THE ATHENIAN ARMY IS DESTROYED
The Athenians made their preparations to retreat as secretly as
possible, but the Syracusans soon discovered their plans. When they
heard that their departure was delayed for twenty-seven days, they
determined to attack the Athenian fleet once more, and again they were
successful.
On land the Athenians repulsed Gylippus, but they gained little by
this success, for the Syracusans had made up their mind that the whole
Athenian army should be destroyed.
So, as Demosthenes had foreseen, they barricaded the entrance to the
Great Harbour, drawing their ships across it and lashing them together
with chains.
Nicias saw that a battle must be fought, and he ordered a great number
of the land troops to go on board the fleet. At all costs he must
strengthen his navy.
The first thing the Athenians had to do was to break through the ships
that were lashed together at the mouth of the harbour. But before the
chains could be broken the enemy was upon them, surrounding them on
every side. Despair gave the Athenians courage, and so desperately did
they fight that for a time it seemed that they might yet escape.
Above the crash of vessels rose the cheers or groans of those who
watched the battle from the shore.
Thucydides gives us a picture of the hopes and fears, the triumph and
despair of those who fought as of those who watched. He says:
‘The fortune of the battle varied, and it was not possible that the
spectators on the shore should all receive the same impression of it.
Being quite close and having different points of view, they would
some of them see their own ships victorious; their courage would
then revive, and they would earnestly call upon the gods not to take
from them their hope of deliverance. But others, who saw their ships
worsted, cried and shrieked aloud, and were by the sight alone more
utterly unnerved than the defeated combatants themselves.
‘Others again who had fixed their gaze on some part of the struggle
which was undecided were in a state of excitement still more terrible;
they kept swaying their bodies to and fro in an agony of hope and
fear, as the stubborn conflict went on and on; for at every instant
they were all but saved or all but lost. And while the strife hung in
the balance, you might hear in the Athenian army at once lamentation,
shouting, cries of victory or defeat, and all the various sounds which
are wrung from a great host in extremity of danger.’
At length the Athenians were pushed back and yet further back, until
the fleet was stranded on the shore. The soldiers who had been left on
land now rushed forward and succeeded in saving sixty of their ships
from the enemy.
Demosthenes urged the men to embark and try once again to cut their way
out of the harbour, but they refused, so crushed were they by their
defeat. To retreat by land was all that the Athenians could now try to
do, yet in their hearts they knew that the retreat must end in slavery
or in death.
The sick and the wounded were left behind. But those who were stricken
with fever, caused by the marsh land on which they had been encamped,
clung to their comrades, and scarce knowing what they did, begged that
they might not be left behind. But their strength soon failed, and they
sank down by the wayside to die.
Nicias, ill as he was, did all in his power to encourage and cheer his
men. He himself led the van, Demosthenes brought up the rear.
After marching for several days, the Athenians were parched with
thirst. When at length they reached a stream, it was to find the enemy
awaiting them on the farther bank.
But their thirst was intolerable, and paying no heed to the foe, the
soldiers rushed to the water. As they stooped to drink, the Syracusans
fell upon them and put them to death.
Demosthenes and his men had fallen behind the rest of the army, and had
already been forced to surrender. Nicias now saw that he, too, must
submit to Gylippus.
Seven thousand prisoners were sent by the Spartans to work in stone
quarries. These quarries were like dungeons, but they were open to the
sky, and during the day the scorching sun beat down piteously on the
miserable prisoners, while at night the cold was so intense that sleep
was impossible.
Here they were kept for seventy days, with only enough food to keep
them alive, and with scarcely any water to drink. Many of the men died,
those who survived were sold as slaves.
Nicias and Demosthenes were both put to death. It is said that they
were tortured, although Gylippus did all he could to save them from the
angry Syracusans. Thus in disaster and defeat ended the expedition that
sailed forth so bravely from Athens two years before.
Thucydides says that this expedition was ‘the greatest adventure
that the Greeks entered into during this war, and, in my opinion,’
he adds, ‘the greatest in which the Greeks were ever concerned; the
one most splendid for the conquerors and most disastrous for the
conquered, for they suffered no common defeat, but were absolutely
annihilated--land-army, fleet and all--and of many thousands only a
handful ever returned home.’