The Athenian troops at Katana, probably tired of inaction, were put in motion in the early spring, even before the arrival of the reinforcements from Athens, and sailed to the deserted walls of Megara, not far from Syracuse, which the Syracusans had recently garrisoned. Having in vain attacked the Syracusan garrison, and laid waste the neighboring fields, they reëmbarked, landed again for similar purposes at the mouth of the river Terias, and then, after an insignificant skirmish, returned to Katana. An expedition into the interior of the island procured for them the alliance of the Sikel town of Kentoripa; and the cavalry being now arrived from Athens, they prepared for operations against Syracuse. Nikias had received from Athens two hundred and fifty horsemen fully equipped, for whom horses were to be procured in Sicily,[365] thirty horse-bowmen, and three hundred talents in money. He was not long in furnishing them with horses from Egesta and Katana, from which cities he also received some farther cavalry, so that he was presently able to muster six hundred and fifty cavalry in all.[366]
Even before this cavalry could be mounted, Nikias made his first approach to Syracuse. For the Syracusan generals on their side, apprized of the arrival of the reinforcement from Athens, and aware that besieging operations were on the point of being commenced, now thought it necessary to take the precaution of occupying and guarding the roads of access to the high ground of Epipolæ which overhung their outer city.
Syracuse consisted at this time of two parts, an inner and outer city. The former was comprised in the island of Ortygia, the original settlement founded by Archias, and within which the modern city is at this moment included: the latter or outer city, afterwards known by the name of Achradina, occupied the high ground of the peninsula north of Ortygia, but does not seem to have joined the inner city, or to have been comprised in the same fortification. This outer city was defended, on the north and east, by the sea, with rocks presenting great difficulties of landing, and by a sea-wall; so that on these sides it was out of the reach of attack. Its wall on the land-side, beginning from the sea somewhat eastward of the entrance of the cleft now called Santa Bonagia, or Panagia, ran in a direction westward of south as far as the termination of the high ground of Achradina, and then turned eastward along the stone quarries now known as those of the Capucins and Novanteris, where the ground is in part so steep, that probably little fortification was needed. This fortified high land of Achradina thus constituted the outer city; while the lower ground, situated between it and the inner city, or Ortygia, seems at this time not to have been included in the fortifications of either, but was employed (and probably had been employed even from the first settlement in the island), partly for religious processions, games, and other multitudinous ceremonies; partly for the burial of the dead, which, according to invariable Grecian custom, was performed without the walls of the city. Extensive catacombs yet remain to mark the length of time during which this ancient Nekropolis served its purpose.
To the northwest of the outer city wall, in the direction of the port called Trogilus, stood an unfortified suburb which afterwards became enlarged into the distinct walled town of Tychê. West of the southern part of the same outer city wall, nearly southwest of the outer city itself, stood another suburb, afterwards known and fortified as Neapolis, but deriving its name, in the year 415 B.C., from having within it the statue and consecrated ground of Apollo Temenitês,[367] which stood a little way up on the ascent of the hill of Epipolæ, and stretching from thence down southward in the direction of the Great Harbor. Between these two suburbs lay a broad open space, the ground rising in gradual acclivity from Achradina to the westward, and diminishing in breadth as it rose higher, until at length it ended in a small conical mound, called in modern times the Belvedere. This acclivity formed the eastern ascent of the long ridge of high ground called Epipolæ. It was a triangle upon an inclined plane, of which Achradina was the base: to the north as well as to the south, it was suddenly broken off by lines of limestone cliff (forming the sides of the triangle), about fifteen or twenty feet high, and quite precipitous, except in some few openings made for convenient ascent. From the western point or apex of the triangle, the descent was easy and gradual—excepting two or three special mounds, or cliffs—towards the city, the interior of which was visible from this outer slope.
According to the warfare of that time, Nikias could only take Syracuse by building a wall of circumvallation so as to cut off its supplies by land, and at the same time blockading it by sea. Now looking at the inner and outer city as above described, at the moment when he first reached Sicily, we see that—after defeating the Syracusans and driving them within their walls, which would be of course the first part of the process—he might have carried his blockading wall in a direction nearly southerly from the innermost point of the cleft of Santa Bonagia, between the city wall and the Temenitês so as to reach the Great Harbor at a spot not far westward of the junction of Ortygia with the main land. Or he might have landed in the Great Harbor, and executed the same wall, beginning from the opposite end. Or he might have preferred to construct two blockading walls, one for each city separately: a short wall would have sufficed in front of the isthmus joining Ortygia, while a separate wall might have been carried to shut up the outer city, across the unfortified space constituting the Nekropolis, so as to end not in the Great Harbor, but in the coast of the Nekropolis opposite to Ortygia. Such were the possibilities of the case at the time when Nikias first reached Rhegium. But during the many months of inaction which he had allowed, the Syracusans had barred out both these possibilities, and had greatly augmented the difficulties of his intended enterprise. They had constructed a new wall, covering both their inner and their outer city,—stretching across the whole front which faced the slope of Epipolæ, from the Great Harbor to the opposite sea near Santa Bonagia,—and expanding westward so as to include within it the statue and consecrated ground of Apollo Temenitês, with the cliff near adjoining to it known by the name of the Temenite Cliff. This was done for the express purpose of lengthening the line indispensable for the besiegers to make their wall a good blockade.[368] After it was finished, Nikias could not begin his blockade from the side of the Great Harbor, since he would have been obstructed by the precipitous southern cliff of Epipolæ. He was under the necessity of beginning his wall from a portion of the higher ground of Epipolæ, and of carrying it both along a greater space and higher up on the slope, until he touched the Great Harbor at a point farther removed from Ortygia.
Syracuse having thus become assailable only from the side of Epipolæ, the necessity so created for carrying on operations much higher up on the slope, gave to the summit of that eminence a greater importance than it had before possessed. Nikias, doubtless furnished with good local information by the exiles, seems to have made this discovery earlier than the Syracusan generals, who—having been occupied in augmenting their defences on another point, where they were yet more vulnerable—did not make it until immediately before the opening of the spring campaign. It was at that critical moment that they proclaimed a full muster, for break of day, in the low mead on the left bank of the Anapus. After an inspection of arms, and probably final distribution of forces for the approaching struggle, a chosen regiment of six hundred hoplites was placed under the orders of an Andrian exile named Diomilus, in order to act as garrison of Epipolæ, as well as to be in constant readiness wherever they might be wanted.[369] These men were intended to occupy the strong ground on the summit of the hill, and thus obstruct all the various approaches to it, seemingly not many in number, and all narrow.
