If, in translating the despatch written home ten months before by Nikias to the people of Athens, we were compelled to remark, that the greater part of it was the bitterest condemnation of his own previous policy as commander, so we are here carried back, when we find him striving to palliate the ruinous effects of that confined space of water which paralyzed the Athenian seamen, to his own obstinate improvidence in forbidding the egress of the fleet when insisted on by Demosthenês. His hearers probably were too much absorbed with the terrible present, to revert to irremediable mistakes of the past. Immediately on the conclusion of his touching address, the order was given to go aboard, and the seamen took their places. But when the triremes were fully manned, and the trierarchs, after superintending the embarkation, were themselves about to enter and push off, the agony of Nikias was too great to be repressed. Feeling more keenly than any man the intensity of this last death-struggle, and the serious, but inevitable, shortcomings of the armament in its present condition, he still thought that he had not said enough for the occasion. He now renewed his appeal personally to the trierarchs, all of them citizens of rank and wealth at Athens. They were all familiarly known to him, and he addressed himself to every man separately by his own name, his father’s name, and his tribe, adjuring him by the deepest and most solemn motives which could touch the human feelings. Some he reminded of their own previous glories, others of the achievements of illustrious ancestors, imploring them not to dishonor or betray these precious titles: to all alike he recalled the charm of their beloved country, with its full political freedom and its unconstrained license of individual agency to every man: to all alike he appealed in the names of their wives, their children, and their paternal gods. He cared not for being suspected of trenching upon the common places of rhetoric: he caught at every topic which could touch the inmost affections, awaken the inbred patriotism, and rekindle the abated courage of the officers, whom he was sending forth to this desperate venture. He at length constrained himself to leave off, still fancying in his anxiety that he ought to say more, and proceeded to marshal the land-force for the defence of the lines, as well as along the shore, where they might render as much service and as much encouragement as possible to the combatants on shipboard.[481]

Very different was the spirit prevalent, and very opposite the burning words uttered, on the seaboard of the Syracusan station, as the leaders were mustering their men immediately before embarkation. They had been apprized of the grappling-irons now about to be employed by the Athenians, and had guarded against them in part by stretching hides along their bows, so that the “iron hand” might slip off without acquiring any hold. The preparatory movements even within the Athenian station being perfectly visible, Gylippus sent the fleet out with the usual prefatory harangue. He complimented them on the great achievements which they had already performed in breaking down the naval power of Athens, so long held irresistible.[482] He reminded them that the sally of their enemies was only a last effort of despair, seeking nothing but escape, undertaken without confidence in themselves, and under the necessity of throwing aside all their own tactics in order to copy feebly those of the Syracusans.[483] He called upon them to recollect the destructive purposes which the invaders had brought with them against Syracuse, to inflict with resentful hand the finishing stroke upon this half-ruined armament, and to taste the delight of satiating a legitimate revenge.[484]

The Syracusan fleet—seventy-six triremes strong, as in the last battle—was the first to put off from shore; Pythen with the Corinthians in the centre, Sikanus and Agatharchus on the wings. A certain proportion of them were placed near the mouth of the harbor, in order to guard the barrier; while the rest were distributed around the harbor in order to attack the Athenians from different sides as soon as they should approach. Moreover, the surface of the harbor swarmed with the light craft of the Syracusans, in many of which embarked youthful volunteers, sons of the best families in the city;[485] boats of no mean service during the battle, saving or destroying the seamen cast overboard from disabled ships, as well as annoying the fighting Athenian triremes. The day was one sacred to Hêraklês at Syracuse; and the prophets announced that the god would insure victory to the Syracusans, provided they stood on the defensive, and did not begin the attack.[486] Moreover, the entire shore round the harbor, except the Athenian station and its immediate neighborhood, was crowded with Syracusan soldiers and spectators; while the walls of Ortygia, immediately overhanging the water, were lined with the feebler population of the city, the old men, women, and children. From the Athenian station presently came forth one hundred and ten triremes, under Demosthenês, Menander, and Euthydêmus, with the customary pæan, its tone probably partaking of the general sadness of the camp. They steered across direct to the mouth of the harbor, beholding on all sides the armed enemies ranged along the shore, as well as the unarmed multitudes who were imprecating the vengeance of the gods upon their heads; while for them there was no sympathy, except among the fellow-sufferers within their own lines. Inside of this narrow basin, rather more than five English miles in circuit, one hundred and ninety-four ships of war, each manned with more than two hundred men, were about to join battle, in the presence of countless masses around, all with palpitating hearts, and near enough both to see and hear; the most picturesque battle—if we could abstract our minds from its terrible interest —probably in history, without smoke or other impediments to vision, and in the clear atmosphere of Sicily, a serious and magnified realization of those naumachiæ which the Roman emperors used to exhibit with gladiators on the Italian lakes, for the recreation of the people.

