I wish to stay at home and farm.
What then?
Who should prevent you?
You, my countrymen;
Whom I would pay a thousand drachmas down,
To let me give up office and leave town.
Enough; content; the sum two thousand is,
With those that Nicias paid to give up his.
Besides all this, he did great mischief to the city by suffering
the accession of so much reputation and power to Cleon, who now
assumed such lofty airs, and allowed himself in such intolerable
audacity, as led to many unfortunate results, a sufficient part of
which fell to his own share. Amongst other things, he destroyed
all the decorum of public speaking; he was the first who ever broke
out into exclamations, flung open his dress, smote his thigh, and
ran up and down whilst he was speaking, things which soon after
introduced amongst those who managed the affairs of State, such
license and contempt of decency, as brought all into confusion.
Already, too, Alcibiades was beginning to show his strength at
Athens, a popular leader, not, indeed, as utterly violent as Cleon,
but as the land of Egypt, through the richness of its soil, is
said,
-- great plenty to produce,
Both wholesome herbs, and drugs of deadly juice,
so the nature of Alcibiades was strong and luxuriant in both kinds,
and made way for many serious innovations. Thus it fell out that
after Nicias had got his hands clear of Cleon, he had not
opportunity to settle the city perfectly into quietness. For
having brought matters to a pretty hopeful condition, he found
everything carried away and plunged again into confusion by
Alcibiades, through the wildness and vehemence of his ambition, and
all embroiled again in war worse than ever. Which fell out thus.
The persons who had principally hindered the peace were Cleon and
Brasidas. War setting off the virtue of the one, and hiding the
villainy of the other, gave to the one occasions of achieving brave
actions, to the other opportunity of committing equal dishonesties.
Now when these two were in one battle both slain near Amphipolis,
Nicias was aware that the Spartans had long been desirous of a
peace, and that the Athenians had no longer the same confidence in
the war. Both being alike tired, and, as it were by consent,
letting fall their hands, he, therefore, in this nick of time,
employed his efforts to make a friendship betwixt the two cities,
and to deliver the other States of Greece from the evils and
calamities they labored under, and so establish his own good name
for success as a statesman for all future time. He found the men
of substance, the elder men, and the land-owners and farmers pretty
generally, all inclined to peace. And when, in addition to these,
by conversing and reasoning, he had cooled the wishes of a good
many others for war, he now encouraged the hopes of the
Lacedaemonians, and counseled them to seek peace. They confided in
him, as on account of his general character for moderation and
equity, so, also, because of the kindness and care he had shown to
the prisoners taken at Pylos and kept in confinement, making their
misfortune the more easy to them.
The Athenians and the Spartans had before this concluded a truce
for a year, and during this, by associating with one another, they
had tasted again the sweets of peace and security, and unimpeded
intercourse with friends and connections, and thus longed for an
end of that fighting and bloodshed, and heard with delight the
chorus sing such verses as
-- my lance I'll leave
Laid by, for spiders to o'erweave,
and remembered with joy the saying, In peace, they who sleep are
awaked by the cock-crow, not by the trumpet. So shutting their
ears, with loud reproaches, to the forebodings of those who said
that the Fates decreed this to be a war of thrice nine years, the
whole question having been debated, they made a peace. And most
people thought, now, indeed, they had got an end of all their
evils. And Nicias was in every man's mouth, as one especially
beloved of the gods, who, for his piety and devotion, had been
appointed to give a name to the fairest and greatest of all
blessings. For in fact they considered the peace Nicias's work, as
the war the work of Pericles; because he, on light occasions,
seemed to have plunged the Greeks into great calamities, while
Nicias had induced them to forget all the evils they had done each
other and to be friends again; and so to this day it is called the
Peace of Nicias.
The articles being, that the garrisons and towns taken on either
side, and the prisoners should be restored, and they to restore the
first to whom it should fall by lot, Nicias, as Theophrastus tells
us, by a sum of money procured that the lot should fall for the
Lacedaemonians to deliver the first. Afterwards, when the
Corinthians and the Boeotians showed their dislike of what was
done, and by their complaints and accusations were wellnigh
bringing the war back again, Nicias persuaded the Athenians and the
Lacedaemonians, besides the peace, to make a treaty of alliance,
offensive and defensive, as a tie and confirmation of the peace,
which would make them more terrible to those that held out, and the
firmer to each other. Whilst these matters were on foot,
Alcibiades, who was no lover of tranquillity, and who was offended
with the Lacedaemonians because of their applications and
attentions to Nicias, while they overlooked and despised himself,
from first to last, indeed, had opposed the peace, though all in
vain, but now finding that the Lacedaemonians did not altogether
continue to please the Athenians, but were thought to have acted
unfairly in having made a league with the Boeotians, and had not
given up Panactum, as they should have done, with its
fortifications unrazed, nor yet Amphipolis, he laid hold on these
occasions for his purpose, and availed himself of every one of them
to irritate the people. And, at length, sending for ambassadors
from the Argives, he exerted himself to effect a confederacy
between the Athenians and them. And now, when Lacedaemonian
ambassadors were come with full powers, and at their preliminary
audience by the council seemed to come in all points with just
proposals, he, fearing that the general assembly, also, would be
won over to their offers, overreached them with false professions
and oaths of assistance, on the condition that they would not avow
that they came with full powers, this, he said, being the only way
for them to attain their desires. They being overpersuaded and
decoyed from Nicias to follow him, he introduced them to the
assembly, and asked them presently whether or no they came in all
points with full powers, which when they denied, he, contrary to
their expectation, changing his countenance, called the council to
witness their words, and now bade the people beware how they trust,
or transact anything with such manifest liars, who say at one time
one thing, and at another the very opposite upon the same subject.
