggle

not alone, after the way has been cleared by my ruin, but with me as

his ally, and that the object of the Athenian is not so much to punish

the enmity of the Syracusan as to use me as a blind to secure the

friendship of the Camarinaean. As for him who envies or even fears us

(and envied and feared great powers must always be), and who on this

account wishes Syracuse to be humbled to teach us a lesson, but would

still have her survive, in the interest of his own security the wish

that he indulges is not humanly possible. A man can control his own

desires, but he cannot likewise control circumstances; and in the event

of his calculations proving mistaken, he may live to bewail his own

misfortune, and wish to be again envying my prosperity. An idle wish,

if he now sacrifice us and refuse to take his share of perils which are

the same, in reality though not in name, for him as for us; what is

nominally the preservation of our power being really his own salvation.

It was to be expected that you, of all people in the world,

Camarinaeans, being our immediate neighbours and the next in danger,

would have foreseen this, and instead of supporting us in the lukewarm

way that you are now doing, would rather come to us of your own accord,

and be now offering at Syracuse the aid which you would have asked for

at Camarina, if to Camarina the Athenians had first come, to encourage

us to resist the invader. Neither you, however, nor the rest have as

yet bestirred yourselves in this direction.

“Fear perhaps will make you study to do right both by us and by the

invaders, and plead that you have an alliance with the Athenians. But

you made that alliance, not against your friends, but against the

enemies that might attack you, and to help the Athenians when they were

wronged by others, not when as now they are wronging their neighbours.

Even the Rhegians, Chalcidians though they be, refuse to help to

restore the Chalcidian Leontines; and it would be strange if, while

they suspect the gist of this fine pretence and are wise without

reason, you, with every reason on your side, should yet choose to

assist your natural enemies, and should join with their direst foes in

undoing those whom nature has made your own kinsfolk. This is not to do

right; but you should help us without fear of their armament, which has

no terrors if we hold together, but only if we let them succeed in

their endeavours to separate us; since even after attacking us by

ourselves and being victorious in battle, they had to go off without

effecting their purpose.

“United, therefore, we have no cause to despair, but rather new

encouragement to league together; especially as succour will come to us

from the Peloponnesians, in military matters the undoubted superiors of

the Athenians. And you need not think that your prudent policy of

taking sides with neither, because allies of both, is either safe for

you or fair to us. Practically it is not as fair as it pretends to be.

If the vanquished be defeated, and the victor conquer, through your

refusing to join, what is the effect of your abstention but to leave

the former to perish unaided, and to allow the latter to offend

unhindered? And yet it were more honourable to join those who are not

only the injured party, but your own kindred, and by so doing to defend

the common interests of Sicily and save your friends the Athenians from

doing wrong.

“In conclusion, we Syracusans say that it is useless for us to

demonstrate either to you or to the rest what you know already as well

as we do; but we entreat, and if our entreaty fail, we protest that we

are menaced by our eternal enemies the Ionians, and are betrayed by you

our fellow Dorians. If the Athenians reduce us, they will owe their

victory to your decision, but in their own name will reap the honour,

and will receive as the prize of their triumph the very men who enabled

them to gain it. On the other hand, if we are the conquerors, you will

have to pay for having been the cause of our danger. Consider,

therefore; and now make your choice between the security which present

servitude offers and the prospect of conquering with us and so escaping

disgraceful submission to an Athenian master and avoiding the lasting

enmity of Syracuse.”

Such were the words of Hermocrates; after whom Euphemus, the Athenian

ambassador, spoke as follows:

“Although we came here only to renew the former alliance, the attack of

the Syracusans compels us to speak of our empire and of the good right

we have to it. The best proof of this the speaker himself furnished,

when he called the Ionians eternal enemies of the Dorians. It is the

fact; and the Peloponnesian Dorians being our superiors in numbers and

next neighbours, we Ionians looked out for the best means of escaping

their domination. After the Median War we had a fleet, and so got rid

of the empire and supremacy of the Lacedaemonians, who had no right to

give orders to us more than we to them, except that of being the

strongest at that moment; and being appointed leaders of the King’s

former subjects, we continue to be so, thinking that we are least

likely to fall under the dominion of the Peloponnesians, if we have a

force to defend ourselves with, and in strict truth having done nothing

unfair in reducing to subjection the Ionians and islanders, the

kinsfolk whom the Syracusans say we have enslaved. They, our kinsfolk,

came against their mother country, that is to say against us, together

with the Mede, and, instead of having the courage to revolt and

sacrifice their property as we did when we abandoned our city, chose to

be slaves themselves, and to try to make us so.

“We, therefore, deserve to rule because we placed the largest fleet and

an unflinching patriotism at the service of the Hellenes, and because

these, our subjects, did us mischief by their ready subservience to the

Medes; and, desert apart, we seek to strengthen ourselves against the

Peloponnesians. We make no fine profession of having a right to rule

because we overthrew the barbarian single-handed, or because we risked

what we did risk for the freedom of the subjects in question any more

than for that of all, and for our own: no one can be quarrelled with

for providing for his proper safety. If we are now here in Sicily, it

is equally in the interest of our security, with which we perceive that

your interest also coincides. We prove this from the conduct which the

Syracusans cast against us and which you somewhat too timorously

suspect; knowing that those whom fear has made suspicious may be

carried away by the charm of eloquence for the moment, but when they

come to act follow their interests.

“Now, as we have said, fear makes us hold our empire in Hellas, and

fear makes us now come, with the help of our friends, to order safely

matters in Sicily, and not to enslave any but rather to prevent any

from being enslaved. Meanwhile, let no one imagine that we are

interesting ourselves in you without your having anything to do with

us, seeing that, if you are preserved and able to make head against the

Syracusans, they will be less likely to harm us by sending troops to

the Peloponnesians. In this way you have everything to do with us, and

on this account it is perfectly reasonable for us to restore the

Leontines, and to make them, not subjects like their kinsmen in Euboea,

but as powerful as possible, to help us by annoying the Syracusans from

their frontier. In Hellas we are alone a match for our enemies; and as

for the assertion that it is out of all reason that we should free the

Sicilian, while we enslave the Chalcidian, the fact is that the latter

is useful to us by being without arms and contributing money only;

while the former, the Leontines and our other friends, cannot be too

independent.

“Besides, for tyrants and imperial cities nothing is unreasonable if

expedient, no one a kinsman unless sure; but friendship or enmity is

everywhere an affair of time and circumstance. Here, in Sicily, our

interest is not to weaken our friends, but by means of their strength

to cripple our enemies. Why doubt this? In Hellas we treat our allies

as we find them useful. The Chians and Methymnians govern themselves

and furnish ships; most of the rest have harder terms and pay tribute

in money; while others, although islanders and easy for us to take, are

free altogether, because they occupy convenient positions round

Peloponnese. In our settlement of the states here in Sicily, we should

therefore; naturally be guided by our interest, and by fear, as we say,

of the Syracusans. Their ambition is to rule you, their object to use

the suspicions that we excite to unite you, and then, when we have gone

away without effecting anything, by force or through your isolation, to

become the masters of Sicily. And masters they must become, if you

unite with them; as a force of that magnitude would be no longer easy

for us to deal with united, and they would be more than a match for you

as soon as we were away.