The Athenian fleet made directly for that portion of the barrier where a narrow opening—perhaps closed by a movable chain—had been left for merchant-vessels. Their first impetuous attack broke through the Syracusan squadron defending it, and they were already attempting to sever its connecting bonds, when the enemy from all sides crowded in upon them and forced them to desist. Presently the battle became general, and the combatants were distributed in various parts of the harbor. On both sides a fierce and desperate courage was displayed, even greater than had been shown on any of the former occasions. At the first onset, the skill and tactics of the steersmen shone conspicuous, well seconded by zeal on the part of the rowers and by their ready obedience to the voice of the keleustês. As the vessels neared, the bowmen, slingers, and throwers on the deck, hurled clouds of missiles against the enemy; next, was heard the loud crash of the two impinging metallic fronts, resounding all along the shore.[487] When the vessels were thus once in contact, they were rarely allowed to separate: a strenuous hand-fight then commenced by the hoplites in each, trying respectively to board and master their enemy’s deck. It was not always, however, that each trireme had its own single and special enemy: sometimes one ship had two or three enemies to contend with at once, sometimes she fell aboard of one unsought, and became entangled. After a certain time, the fight still obstinately continuing, all sort of battle order became lost; the skill of the steersman was of little avail, and the voice of the keleustês was drowned amidst the universal din and mingled cries from victors as well as vanquished. On both sides emulous exhortations were poured forth, together with reproach and sarcasm addressed to any ship which appeared flinching from the contest; though factitious stimulus of this sort was indeed but little needed.

Such was the heroic courage on both sides, that for a long time victory was altogether doubtful, and the whole harbor was a scene of partial encounters, wherein sometimes Syracusans, sometimes Athenians, prevailed. According as success thus fluctuated, so followed the cheers or wailings of the spectators ashore. At one and the same time, every variety of human emotion might be witnessed; according as attention was turned towards a victorious or a defeated ship. It was among the spectators in the Athenian station above all, whose entire life and liberty were staked in the combat, that this emotion might be seen exaggerated into agony, and overpassing the excitement even of the combatants themselves.[488] Those among them who looked towards a portion of the harbor where their friends seemed winning, were full of joy and thanksgiving to the gods: such of their neighbors who contemplated an Athenian ship in difficulty, gave vent to their feelings in shrieks and lamentation; while a third group, with their eyes fixed on some portion of the combat still disputed, were plunged in all the agitations of doubt, manifested even in the tremulous swing of their bodies, as hope or fear alternately predominated. During all the time that the combat remained undecided, the Athenians ashore were distracted by all these manifold varieties of intense sympathy. But at length the moment came, after a long-protracted struggle, when victory began to declare in favor of the Syracusans, who, perceiving that their enemies were slackening, redoubled their shouts as well as their efforts, and pushed them all back towards the land. All the Athenian triremes, abandoning farther resistance, were thrust ashore like shipwrecked vessels in or near their own station; a few being even captured before they could arrive there. The diverse manifestations of sympathy among the Athenians in the station itself were now exchanged for one unanimous shriek of agony and despair. The boldest of them rushed to rescue the ships and their crews from pursuit, others to man their walls in case of attack from land: many were even paralyzed at the sight, and absorbed with the thoughts of their own irretrievable ruin. Their souls were doubtless still farther subdued by the wild and enthusiastic joy which burst forth in maddening shouts from the hostile crowds around the harbor, in response to their own victorious comrades on shipboard.