These plenipotentiaries were, as well they might be, confounded at
this, and Nicias, also, being at a loss what to say, and struck
with amazement and wonder, the assembly resolved to send
immediately for the Argives, to enter into a league with them. An
earthquake, which interrupted the assembly, made for Nicias's
advantage; and the next day the people being again assembled, after
much speaking and soliciting, with great ado he brought it about,
that the treaty with the Argives should be deferred, and he be sent
to the Lacedaemonians, in full expectation that so all would go
well.
When he arrived at Sparta, they received him there as a good man,
and one well inclined towards them; yet he effected nothing, but,
baffled by the party that favored the Boeotians, he returned home,
not only dishonored and hardly spoken of, but likewise in fear of
the Athenians, who were vexed and enraged that through his
persuasions they had released so many and such considerable
persons, their prisoners, for the men who had been brought from
Pylos were of the chiefest families of Sparta, and had those who
were highest there in place and power for their friends and
kindred. Yet did they not in their heat proceed against him,
otherwise than that they chose Alcibiades general, and took the
Mantineans and Eleans, who had thrown up their alliance with the
Lacedaemonians, into the league, together with the Argives, and
sent to Pylos freebooters to infest Laconia, whereby the war began
to break out afresh.
But the enmity betwixt Nicias and Alcibiades running higher and
higher, and the time being at hand for decreeing the ostracism or
banishment, for ten years, which the people, putting the name on a
sherd, were wont to inflict at certain times on some person
suspected or regarded with jealousy for his popularity or wealth,
both were now in alarm and apprehension, one of them, in all
likelihood, being to undergo this ostracism; as the people
abominated the life of Alcibiades, and stood in fear of his
boldness and resolution, as is shown particularly in the history of
him; while as for Nicias, his riches made him envied, and his
habits of living, in particular, his unsociable and exclusive ways,
not like those of a fellow-citizen, or even a fellow-man, went
against him, and having many times opposed their inclinations,
forcing them against their feelings to do what was their interest,
he had got himself disliked.
To speak plainly, it was a contest of the young men who were eager
for war, against the men of years and lovers of peace, they turning
the ostracism upon the one, these upon the other. But
In civil strife e'en villains rise to fame.
And so now it happened that the city, distracted into two factions,
allowed free course to the most impudent and profligate persons,
among whom was Hyperbolus of the Perithoedae, one who could not,
indeed, be said to be presuming upon any power, but rather by his
presumption rose into power, and by the honor he found in the city,
became the scandal of it. He, at this time, thought himself far
enough from the ostracism, as more properly deserving the slave's
gallows, and made account, that one of these men being dispatched
out of the way, he might be able to play a part against the other
that should be left, and openly showed his pleasure at the
dissension, and his desire to inflame the people against both of
them. Nicias and Alcibiades, perceiving his malice, secretly
combined together, and setting both their interests jointly at
work, succeeded in fixing the ostracism not on either of them, but
even on Hyperbolus. This, indeed, at the first, made sport, and
raised laughter among the people; but afterwards it was felt as an
affront, that the thing should be dishonored by being employed upon
so unworthy a subject; punishment, also, having its proper dignity,
and ostracism being one that was appropriate rather for Thucydides,
Aristides, and such like persons; whereas for Hyperbolus it was a
glory, and a fair ground for boasting on his part, when for his
villainy he suffered the same with the best men. As Plato, the
comic poet said of him,
The man deserved the fate, deny who can;
Yes, but the fate did not deserve the man;
Not for the like of him and his slave-brands,
Did Athens put the sherd into our hands.
And, in fact, none ever afterwards suffered this sort of
punishment, but Hyperbolus was the last, as Hipparchus the
Cholargian, who was kin to the tyrant, was the first.
There is no judgment to be made of fortune; nor can any reasoning
bring us to a certainty about it. If Nicias had run the risk with
Alcibiades, whether of the two should undergo the ostracism, he had
either prevailed, and, his rival being expelled the city, he had
remained secure; or, being overcome, he had avoided the utmost
disasters, and preserved the reputation of a most excellent
commander. Meantime I am not ignorant that Theophrastus says, that
when Hyperbolus was banished Phaeax, not Nicias, contested it with
Alcibiades; but most authors differ from him.
It was Alcibiades, at any rate, whom when the Aegestean and
Leontine ambassadors arrived and urged the Athenians to make an
expedition against Sicily, Nicias opposed, and by whose persuasions
and ambition he found himself overborne, who even before the people
could be assembled, had preoccupied and corrupted their judgment
with hopes and with speeches; insomuch that the young men at their
sports, and the old men in their workshops, and sitting together on
the benches, would be drawing maps of Sicily, and making charts
showing the seas, the harbors, and general character of the coast
of the island opposite Africa. For they made not Sicily the end of
the war, but rather its starting point and head-quarters from
whence they might carry it to the Carthaginians, and possess
themselves of Africa, and of the seas as far as the pillars of
Hercules. The bulk of the people, therefore, pressing this way,
Nicias, who opposed them, found but few supporters, nor those of
much influence; for the men of substance, fearing lest they should
seem to shun the public charges and ship-money, were quiet against
their inclination; nevertheless he did not tire nor give it up, but
even after the Athenians decreed a war and chose him in the first
place general, together with Alcibiades and Lamachus, when they
were again assembled, he stood up, dissuaded them, and protested
against the decision, and laid the blame on Alcibiades, charging
him with going about to involve the city in foreign dangers and
difficulties, merely with a view to his own private lucre and
ambition. Yet it came to nothing. Nicias, because of his
experience, was looked upon as the fitter for the employment, and
his wariness with the bravery of Alcibiades, and the easy temper of
Lamachus, all compounded together, promised such security, that he
did but confirm the resolution. Demostratus, who, of the popular
leaders, was the one who chiefly pressed the Athenians to the
expedition, stood up and said he would stop the mouth of Nicias
from urging any more excuses, and moved that the generals should
have absolute power both at home and abroad, to order and to act as
they thought best; and this vote the people passed.