“Any other view of the case is condemned by the facts. When you first

asked us over, the fear which you held out was that of danger to Athens

if we let you come under the dominion of Syracuse; and it is not right

now to mistrust the very same argument by which you claimed to convince

us, or to give way to suspicion because we are come with a larger force

against the power of that city. Those whom you should really distrust

are the Syracusans. We are not able to stay here without you, and if we

proved perfidious enough to bring you into subjection, we should be

unable to keep you in bondage, owing to the length of the voyage and

the difficulty of guarding large, and in a military sense continental,

towns: they, the Syracusans, live close to you, not in a camp, but in a

city greater than the force we have with us, plot always against you,

never let slip an opportunity once offered, as they have shown in the

case of the Leontines and others, and now have the face, just as if you

were fools, to invite you to aid them against the power that hinders

this, and that has thus far maintained Sicily independent. We, as

against them, invite you to a much more real safety, when we beg you

not to betray that common safety which we each have in the other, and

to reflect that they, even without allies, will, by their numbers, have

always the way open to you, while you will not often have the

opportunity of defending yourselves with such numerous auxiliaries; if,

through your suspicions, you once let these go away unsuccessful or

defeated, you will wish to see if only a handful of them back again,

when the day is past in which their presence could do anything for you.

“But we hope, Camarinaeans, that the calumnies of the Syracusans will

not be allowed to succeed either with you or with the rest: we have

told you the whole truth upon the things we are suspected of, and will

now briefly recapitulate, in the hope of convincing you. We assert that

we are rulers in Hellas in order not to be subjects; liberators in

Sicily that we may not be harmed by the Sicilians; that we are

compelled to interfere in many things, because we have many things to

guard against; and that now, as before, we are come as allies to those

of you who suffer wrong in this island, not without invitation but upon

invitation. Accordingly, instead of making yourselves judges or censors

of our conduct, and trying to turn us, which it were now difficult to

do, so far as there is anything in our interfering policy or in our

character that chimes in with your interest, this take and make use of;

and be sure that, far from being injurious to all alike, to most of the

Hellenes that policy is even beneficial. Thanks to it, all men in all

places, even where we are not, who either apprehend or meditate

aggression, from the near prospect before them, in the one case, of

obtaining our intervention in their favour, in the other, of our

arrival making the venture dangerous, find themselves constrained,

respectively, to be moderate against their will, and to be preserved

without trouble of their own. Do not you reject this security that is

open to all who desire it, and is now offered to you; but do like

others, and instead of being always on the defensive against the

Syracusans, unite with us, and in your turn at last threaten them.”

Such were the words of Euphemus. What the Camarinaeans felt was this.

Sympathizing with the Athenians, except in so far as they might be

afraid of their subjugating Sicily, they had always been at enmity with

their neighbour Syracuse. From the very fact, however, that they were

their neighbours, they feared the Syracusans most of the two, and being

apprehensive of their conquering even without them, both sent them in

the first instance the few horsemen mentioned, and for the future

determined to support them most in fact, although as sparingly as

possible; but for the moment in order not to seem to slight the

Athenians, especially as they had been successful in the engagement, to

answer both alike. Agreeably to this resolution they answered that as

both the contending parties happened to be allies of theirs, they

thought it most consistent with their oaths at present to side with

neither; with which answer the ambassadors of either party departed.

In the meantime, while Syracuse pursued her preparations for war, the

Athenians were encamped at Naxos, and tried by negotiation to gain as

many of the Sicels as possible. Those more in the low lands, and

subjects of Syracuse, mostly held aloof; but the peoples of the

interior who had never been otherwise than independent, with few

exceptions, at once joined the Athenians, and brought down corn to the

army, and in some cases even money. The Athenians marched against those

who refused to join, and forced some of them to do so; in the case of

others they were stopped by the Syracusans sending garrisons and

reinforcements. Meanwhile the Athenians moved their winter quarters

from Naxos to Catana, and reconstructed the camp burnt by the

Syracusans, and stayed there the rest of the winter. They also sent a

galley to Carthage, with proffers of friendship, on the chance of

obtaining assistance, and another to Tyrrhenia; some of the cities

there having spontaneously offered to join them in the war. They also

sent round to the Sicels and to Egesta, desiring them to send them as

many horses as possible, and meanwhile prepared bricks, iron, and all

other things necessary for the work of circumvallation, intending by

the spring to begin hostilities.

In the meantime the Syracusan envoys dispatched to Corinth and

Lacedaemon tried as they passed along the coast to persuade the

Italiots to interfere with the proceedings of the Athenians, which

threatened Italy quite as much as Syracuse, and having arrived at

Corinth made a speech calling on the Corinthians to assist them on the

ground of their common origin. The Corinthians voted at once to aid

them heart and soul themselves, and then sent on envoys with them to

Lacedaemon, to help them to persuade her also to prosecute the war with

the Athenians more openly at home and to send succours to Sicily. The

envoys from Corinth having reached Lacedaemon found there Alcibiades

with his fellow refugees, who had at once crossed over in a trading

vessel from Thurii, first to Cyllene in Elis, and afterwards from

thence to Lacedaemon; upon the Lacedaemonians’ own invitation, after

first obtaining a safe conduct, as he feared them for the part he had

taken in the affair of Mantinea. The result was that the Corinthians,

Syracusans, and Alcibiades, pressing all the same request in the

assembly of the Lacedaemonians, succeeded in persuading them; but as

the ephors and the authorities, although resolved to send envoys to

Syracuse to prevent their surrendering to the Athenians, showed no

disposition to send them any assistance, Alcibiades now came forward

and inflamed and stirred the Lacedaemonians by speaking as follows:

“I am forced first to speak to you of the prejudice with which I am

regarded, in order that suspicion may not make you disinclined to

listen to me upon public matters. The connection, with you as your

proxeni, which the ancestors of our family by reason of some discontent

renounced, I personally tried to renew by my good offices towards you,

in particular upon the occasion of the disaster at Pylos. But although

I maintained this friendly attitude, you yet chose to negotiate the

peace with the Athenians through my enemies, and thus to strengthen

them and to discredit me. You had therefore no right to complain if I

turned to the Mantineans and Argives, and seized other occasions of

thwarting and injuring you; and the time has now come when those among

you, who in the bitterness of the moment may have been then unfairly

angry with me, should look at the matter in its true light, and take a

different view. Those again who judged me unfavourably, because I

leaned rather to the side of the commons, must not think that their

dislike is any better founded. We have always been hostile to tyrants,

and all who oppose arbitrary power are called commons; hence we

continued to act as leaders of the multitude; besides which, as

democracy was the government of the city, it was necessary in most

things to conform to established conditions. However, we endeavoured to

be more moderate than the licentious temper of the times; and while

there were others, formerly as now, who tried to lead the multitude

astray—the same who banished me—our party was that of the whole people,

our creed being to do our part in preserving the form of government

under which the city enjoyed the utmost greatness and freedom, and

which we had found existing. As for democracy, the men of sense among

us knew what it was, and I perhaps as well as any, as I have the more

cause to complain of it; but there is nothing new to be said of a

patent absurdity; meanwhile we did not think it safe to alter it under

the pressure of your hostility.

“So much then for the prejudices with which I am regarded: I now can

call your attention to the questions you must consider, and upon which

superior knowledge perhaps permits me to speak. We sailed to Sicily

first to conquer, if possible, the Siceliots, and after them the

Italiots also, and finally to assail the empire and city of Carthage.