But before they had yet left their muster, to march to the summit, intelligence reached them that the Athenians were already in possession of it. Nikias and Lamachus, putting their troops on board at Katana, had sailed during the preceding night to a landing-place not far from a place called Leon, or the Lion, which was only six or seven furlongs from Epipolæ, and seems to have lain between Megara and the peninsula of Thapsus. They here landed their hoplites, and placed their fleet in safety under cover of a palisade across the narrow isthmus of Thapsus, before day and before the Syracusans had any intimation of their arrival. Their hoplites immediately moved forward with rapid step to ascend Epipolæ, mounting seemingly from the northeast, by the side towards Megara and farthest removed from Syracuse; so that they first reached the summit called Euryalus, near the apex of the triangle above described. From hence they commanded the slope of Epipolæ beneath them, and the town of Syracuse to the eastward. They were presently attacked by the Syracusans, who broke up their muster in the mead as soon as they heard the news. But as the road by which they had to march, approaching Euryalus from the southwest, was circuitous, and hardly less than three English miles in length, they had the mortification of seeing that the Athenians were already masters of the position; and when they hastened up to retake it, the rapid pace had so disordered their ranks, that the Athenians attacked them at great advantage, besides having the higher ground. The Syracusans were driven back to their city with loss, Diomilus with half his regiment being slain; while the Athenians remained masters of the high ground of Euryalus, as well as of the upper portion of the slope of Epipolæ.[370]
This was a most important advantage; indeed, seemingly essential to the successful prosecution of the siege. It was gained by a plan both well laid and well executed, grounded upon the omission of the Syracusans to occupy a post of which they did not at first perceive the importance, and which in fact only acquired its preëminent importance from the new enlargement made by the Syracusans in their fortifications. To that extent, therefore, it depended upon a favorable accident which could not have been reasonably expected to occur. The capture of Syracuse was certain, upon the supposition that the attack and siege of the city had been commenced on the first arrival of the Athenians in the island, without giving time for any improvement in its defensibility. But the moment such delay was allowed, success ceased to be certain, depending more or less upon this favorable turn of accident. The Syracusans actually did a great deal to create additional difficulty to the besiegers, and might have done more, especially in regard to the occupation of the high ground above Epipolæ. Had they taken this precaution, the effective prosecution of the siege would have been rendered extremely difficult, if not completely frustrated.
On the next morning, Nikias and Lamachus marched their army down the slope of Epipolæ near to the Syracusan walls, and offered battle, which the enemy did not accept. They then withdrew the Athenian troops; after which their first operation was to construct a fort on the high ground called Labdalum, near the western end of the upper northern cliffs bordering Epipolæ, on the brink of the cliff, and looking northward towards Megara. This was intended as a place of security wherein both treasures and stores might be deposited, so as to leave the army unencumbered in its motions. The Athenian cavalry being now completed by the new arrivals from Egesta, Nikias descended from Labdalum to a new position called Sykê, lower down on Epipolæ, seemingly about midway between the northern and southern cliffs. He here constructed, with as much rapidity as possible, a walled inclosure, called the Circle, intended as a centre from whence the projected wall of circumvallation was to start northward towards the sea at Trogilus, southward towards the Great Harbor. This Circle appears to have covered a considerable space, and was farther protected by an outwork in front covering an area of one thousand square feet.[371] Astounded at the rapidity with which the Athenians executed this construction,[372] the Syracusans marched their forces out, and prepared to give battle in order to interrupt it. But when the Athenians, relinquishing the work, drew up on their side in battle order, the Syracusan generals were so struck with their manifest superiority in soldier-like array, as compared with the disorderly trim of their own ranks, that they withdrew their soldiers back into the city without venturing to engage; merely leaving a body of horse to harass the operations of the besiegers, and constrain them to keep in masses. The newly-acquired Athenian cavalry, however, were here brought for the first time into effective combat. With the aid of one tribe of their own hoplites, they charged the Syracusan horse, drove them off with some loss, and erected their trophy. This is the only occasion on which we read of the Athenian cavalry being brought into conflict; though Nikias had made the absence of cavalry the great reason for his prolonged inaction.
Interruption being thus checked, Nikias continued his blockading operations; first completing the Circle,[373] then beginning his wall of circumvallation in a northerly direction from the Circle towards Trogilus: for which purpose a portion of his forces were employed in bringing stones and wood, and depositing them in proper places along the intended line. So strongly did Hermokratês feel the inferiority of the Syracusan hoplites in the field, that he discouraged any fresh general action, and proposed to construct a counter-wall, or cross-wall, traversing the space along which the Athenian circumvallation must necessarily be continued so as to impede its farther progress. A tenable counter-wall, if they could get time to carry it sufficiently far to a defensible terminus, would completely defeat the intent of the besiegers: but even if Nikias should interrupt the work by his attacks, the Syracusans calculated on being able to provide a sufficient force to repel them, during the short time necessary for hastily constructing the palisade, or front outwork. Such palisade would serve them as a temporary defence, while they finished the more elaborate cross-wall behind it, and would, even at the worst, compel Nikias to suspend all his proceedings and employ his whole force to dislodge them.[374]
Accordingly, they took their start from the postern-gate near the grove of Apollo Temenitês; a gate in the new wall, erected four or five months before, to enlarge the fortified space of the city. From this point, which was lower down on the slope of Epipolæ than the Athenian circle, they carried their palisade and counter-wall up the slope, in a direction calculated to intersect the intended line of hostile circumvallation southward of the Circle. The nautical population from Ortygia could be employed in this enterprise, since the city was still completely undisturbed by sea, and mistress of the great harbor, the Athenian fleet not having yet moved from Thapsus. Besides this active crowd of workmen, the sacred olive-trees in the Temenite grove were cut down to serve as materials; and by such efforts the work was presently finished to a sufficient distance for traversing and intercepting the blockading wall intended to come southward from the Circle. It seems to have terminated at the brink of the precipitous southern cliff of Epipolæ, which prevented the Athenians from turning it and attacking it in flank; while it was defended in front by a stockade and topped with wooden towers for discharge of missiles. One tribe of hoplites was left to defend it, while the crowd of Syracusans who had either been employed on the work or on guard, returned back to the city.
During all this process, Nikias had not thought it prudent to interrupt them.[375] Employed as he seems to have been on the Circle, and on the wall branching out from his Circle northward, he was unwilling to march across the slope of Epipolæ to attack them with half his forces, leaving his own rear exposed to attack from the numerous Syracusans in the city, and his own Circle only partially guarded. Moreover, by such delay, he was enabled to prosecute his own part of the circumvallation without hindrance, and to watch for an opportunity of assaulting the new counter-wall with advantage. Such an opportunity soon occurred, just at the time when he had accomplished the farther important object of destroying the aqueducts, which supplied the city, partially at least, with water for drinking. The Syracusans appear to have been filled with confidence, both by the completion of their counter-wall, which seemed an effective bar to the besiegers, and by his inaction. The tribe left on guard presently began to relax in their vigilance: instead of occupying the wall, tents were erected behind it to shelter them from the midday sun; while some even permitted themselves to take repose during that hour within the city walls. Such negligence did not escape the Athenian generals, who silently prepared an assault for midday. Three hundred chosen hoplites, with some light troops clothed in panoplies for the occasion, were instructed to sally out suddenly and run across straight to attack the stockade and counter-wall; while the main Athenian force marched in two divisions under Nikias and Lamachus; half towards the city walls, to prevent any succor from coming out of the gates, half towards the Temenite postern-gate from whence the stockade and cross-wall commenced. The rapid forward movement of the chosen three hundred was crowned with full success. They captured both the stockade and the counter-wall, feebly defended by its guards; who, taken by surprise, abandoned their post and fled along behind their wall to enter the city by the Temenite postern-gate. Before all of them could get in, however, both the pursuing three hundred, and the Athenian division which marched straight to that point, had partially come up with them: so that some of these assailants even forced their way along with them through the gate into the interior of the Temenite city wall. Here, however, the Syracusan strength within was too much for them: these foremost Athenians and Argeians were thrust out again with loss. But the general movement of the Athenians had been completely triumphant. They pulled down the counter-wall, plucked up the palisade, and carried the materials away for the use of their own circumvallation.