The priests, however, are said to have very earnestly opposed the
enterprise. But Alcibiades had his diviners of another sort, who
from some old prophesies announced that "there shall be great fame
of the Athenians in Sicily," and messengers came back to him from
Jupiter Ammon, with oracles importing that "the Athenians shall
take all the Syracusans." Those, meanwhile, who knew anything
that boded ill, concealed it, lest they might seem to forespeak
ill-luck. For even prodigies that were obvious and plain would not
deter them; not the defacing of the Hermue, all maimed in one night
except one, called the Hermes of Andocides, erected by the tribe of
Aegeus, placed directly before the house then occupied by
Andocides; nor what was perpetrated on the altar of the twelve
gods, upon which a certain man leaped suddenly up, and then turning
round, mutilated himself with a stone. Likewise at Delphi, there
stood a golden image of Minerva, set on a palm-tree of brass,
erected by the city of Athens from the spoils they won from the
Medes; this was pecked at several days together by crows flying
upon it, who, also, plucked off and knocked down the fruit, made of
gold, upon the palm-tree. But the Athenians said these were all
but inventions of the Delphians, corrupted by the men of Syracuse.
A certain oracle bade them bring from Clazomenae the priestess of
Minerva there; they sent for the woman and found her named
Hesychia, Quietness, this being, it would seem, what the divine
powers advised the city at this time, to be quiet. Whether,
therefore, the astrologer Meton feared these presages, or that from
human reason he doubted its success, (for he was appointed to a
command in it,) feigning himself mad, he set his house on fire.
Others say he did not counterfeit madness, but set his house on
fire in the night, and he next morning came before the assembly in
great distress, and besought the people, in consideration of the
sad disaster, to release his son from the service, who was about to
go captain of a galley for Sicily. The genius, also, of the
philosopher Socrates, on this occasion, too, gave him intimation by
the usual tokens, that the expedition would prove the ruin of the
commonwealth; this he imparted to his friends and familiars, and by
them it was mentioned to a number of people. Not a few were
troubled because the days on which the fleet set sail happened to
be the time when the women celebrated the death of Adonis; there
being everywhere then exposed to view images of dead men, carried
about with mourning and lamentation, and women beating their
breasts. So that such as laid any stress on these matters were
extremely troubled, and feared lest that all this warlike
preparation, so splendid and so glorious, should suddenly, in a
little time, be blasted in its very prime of magnificence, and come
to nothing.
Nicias, in opposing the voting of this expedition, and neither
being puffed up with hopes, nor transported with the honor of his
high command so as to modify his judgment, showed himself a man of
virtue and constancy. But when his endeavors could not divert the
people from the war, nor get leave for himself to be discharged of
the command, but the people, as it were, violently took him up and
carried him, and against his will put him in the office of general,
this was no longer now a time for his excessive caution and his
delays, nor was it for him, like a child, to look back from the
ship, often repeating and reconsidering over and over again how
that his advice had not been overruled by fair arguments, thus
blunting the courage of his fellow commanders and spoiling the
season of action. Whereas, he ought speedily to have closed with
the enemy and brought the matter to an issue, and put fortune
immediately to the test in battle. But, on the contrary, when
Lamachus counseled to sail directly to Syracuse, and fight the
enemy under their city walls, and Alcibiades advised to secure the
friendship of the other towns, and then to march against them,
Nicias dissented from them both, and insisted that they should
cruise quietly around the island and display their armament, and,
having landed a small supply of men for the Egesteans, return to
Athens, weakening at once the resolution and casting down the
spirits of the men. And when, a little while after, the Athenians
called home Alcibiades in order to his trial, he being, though
joined nominally with another in commission, in effect the only
general, made now no end of loitering, of cruising, and
considering, till their hopes were grown stale, and all the
disorder and consternation which the first approach and view of
their forces had cast amongst the enemy was worn off, and had left
them.
Whilst yet Alcibiades was with the fleet, they went before Syracuse
with a squadron of sixty galleys, fifty of them lying in array
without the harbor, while the other ten rowed in to reconnoiter,
and by a herald called upon the citizens of Leontini to return to
their own country. These scouts took a galley of the enemy's, in
which they found certain tablets, on which was set down a list of
all the Syracusans, according to their tribes. These were wont to
be laid up at a distance from the city, in the temple of Jupiter
Olympius, but were now brought forth for examination to furnish a
muster-roll of young men for the war. These being so taken by the
Athenians, and carried to the officers, and the multitude of names
appearing, the diviners thought it unpropitious, and were in
apprehension lest this should be the only destined fullfilment of
the prophecy, that "the Athenians shall take all the Syracusans."
Yet, indeed, this was said to be accomplished by the Athenians at
another time, when Callippus the Athenian, having slain Dion,
became master of Syracuse. But when Alcibiades shortly after
sailed away from Sicily, the command fell wholly to Nicias.
Lamachus was, indeed, a brave and honest man, and ready to fight
fearlessly with his own hand in battle, but so poor and ill off,
that whenever he was appointed general, he used always, in
accounting for his outlay of public money, to bring some little
reckoning or other of money for his very clothes and shoes. On the
contrary, Nicias, as on other accounts, so, also, because of his
wealth and station, was very much thought of. The story is told that
once upon a time the commission of generals being in consultation
together in their public office, he bade Sophocles the poet give
his opinion first, as the senior of the board. "I," replied
Sophocles, "am the older, but you are the senior." And so now,
also, Lamachus, who better understood military affairs, being quite
his subordinate, he himself, evermore delaying and avoiding risk,
and faintly employing his forces, first by his sailing about Sicily
at the greatest distance aloof from the enemy, gave them
confidence, then by afterwards attacking Hybla, a petty fortress,
and drawing off before he could take it, made himself utterly
despised. At the last he retreated to Catana without having
achieved anything, save that he demolished Hyocara, a humble town
of the barbarians, out of which the story goes that Lais the
courtesan, yet a mere girl, was sold amongst the other prisoners,
and carried thence away to Peloponnesus.