In the event of all or most of these schemes succeeding, we were then

to attack Peloponnese, bringing with us the entire force of the

Hellenes lately acquired in those parts, and taking a number of

barbarians into our pay, such as the Iberians and others in those

countries, confessedly the most warlike known, and building numerous

galleys in addition to those which we had already, timber being

plentiful in Italy; and with this fleet blockading Peloponnese from the

sea and assailing it with our armies by land, taking some of the cities

by storm, drawing works of circumvallation round others, we hoped

without difficulty to effect its reduction, and after this to rule the

whole of the Hellenic name. Money and corn meanwhile for the better

execution of these plans were to be supplied in sufficient quantities

by the newly acquired places in those countries, independently of our

revenues here at home.

“You have thus heard the history of the present expedition from the man

who most exactly knows what our objects were; and the remaining

generals will, if they can, carry these out just the same. But that the

states in Sicily must succumb if you do not help them, I will now show.

Although the Siceliots, with all their inexperience, might even now be

saved if their forces were united, the Syracusans alone, beaten already

in one battle with all their people and blockaded from the sea, will be

unable to withstand the Athenian armament that is now there. But if

Syracuse falls, all Sicily falls also, and Italy immediately

afterwards; and the danger which I just now spoke of from that quarter

will before long be upon you. None need therefore fancy that Sicily

only is in question; Peloponnese will be so also, unless you speedily

do as I tell you, and send on board ship to Syracuse troops that shall

able to row their ships themselves, and serve as heavy infantry the

moment that they land; and what I consider even more important than the

troops, a Spartan as commanding officer to discipline the forces

already on foot and to compel recusants to serve. The friends that you

have already will thus become more confident, and the waverers will be

encouraged to join you. Meanwhile you must carry on the war here more

openly, that the Syracusans, seeing that you do not forget them, may

put heart into their resistance, and that the Athenians may be less

able to reinforce their armament. You must fortify Decelea in Attica,

the blow of which the Athenians are always most afraid and the only one

that they think they have not experienced in the present war; the

surest method of harming an enemy being to find out what he most fears,

and to choose this means of attacking him, since every one naturally

knows best his own weak points and fears accordingly. The fortification

in question, while it benefits you, will create difficulties for your

adversaries, of which I shall pass over many, and shall only mention

the chief. Whatever property there is in the country will most of it

become yours, either by capture or surrender; and the Athenians will at

once be deprived of their revenues from the silver mines at Laurium, of

their present gains from their land and from the law courts, and above

all of the revenue from their allies, which will be paid less

regularly, as they lose their awe of Athens and see you addressing

yourselves with vigour to the war. The zeal and speed with which all

this shall be done depends, Lacedaemonians, upon yourselves; as to its

possibility, I am quite confident, and I have little fear of being

mistaken.

“Meanwhile I hope that none of you will think any the worse of me if,

after having hitherto passed as a lover of my country, I now actively

join its worst enemies in attacking it, or will suspect what I say as

the fruit of an outlaw’s enthusiasm. I am an outlaw from the iniquity

of those who drove me forth, not, if you will be guided by me, from

your service; my worst enemies are not you who only harmed your foes,

but they who forced their friends to become enemies; and love of

country is what I do not feel when I am wronged, but what I felt when

secure in my rights as a citizen. Indeed I do not consider that I am

now attacking a country that is still mine; I am rather trying to

recover one that is mine no longer; and the true lover of his country

is not he who consents to lose it unjustly rather than attack it, but

he who longs for it so much that he will go all lengths to recover it.

For myself, therefore, Lacedaemonians, I beg you to use me without

scruple for danger and trouble of every kind, and to remember the

argument in every one’s mouth, that if I did you great harm as an

enemy, I could likewise do you good service as a friend, inasmuch as I

know the plans of the Athenians, while I only guessed yours. For

yourselves I entreat you to believe that your most capital interests

are now under deliberation; and I urge you to send without hesitation

the expeditions to Sicily and Attica; by the presence of a small part

of your forces you will save important cities in that island, and you

will destroy the power of Athens both present and prospective; after

this you will dwell in security and enjoy the supremacy over all

Hellas, resting not on force but upon consent and affection.”

Such were the words of Alcibiades. The Lacedaemonians, who had

themselves before intended to march against Athens, but were still

waiting and looking about them, at once became much more in earnest

when they received this particular information from Alcibiades, and

considered that they had heard it from the man who best knew the truth

of the matter. Accordingly they now turned their attention to the

fortifying of Decelea and sending immediate aid to the Sicilians; and

naming Gylippus, son of Cleandridas, to the command of the Syracusans,

bade him consult with that people and with the Corinthians and arrange

for succours reaching the island, in the best and speediest way

possible under the circumstances. Gylippus desired the Corinthians to

send him at once two ships to Asine, and to prepare the rest that they

intended to send, and to have them ready to sail at the proper time.

Having settled this, the envoys departed from Lacedaemon.

In the meantime arrived the Athenian galley from Sicily sent by the

generals for money and cavalry; and the Athenians, after hearing what

they wanted, voted to send the supplies for the armament and the

cavalry. And the winter ended, and with it ended the seventeenth year

of the present war of which Thucydides is the historian.

The next summer, at the very beginning of the season, the Athenians in

Sicily put out from Catana, and sailed along shore to Megara in Sicily,

from which, as I have mentioned above, the Syracusans expelled the

inhabitants in the time of their tyrant Gelo, themselves occupying the

territory. Here the Athenians landed and laid waste the country, and

after an unsuccessful attack upon a fort of the Syracusans, went on

with the fleet and army to the river Terias, and advancing inland laid

waste the plain and set fire to the corn; and after killing some of a

small Syracusan party which they encountered, and setting up a trophy,

went back again to their ships. They now sailed to Catana and took in

provisions there, and going with their whole force against Centoripa, a

town of the Sicels, acquired it by capitulation, and departed, after

also burning the corn of the Inessaeans and Hybleans. Upon their return

to Catana they found the horsemen arrived from Athens, to the number of

two hundred and fifty (with their equipments, but without their horses

which were to be procured upon the spot), and thirty mounted archers

and three hundred talents of silver.

The same spring the Lacedaemonians marched against Argos, and went as

far as Cleonae, when an earthquake occurred and caused them to return.

After this the Argives invaded the Thyreatid, which is on their border,

and took much booty from the Lacedaemonians, which was sold for no less

than twenty-five talents. The same summer, not long after, the Thespian

commons made an attack upon the party in office, which was not

successful, but succours arrived from Thebes, and some were caught,

while others took refuge at Athens.

The same summer the Syracusans learned that the Athenians had been

joined by their cavalry, and were on the point of marching against

them; and seeing that without becoming masters of Epipolae, a

precipitous spot situated exactly over the town, the Athenians could

not, even if victorious in battle, easily invest them, they determined

to guard its approaches, in order that the enemy might not ascend

unobserved by this, the sole way by which ascent was possible, as the

remainder is lofty ground, and falls right down to the city, and can

all be seen from inside; and as it lies above the rest the place is

called by the Syracusans Epipolae or Overtown. They accordingly went

out in mass at daybreak into the meadow along the river Anapus, their

new generals, Hermocrates and his colleagues, having just come into

office, and held a review of their heavy infantry, from whom they first

selected a picked body of six hundred, under the command of Diomilus,

an exile from Andros, to guard Epipolae, and to be ready to muster at a

moment’s notice to help wherever help should be required.

Meanwhile the Athenians, the very same morning, were holding a review,

having already made land unobserved with all the armament from Catana,

opposite a place called Leon, not much more than half a mile from

Epipolae, where they disembarked their army, bringing the fleet to

anchor at Thapsus, a peninsula running out into the sea, with a narrow

isthmus, and not far from the city of Syracuse either by land or water.