As the recent Syracusan counter-work had been carried to the brink of the southern cliff, which rendered it unassailable in flank, Nikias was warned of the necessity of becoming master of this cliff, so as to deprive them of this resource in future. Accordingly, without staying to finish his blockading wall, regularly and continuously from the Circle southward, across the slope of Epipolæ, he left the Circle under a guard, and marched across at once to take possession of the southern cliff, at the point where the blockading wall was intended to reach it. This point of the southern cliff he immediately fortified as a defensive position, whereby he accomplished two objects. First, he prevented the Syracusans from again employing the cliff as a flank defence for a second counter-wall.[376] Next, he acquired the means of providing a safe and easy road of communication between the high ground of Epipolæ and the low marshy ground beneath, which divided Epipolæ from the Great Harbor, and across which the Athenian wall of circumvallation must necessarily be presently carried. As his troops would have to carry on simultaneous operations, partly on the high ground above, partly on the low ground beneath, he could not allow them to be separated from each other by a precipitous cliff which would prevent ready mutual assistance. The intermediate space between the Circle and the fortified point of the cliff, was for the time left with an unfinished wall, with the intention of coming back to it, as was in fact afterwards done, and this portion of wall was in the end completed. The Circle, though isolated, was strong enough for the time to maintain itself against attack, and was adequately garrisoned.
By this new movement, the Syracusans were debarred from carrying a second counter-wall on the same side of Epipolæ, since the enemy were masters of the terminating cliff on the southern side of the slope. They now turned their operations to the lower ground or marsh between the southern cliff of the Epipolæ and the Great Harbor; being as yet free on that side, since the Athenian fleet was still at Thapsus. Across that marsh—and seemingly as far as the river Anapus, to serve as a flank barrier—they resolved to carry a palisade work with a ditch, so as to intersect the line which the Athenians must next pursue in completing the southernmost portion of their circumvallation. They so pressed the prosecution of this new cross palisade, beginning from the lower portion of their own city walls, and stretching in a southwesterly direction across the low ground as far as the river Anapus, that, by the time the new Athenian fortification on the cliff was completed, the new Syracusan obstacle was completed also, and a stockade with a ditch seemed to shut out the besiegers from reaching the Great Harbor.
Lamachus overcame the difficulty before him with ability and bravery. Descending unexpectedly, one morning before daybreak, from his fort on the cliff of Epipolæ into the low ground beneath,—and providing his troops with planks and broad gates to bridge over the marsh where it was scarcely passable,—he contrived to reach and surprise the palisade with the first dawn of morning. Orders were at the same time given for the Athenian fleet to sail round from Thapsus into the Great Harbor, so as to divert the attention of the enemy, and get on the rear of the new palisade work. But before the fleet could arrive, the palisade and ditch had been carried, and its defenders driven off. A large Syracusan force came out from the city to sustain them, and retake it, so that a general action now ensued, in the low ground between the cliff of Epipolæ, the harbor, and the river Anapus. The superior discipline of the Athenians proved successful: the Syracusans were defeated and driven back on all sides, so that their right wing fled into the city, and their left (including the larger portion of their best force, the horsemen), along the banks of the river Anapus, to reach the bridge. Flushed with victory, the Athenians hoped to cut them off from this retreat, and a chosen body of three hundred hoplites ran fast in hopes of getting to the bridge first. In this hasty movement they fell into disorder, so that the Syracusan cavalry turned upon them, put them to flight, and threw them back upon the Athenian right wing, to which the fugitives communicated their own panic and disorder. The fate of the battle appeared to be turning against the Athenians, when Lamachus, who was on the left wing, hastened to their aid with the Argeian hoplites and as many bowmen as he could collect. His ardor carried him incautiously forward, so that he crossed a ditch with very few followers, before the remaining troops could follow him. He was here attacked and slain,[377] in single combat with a horseman named Kallikratês: but the Syracusans were driven back when his soldiers came up, and had only just time to snatch and carry off his dead body, with which they crossed the bridge and retreated behind the Anapus. The rapid movement of this gallant officer was thus crowned with complete success, restoring the victory to his own right wing: a victory dearly purchased by the forfeit of his own life.[378]
Meanwhile the visible disorder and temporary flight of the Athenian right wing, and the withdrawal of Lamachus from the left to reinforce it, imparted fresh courage to the Syracusan right, which had fled into the town. They again came forth to renew the contest; while their generals attempted a diversion by sending out a detachment from the northwestern gates of the city to attack the Athenian circle on the mid-slope of Epipolæ. As this Circle lay completely apart and at considerable distance from the battle, they hoped to find the garrison unprepared for attack, and thus to carry it by surprise. Their manœuvre, bold and well-timed, was on the point of succeeding. They carried with little difficulty the covering outwork in front, and the Circle itself, probably stripped of part of its garrison to reinforce the combatants in the lower ground, was only saved by the presence of mind and resource of Nikias, who was lying ill within it. He directed the attendants immediately to set fire to a quantity of wood which lay, together with the battering engines of the army, in front of the circle-wall, so that the flames prevented all farther advance on the part of the assailants, and forced them to retreat. The same flames also served as a signal to the Athenians engaged in the battle beneath, who immediately sent reinforcements to the relief of their general; while at the same time the Athenian fleet, just arrived from Thapsus, was seen sailing into the Great Harbor. This last event, threatening the Syracusans on a new side, drew off their whole attention to the defence of their city, so that both their combatants from the field and their detachment from the Circle were brought back within the walls.[379]
Had the recent attempt on the Circle succeeded, carrying with it the death or capture of Nikias, and combined with the death of Lamachus in the field on that same day, it would have greatly brightened the prospects of the Syracusans, and might even have arrested the farther progress of the siege, from the want of an authorized commander. But in spite of such imminent hazard, the actual result of the day left the Athenians completely victorious, and the Syracusans more discouraged than ever. What materially contributed to their discouragement, was, the recent entrance of the Athenian fleet into the Great Harbor, wherein it was henceforward permanently established, in coöperation with the army in a station near the left bank of the Anapus.