But when the summer was spent, after reports began to reach him
that the Syracusans were grown so confident that they would come
first to attack him, and troopers skirmishing to the very camp
twitted his soldiers, asking whether they came to settle with the
Catanians, or to put the Leontines in possession of their city, at
last, with much ado, Nicias resolved to sail against Syracuse. And
wishing to form his camp safely and without molestation, he
procured a man to carry from Catana intelligence to the Syracusans
that they might seize the camp of the Athenians unprotected, and
all their arms, if on such a day they should march with all their
forces to Catana; and that, the Athenians living mostly in the
town, the friends of the Syracusans had concerted, as soon as they
should perceive them coming, to possess themselves of one of the
gates, and to fire the arsenal; that many now were in the
conspiracy and awaited their arrival. This was the ablest thing
Nicias did in the whole of his conduct of the expedition. For
having drawn out all the strength of the enemy, and made the city
destitute of men, he set out from Catana, entered the harbor, and
chose a fit place for his camp, where the enemy could least
incommode him with the means in which they were superior to him,
while with the means in which he was superior to them, he might
expect to carry on the war without impediment.
When the Syracusans returned from Catana, and stood in battle array
before the city gates, he rapidly led up the Athenians and fell on
them and defeated them, but did not kill many, their horse
hindering the pursuit. And his cutting and breaking down the
bridges that lay over the river gave Hermocrates, when cheering up
the Syracusans, occasion to say, that Nicias was ridiculous, whose
great aim seemed to be to avoid fighting, as if fighting were not
the thing he came for. However, he put the Syracusans into a very
great alarm and consternation, so that instead of fifteen generals
then in service, they chose three others, to whom the people
engaged by oath to allow absolute authority.
There stood near them the temple of Jupiter Olympius, which the
Athenians (there being in it many consecrated things of gold and
silver) were eager to take, but were purposely withheld from it by
Nicias, who let the opportunity slip, and allowed a garrison of the
Syracusans to enter it, judging that if the soldiers should make
booty of that wealth, it would be no advantage to the public, and
he should bear the guilt of the impiety. Not improving in the
least this success, which was everywhere famous, after a few days'
stay, away he goes to Naxos, and there winters, spending largely
for the maintenance of so great an army, and not doing anything
except some matters of little consequence with some native
Sicilians that revolted to him. Insomuch that the Syracusans took
heart again, made excursions to Catana, wasted the country, and
fired the camp of the Athenians. For which everybody blamed
Nicias, who, with his long reflection, his deliberateness, and his
caution, had let slip the time for action. None ever found fault
with the man when once at work, for in the brunt he showed vigor
and activity enough, but was slow and wanted assurance to engage.
When, therefore, he brought again the army to Syracuse, such was
his conduct, and with such celerity, and at the same time security,
he came upon them, that nobody knew of his approach, when already
he had come to shore with his galleys at Thapsus, and had landed
his men; and before any could help it he had surprised Epipolae,
had defeated the body of picked men that came to its succor, took
three hundred prisoners, and routed the cavalry of the enemy, which
had been thought invincible. But what chiefly astonished the
Syracusans, and seemed incredible to the Greeks, was, in so short a
space of time the walling about of Syracuse, a town not less than
Athens, and far more difficult, by the unevenness of the ground,
and the nearness of the sea and the marshes adjacent, to have such
a wall drawn in a circle round it; yet this, all within a very
little, finished by a man that had not even his health for such
weighty cares, but lay ill of the stone, which may justly bear the
blame for what was left undone. I admire the industry of the
general, and the bravery of the soldiers for what they succeeded
in. Euripides, after their ruin and disaster, writing their
funeral elegy, said that
Eight victories over Syracuse they gained,
While equal yet to both the gods remained.
And in truth one shall not find eight, but many more victories, won
by these men against the Syracusans, till the gods, in real truth,
or fortune intervened to check the Athenians in this advance to the
height of power and greatness.
Nicias, therefore, doing violence to his body, was present in most
actions. But once, when his disease was the sharpest upon him, he
lay in the camp with some few servants to attend him. And Lamachus
having the command fought the Syracusans, who were bringing a
cross-wall from the city along to that of the Athenians, to hinder
them from carrying it round; and in the victory, the Athenians
hurrying in some disorder to the pursuit, Lamachus getting
separated from his men, had to resist the Syracusan horse that came
upon him. Before the rest advanced Callicrates, a man of good
courage and skill in war. Lamachus, upon a challenge, engaged with
him in single combat, and receiving the first wound, returned it so
home to Callicrates, that they both fell and died together. The
Syracusans took away his body and arms, and at full speed advanced
to the wall of the Athenians, where Nicias lay without any troops
to oppose to them, yet roused by this necessity, and seeing the
danger, he bade those about him go and set on fire all the wood and
materials that lay provided before the wall for the engines, and
the engines themselves; this put a stop to the Syracusans, saved
Nicias, saved the walls, and all the money of the Athenians. For
when the Syracusans raw such a fire blazing up between them and the
wall, they retired.
Nicias now remained sole general, and with great prospects; for
cities began to come over to alliance with him, and ships laden
with corn from every coast came to the camp, everyone favoring
when matters went well. And some proposals from among the
Syracusans despairing to defend the city, about a capitulation,
were already conveyed to him. And in fact Gylippus, who was on his
way with a squadron to their aid from Lacedaemon, hearing, on his
voyage, of the wall surrounding them, and of their distress, only
continued his enterprise thenceforth, that, giving Sicily up for
lost, he might, if even that should be possible, secure the
Italians their cities. For a strong report was everywhere spread
about that the Athenians carried all before them, and had a general
alike for conduct and for fortune invincible.