While the naval force of the Athenians threw a stockade across the

isthmus and remained quiet at Thapsus, the land army immediately went

on at a run to Epipolae, and succeeded in getting up by Euryelus before

the Syracusans perceived them, or could come up from the meadow and the

review. Diomilus with his six hundred and the rest advanced as quickly

as they could, but they had nearly three miles to go from the meadow

before reaching them. Attacking in this way in considerable disorder,

the Syracusans were defeated in battle at Epipolae and retired to the

town, with a loss of about three hundred killed, and Diomilus among the

number. After this the Athenians set up a trophy and restored to the

Syracusans their dead under truce, and next day descended to Syracuse

itself; and no one coming out to meet them, reascended and built a fort

at Labdalum, upon the edge of the cliffs of Epipolae, looking towards

Megara, to serve as a magazine for their baggage and money, whenever

they advanced to battle or to work at the lines.

Not long afterwards three hundred cavalry came to them from Egesta, and

about a hundred from the Sicels, Naxians, and others; and thus, with

the two hundred and fifty from Athens, for whom they had got horses

from the Egestaeans and Catanians, besides others that they bought,

they now mustered six hundred and fifty cavalry in all. After posting a

garrison in Labdalum, they advanced to Syca, where they sat down and

quickly built the Circle or centre of their wall of circumvallation.

The Syracusans, appalled at the rapidity with which the work advanced,

determined to go out against them and give battle and interrupt it; and

the two armies were already in battle array, when the Syracusan

generals observed that their troops found such difficulty in getting

into line, and were in such disorder, that they led them back into the

town, except part of the cavalry. These remained and hindered the

Athenians from carrying stones or dispersing to any great distance,

until a tribe of the Athenian heavy infantry, with all the cavalry,

charged and routed the Syracusan horse with some loss; after which they

set up a trophy for the cavalry action.

The next day the Athenians began building the wall to the north of the

Circle, at the same time collecting stone and timber, which they kept

laying down towards Trogilus along the shortest line for their works

from the great harbour to the sea; while the Syracusans, guided by

their generals, and above all by Hermocrates, instead of risking any

more general engagements, determined to build a counterwork in the

direction in which the Athenians were going to carry their wall. If

this could be completed in time, the enemy’s lines would be cut; and

meanwhile, if he were to attempt to interrupt them by an attack, they

would send a part of their forces against him, and would secure the

approaches beforehand with their stockade, while the Athenians would

have to leave off working with their whole force in order to attend to

them. They accordingly sallied forth and began to build, starting from

their city, running a cross wall below the Athenian Circle, cutting

down the olives and erecting wooden towers. As the Athenian fleet had

not yet sailed round into the great harbour, the Syracusans still

commanded the seacoast, and the Athenians brought their provisions by

land from Thapsus.

The Syracusans now thought the stockades and stonework of their

counterwall sufficiently far advanced; and as the Athenians, afraid of

being divided and so fighting at a disadvantage, and intent upon their

own wall, did not come out to interrupt them, they left one tribe to

guard the new work and went back into the city. Meanwhile the Athenians

destroyed their pipes of drinking-water carried underground into the

city; and watching until the rest of the Syracusans were in their tents

at midday, and some even gone away into the city, and those in the

stockade keeping but indifferent guard, appointed three hundred picked

men of their own, and some men picked from the light troops and armed

for the purpose, to run suddenly as fast as they could to the

counterwork, while the rest of the army advanced in two divisions, the

one with one of the generals to the city in case of a sortie, the other

with the other general to the stockade by the postern gate. The three

hundred attacked and took the stockade, abandoned by its garrison, who

took refuge in the outworks round the statue of Apollo Temenites. Here

the pursuers burst in with them, and after getting in were beaten out

by the Syracusans, and some few of the Argives and Athenians slain;

after which the whole army retired, and having demolished the

counterwork and pulled up the stockade, carried away the stakes to

their own lines, and set up a trophy.

The next day the Athenians from the Circle proceeded to fortify the

cliff above the marsh which on this side of Epipolae looks towards the

great harbour; this being also the shortest line for their work to go

down across the plain and the marsh to the harbour. Meanwhile the

Syracusans marched out and began a second stockade, starting from the

city, across the middle of the marsh, digging a trench alongside to

make it impossible for the Athenians to carry their wall down to the

sea. As soon as the Athenians had finished their work at the cliff they

again attacked the stockade and ditch of the Syracusans. Ordering the

fleet to sail round from Thapsus into the great harbour of Syracuse,

they descended at about dawn from Epipolae into the plain, and laying

doors and planks over the marsh, where it was muddy and firmest,

crossed over on these, and by daybreak took the ditch and the stockade,

except a small portion which they captured afterwards. A battle now

ensued, in which the Athenians were victorious, the right wing of the

Syracusans flying to the town and the left to the river. The three

hundred picked Athenians, wishing to cut off their passage, pressed on

at a run to the bridge, when the alarmed Syracusans, who had with them

most of their cavalry, closed and routed them, hurling them back upon

the Athenian right wing, the first tribe of which was thrown into a

panic by the shock. Seeing this, Lamachus came to their aid from the

Athenian left with a few archers and with the Argives, and crossing a

ditch, was left alone with a few that had crossed with him, and was

killed with five or six of his men. These the Syracusans managed

immediately to snatch up in haste and get across the river into a place

of security, themselves retreating as the rest of the Athenian army now

came up.

Meanwhile those who had at first fled for refuge to the city, seeing

the turn affairs were taking, now rallied from the town and formed

against the Athenians in front of them, sending also a part of their

number to the Circle on Epipolae, which they hoped to take while

denuded of its defenders. These took and destroyed the Athenian outwork

of a thousand feet, the Circle itself being saved by Nicias, who

happened to have been left in it through illness, and who now ordered

the servants to set fire to the engines and timber thrown down before

the wall; want of men, as he was aware, rendering all other means of

escape impossible. This step was justified by the result, the

Syracusans not coming any further on account of the fire, but

retreating. Meanwhile succours were coming up from the Athenians below,

who had put to flight the troops opposed to them; and the fleet also,

according to orders, was sailing from Thapsus into the great harbour.

Seeing this, the troops on the heights retired in haste, and the whole

army of the Syracusans re-entered the city, thinking that with their

present force they would no longer be able to hinder the wall reaching

the sea.

After this the Athenians set up a trophy and restored to the Syracusans

their dead under truce, receiving in return Lamachus and those who had

fallen with him. The whole of their forces, naval and military, being

now with them, they began from Epipolae and the cliffs and enclosed the

Syracusans with a double wall down to the sea. Provisions were now

brought in for the armament from all parts of Italy; and many of the

Sicels, who had hitherto been looking to see how things went, came as

allies to the Athenians: there also arrived three ships of fifty oars

from Tyrrhenia. Meanwhile everything else progressed favourably for

their hopes. The Syracusans began to despair of finding safety in arms,

no relief having reached them from Peloponnese, and were now proposing

terms of capitulation among themselves and to Nicias, who after the

death of Lamachus was left sole commander. No decision was come to,

but, as was natural with men in difficulties and besieged more straitly

than before, there was much discussion with Nicias and still more in

the town. Their present misfortunes had also made them suspicious of

one another; and the blame of their disasters was thrown upon the

ill-fortune or treachery of the generals under whose command they had

happened; and these were deposed and others, Heraclides, Eucles, and

Tellias, elected in their stead.