Such was the close of this awful, heart-stirring, and decisive combat. The modern historian strives in vain to convey the impression of it which appears in the condensed and burning phrases of Thucydidês. We find in his description of battles generally, and of this battle beyond all others, a depth and abundance of human emotion which has now passed out of military proceedings. The Greeks who fight, like the Greeks who look on, are not soldiers withdrawn from the community, and specialized as well as hardened by long professional training, but citizens with all the passions, instincts, sympathies, joys, and sorrows of domestic as well as political life. Moreover, the non-military population in ancient times had an interest of the most intense kind in the result of the struggle; which made the difference to them, if not of life and death, at least of the extremity of happiness and misery. Hence the strong light and shade, the Homeric exhibition of undisguised impulse, the tragic detail of personal motive and suffering, which pervades this and other military descriptions of Thucydidês. When we read the few but most vehement words which he employs to depict the Athenian camp under this fearful trial, we must recollect that these were not only men whose all was at stake, but that they were moreover citizens full of impressibility, sensitive and demonstrative Greeks; and, indeed, the most sensitive and demonstrative of all Greeks. To repress all manifestations of strong emotion was not considered in ancient times essential to the dignity of the human character.

Amidst all the deep pathos, however, which the great historian has imparted to the final battle at Syracuse, he has not explained the causes upon which its ultimate issue turned. Considering that the Athenians were superior to their enemies in number, as one hundred and ten to seventy-six triremes, that they fought with courage not less heroic, and that the action was on their own element, we might have anticipated for them, if not a victory, at least a drawn battle, with equal loss on both sides. But we may observe, 1. The number of one hundred and ten triremes was formed by including some hardly seaworthy.[489] 2. The crews were composed partly of men not used to sea-service; and the Akarnanian darters, especially, were for this reason unhandy with their missiles.[490] 3. Though the water had been hitherto the element favorable to Athens, yet her superiority in this respect was declining, and her enemies approaching nearer to her, even in the open sea. But the narrow dimensions of the harbor would have nullified her superiority at all times, and placed her even at great disadvantage,—without the means of twisting and turning her triremes so as to strike only at a vulnerable point of the enemy,—compared with the thick, heavy, straightforward butting of the Syracusans; like a nimble pugilist of light weight contending, in a very confined ring, against superior weight and muscle.[491] For the mere land-fight on shipboard, Athenians had not only no advantage, but had on the contrary the odds against them. 4. The Syracusans enjoyed great advantage from having nearly the whole harbor lined round with their soldiers and friends; not simply from the force of encouraging sympathy, no mean auxiliary, but because any of their triremes, if compelled to fall back before an Athenian, found protection on the shore, and could return to the fight at leisure; while an Athenian in the same predicament had no escape. 5. The numerous light craft of the Syracusans doubtless rendered great service in this battle, as they had done in the preceding, though Thucydidês does not again mention them. 6. Lastly, both in the Athenian and Syracusan characters, the pressure of necessity was less potent as a stimulus to action, than hopeful confidence and elation, with the idea of a flood-tide yet mounting. In the character of some other races, the Jews for instance, the comparative force of these motives appears to be the other way.

About sixty Athenian triremes, little more than half of the fleet which came forth, were saved as the wreck from this terrible conflict. The Syracusans on their part had suffered severely; only fifty triremes remaining out of seventy-six. The triumph with which, nevertheless, on returning to the city, they erected their trophy, and the exultation which reigned among the vast crowds encircling the harbor, was beyond all measure or precedent. Its clamorous manifestations were doubtless but too well heard in the neighboring camp of the Athenians, and increased, if anything could increase, the soul-subduing extremity of distress which paralyzed the vanquished. So utterly did the pressure of suffering, anticipated as well as actual, benumb their minds and extinguish their most sacred associations, that no man among them, not even the ultra-religious Nikias, thought of picking up the floating bodies or asking for a truce to bury the dead. This obligation, usually so serious and imperative upon the survivors after a battle, now passed unheeded amidst the sorrow, terror, and despair, of the living man for himself.

Such despair, however, was not shared by the generals, to their honor be it spoken. On the afternoon of this terrible defeat, Demosthenês proposed to Nikias that at daybreak the ensuing morning they should man all the remaining ships—even now more in number than the Syracusan—and make a fresh attempt to break out of the harbor. To this Nikias agreed, and both proceeded to try their influence in getting the resolution executed. But so irreparably was the spirit of the seamen broken, that nothing could prevail upon them to go again on shipboard: they would hear of nothing but attempting to escape by land.[492] Preparations were therefore made for commencing their march in the darkness of that very night. The roads were still open, and, had they so marched, a portion of them, at least, might even yet have been saved.[493] But there occurred one more mistake, one farther postponement, which cut off the last hopes of this gallant and fated remnant.