And Nicias himself, too, now against his nature grown bold in his
present strength and success, especially from the intelligence he
received under hand of the Syracusans, believing they would almost
immediately surrender the town upon terms, paid no manner of regard
to Gylippus coming to their assistance, nor kept any watch of his
approach so that, neglected altogether and despised, Gylippus went
in a longboat ashore without the knowledge of Nicias, and, having
landed in the remotest parts from Syracuse, mustered up a
considerable force, the Syracusans not so much as knowing of his
arrival nor expecting him; so that an assembly was summoned to
consider the terms to be arranged with Nicias, and some were
actually on the way, thinking it essential to have all dispatched
before the town should be quite walled round, for now there
remained very little to be done, and the materials for the building
lay all ready along the line.
In this very nick of time and danger arrived Gongylus in one galley
from Corinth, and everyone, as may be imagined, flocking about
him, he told them that Gylippus would be with them speedily, and
that other ships were coming to relieve them. And, ere yet they
could perfectly believe Gongylus, an express was brought from
Gylippus, to bid them go forth to meet him. So now taking good
heart, they armed themselves; and Gylippus at once led on his men
from their march in battle array against the Athenians, as Nicias
also embattled these. And Gylippus, piling his arms in view of the
Athenians, sent a herald to tell them he would give them leave to
depart from Sicily without molestation. To this Nicias would not
vouchsafe any answer, but some of his soldiers laughing asked if
with the sight of one coarse coat and Laconian staff the Syracusan
prospects had become so brilliant that they could despise the
Athenians, who had released to the Lacedaemonians three hundred,
whom they held in chains, bigger men than Gylippus, and
longer-haired? Timaeus, also, writes that even the Syracusans made
no account of Gylippus, at the first sight mocking at his staff and
long hair, as afterwards they found reason to blame his
covetousness and meanness. The same author, however, adds that on
Gylippus's first appearance, as it might have been at the sight of
an owl abroad in the air, there was a general flocking together of
men to serve in the war. And this is the truer saying of the two;
for in the staff and the cloak they saw the badge and authority of
Sparta, and crowded to him accordingly. And not only Thucydides
affirms that the whole thing was done by him alone, but so, also,
does Philistus, who was a Syracusan and an actual witness of what
happened.
However, the Athenians had the better in the first encounter, and
slew some few of the Syracusans, and amongst them Gongylus of
Corinth. But on the next day Gylippus showed what it is to be a
man of experience; for with the same arms, the same horses, and on
the same spot of ground, only employing them otherwise, he overcame
the Athenians; and they fleeing to their camp, he set the
Syracusans to work, and with the stone and materials that had been
brought together for finishing the wall of the Athenians, he built
a cross wall to intercept theirs and break it off, so that even if
they were successful in the field, they would not be able to do
anything. And after this the Syracusans taking courage manned their
galleys, and with their horse and followers ranging about took a
good many prisoners; and Gylippus going himself to the cities,
called upon them to join with him, and was listened to and
supported vigorously by them. So that Nicias fell back again to
his old views, and, seeing the face of affairs change, desponded,
and wrote to Athens, bidding them either send another army, or
recall this out of Sicily, and that he might, in any case, be
wholly relieved of the command, because of his disease.
Before this, the Athenians had been intending to send another army
to Sicily, but envy of Nicias's early achievements and high fortune
had occasioned, up to this time, many delays; but now they were all
eager to send off succors. Eurymedon went before, in midwinter,
with money, and to announce that Euthydemus and Menander were
chosen out of those that served there under Nicias to be joint
commanders with him. Demosthenes was to go after in the spring
with a great armament. In the meantime Nicias was briskly
attacked, both by sea and land; in the beginning he had the
disadvantage on the water, but in the end repulsed and sunk many
galleys of the enemy. But by land he could not provide succor in
time, so Gylippus surprised and captured Plemmyrium, in which the
stores for the navy, and a great sum of money being there kept, all
fell into his hands, and many were slain, and many taken prisoners.
And what was of greatest importance, he now cut off Nicias's
supplies, which had been safely and readily conveyed to him under
Plemmyrium, while the Athenians still held it, but now that they
were beaten out, he could only procure them with great difficulty,
and with opposition from the enemy, who lay in wait with their
ships under that fort. Moreover, it seemed manifest to the
Syracusans that their navy had not been beaten by strength, but by
their disorder in the pursuit. Now, therefore, all hands went to
work to prepare for a new attempt, that should succeed better than
the former. Nicias had no wish for a sea-fight, but said it was
mere folly for them, when Demosthenes was coming in all haste with
so great a fleet and fresh forces to their succor, to engage the
enemy with a less number of ships and ill provided. But, on the
other hand, Menander and Euthydemus, who were just commencing their
new command, prompted by a feeling of rivalry and emulation of both
the generals, were eager to gain some great success before
Demosthenes came, and to prove themselves superior to Nicias. They
urged the honor of the city, which, said they, would be blemished
and utterly lost, if they should decline a challenge from the
Syracusans. Thus they forced Nicias to a sea-fight; and by the
stratagem of Ariston, the Corinthian pilot, (his trick, described
by Thucydides, about the men's dinners,) they were worsted, and
lost many of their men, causing the greatest dejection to Nicias,
who had suffered so much from having the sole command, and now
again miscarried through his colleagues.
But now, by this time, Demosthenes with his splendid fleet came in
sight outside the harbor, a terror to the enemy. He brought along,
in seventy-three galleys, five thousand men at arms; of darters,
archers, and slingers, not less than three thousand; with the
glittering of their armor, the flags waving from the galleys, the
multitude of coxswains and flute-players giving time to the rowers,
setting off the whole with all possible warlike pomp and
ostentation to dismay the enemy. Now, one may believe the
Syracusans were again in extreme alarm, seeing no end or prospect
of release before them, toiling, as it seemed, in vain, and
perishing to no purpose. Nicias, however, was not long overjoyed
with the reinforcement, for the first time he conferred with
Demosthenes, who advised forthwith to attack the Syracusans, and to
put all to the speediest hazard, to win Syracuse, or else return
home, afraid, and wondering at his promptness and audacity, he
besought him to do nothing rashly and desperately, since delay
would be the ruin of the enemy, whose money would not hold out, nor
their confederates be long kept together; that when once they came
to be pinched with want, they would presently come again to him for
terms, as formerly. For, indeed, many in Syracuse held secret
correspondence with him, and urged him to stay, declaring that even
now the people were quite worn out with the war, and weary of
Gylippus. And if their necessities should the least sharpen upon
them they would give up all.