Meanwhile the Lacedaemonian, Gylippus, and the ships from Corinth were

now off Leucas, intent upon going with all haste to the relief of

Sicily. The reports that reached them being of an alarming kind, and

all agreeing in the falsehood that Syracuse was already completely

invested, Gylippus abandoned all hope of Sicily, and wishing to save

Italy, rapidly crossed the Ionian Sea to Tarentum with the Corinthian,

Pythen, two Laconian, and two Corinthian vessels, leaving the

Corinthians to follow him after manning, in addition to their own ten,

two Leucadian and two Ambraciot ships. From Tarentum Gylippus first

went on an embassy to Thurii, and claimed anew the rights of

citizenship which his father had enjoyed; failing to bring over the

townspeople, he weighed anchor and coasted along Italy. Opposite the

Terinaean Gulf he was caught by the wind which blows violently and

steadily from the north in that quarter, and was carried out to sea;

and after experiencing very rough weather, remade Tarentum, where he

hauled ashore and refitted such of his ships as had suffered most from

the tempest. Nicias heard of his approach, but, like the Thurians,

despised the scanty number of his ships, and set down piracy as the

only probable object of the voyage, and so took no precautions for the

present.

About the same time in this summer, the Lacedaemonians invaded Argos

with their allies, and laid waste most of the country. The Athenians

went with thirty ships to the relief of the Argives, thus breaking

their treaty with the Lacedaemonians in the most overt manner. Up to

this time incursions from Pylos, descents on the coast of the rest of

Peloponnese, instead of on the Laconian, had been the extent of their

co-operation with the Argives and Mantineans; and although the Argives

had often begged them to land, if only for a moment, with their heavy

infantry in Laconia, lay waste ever so little of it with them, and

depart, they had always refused to do so. Now, however, under the

command of Phytodorus, Laespodius, and Demaratus, they landed at

Epidaurus Limera, Prasiae, and other places, and plundered the country;

and thus furnished the Lacedaemonians with a better pretext for

hostilities against Athens. After the Athenians had retired from Argos

with their fleet, and the Lacedaemonians also, the Argives made an

incursion into the Phlisaid, and returned home after ravaging their

land and killing some of the inhabitants.

BOOK VII

CHAPTER XXI

Eighteenth and Nineteenth Years of the War—Arrival of Gylippus at

Syracuse—Fortification of Decelea—Successes of the Syracusans

After refitting their ships, Gylippus and Pythen coasted along from

Tarentum to Epizephyrian Locris. They now received the more correct

information that Syracuse was not yet completely invested, but that it

was still possible for an army arriving at Epipolae to effect an

entrance; and they consulted, accordingly, whether they should keep

Sicily on their right and risk sailing in by sea, or, leaving it on

their left, should first sail to Himera and, taking with them the

Himeraeans and any others that might agree to join them, go to Syracuse

by land. Finally they determined to sail for Himera, especially as the

four Athenian ships which Nicias had at length sent off, on hearing

that they were at Locris, had not yet arrived at Rhegium. Accordingly,

before these reached their post, the Peloponnesians crossed the strait

and, after touching at Rhegium and Messina, came to Himera. Arrived

there, they persuaded the Himeraeans to join in the war, and not only

to go with them themselves but to provide arms for the seamen from

their vessels which they had drawn ashore at Himera; and they sent and

appointed a place for the Selinuntines to meet them with all their

forces. A few troops were also promised by the Geloans and some of the

Sicels, who were now ready to join them with much greater alacrity,

owing to the recent death of Archonidas, a powerful Sicel king in that

neighbourhood and friendly to Athens, and owing also to the vigour

shown by Gylippus in coming from Lacedaemon. Gylippus now took with him

about seven hundred of his sailors and marines, that number only having

arms, a thousand heavy infantry and light troops from Himera with a

body of a hundred horse, some light troops and cavalry from Selinus, a

few Geloans, and Sicels numbering a thousand in all, and set out on his

march for Syracuse.

Meanwhile the Corinthian fleet from Leucas made all haste to arrive;

and one of their commanders, Gongylus, starting last with a single

ship, was the first to reach Syracuse, a little before Gylippus.

Gongylus found the Syracusans on the point of holding an assembly to

consider whether they should put an end to the war. This he prevented,

and reassured them by telling them that more vessels were still to

arrive, and that Gylippus, son of Cleandridas, had been dispatched by

the Lacedaemonians to take the command. Upon this the Syracusans took

courage, and immediately marched out with all their forces to meet

Gylippus, who they found was now close at hand. Meanwhile Gylippus,

after taking Ietae, a fort of the Sicels, on his way, formed his army

in order of battle, and so arrived at Epipolae, and ascending by

Euryelus, as the Athenians had done at first, now advanced with the

Syracusans against the Athenian lines. His arrival chanced at a

critical moment. The Athenians had already finished a double wall of

six or seven furlongs to the great harbour, with the exception of a

small portion next the sea, which they were still engaged upon; and in

the remainder of the circle towards Trogilus on the other sea, stones

had been laid ready for building for the greater part of the distance,

and some points had been left half finished, while others were entirely

completed. The danger of Syracuse had indeed been great.

Meanwhile the Athenians, recovering from the confusion into which they

had been first thrown by the sudden approach of Gylippus and the

Syracusans, formed in order of battle. Gylippus halted at a short

distance off and sent on a herald to tell them that, if they would

evacuate Sicily with bag and baggage within five days’ time, he was

willing to make a truce accordingly. The Athenians treated this

proposition with contempt, and dismissed the herald without an answer.

After this both sides began to prepare for action. Gylippus, observing

that the Syracusans were in disorder and did not easily fall into line,

drew off his troops more into the open ground, while Nicias did not

lead on the Athenians but lay still by his own wall. When Gylippus saw

that they did not come on, he led off his army to the citadel of the

quarter of Apollo Temenites, and passed the night there. On the

following day he led out the main body of his army, and, drawing them

up in order of battle before the walls of the Athenians to prevent

their going to the relief of any other quarter, dispatched a strong

force against Fort Labdalum, and took it, and put all whom he found in

it to the sword, the place not being within sight of the Athenians. On

the same day an Athenian galley that lay moored off the harbour was

captured by the Syracusans.

After this the Syracusans and their allies began to carry a single

wall, starting from the city, in a slanting direction up Epipolae, in

order that the Athenians, unless they could hinder the work, might be

no longer able to invest them. Meanwhile the Athenians, having now

finished their wall down to the sea, had come up to the heights; and

part of their wall being weak, Gylippus drew out his army by night and

attacked it. However, the Athenians who happened to be bivouacking

outside took the alarm and came out to meet him, upon seeing which he

quickly led his men back again. The Athenians now built their wall

higher, and in future kept guard at this point themselves, disposing

their confederates along the remainder of the works, at the stations

assigned to them. Nicias also determined to fortify Plemmyrium, a

promontory over against the city, which juts out and narrows the mouth

of the Great Harbour. He thought that the fortification of this place

would make it easier to bring in supplies, as they would be able to

carry on their blockade from a less distance, near to the port occupied

by the Syracusans; instead of being obliged, upon every movement of the

enemy’s navy, to put out against them from the bottom of the great

harbour. Besides this, he now began to pay more attention to the war by

sea, seeing that the coming of Gylippus had diminished their hopes by

land. Accordingly, he conveyed over his ships and some troops, and

built three forts in which he placed most of his baggage, and moored

there for the future the larger craft and men-of-war. This was the

first and chief occasion of the losses which the crews experienced. The

water which they used was scarce and had to be fetched from far, and

the sailors could not go out for firewood without being cut off by the

Syracusan horse, who were masters of the country; a third of the

enemy’s cavalry being stationed at the little town of Olympieum, to

prevent plundering incursions on the part of the Athenians at

Plemmyrium. Meanwhile Nicias learned that the rest of the Corinthian

fleet was approaching, and sent twenty ships to watch for them, with

orders to be on the look-out for them about Locris and Rhegium and the

approach to Sicily.