Both the army and the fleet now began to occupy themselves seriously with the construction of the southernmost part of the wall of circumvallation; beginning immediately below the Athenian fortified point of descent from the southern cliff of Epipolæ, and stretching across the lower marshy ground to the Great Harbor. The distance between these two extreme points was about eight stadia or nearly an English mile: the wall was double, with gates, and probably towers, at suitable intervals, inclosing a space of considerable breadth, doubtless roofed over in part, since it served afterwards, with the help of the adjoining citadel on the cliff, as shelter and defence for the whole Athenian army. The Syracusans could not interrupt this process, nor could they undertake a new counter-wall up the mid-slope of Epipolæ, without coming out to fight a general battle, which they did not feel competent to do. Of course the Circle had now been put into condition to defy a second surprise.
But not only were they thus compelled to look on without hindering the blockading wall towards the Harbor. It was now, for the first time, that they began to taste the real restraints and privations of a siege.[380] Down to this moment, their communication with the Anapus and the country beyond, as well as with all sides of the Great Harbor, had been open and unimpeded; whereas now, the arrival of the Athenian fleet, and the change of position of the Athenian army, had cut them off from both,[381] so that little or no fresh supplies of provision could reach them except at the hazard of capture from the hostile ships. On the side of Thapsus, where the northern cliff of Epipolæ affords only two or three practicable passages of ascent, they had before been blocked up by the Athenian army and fleet; and a portion of the fleet seems even now to have been left at Thapsus: so that nothing now remained open, except a portion, especially the northern portion, of the slope of Epipolæ. Of this outlet the besieged, especially their numerous cavalry, doubtless availed themselves, for the purpose of excursions and of bringing in supplies. But it was both longer and more circuitous for such purposes than the plain near the Great Harbor and the Helôrine road: moreover, it had to pass by the high and narrow pass of Euryâlus, and might thus be rendered unavailable to the besieged, whenever Nikias thought fit to occupy and fortify that position. Unfortunately for himself and his army, he omitted this easy but capital precaution, even at the moment when he must have known Gylippus to be approaching.
In regard to the works actually undertaken, the order followed by Nikias and Lamachus can be satisfactorily explained. Having established their fortified post on the centre of the slope of Epipolæ, they were in condition to combat opposition and attack any counter-wall on whichever side the enemy might erect it. Commencing in the first place the execution of the northern portion of the blockading line, they soon desist from this and turn their attention to the southern portion, because it was here that the Syracusans carried their two first counter-works. In attacking the second counter-work of the Syracusans, across the marsh to the Anapus, they chose a suitable moment for bringing the main fleet round from Thapsus into the Great Harbor, with a view to its coöperation. After clearing the lower ground, they probably deemed it advisable, in order to establish a safe and easy communication with their fleet, that the double wall across the marsh, from Epipolæ to the Harbor, should stand next for execution; for which there was this farther reason, that they thereby blocked up the most convenient exit and channel of supply for Syracuse. There are thus plausible reasons assignable why the northern portion of the line of blockade, from the Athenian camp on Epipolæ to the sea at Trogilus, was left to the last, and was found open, at least the greater part of it, by Gylippus.
While the Syracusans thus began to despair of their situation, the prospects of the Athenians were better than ever, promising certain and not very distant triumph. The reports circulating through the neighboring cities all represented them as in the full tide of success, so that many Sikel tribes, hitherto wavering, came in to tender their alliance, while three armed pentekonters also arrived from the Tyrrhenian coast. Moreover, abundant supplies were furnished from the Italian Greeks generally. Nikias, now sole commander since the death of Lamachus, had even the glory of receiving and discussing proposals from Syracuse for capitulation, a necessity which was openly and abundantly canvassed within the city itself. The ill-success of Hermokratês and his colleagues had caused them to be recently displaced from their functions as generals, to which Herakleidês, Euklês, and Tellias, were appointed. But this change did not give them confidence to hazard a fresh battle, while the temper of the city, during such period of forced inaction, was melancholy in the extreme. Though several propositions for surrender, perhaps unofficial, yet seemingly sincere, were made to Nikias, nothing definitive could be agreed upon as to the terms.[382] Had the Syracusan government been oligarchical, the present distress would have exhibited a large body of malcontents upon whom he could have worked with advantage; but the democratical character of the government maintained union at home in this trying emergency.[383]
We must take particular note of these propositions in order to understand the conduct of Nikias during the present critical interval. He had been from the beginning in secret correspondence with a party in Syracuse;[384] who, though neither numerous nor powerful in themselves, were now doubtless both more active and more influential than ever they had been before. From them he received constant and not unreasonable assurances that the city was on the point of surrendering, and could not possibly hold out. And as the tone of opinion without, as well as within, conspired to raise such an impression in his mind, so he suffered himself to be betrayed into a fatal languor and security as to the farther prosecution of the besieging operations. The injurious consequences of the death of Lamachus now became evident. From the time of the departure from Katana down to the battle in which that gallant officer perished,—a period seemingly of about three months, from about March to June 414 B.C.,—the operations of the siege had been conducted with great vigor as well as unremitting perseverance, and the building-work, especially, had been so rapidly executed as to fill the Syracusans with amazement. But so soon as Nikias is left sole commander, this vigorous march disappears and is exchanged for slackness and apathy. The wall across the low ground near the harbor might have been expected to proceed more rapidly, because the Athenian position generally was much stronger, the chance of opposition from the Syracusans was much lessened, and the fleet had been brought into the Great Harbor to coöperate. Yet in fact it seems to have proceeded more slowly; Nikias builds it at first as a double wall, though it would have been practicable to complete the whole line of blockade with a single wall before the arrival of Gylippus, and afterwards, if necessary, to have doubled it either wholly or partially, instead of employing so much time in completing this one portion that Gylippus arrived before it was finished, scarcely less than two months after the death of Lamachus. Both the besiegers and their commander now seem to consider success as certain, without any chance of effective interruption from within, still less from without; so that they may take their time over the work, without caring whether the ultimate consummation comes a month sooner or later.
Though such was the present temper of the Athenian troops, Nikias could doubtless have spurred them on and accelerated the operations, had he himself been convinced of the necessity of doing so. Hitherto, we have seen him always overrating the gloomy contingencies of the future, and disposed to calculate as if the worst was to happen which possibly could happen. But a great part of what passes for caution in his character, was in fact backwardness and inertia of temperament, aggravated by the melancholy addition of a painful internal complaint. If he wasted in indolence the first six months after his arrival in Sicily, and turned to inadequate account the present two months of triumphant position before Syracuse, both these mistakes arose from the same cause; from reluctance to act except under the pressure and stimulus of some obvious necessity. Accordingly, he was always behindhand with events; but when necessity became terrible, so as to subdue the energies of other men, then did he come forward and display unwonted vigor, as we shall see in the following chapter. But now, relieved from all urgency of apparent danger, and misled by the delusive hopes held out through his correspondence in the town, combined with the atmosphere of success which exhilarated his own armament, Nikias fancied the surrender of Syracuse inevitable, and became, for one brief moment preceding his calamitous end, not merely sanguine, but even careless and presumptuous in the extreme. Nothing short of this presumption could have let in his destroying enemy, Gylippus.[385]
That officer—named by the Lacedæmonians commander in Sicily, at the winter-meeting which Alkibiadês had addressed at Sparta—had employed himself in getting together forces for the purpose of the expedition. But the Lacedæmonians, though so far stimulated by the representations of the Athenian exile as to promise aid, were not forward to perform the promise. Even the Corinthians, decidedly the most hearty of all in behalf of Syracuse, were yet so tardy, that in the month of June, Gylippus was still at Leukas, with his armament not quite ready to sail. To embark in a squadron for Sicily, against the numerous and excellent Athenian fleet now acting there, was a service not tempting to any one, and demanding both personal daring and devotion. Moreover, every vessel from Sicily, between March and June 414 B.C., brought intelligence of progressive success on the part of Nikias and Lamachus, thus rendering the prospects of Corinthian auxiliaries still more discouraging.