Nicias glancing darkly at these matters, and unwilling to speak out
plainly, made his colleagues imagine that it was cowardice which
made him talk in this manner. And saying that this was the old
story over again, the well known procrastinations and delays and
refinements with which at first he let slip the opportunity in not
immediately falling on the enemy, but suffering the armament to
become a thing of yesterday, that nobody was alarmed with, they
took the side of Demosthenes, and with much ado forced Nicias to
comply. And so Demosthenes, taking the land-forces, by night made
an assault upon Epipolae; part of the enemy he slew ere they took
the alarm, the rest defending themselves he put to flight. Nor was
he content with this victory there, but pushed on further, till he
met the Boeotians. For these were the first that made head against
the Athenians, and charged them with a shout, spear against spear,
and killed many on the place. And now at once there ensued a panic
and confusion throughout the whole army; the victorious portion got
infected with the fears of the flying part, and those who were
still disembarking and coming forward, falling foul of the
retreaters, came into conflict with their own party, taking the
fugitives for pursuers, and treating their friends as if they were
the enemy.
Thus huddled together in disorder, distracted with fear and
uncertainties, and unable to be sure of seeing anything, the night
not being absolutely dark, nor yielding any steady light, the moon
then towards setting, shadowed with the many weapons and bodies
that moved to and fro, and glimmering so as not to show an object
plain, but to make friends through fear suspected for foes, the
Athenians fell into utter perplexity and desperation. For,
moreover, they had the moon at their backs, and consequently their
own shadows fell upon them, and both hid the number and the
glittering of their arms; while the reflection of the moon from the
shields of the enemy made them show more numerous and better
appointed than, indeed, they were. At last, being pressed on every
side, when once they had given way, they took to rout, and in their
flight were destroyed, some by the enemy, some by the hand of their
friends, and some tumbling down the rocks, while those that were
dispersed and straggled about were picked off in the morning by the
horsemen and put to the sword. The slain were two thousand; and of
the rest few came off safe with their arms.
Upon this disaster, which to him was not wholly an unexpected one,
Nicias accused the rashness of Demosthenes; but he, making his
excuses for the past, now advised to be gone in all haste, for
neither were other forces to come, nor could the enemy be beaten
with the present. And, indeed, even supposing they were yet too
hard for the enemy in any case, they ought to remove and quit a
situation which they understood to be always accounted a sickly
one, and dangerous for an army, and was more particularly
unwholesome now, as they could see themselves, because of the time
of year. It was the beginning of autumn, and many now lay sick,
and all were out of heart.
It grieved Nicias to hear of flight and departing home, not that he
did not fear the Syracusans, but he was worse afraid of the
Athenians, their impeachments and sentences; he professed that he
apprehended no further harm there, or if it must be, he would
rather die by the hand of an enemy, than by his fellow-citizens.
He was not of the opinion which Leo of Byzantium declared to his
fellow-citizens: "I had rather," said he, "perish by you, than
with you." As to the matter of place and quarter whither to remove
their camp, that, he said, might be debated at leisure. And
Demosthenes, his former counsel having succeeded so ill, ceased to
press him further; others thought Nicias had reasons for
expectation, and relied on some assurance from people within the
city, and that this made him so strongly oppose their retreat, so
they acquiesced. But fresh forces now coming to the Syracusans,
and the sickness growing worse in his camp, he, also, now approved
of their retreat, and commanded the soldiers to make ready to go
aboard.
And when all were in readiness, and none of the enemy had observed
them, not expecting such a thing, the moon was eclipsed in the
night, to the great fright of Nicias and others, who, for want of
experience, or out of superstition, felt alarm at such appearances.
That the sun might be darkened about the close of the month, this
even ordinary people now understood pretty well to be the effect of
the moon; but the moon itself to be darkened, how that could come
about, and how, on the sudden, a broad full moon should lose her
light, and show such various colors, was not easy to be
comprehended; they concluded it to be ominous, and a divine
intimation of some heavy calamities. For he who the first, and the
most plainly of any, and with the greatest assurance committed to
writing how the moon is enlightened and overshadowed, was
Anaxagoras; and he was as yet but recent, nor was his argument much
known, but was rather kept secret, passing only amongst a few,
under some kind of caution and confidence. People would not then
tolerate natural philosophers, and theorists, as they then called
them, about things above; as lessening the divine power, by
explaining away its agency into the operation of irrational causes
and senseless forces acting by necessity, without anything of
Providence, or a free agent. Hence it was that Protagoras was
banished, and Anaxagoras cast in prison, so that Pericles had much
difficulty to procure his liberty; and Socrates, though he had no
concern whatever with this sort of learning, yet was put to death
for philosophy. It was only afterwards that the reputation of
Plato, shining forth by his life, and because he subjected natural
necessity to divine and more excellent principles, took away the
obloquy and scandal that had attached to such contemplations, and
obtained these studies currency among all people. So his friend
Dion, when the moon, at the time he was to embark from Zacynthus to
go against Dionysius, was eclipsed, was not in the least disturbed,
but went on, and, arriving at Syracuse, expelled the tyrant. But
it so fell out with Nicias, that he had not at this time a skillful
diviner with him; his former habitual adviser who used to moderate
much of his superstition, Stilbides, had died a little before. For
in fact, this prodigy, as Philochorus observes, was not unlucky for
men wishing to fly, but on the contrary very favorable; for things
done in fear require to be hidden, and the light is their foe. Nor
was it usual to observe signs in the sun or moon more than three
days, as Autoclides states in his Commentaries. But Nicias
persuaded them to wait another full course of the moon, as if he
had not seen it clear again as soon as ever it had passed the
region of shadow where the light was obstructed by the earth.