Gylippus, meanwhile, went on with the wall across Epipolae, using the

stones which the Athenians had laid down for their own wall, and at the

same time constantly led out the Syracusans and their allies, and

formed them in order of battle in front of the lines, the Athenians

forming against him. At last he thought that the moment was come, and

began the attack; and a hand-to-hand fight ensued between the lines,

where the Syracusan cavalry could be of no use; and the Syracusans and

their allies were defeated and took up their dead under truce, while

the Athenians erected a trophy. After this Gylippus called the soldiers

together, and said that the fault was not theirs but his; he had kept

their lines too much within the works, and had thus deprived them of

the services of their cavalry and darters. He would now, therefore,

lead them on a second time. He begged them to remember that in material

force they would be fully a match for their opponents, while, with

respect to moral advantages, it were intolerable if Peloponnesians and

Dorians should not feel confident of overcoming Ionians and islanders

with the motley rabble that accompanied them, and of driving them out

of the country.

After this he embraced the first opportunity that offered of again

leading them against the enemy. Now Nicias and the Athenians held the

opinion that even if the Syracusans should not wish to offer battle, it

was necessary for them to prevent the building of the cross wall, as it

already almost overlapped the extreme point of their own, and if it

went any further it would from that moment make no difference whether

they fought ever so many successful actions, or never fought at all.

They accordingly came out to meet the Syracusans. Gylippus led out his

heavy infantry further from the fortifications than on the former

occasion, and so joined battle; posting his horse and darters upon the

flank of the Athenians in the open space, where the works of the two

walls terminated. During the engagement the cavalry attacked and routed

the left wing of the Athenians, which was opposed to them; and the rest

of the Athenian army was in consequence defeated by the Syracusans and

driven headlong within their lines. The night following the Syracusans

carried their wall up to the Athenian works and passed them, thus

putting it out of their power any longer to stop them, and depriving

them, even if victorious in the field, of all chance of investing the

city for the future.

After this the remaining twelve vessels of the Corinthians, Ambraciots,

and Leucadians sailed into the harbour under the command of Erasinides,

a Corinthian, having eluded the Athenian ships on guard, and helped the

Syracusans in completing the remainder of the cross wall. Meanwhile

Gylippus went into the rest of Sicily to raise land and naval forces,

and also to bring over any of the cities that either were lukewarm in

the cause or had hitherto kept out of the war altogether. Syracusan and

Corinthian envoys were also dispatched to Lacedaemon and Corinth to get

a fresh force sent over, in any way that might offer, either in

merchant vessels or transports, or in any other manner likely to prove

successful, as the Athenians too were sending for reinforcements; while

the Syracusans proceeded to man a fleet and to exercise, meaning to try

their fortune in this way also, and generally became exceedingly

confident.

Nicias perceiving this, and seeing the strength of the enemy and his

own difficulties daily increasing, himself also sent to Athens. He had

before sent frequent reports of events as they occurred, and felt it

especially incumbent upon him to do so now, as he thought that they

were in a critical position, and that, unless speedily recalled or

strongly reinforced from home, they had no hope of safety. He feared,

however, that the messengers, either through inability to speak, or

through failure of memory, or from a wish to please the multitude,

might not report the truth, and so thought it best to write a letter,

to ensure that the Athenians should know his own opinion without its

being lost in transmission, and be able to decide upon the real facts

of the case.

His emissaries, accordingly, departed with the letter and the requisite

verbal instructions; and he attended to the affairs of the army, making

it his aim now to keep on the defensive and to avoid any unnecessary

danger.

At the close of the same summer the Athenian general Euetion marched in

concert with Perdiccas with a large body of Thracians against

Amphipolis, and failing to take it brought some galleys round into the

Strymon, and blockaded the town from the river, having his base at

Himeraeum.

Summer was now over. The winter ensuing, the persons sent by Nicias,

reaching Athens, gave the verbal messages which had been entrusted to

them, and answered any questions that were asked them, and delivered

the letter. The clerk of the city now came forward and read out to the

Athenians the letter, which was as follows:

“Our past operations, Athenians, have been made known to you by many

other letters; it is now time for you to become equally familiar with

our present condition, and to take your measures accordingly. We had

defeated in most of our engagements with them the Syracusans, against

whom we were sent, and we had built the works which we now occupy, when

Gylippus arrived from Lacedaemon with an army obtained from Peloponnese

and from some of the cities in Sicily. In our first battle with him we

were victorious; in the battle on the following day we were overpowered

by a multitude of cavalry and darters, and compelled to retire within

our lines. We have now, therefore, been forced by the numbers of those

opposed to us to discontinue the work of circumvallation, and to remain

inactive; being unable to make use even of all the force we have, since

a large portion of our heavy infantry is absorbed in the defence of our

lines. Meanwhile the enemy have carried a single wall past our lines,

thus making it impossible for us to invest them in future, until this

cross wall be attacked by a strong force and captured. So that the

besieger in name has become, at least from the land side, the besieged

in reality; as we are prevented by their cavalry from even going for

any distance into the country.

“Besides this, an embassy has been dispatched to Peloponnese to procure

reinforcements, and Gylippus has gone to the cities in Sicily, partly

in the hope of inducing those that are at present neutral to join him

in the war, partly of bringing from his allies additional contingents

for the land forces and material for the navy. For I understand that

they contemplate a combined attack, upon our lines with their land

forces and with their fleet by sea. You must none of you be surprised

that I say by sea also. They have discovered that the length of the

time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships and wasted our

crews, and that with the entireness of our crews and the soundness of

our ships the pristine efficiency of our navy has departed. For it is

impossible for us to haul our ships ashore and careen them, because,

the enemy’s vessels being as many or more than our own, we are

constantly anticipating an attack. Indeed, they may be seen exercising,

and it lies with them to take the initiative; and not having to

maintain a blockade, they have greater facilities for drying their

ships.

“This we should scarcely be able to do, even if we had plenty of ships

to spare, and were freed from our present necessity of exhausting all

our strength upon the blockade. For it is already difficult to carry in

supplies past Syracuse; and were we to relax our vigilance in the

slightest degree it would become impossible. The losses which our crews

have suffered and still continue to suffer arise from the following

causes. Expeditions for fuel and for forage, and the distance from

which water has to be fetched, cause our sailors to be cut off by the

Syracusan cavalry; the loss of our previous superiority emboldens our

slaves to desert; our foreign seamen are impressed by the unexpected

appearance of a navy against us, and the strength of the enemy’s

resistance; such of them as were pressed into the service take the

first opportunity of departing to their respective cities; such as were

originally seduced by the temptation of high pay, and expected little

fighting and large gains, leave us either by desertion to the enemy or

by availing themselves of one or other of the various facilities of

escape which the magnitude of Sicily affords them. Some even engage in

trade themselves and prevail upon the captains to take Hyccaric slaves

on board in their place; thus they have ruined the efficiency of our

navy.