At length, in the month of June, arrived the news of that defeat of the Syracusans wherein Lamachus was slain, and of its important consequences in forwarding the operations of the besiegers. Great as those consequences were, they were still farther exaggerated by report. It was confidently affirmed, by messenger after messenger, that the wall of circumvallation had been completed, and that Syracuse was now invested on all sides.[386] Both Gylippus and the Corinthians were so far misled as to believe this to be the fact, and despaired, in consequence, of being able to render any effective aid against the Athenians in Sicily. But as there still remained hopes of being able to preserve the Greek cities in Italy, Gylippus thought it important to pass over thither at once with his own little squadron of four sail, two Lacedæmonians and two Corinthians, and the Corinthian captain Pythên; leaving the Corinthian main squadron to follow as soon as it was ready. Intending then to act only in Italy, Gylippus did not fear falling in with the Athenian fleet. He first sailed to Tarentum, friendly and warm in his cause. From hence he undertook a visit to Thurii, where his father Kleandridas, exiled from Sparta, had formerly resided as citizen. After trying to profit by this opening for the purpose of gaining the Thurians, and finding nothing but refusal, he passed on farther southward, until he came opposite to the Terinæan gulf near the southeastern cape of Italy. Here a violent gust of wind off the land overtook him, exposed his vessels to the greatest dangers, and drove him out to sea, until at length, standing in a northerly direction, he was fortunate enough to find shelter again at Tarentum.[387] But such was the damage which his ships had sustained, that he was forced to remain here while they were hauled ashore and refitted.[388]
So untoward a delay threatened to intercept altogether his farther progress. For the Thurians had sent intimation of his visit as well as of the number of his vessels, to Nikias at Syracuse; treating with contempt the idea of four triremes coming to attack the powerful Athenian fleet. In the present sanguine phase of his character, Nikias sympathized with the flattering tenor of the message, and overlooked the gravity of the fact announced. He despised Gylippus as a mere privateer, nor would he even take the precaution of sending four ships from his numerous fleet to watch and intercept the new-comer. Accordingly Gylippus, after having refitted his ships at Tarentum, advanced southward along the coast without opposition to the Epizephyrian Lokri. Here he first learned, to his great satisfaction, that Syracuse was not yet so completely blockaded but that an army might still reach and relieve it from the interior, entering it by the Euryâlus and the heights of Epipolæ. Having deliberated whether he should take the chance of running his ships into the harbor of Syracuse, despite the watch of the Athenian fleet, or whether he should sail through the strait of Messina to Himera at the north of Sicily, and from thence levy an army to cross the island and relieve Syracuse by land, he resolved on the latter course, and passed forthwith through the strait, which he found altogether unguarded. After touching both at Rhegium and Messênê, he arrived safely at Himera. Even at Rhegium, there was no Athenian naval force; though Nikias had, indeed, sent thither four Athenian triremes, after he had been apprized that Gylippus had reached Lokri, rather from excess of precaution, than because he thought it necessary. But this Athenian squadron reached Rhegium too late: Gylippus had already passed the strait; and fortune, smiting his enemy with blindness, landed him unopposed on the fatal soil of Sicily.
The blindness of Nikias would indeed appear unaccountable, were it not that we shall have worse yet to recount. To appreciate his misjudgment fully, and to be sensible that we are not making him responsible for results which could not have been foreseen, we have only to turn back to what had been said six months before by the exile Alkibiadês at Sparta: “Send forthwith an army to Sicily (he exhorted the Lacedæmonians); but send at the same time, what will be yet more valuable than an army, a Spartan to take the supreme command.” It was in fulfilment of this recommendation, the wisdom of which will abundantly appear, that Gylippus had been appointed. And had he even reached Syracuse alone in a fishing-boat, the effect of his presence, carrying the great name of Sparta, and full assurance of Spartan intervention to come, not to mention his great personal ability, would have sufficed to give new life to the besieged. Yet Nikias—having, through a lucky accident, timely notice of his approach, when a squadron of four ships would have prevented his reaching the island—disdains even this most easy precaution, and neglects him as a freebooter of no significance. Such neglect too is the more surprising, since the well-known philo-Laconian tendencies of Nikias would have led us to expect, that he would overvalue rather than undervalue the imposing ascendency of the Spartan name.
Gylippus, on arriving at Himera, as commander named by Sparta, and announcing himself as forerunner of Peloponnesian reinforcements, met with a hearty welcome. The Himeræans agreed to aid him with a body of hoplites, and to furnish panoplies for the seamen in his vessels. On sending to Selinus, Gela, and some of the Sikel tribes in the interior, he received equally favorable assurances; so that he was enabled in no very long time to get together a respectable force. The interest of Athens among the Sikels had been recently weakened by the death of one of her most active partisans, the Sikel prince Archonidês, a circumstance which both enabled Gylippus to obtain more of their aid, and facilitated his march across the island. He was enabled to undertake this inland march from Himera to Syracuse at the head of seven hundred hoplites from his own vessels, seamen and epibatæ taken together; one thousand hoplites and light troops, with one hundred horse, from Himera, some horse and light troops from Selinus and Gela, and one thousand Sikels.[389] With these forces, some of whom joined him on the march, he reached Euryâlus and the heights of Epipolæ above Syracuse, assaulting and capturing the Sikel fort of Ietæ in his way, but without experiencing any other opposition.
His arrival was all but too late, and might have been actually too late, had not the Corinthian admiral Goggylus got to Syracuse a little before him. The Corinthian fleet of twelve triremes, under Erasinidês—having started from Leukas later than Gylippus, but as soon as it was ready—was now on its way to Syracuse. But Goggylus had been detained at Leukas by some accident, so that he did not depart until after all the rest. Yet he reached Syracuse the soonest; probably striking a straighter course across the sea, and favored by weather. He got safely into the harbor of Syracuse, escaping the Athenian guardships, whose watch doubtless partook of the general negligence of the besieging operations.[390]
The arrival of Goggylus at that moment was an accident of unspeakable moment, and was in fact nothing less than the salvation of the city. Among all the causes of despair in the Syracusan mind, there was none more powerful than the circumstance, that they had not as yet heard of any relief approaching, or of any active intervention in their favor, from Peloponnesus. Their discouragement increasing from day to day, and the interchange of propositions with Nikias becoming more frequent, matters had at last so ripened that a public assembly was just about to be held to sanction a definitive capitulation.[391] It was at this critical juncture that Goggylus arrived, apparently a little before Gylippus reached Himera. He was the first to announce that both the Corinthian fleet and a Spartan commander were now actually on their voyage, and might be expected immediately, intelligence which filled the Syracusans with enthusiasm and with renewed courage. They instantly threw aside all idea of capitulation, and resolved to hold out to the last.