In a manner abandoning all other cares, he betook himself wholly to
his sacrifices, till the enemy came upon them with their infantry,
besieging the forts and camp, and placing their ships in a circle
about the harbor. Nor did the men in the galleys only, but the
little boys everywhere got into the fishing-boats and rowed up and
challenged the Athenians, and insulted over them. Amongst these a
youth of noble parentage, Heraclides by name, having ventured out
beyond the rest, an Athenian ship pursued and wellnigh took him.
His uncle Pollichus, in fear for him, put out with ten galleys
which he commanded, and the rest, to relieve Pollichus, in like
manner drew forth; the result of it being a very sharp engagement,
in which the Syracusans had the victory, and slew Eurymedon, with
many others. lifter this the Athenian soldiers had no patience to
stay longer, but raised an outcry against their officers, requiring
them to depart by land; for the Syracusans, upon their victory,
immediately shut and blocked up the entrance of the harbor; but
Nicias would not consent to this, as it was a shameful thing to
leave behind so many ships of burden, and galleys little less than
two hundred. Putting, therefore, on board the best of the foot,
and the most serviceable darters, they filled one hundred and ten
galleys; the rest wanted oars. The remainder of his army Nicias
posted along by the sea-side, abandoning the great camp and the
fortifications adjoining the temple of Hercules; so the Syracusans,
not having for a long time performed their usual sacrifice to
Hercules, went up now, both priests and captains, to sacrifice.
And their galleys being manned, the diviners predicted from their
sacrifices victory and glory to the Syracusans, provided they would
not be the aggressors, but fight upon the defensive; for so
Hercules overcame all, by only de. fending himself when set upon.
In this confidence they set out; and this proved the hottest and
fiercest of all their sea-fights, raising no less concern and
passion in the beholders than in the actors; as they could oversee
the whole action with all the various and unexpected turns of
fortune which, in a short space, occurred in it; the Athenians
suffering no less from their own preparations, than from the enemy;
for they fought against light and nimble ships, that could attack
from any quarter, with theirs laden and heavy. And they were
thrown at with stones that fly indifferently any way, for which
they could only return darts and arrows, the direct aim of which
the motion of the water disturbed, preventing their coming true,
point foremost to their mark. This the Syracusans had learned from
Ariston the Corinthian pilot, who, fighting stoutly, fell himself
in this very engagement, when the victory had already declared for
the Syracusans.
The Athenians, their loss and slaughter being very great, their
flight by sea cut off, their safety by land so difficult, did not
attempt to hinder the enemy towing away their ships, under their
eves, nor demanded their dead, as, indeed, their want of burial
seemed a less calamity than the leaving behind the sick and wounded
which they now had before them. Yet more miserable still than
those did they reckon themselves, who were to work on yet, through
more such sufferings, after all to reach the same end.
They prepared to dislodge that night. And Gylippus and his friends
seeing the Syracusans engaged in their sacrifices and at their
cups, for their victories, and it being also a holiday, did not
expect either by persuasion or by force to rouse them up and carry
them against the Athenians as they decamped. But Hermocrates, of
his own head, put a trick upon Nicias, and sent some of his
companions to him, who pretended they came from those that were
wont to hold secret intelligence with him, and advised him not to
stir that night, the Syracusans having laid ambushes and beset the
ways. Nicias, caught with this stratagem, remained, to encounter
presently in reality, what he had feared when there was no
occasion. For they, the next morning, marching before, seized the
defiles, fortified the passes where the rivers were fordable, cut
down the bridges, and ordered their horsemen to range the plains
and ground that lay open, so as to leave no part of the country
where the Athenians could move without fighting. They stayed both
that day and another night, and then went along as if they were
leaving their own, not an enemy's country, lamenting and bewailing
for want of necessaries, and for their parting from friends and
companions that were not, able to help themselves; and,
nevertheless, judging the present evils lighter than those they
expected to come. But among the many miserable spectacles that
appeared up and down in the camp, the saddest sight of all was
Nicias himself, laboring under his malady, and unworthily reduced
to the scantiest supply of all the accommodations necessary for
human wants, of which he in his condition required more than
ordinary, because of his sickness; yet bearing; up under all this
illness, and doing and undergoing more than many in perfect health.
And it was plainly evident, that all this toil was not for himself,
or from any regard to his own life, but that purely for the sake of
those under his command he would not abandon hope. And, indeed,
the rest were given over to weeping and lamentation through fear or
sorrow, but he, whenever he yielded to anything of the kind, did
so, it was evident, from reflection upon the shame and dishonor of
the enterprise, contrasted with the greatness and glory of the
success he had anticipated, and not only the sight of his person,
but, also, the recollection of the arguments and the dissuasions he
used to prevent this expedition, enhanced their sense of the
undeservedness of his sufferings, nor had they any heart to put
their trust in the gods, considering that a man so religious, who
had performed to the divine powers so many and so great acts of
devotion, should have no more favorable treatment than the
wickedest and meanest of the army.
Nicias, however, endeavored all the while by his voice, his
countenance, and his carriage, to show himself undefeated by these
misfortunes. And all along the way shot at, and receiving wounds
eight days continually from the enemy, he yet preserved the forces
with him in a body entire, till that Demosthenes was taken prisoner
with the party that he led, whilst they fought and made a
resistance, and so got behind and were surrounded near the country
house of Polyzelus. Demosthenes thereupon drew his sword, and
wounded but did not kill himself, the enemy speedily running in and
seizing upon him. So soon as the Syracusans had gone and informed
Nicias of this, and he had sent some horsemen, and by them knew the
certainty of the defeat of that division, he then vouchsafed to sue
to Gylippus for a truce for the Athenians to depart out of Sicily,
leaving hostages for payment of the money that the Syracusans had
expended in the war.