“Now I need not remind you that the time during which a crew is in its

prime is short, and that the number of sailors who can start a ship on

her way and keep the rowing in time is small. But by far my greatest

trouble is, that holding the post which I do, I am prevented by the

natural indocility of the Athenian seaman from putting a stop to these

evils; and that meanwhile we have no source from which to recruit our

crews, which the enemy can do from many quarters, but are compelled to

depend both for supplying the crews in service and for making good our

losses upon the men whom we brought with us. For our present

confederates, Naxos and Catana, are incapable of supplying us. There is

only one thing more wanting to our opponents, I mean the defection of

our Italian markets. If they were to see you neglect to relieve us from

our present condition, and were to go over to the enemy, famine would

compel us to evacuate, and Syracuse would finish the war without a

blow.

“I might, it is true, have written to you something different and more

agreeable than this, but nothing certainly more useful, if it is

desirable for you to know the real state of things here before taking

your measures. Besides I know that it is your nature to love to be told

the best side of things, and then to blame the teller if the

expectations which he has raised in your minds are not answered by the

result; and I therefore thought it safest to declare to you the truth.

“Now you are not to think that either your generals or your soldiers

have ceased to be a match for the forces originally opposed to them.

But you are to reflect that a general Sicilian coalition is being

formed against us; that a fresh army is expected from Peloponnese,

while the force we have here is unable to cope even with our present

antagonists; and you must promptly decide either to recall us or to

send out to us another fleet and army as numerous again, with a large

sum of money, and someone to succeed me, as a disease in the kidneys

unfits me for retaining my post. I have, I think, some claim on your

indulgence, as while I was in my prime I did you much good service in

my commands. But whatever you mean to do, do it at the commencement of

spring and without delay, as the enemy will obtain his Sicilian

reinforcements shortly, those from Peloponnese after a longer interval;

and unless you attend to the matter the former will be here before you,

while the latter will elude you as they have done before.”

Such were the contents of Nicias’s letter. When the Athenians had heard

it they refused to accept his resignation, but chose him two

colleagues, naming Menander and Euthydemus, two of the officers at the

seat of war, to fill their places until their arrival, that Nicias

might not be left alone in his sickness to bear the whole weight of

affairs. They also voted to send out another army and navy, drawn

partly from the Athenians on the muster-roll, partly from the allies.

The colleagues chosen for Nicias were Demosthenes, son of Alcisthenes,

and Eurymedon, son of Thucles. Eurymedon was sent off at once, about

the time of the winter solstice, with ten ships, a hundred and twenty

talents of silver, and instructions to tell the army that

reinforcements would arrive, and that care would be taken of them; but

Demosthenes stayed behind to organize the expedition, meaning to start

as soon as it was spring, and sent for troops to the allies, and

meanwhile got together money, ships, and heavy infantry at home.

The Athenians also sent twenty vessels round Peloponnese to prevent any

one crossing over to Sicily from Corinth or Peloponnese. For the

Corinthians, filled with confidence by the favourable alteration in

Sicilian affairs which had been reported by the envoys upon their

arrival, and convinced that the fleet which they had before sent out

had not been without its use, were now preparing to dispatch a force of

heavy infantry in merchant vessels to Sicily, while the Lacedaemonians

did the like for the rest of Peloponnese. The Corinthians also manned a

fleet of twenty-five vessels, intending to try the result of a battle

with the squadron on guard at Naupactus, and meanwhile to make it less

easy for the Athenians there to hinder the departure of their

merchantmen, by obliging them to keep an eye upon the galleys thus

arrayed against them.

In the meantime the Lacedaemonians prepared for their invasion of

Attica, in accordance with their own previous resolve, and at the

instigation of the Syracusans and Corinthians, who wished for an

invasion to arrest the reinforcements which they heard that Athens was

about to send to Sicily. Alcibiades also urgently advised the

fortification of Decelea, and a vigorous prosecution of the war. But

the Lacedaemonians derived most encouragement from the belief that

Athens, with two wars on her hands, against themselves and against the

Siceliots, would be more easy to subdue, and from the conviction that

she had been the first to infringe the truce. In the former war, they

considered, the offence had been more on their own side, both on

account of the entrance of the Thebans into Plataea in time of peace,

and also of their own refusal to listen to the Athenian offer of

arbitration, in spite of the clause in the former treaty that where

arbitration should be offered there should be no appeal to arms. For

this reason they thought that they deserved their misfortunes, and took

to heart seriously the disaster at Pylos and whatever else had befallen

them. But when, besides the ravages from Pylos, which went on without

any intermission, the thirty Athenian ships came out from Argos and

wasted part of Epidaurus, Prasiae, and other places; when upon every

dispute that arose as to the interpretation of any doubtful point in

the treaty, their own offers of arbitration were always rejected by the

Athenians, the Lacedaemonians at length decided that Athens had now

committed the very same offence as they had before done, and had become

the guilty party; and they began to be full of ardour for the war. They

spent this winter in sending round to their allies for iron, and in

getting ready the other implements for building their fort; and

meanwhile began raising at home, and also by forced requisitions in the

rest of Peloponnese, a force to be sent out in the merchantmen to their

allies in Sicily. Winter thus ended, and with it the eighteenth year of

this war of which Thucydides is the historian.

In the first days of the spring following, at an earlier period than

usual, the Lacedaemonians and their allies invaded Attica, under the

command of Agis, son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. They

began by devastating the parts bordering upon the plain, and next

proceeded to fortify Decelea, dividing the work among the different

cities. Decelea is about thirteen or fourteen miles from the city of

Athens, and the same distance or not much further from Boeotia; and the

fort was meant to annoy the plain and the richest parts of the country,

being in sight of Athens. While the Peloponnesians and their allies in

Attica were engaged in the work of fortification, their countrymen at

home sent off, at about the same time, the heavy infantry in the

merchant vessels to Sicily; the Lacedaemonians furnishing a picked

force of Helots and Neodamodes (or freedmen), six hundred heavy

infantry in all, under the command of Eccritus, a Spartan; and the

Boeotians three hundred heavy infantry, commanded by two Thebans, Xenon

and Nicon, and by Hegesander, a Thespian. These were among the first to

put out into the open sea, starting from Taenarus in Laconia. Not long

after their departure the Corinthians sent off a force of five hundred

heavy infantry, consisting partly of men from Corinth itself, and

partly of Arcadian mercenaries, placed under the command of Alexarchus,

a Corinthian. The Sicyonians also sent off two hundred heavy infantry

at same time as the Corinthians, under the command of Sargeus, a

Sicyonian. Meantime the five-and-twenty vessels manned by Corinth

during the winter lay confronting the twenty Athenian ships at

Naupactus until the heavy infantry in the merchantmen were fairly on

their way from Peloponnese; thus fulfilling the object for which they

had been manned originally, which was to divert the attention of the

Athenians from the merchantmen to the galleys.

During this time the Athenians were not idle. Simultaneously with the

fortification of Decelea, at the very beginning of spring, they sent

thirty ships round Peloponnese, under Charicles, son of Apollodorus,

with instructions to call at Argos and demand a force of their heavy

infantry for the fleet, agreeably to the alliance. At the same time

they dispatched Demosthenes to Sicily, as they had intended, with sixty

Athenian and five Chian vessels, twelve hundred Athenian heavy infantry

from the muster-roll, and as many of the islanders as could be raised

in the different quarters, drawing upon the other subject allies for

whatever they could supply that would be of use for the war.