It was not long before they received intimation that Gylippus had reached Himera, which Goggylus at his arrival could not know, and was raising an army to march across for their relief. After the interval necessary for his preparations and for his march, probably not less than between a fortnight and three weeks, they learned that he was approaching Syracuse by the way of Euryâlus and Epipolæ. He was presently seen coming, having ascended Epipolæ by Euryâlus; the same way by which the Athenians had come from Katana in the spring, when they commenced the siege. As he descended the slope of Epipolæ, the whole Syracusan force went out in a body to hail his arrival and accompany him into the city.[392]
Few incidents throughout the whole siege of Syracuse appear so unaccountable as the fact, that the proceedings and march of Gylippus, from his landing at Himera to the moment of his entering the town, were accomplished without the smallest resistance on the part of Nikias. After this instant, the besiegers pass from incontestable superiority in the field, and apparent certainty of prospective capture of the city, to a state of inferiority, not only excluding all hope of capture, but even sinking, step by step, into absolute ruin. Yet Nikias had remained with his eyes shut and his hands tied, not making the least effort to obstruct so fatal a consummation. After having despised Gylippus, in his voyage along the coast of Italy, as a freebooter with four ships, he now despises him not less at the head of an army marching from Himera. If he was taken unawares, as he really appears to have been,[393] the fault was altogether his own, and the ignorance such as we must almost call voluntary. For the approach of Gylippus must have been well known to him beforehand. He must have learned from the four ships which he sent to Rhegium, that Gylippus had already touched thither in passing through the strait, on his way to Himera. He must therefore have been well aware, that the purpose was to attempt the relief of Syracuse by an army from the interior; and his correspondence among the Sikel tribes must have placed him in cognizance of the equipment going on at Himera. Moreover, when we recollect that Gylippus reached that place without either troops or arms; that he had to obtain forces not merely from Himera, but also from Selinus and Gela, as well as to sound the Sikel towns, not all of them friendly; lastly, that he had to march all across the island, partly through hostile territory, it is impossible to allow less interval than a fortnight or three weeks between his landing at Himera and his arrival at Epipolæ. Farther, Nikias must have learned, through his intelligence in the interior of Syracuse, the important revolution which had taken place in Syracusan opinion through the arrival of Goggylus, even before the landing of Gylippus in Sicily was known. He was apprized, from that moment, that he had to take measures, not only against renewed obstinate hostility within the town, but against a fresh invading enemy without. Lastly, that enemy had first to march all across Sicily, during which march he might have been embarrassed and perhaps defeated,[394] and could then approach Syracuse only by one road, over the high ground of Euryâlus in the Athenian rear, through passes few in number, easy to defend, by which Nikias had himself first approached, and through which he had only got by a well-laid plan of surprise. Yet Nikias leaves these passes unoccupied and undefended; he takes not a single new precaution; the relieving army enters Syracuse as it were over a broad and free plain.
If we are amazed at the insolent carelessness with which Nikias disdained the commonest precautions for repelling the foreknown approach, by sea, of an enemy formidable even single-handed, what are we to say of that unaccountable blindness which led him to neglect the same enemy when coming at the head of a relieving army, and to omit the most obvious means of defence in a crisis upon which his future fate turned? Homer would have designated such neglect as a temporary delirium inflicted by the fearful inspiration of Atê: the historian has no such explanatory name to give, and can only note it as a sad and suitable prelude to the calamities too nearly at hand.
At the moment when the fortunate Spartan auxiliary was thus allowed to march quietly into Syracuse, the Athenian double wall of circumvallation, between the southern cliff of Epipolæ and the Great Harbor, eight stadia long, was all but completed: a few yards only of the end close to the harbor were wanting. But Gylippus cared not to interrupt its completion. He aimed at higher objects, and he knew, what Nikias, unhappily, never felt and never lived to learn, the immense advantage of turning to active account that first impression and full tide of confidence which his arrival had just infused into the Syracusans. Hardly had he accomplished his junction with them, when he marshalled the united force in order of battle, and marched up to the lines of the Athenians. Amazed as they were, and struck dumb by his unexpected arrival, they too formed in battle order, and awaited his approach. His first proceeding marked how much the odds of the game were changed. He sent a herald to tender to them a five days’ armistice, on condition that they should collect their effects and withdraw from the island. Nikias disdained to return any reply to this insulting proposal; but his conduct showed how much he felt, as well as Gylippus, that the tide was now turned. For when the Spartan commander, perceiving now for the first time the disorderly trim of his Syracusan hoplites, thought fit to retreat into more open ground farther removed from the walls, probably in order that he might have a better field for his cavalry, Nikias declined to follow him, and remained in position close to his own fortifications.[395] This was tantamount to a confession of inferiority in the field. It was a virtual abandonment of the capture of Syracuse, a tacit admission that the Athenians could hope for nothing better in the end than the humiliating offer which the herald had just made to them. So it seems to have been felt by both parties; for from this time forward, the Syracusans become and continue aggressors, the Athenians remaining always on the defensive, except for one brief instant after the arrival of Demosthenês.
