THE SIEGE OF SYRACUSE
Nicias and Lamachus now determined to attack Syracuse without delay.
They succeeded in seizing the high ground which joined the town to the
mainland of Sicily. Across this ground they began to build a wall,
meaning to cut the Syracusans off from help by land. The Athenian fleet
then sailed into the harbour of Syracuse, that so no help might reach
the city by sea.
But before the wall was finished, two things had happened to frustrate
the plans of the Athenians.
The Syracusans did not mean to let the enemy finish the wall if they
could prevent it, so they sailed out of the city to drive them away. In
the struggle which followed Lamachus was killed, and Nicias was left
alone to carry on the siege.
But what was perhaps even worse for the Athenians than the death of
their general, was the arrival of Gylippus the Spartan commander.
Almost before the Athenians were aware, Gylippus, at the head of his
troops, marched into Syracuse. Nor did he rest until he had driven them
from the hill on which they were encamped, and forced them to take up
their position close to the harbour.
Nicias was ill, and his illness made him more hopeless than perhaps he
would otherwise have been. He wrote to the assembly to tell it that the
Spartans had wrested from the Athenians all that they had gained, and
that they were now themselves in danger of being besieged.
The fleet, he said, had been drawn up on the beach for months, and
would have to be repaired before it was seaworthy. Even then it would
be difficult to man the vessels, for many of the crew had died and many
more were out of practice.
So faint of heart was the Athenian general that, at the end of his
gloomy report, he urged that the whole enterprise should be given up,
or if not, that at least a new fleet might be sent out without loss of
time. For himself he begged that he might be recalled, as he was ill
and unfit for his duties.
The assembly refused this last request, but it sent a new fleet to his
help, commanded by Eurymedon and Demosthenes.
Meanwhile Gylippus was not idle. He attacked the Athenians both by land
and sea. By land he was victorious, but at sea he was defeated.
Undaunted, he at once ordered that the bows of the Spartan vessels
should be made heavier and shorter. When this had been done he again
attacked the enemy’s fleet, and when the battle ended Gylippus held the
entrance to the harbour.
The Athenians were now in great peril, for they were besieged both by
land and sea. They could not leave the harbour unless they cut their
way through the fleet of the victorious Syracusans, and this they had
no courage to attempt.
But on the day after the battle which had seemed to seal their fate,
hope awoke once more in the Athenian ranks, for the new fleet, under
Eurymedon and Demosthenes, came in sight.
The new commanders at once determined that the hill above Syracuse
must be retaken. So on a moonlight night the attempt was made. But
although a band of Athenians gained the hill, took a fort and repulsed
six hundred of the enemy, they were soon afterwards put to flight. Many
of the soldiers flung away their shields, as they were driven down
the hill, and fell over the cliffs. Others were pushed back upon their
comrades who were still climbing upwards, so that soon the whole army
was in confusion.
This disaster crushed the spirit of the Athenians. Many of the
soldiers, too, had fever caused by the marshy ground on which their
camp was pitched. Many more were ill or wounded.
Eurymedon and Demosthenes advised Nicias to order the whole army
to sail away before the entrance to the Great Harbour was entirely
blockaded, but to this he would not consent. It seemed that he was
afraid to return to Athens to tell that the expedition had failed.
Demosthenes then urged Nicias at least to leave the harbour and sail to
a point where their supplies could not be stopped by the enemy. This
too, Nicias refused to do.
But soon after his refusal, large reinforcements reached the Spartans,
and the general’s obstinacy gave way. He ordered the fleet to prepare
to leave the harbour.
The men were glad to desert their unhealthy quarters and got ready in
haste, but secretly, that the Syracusans might not suspect their plans.
All was ready, when, on 27th August 413 B.C., the night before the
fleet was to sail, an eclipse of the moon took place.
Nicias was filled with superstitious fears. What might the eclipse not
portend? He sent to the soothsayers, who said that the fleet must on no
account leave the harbour for twenty-seven days. To disobey the oracle
would be fatal, so Nicias believed, and he at once forbade the fleet to
sail until the twenty-seven days had passed.