Demosthenes was instructed first to sail round with Charicles and to

operate with him upon the coasts of Laconia, and accordingly sailed to

Aegina and there waited for the remainder of his armament, and for

Charicles to fetch the Argive troops.

In Sicily, about the same time in this spring, Gylippus came to

Syracuse with as many troops as he could bring from the cities which he

had persuaded to join. Calling the Syracusans together, he told them

that they must man as many ships as possible, and try their hand at a

sea-fight, by which he hoped to achieve an advantage in the war not

unworthy of the risk. With him Hermocrates actively joined in trying to

encourage his countrymen to attack the Athenians at sea, saying that

the latter had not inherited their naval prowess nor would they retain

it for ever; they had been landsmen even to a greater degree than the

Syracusans, and had only become a maritime power when obliged by the

Mede. Besides, to daring spirits like the Athenians, a daring adversary

would seem the most formidable; and the Athenian plan of paralysing by

the boldness of their attack a neighbour often not their inferior in

strength could now be used against them with as good effect by the

Syracusans. He was convinced also that the unlooked-for spectacle of

Syracusans daring to face the Athenian navy would cause a terror to the

enemy, the advantages of which would far outweigh any loss that

Athenian science might inflict upon their inexperience. He accordingly

urged them to throw aside their fears and to try their fortune at sea;

and the Syracusans, under the influence of Gylippus and Hermocrates,

and perhaps some others, made up their minds for the sea-fight and

began to man their vessels.

When the fleet was ready, Gylippus led out the whole army by night; his

plan being to assault in person the forts on Plemmyrium by land, while

thirty-five Syracusan galleys sailed according to appointment against

the enemy from the great harbour, and the forty-five remaining came

round from the lesser harbour, where they had their arsenal, in order

to effect a junction with those inside and simultaneously to attack

Plemmyrium, and thus to distract the Athenians by assaulting them on

two sides at once. The Athenians quickly manned sixty ships, and with

twenty-five of these engaged the thirty-five of the Syracusans in the

great harbour, sending the rest to meet those sailing round from the

arsenal; and an action now ensued directly in front of the mouth of the

great harbour, maintained with equal tenacity on both sides; the one

wishing to force the passage, the other to prevent them.

In the meantime, while the Athenians in Plemmyrium were down at the

sea, attending to the engagement, Gylippus made a sudden attack on the

forts in the early morning and took the largest first, and afterwards

the two smaller, whose garrisons did not wait for him, seeing the

largest so easily taken. At the fall of the first fort, the men from it

who succeeded in taking refuge in their boats and merchantmen, found

great difficulty in reaching the camp, as the Syracusans were having

the best of it in the engagement in the great harbour, and sent a

fast-sailing galley to pursue them. But when the two others fell, the

Syracusans were now being defeated; and the fugitives from these sailed

alongshore with more ease. The Syracusan ships fighting off the mouth

of the harbour forced their way through the Athenian vessels and

sailing in without any order fell foul of one another, and transferred

the victory to the Athenians; who not only routed the squadron in

question, but also that by which they were at first being defeated in

the harbour, sinking eleven of the Syracusan vessels and killing most

of the men, except the crews of three ships whom they made prisoners.

Their own loss was confined to three vessels; and after hauling ashore

the Syracusan wrecks and setting up a trophy upon the islet in front of

Plemmyrium, they retired to their own camp.

Unsuccessful at sea, the Syracusans had nevertheless the forts in

Plemmyrium, for which they set up three trophies. One of the two last

taken they razed, but put in order and garrisoned the two others. In

the capture of the forts a great many men were killed and made

prisoners, and a great quantity of property was taken in all. As the

Athenians had used them as a magazine, there was a large stock of goods

and corn of the merchants inside, and also a large stock belonging to

the captains; the masts and other furniture of forty galleys being

taken, besides three galleys which had been drawn up on shore. Indeed

the first and chiefest cause of the ruin of the Athenian army was the

capture of Plemmyrium; even the entrance of the harbour being now no

longer safe for carrying in provisions, as the Syracusan vessels were

stationed there to prevent it, and nothing could be brought in without

fighting; besides the general impression of dismay and discouragement

produced upon the army.

After this the Syracusans sent out twelve ships under the command of

Agatharchus, a Syracusan. One of these went to Peloponnese with

ambassadors to describe the hopeful state of their affairs, and to

incite the Peloponnesians to prosecute the war there even more actively

than they were now doing, while the eleven others sailed to Italy,

hearing that vessels laden with stores were on their way to the

Athenians. After falling in with and destroying most of the vessels in

question, and burning in the Caulonian territory a quantity of timber

for shipbuilding, which had been got ready for the Athenians, the

Syracusan squadron went to Locri, and one of the merchantmen from

Peloponnese coming in, while they were at anchor there, carrying

Thespian heavy infantry, took these on board and sailed alongshore

towards home. The Athenians were on the look-out for them with twenty

ships at Megara, but were only able to take one vessel with its crew;

the rest getting clear off to Syracuse. There was also some skirmishing

in the harbour about the piles which the Syracusans had driven in the

sea in front of the old docks, to allow their ships to lie at anchor

inside, without being hurt by the Athenians sailing up and running them

down. The Athenians brought up to them a ship of ten thousand talents

burden furnished with wooden turrets and screens, and fastened ropes

round the piles from their boats, wrenched them up and broke them, or

dived down and sawed them in two. Meanwhile the Syracusans plied them

with missiles from the docks, to which they replied from their large

vessel; until at last most of the piles were removed by the Athenians.

But the most awkward part of the stockade was the part out of sight:

some of the piles which had been driven in did not appear above water,

so that it was dangerous to sail up, for fear of running the ships upon

them, just as upon a reef, through not seeing them. However divers went

down and sawed off even these for reward; although the Syracusans drove

in others. Indeed there was no end to the contrivances to which they

resorted against each other, as might be expected between two hostile

armies confronting each other at such a short distance: and skirmishes

and all kinds of other attempts were of constant occurrence. Meanwhile

the Syracusans sent embassies to the cities, composed of Corinthians,

Ambraciots, and Lacedaemonians, to tell them of the capture of

Plemmyrium, and that their defeat in the sea-fight was due less to the

strength of the enemy than to their own disorder; and generally, to let

them know that they were full of hope, and to desire them to come to

their help with ships and troops, as the Athenians were expected with a

fresh army, and if the one already there could be destroyed before the

other arrived, the war would be at an end.

While the contending parties in Sicily were thus engaged, Demosthenes,

having now got together the armament with which he was to go to the

island, put out from Aegina, and making sail for Peloponnese, joined

Charicles and the thirty ships of the Athenians. Taking on board the

heavy infantry from Argos they sailed to Laconia, and, after first

plundering part of Epidaurus Limera, landed on the coast of Laconia,

opposite Cythera, where the temple of Apollo stands, and, laying waste

part of the country, fortified a sort of isthmus, to which the Helots

of the Lacedaemonians might desert, and from whence plundering

incursions might be made as from Pylos. Demosthenes helped to occupy

this place, and then immediately sailed on to Corcyra to take up some

of the allies in that island, and so to proceed without delay to

Sicily; while Charicles waited until he had completed the fortification

of the place and, leaving a garrison there, returned home subsequently

with his thirty ships and the Argives also.