After drawing off his troops and keeping them encamped for that night on the Temenite cliff, seemingly within the added fortified inclosure of Syracuse, Gylippus brought them out again the next morning, and marshalled them in front of the Athenian lines, as if about to attack. But while the attention of the Athenians was thus engaged, he sent a detachment to surprise the fort of Labdalum, which was not within view of their lines. The enterprise was completely successful. The fort was taken, and the garrison put to the sword; while the Syracusans gained another unexpected advantage during the day, by the capture of one of the Athenian triremes which was watching their harbor. Gylippus pursued his successes actively, by immediately beginning the construction of a fresh counter-wall, from the outer city wall in a northwesterly direction aslant up the slope of Epipolæ; so as to traverse the intended line of the Athenian circumvallation on the north side of their Circle, and render blockade impossible. He availed himself, for this purpose, of stones laid by the Athenians for their own circumvallation, at the same time alarming them by threatening attack upon their lower wall, between the southern cliff of Epipolæ and the Great Harbor, which was now just finished, so as to leave their troops disposable for action on the higher ground. Against one part of the wall, which seemed weaker than the rest, he attempted a nocturnal surprise, but finding the Athenians in vigilant guard without, he was forced to retire. This part of the wall was now heightened, and the Athenians took charge of it themselves, distributing their allies along the remainder.[396]
These attacks, however, appear to have been chiefly intended as diversions, in order to hinder the enemy from obstructing the completion of the counter-wall. Now was the time for Nikias to adopt vigorous aggressive measures both against this wall and against the Syracusans in the field, unless he chose to relinquish all hope of ever being able to beleaguer Syracuse. And, indeed, he seems actually to have relinquished such hope, even thus early after he had seemed certain master of the city. For he now undertook a measure altogether new; highly important in itself, but indicating an altered scheme of policy. He resolved to fortify Cape Plemmyrium,—the rocky promontory which forms one extremity of the narrow entrance of the Great Harbor, immediately south of the point of Ortygia,—and to make it a secure main station for the fleet and stores. The fleet had been hitherto stationed in close neighborhood of the land-force, in a fortified position at the extremity of the double blockading wall between the southern cliff of Epipolæ and the Great Harbor. From such a station in the interior of the harbor, it was difficult for the Athenian triremes to perform the duties incumbent on them, of watching the two ports of Syracuse—one on each side of the isthmus which joins Ortygia to the mainland—so as to prevent any exit of ships from within, or ingress of ships from without, and of insuring the unobstructed admission by sea of supplies for their own army. For both these purposes, the station of Plemmyrium was far more convenient; and Nikias now saw that henceforward his operations would be for the most part maritime. Without confessing it openly, he thus practically acknowledged that the superiority of land-force had passed to the side of his opponents, and that a successful prosecution of the blockade had become impossible.[397]
Three forts, one of considerable size and two subsidiary, were erected on the seaboard of Cape Plemmyrium, which became the station for triremes as well as for ships of burden. Though the situation was found convenient for all naval operations, it entailed also serious disadvantages; being destitute of any spring of water, such as the memorable fountain of Arethusa on the opposite island of Ortygia. So that for supplies of water, and of wood also, the crews of the ships had to range a considerable distance, exposed to surprise from the numerous Syracusan cavalry placed in garrison at the temple of Zeus Olympius. Day after day, losses were sustained in this manner, besides the increased facilities given for desertion, which soon fatally diminished the efficiency of each ship’s crew. As the Athenian hopes of success now declined, both the slaves and the numerous foreigners who served in their navy became disposed to steal away. And though the ships of war, down to this time, had been scarcely at all engaged in actual warfare, yet they had been for many months continually at sea and on the watch, without any opportunity of hauling ashore to refit. Hence the naval force, now about to be called into action as the chief hope of the Athenians, was found lamentably degenerated from that ostentatious perfection in which it had set sail fifteen months before, from the harbor of Peiræus.
The erection of the new forts at Plemmyrium, while by withdrawing the Athenian forces it left Gylippus unopposed in the prosecution of his counter-wall, at the same time emboldened him by the manifest decline of hope which it implied. Day after day he brought out his Syracusans in battle-array, planting them near the Athenian lines; but the Athenians showed no disposition to attack. At length he took advantage of what he thought a favorable opportunity to make the attack himself; but the ground was so hemmed in by various walls—the Athenian fortified lines on one side, the Syracusan front or Temenitic fortification on another, and the counter-wall now in course of construction on a third—that his cavalry and darters had no space to act. Accordingly, the Syracusan hoplites, having to fight without these auxiliaries, were beaten and driven back with loss, the Corinthian Goggylus being among the slain.[398] On the next day, Gylippus had the prudence to take the blame of this defeat upon himself. It was all owing to his mistake, he publicly confessed, in having made choice of a confined space wherein neither cavalry nor darters could avail. He would presently give them another opportunity, in a fairer field, and he exhorted them to show their inbred superiority, as Dorians and Peloponnesians, by chasing these Ionians with their rabble of islanders out of Sicily. Accordingly, after no long time, he again brought them up in order of battle; taking care, however, to keep in the open space, beyond the extremity of the walls and fortifications.
On this occasion, Nikias did not decline the combat, but marched out into the open space to meet him. He probably felt encouraged by the result of the recent action; but there was a farther and more pressing motive. The counter-wall of intersection, which the Syracusans were constructing, was on the point of cutting the Athenian line of circumvallation, so that it was essential for Nikias to attack without delay, unless he formally abnegated all farther hope of successful siege. Nor could the army endure, in spite of altered fortune, irrevocably to shut themselves out from such hope, without one struggle more. Both armies were therefore ranged in battle order on the open space beyond the walls, higher up the slope of Epipolæ; Gylippus placing his cavalry and darters to the right of his line, on the highest and most open ground. In the midst of the action between the hoplites on both sides, these troops on the right charged the left flank of the Athenians with such vigor, that they completely broke it. The whole Athenian army underwent a thorough defeat, and only found shelter within its fortified lines. And in the course of the very next night, the Syracusan counter-wall was pushed so far as to traverse and get beyond the projected line of Athenian blockade, reaching presently as far as the edge of the northern cliff: so that Syracuse was now safe, unless the enemy should not only recover their superiority in the field, but also become strong enough to storm and carry the new-built wall.[399]
Farther defence was also obtained by the safe arrival of the Corinthian, Ambrakiotic, and Leukadian fleet of twelve triremes, under Erasinidês, which Nikias had vainly endeavored to intercept. He had sent twenty sail to the southern coast of Italy; but the new-comers had had the good luck to avoid them.
Erasinidês and his division lent their hands to the execution of a work which completed the scheme of defence for the city. Gylippus took the precaution of constructing a fort or redoubt on the high ground of Epipolæ, so as to command the approach to Syracuse from the high ground of Euryalus; a step which Hermokratês had not thought of until too late, and which Nikias had never thought of at all, during his period of triumph and mastery. He erected a new fort on a suitable point of the high ground, backed by three fortified positions or encampments at proper distances in the rear of it, intended for bodies of troops to support the advanced post in case it was attacked. A continuous wall was then carried from this advanced post down the slope of Epipolæ, so as to reach and join the counter-wall recently constructed; whereby this counter-wall, already traversing and cutting the Athenian line of circumvallation, became in fact prolonged up the whole slope of Epipolæ, and barred all direct access from the Athenians in their existing lines up to the summit of that eminence, as well as up to the northern cliff. The Syracusans had now one continuous and uninterrupted line of defence; a long single wall, resting at one extremity on the new-built fort upon the high ground of Epipolæ, at the other extremity, upon the city wall. This wall was only single; but it was defended, along its whole length, by the permanent detachments occupying the three several fortified positions or encampments just mentioned. One of these positions was occupied by native Syracusans; a second, by Sicilian Greeks; a third, by other allies. Such was the improved and systematic scheme of defence which the genius of Gylippus first projected, and which he brought to execution at the present moment:[400] a scheme, the full value of which will be appreciated when we come to describe the proceedings of the second Athenian armament under Demosthenês.
Not content with having placed the Syracusans out of the reach of danger, Gylippus took advantage of their renewed confidence to infuse into them projects of retaliation against the enemy who had brought them so near to ruin. They began to equip their ships in the harbor, and to put their seamen under training, in hopes of qualifying themselves to contend with the Athenians even on their own element; while Gylippus himself quitted the city to visit the various cities of the island, and to get together farther reinforcements, naval as well as military. And as it was foreseen that Nikias on his part would probably demand aid from Athens, envoys, Syracusan as well as Corinthian, were despatched to Peloponnesus, to urge the necessity of forwarding additional troops, even in merchant vessels, if no triremes could be spared to convey them.[401] Should no reinforcements reach the Athenian camp, the Syracusans well knew that its efficiency must diminish by every month’s delay, while their own strength, in spite of heavy cost and effort, was growing with their increased prospects of success.