But now they would not hear of these proposals, but threatening and
reviling them, angrily and insultingly continued to ply their
missiles at them, now destitute of every necessary. Yet Nicias
still made good his retreat all that night, and the next day,
through all their darts, made his way to the river Asinarus.
There, however, the enemy encountering them, drove some into the
stream, while others ready to die for thirst plunged in headlong,
while they drank at the same time, and were cut down by their
enemies. And here was the cruelest and the most immoderate
slaughter. Till at last Nicias falling down to Gylippus, "Let
pity, O Gylippus," said he, "move you in your victory; not for me,
who was destined, it seems, to bring the glory I once had to this
end, but for the other Athenians; as you well know that the chances
of war are common to all, and the Athenians used them moderately
and mildly towards you in their prosperity."
At these words, and at the sight of Nicias, Gylippus was somewhat
troubled, for he was sensible that the Lacedaemonians had received
good offices from Nicias in the late treaty; and he thought it
would be a great and glorious thing for him to carry off the chief
commanders of the Athenians alive. He, therefore, raised Nicias
with respect, and bade him be of good cheer, and commanded his men
to spare the lives of the rest. But the word of command being
communicated slowly, the slain were a far greater number than the
prisoners. Many, however, were privily conveyed away by particular
soldiers. Those taken openly were hurried together in a mass;
their arms and spoils hung up on the finest and largest trees along
the river. The conquerors, with garlands on their heads, with
their own horses splendidly adorned, and cropping short the manes
and tails of those of their enemies, entered the city, having, in
the most signal conflict ever waged by Greeks against Greeks, and
with the greatest strength and the utmost effort of valor and
manhood, won a most entire victory.
And a general assembly of the people of Syracuse and their
confederates sitting, Eurycles, the popular leader, moved, first,
that the day on which they took Nicias should from thenceforward be
kept holiday by sacrificing and forbearing all manner of work, and
from the river be called the Asinarian Feast. This was the
twenty-sixth day of the month Carneus, the Athenian Metagitnion.
And that the servants of the Athenians with the other confederates
be sold for slaves, and they themselves and the Sicilian
auxiliaries be kept and employed in the quarries, except the
generals, who should be put to death. The Syracusans favored the
proposal, and when Hermocrates said, that to use well a victory was
better than to gain a victory, he was met with great clamor and
outcry. When Gylippus, also, demanded the Athenian generals to be
delivered to him, that he might carry them to the Lacedaemonians,
the Syracusans, now insolent with their good fortune, gave him ill
words. Indeed, before this, even in the war, they had been
impatient at his rough behavior and Lacedaemonian haughtiness, and
had, as Timaeus tells us, discovered sordidness and avarice in his
character, vices which may have descended to him from his father
Cleandrides, who was convicted of bribery and banished. And the
very man himself, of the one thousand talents which Lysander sent
to Sparta, embezzled thirty, and hid them under the tiles of his
house, and was detected and shamefully fled his country. But this
is related more at large in the life of Lysander. Timaeus says
that Demosthenes and Nicias did not die, as Thucydides and
Philistus have written, by the order of the Syracusans, but that
upon a message sent them from Hermocrates, whilst yet the assembly
were sitting, by the connivance of some of their guards, they were
enabled to put an end to themselves. Their bodies, however, were
thrown out before the gates and offered for a public spectacle.
And I have heard that to this day in a temple at Syracuse is shown
a shield, said to have been Nicias's, curiously wrought and
embroidered with gold and purple intermixed. Most of the Athenians
perished in the quarries by diseases and ill diet, being allowed
only one pint of barley every day, and one half pint of water.
Many of them, however, were carried off by stealth, or, from the
first, were supposed to be servants, and were sold as slaves.
These latter were branded on their foreheads with the figure of a
horse. There were, however, Athenians, who, in addition to
slavery, had to endure even this. But their discreet and orderly
conduct was an advantage to them; they were either soon set free,
or won the respect of their masters with whom they continued to
live. Several were saved for the sake of Euripides, whose poetry,
it appears, was in request among the Sicilians more than among any
of the settlers out of Greece. And when any travelers arrived that
could tell them some passage, or give them any specimen of his
verses, they were delighted to be able to communicate them to one
another. Many of the captives who got safe back to Athens are
said, after they reached home, to have gone and made their
acknowledgments to Euripides, relating how that some of them had
been released from their slavery by teaching what they could
remember of his poems, and others, when straggling after the fight,
been relieved with meat and drink for repeating some of his lyrics.
Nor need this be any wonder, for it is told that a ship of Caunus
fleeing into one of their harbors for protection, pursued by
pirates, was not received, but forced back, till one asked if they
knew any of Euripides's verses, and on their saying they did, they
were admitted, and their ship brought into harbor.
It is said that the Athenians would not believe their loss, in a
great degree because of the person who first brought them news of
it. For a certain stranger, it seems, coming to Piraeus, and there
sitting in a barber's shop, began to talk of what had happened, as
if the Athenians already knew all that had passed; which the barber
hearing, before he acquainted anybody else, ran as fast as he could
up into the city, addressed himself to the Archons, and presently
spread it about in the public Place. On which, there being
everywhere, as may be imagined, terror and consternation, the
Archons summoned a general assembly, and there brought in the man
and questioned him how he came to know. And he, giving no
satisfactory account, was taken for a spreader of false
intelligence and a disturber of the city, and was, therefore,
fastened to the wheel and racked a long time, till other messengers
arrived that related the whole disaster particularly. So hardly
was Nicias believed to have suffered the calamity which he had
often predicted.