If this double conviction was present to sustain, the ardor of the Syracusans, it was not less painfully felt amidst the Athenian camp, now blocked up like a besieged city, and enjoying no free movement except through their ships and their command of the sea. Nikias saw that if Gylippus should return with any considerable additional force, even the attack upon him by land would become too powerful to resist, besides the increasing disorganization of his fleet. He became fully convinced that to remain as they were was absolute ruin. As all possibility of prosecuting the siege of Syracuse successfully was now at an end, a sound judgment would have dictated that his position in the harbor had become useless as well as dangerous, and that the sooner it was evacuated the better. Probably Demosthenês would have acted thus, under similar circumstances; but such foresight and resolution were not in the character of Nikias, who was afraid, moreover, of the blame which it would bring down upon him at home, if not from his own army. Not venturing to quit his position without orders from Athens, he determined to send home thither an undisguised account of his critical position, and to solicit either reinforcements or instructions to return.
It was now, indeed, the end of September (B.C. 414), so that he could not even hope for an answer before midwinter, nor for reinforcements, if such were to be sent, until the ensuing spring was far advanced. Nevertheless, he determined to encounter this risk, and to trust to vigilant precautions for safety during the interval, precautions which, as the result will show, were within a hair’s breadth of proving insufficient. But as it was of the last importance to him to make his countrymen at home fully sensible of the grave danger of his position, he resolved to transmit a written despatch; not trusting to the oral statement of a messenger, who might be wanting either in courage, in presence of mind, or in competent expression, to impress the full and sad truth upon a reluctant audience.[402] Accordingly he sent home a despatch, which seems to have reached Athens about the end of November, and was read formally in the public assembly by the secretary of the city. Preserved by Thucydidês verbatim, it stands as one of the most interesting remnants of antiquity, and well deserves a literal translation.
“Our previous proceedings have been already made known to you, Athenians, in many other despatches;[403] but the present crisis is such as to require your deliberation more than ever, when you shall have heard the situation in which we stand. After we had overcome in many engagements the Syracusans, against whom we were sent, and had built the fortified lines which we now occupy, there came upon us the Lacedæmonian Gylippus, with an army partly Peloponnesian, partly Sicilian. Him too we defeated, in the first action; but in a second, we were overwhelmed by a crowd of cavalry and darters, and forced to retire within our lines. And thus the superior number of our enemies has compelled us to suspend our circumvallation, and remain inactive; indeed, we cannot employ in the field even the full force which we possess, since a portion of our hoplites are necessarily required for the protection of our walls. Meanwhile the enemy have carried out a single intersecting counter-wall beyond our line of circumvallation, so that we can no longer continue the latter to completion, unless we have force enough to attack and storm their counter-wall. And things have come to such a pass, that we, who profess to besiege others, are ourselves rather the party besieged, by land at least, since the cavalry leave us scarce any liberty of motion. Farther, the enemy have sent envoys to Peloponnesus to obtain reinforcements, while Gylippus in person is going round the Sicilian cities, trying to stir up to action such of them as are now neutral, and to get, from the rest, additional naval and military supplies. For it is their determination, as I understand, not merely to assail our lines on shore with their land-force, but also to attack us by sea with their ships.
“Be not shocked when I tell you, that they intend to become aggressors even at sea. They know well, that our fleet was at first in high condition, with dry ships[404] and excellent crews; but now the ships have rotted, from remaining too long at sea, and the crews are ruined. Nor have we the means of hauling our ships ashore to refit, since the enemy’s fleet, equal or superior in numbers, always appears on the point of attacking us. We see them in constant practice, and they can choose their own moment for attack. Moreover, they can keep their ships high and dry more than we can; for they are not engaged in maintaining watch upon others; while to us, who are obliged to retain all our fleet on guard, nothing less than prodigious superiority of number could insure the like facility. And were we to relax ever so little in our vigilance, we should no longer be sure of our supplies, which we bring in even now with difficulty close under their walls.
“Our crews, too, have been and are still wasting away from various causes. Among the seamen who are our own citizens, many, in going to a distance for wood, for water, or for pillage, are cut off by the Syracusan cavalry. Such of them as are slaves, desert, now that our superiority is gone, and that we have come to equal chances with our enemy; while the foreigners whom we pressed into our service, make off straight to some of the neighboring cities; and those who came, tempted by high pay, under the idea of enriching themselves by traffic rather than of fighting, now that they find the enemy in full competence to cope with us by sea as well as by land, either go over to him as professed deserters, or get away as they can amidst the wide area of Sicily.[405] Nay, there are even some, who, while trafficking here on their own account, bribe the trierarchs to accept Hykkarian slaves as substitutes, and thus destroy the strict discipline of our marine. And you know as well as I, that no crew ever continues long in perfect condition, and that the first class of seamen, who set the ship in motion, and maintain the uniformity of the oar-stroke, is but a small fraction of the whole number.
“Among all these embarrassments, the worst of all is, that I as general can neither prevent the mischief, from the difficulty of your tempers to govern, nor can I provide supplementary recruits elsewhere, as the enemy can easily do from many places open to him. We have nothing but the original stock which we brought out with us, both to make good losses and to do present duty; for Naxus and Katana, our only present allies, are of insignificant strength. And if our enemy gain but one farther point,—if the Italian cities, from whence we now draw our supplies, should turn against us, under the impression of our present bad condition, with no reinforcement arriving from you,—we shall be starved out, and he will bring the war to triumphant close, even without a battle.
“Pleasanter news than these I could easily have found to send you; but assuredly nothing so useful, seeing that the full knowledge of the state of affairs here is essential to your deliberations. Moreover, I thought it even the safer policy to tell you the truth without disguise, understanding as I do your real dispositions, that you never listen willingly to any but the most favorable assurances, yet are angry in the end if they turn to unfavorable results. Be thoroughly satisfied, that in regard to the force against which you originally sent us, both your generals and your soldiers have done themselves no discredit. But now that all Sicily is united against us, and that farther reinforcements are expected from Peloponnesus, you must take your resolution with full knowledge that we here have not even strength to contend against our present difficulties. You must either send for us home, or you must send us a second army, land-force as well as naval, not inferior to that which is now here, together with a considerable supply of money. You must farther send a successor to supersede me, as I am incapable of work from a disease in the kidneys. I think myself entitled to ask this indulgence at your hands, for while my health lasted I did you much good service in various military commands. But whatever you intend, do it at the first opening of spring, without any delay: for the new succors which the enemy is getting together in Sicily, will soon be here, and those which are to come from Peloponnesus, though they will be longer in arriving, yet, if you do not keep watch, will either elude or forestall you as they have already once done.”[406]