The Syracusan Hermokratês, fully anticipating that the Athenians would decamp that very night, was eager to prevent their retreat, because of the mischief which they might do if established in any other part of Sicily. He pressed Gylippus and the military authorities to send out forthwith, and block up the principal roads, passes, and fords, by which the fugitives would get off. Though sensible of the wisdom of his advice, the generals thought it wholly unexecutable. Such was the universal and unbounded joy which now pervaded the city, in consequence of the recent victory, still farther magnified by the circumstance that the day was sacred to Hêraklês,—so wild the jollity, the feasting, the intoxication, the congratulations, amidst men rewarding themselves after their recent effort and triumph, and amidst the necessary care for the wounded,—that an order to arm and march out would have been as little listened to as the order to go on shipboard was by the desponding Athenians. Perceiving that he could get nothing done until the next morning, Hermokratês resorted to a stratagem in order to delay the departure of the Athenians for that night. At the moment when darkness was beginning, he sent down some confidential friends on horseback to the Athenian wall. These men, riding up near enough to make themselves heard, and calling for the sentries, addressed them as messengers from the private correspondents of Nikias in Syracuse, who had sent to warn him, they affirmed, not to decamp during the night, inasmuch as the Syracusans had already beset and occupied the roads; but to begin his march quietly the next morning after adequate preparation.[494]

This fraud—the same as the Athenians had themselves practised two years before,[495] in order to tempt the Syracusans to march out against Katana—was perfectly successful: the sincerity of the information was believed, and the advice adopted. Had Demosthenês been in command alone, we may doubt whether he would have been so easily duped; for granting the accuracy of the fact asserted, it was not the less obvious that the difficulties, instead of being diminished, would be increased tenfold on the following day. We have seen, however, on more than one previous occasion, how fatally Nikias was misled by his treacherous advices from the philo-Athenians at Syracuse. An excuse for inaction was always congenial to his character; and the present recommendation, moreover, fell in but too happily with the temper of the army, now benumbed with depression and terror, like those unfortunate soldiers, in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks, who were yielding to the lethargy of extreme cold on the snows of Armenia, and whom Xenophon vainly tried to arouse.[496] Having remained over that night, the generals determined also to stay the next day,—in order that the army might carry away with them as much of their baggage as possible,—sending forward a messenger to the Sikels in the interior to request that they would meet the army, and bring with them a supply of provisions.[497] Gylippus and Hermokratês had thus ample time, on the following day, to send out forces and occupy all the positions convenient for obstructing the Athenian march. They at the same time towed into Syracuse as prizes all the Athenian triremes which had been driven ashore in the recent battle, and which now lay like worthless hulks, unguarded and unheeded,[498] seemingly even those within the station itself.

It was on the next day but one after the maritime defeat that Nikias and Demosthenês put their army in motion to attempt retreat. The camp had long been a scene of sickness and death from the prevalence of marsh fever; but since the recent battle the number of wounded men, and the unburied bodies of the slain, had rendered it yet more pitiable. Forty thousand miserable men—so prodigious was the total, including all ranks and functions—now set forth to quit it, on a march of which few could hope to see the end; like the pouring forth of the population of a large city starved out by blockade. Many had little or no provisions to carry, so low had the stock become reduced; but of those who had, every man carried his own, even the horsemen and hoplites, now for the first time either already left without slaves, by desertion, or knowing that no slave could now be trusted. But neither such melancholy equality of suffering, nor the number of sufferers, counted for much in the way of alleviation. A downcast stupor and sense of abasement possessed every man; the more intolerable, when they recollected the exit of the armament from Peiræus two years before, with prayers, and solemn pæans, and all the splendid dreams of conquest, set against the humiliation of the closing scene now before them, without a single trireme left out of two prodigious fleets.

But it was not until the army had actually begun its march that the full measure of wretchedness was felt and manifested. It was then that the necessity first became proclaimed, which no one probably spoke out beforehand, of leaving behind not merely the unburied bodies, but also the sick and the wounded. The scenes of woe which marked this hour passed endurance or description. The departing soldier sorrowed and shuddered with the sentiment of an unperformed duty, as he turned from the unburied bodies of the slain; but far more terrible was the trial, when he had to tear himself from the living sufferers, who implored their comrades, with wailings of agony and distraction, not to abandon them. Appealing to all the claims of pious friendship, they clung round their knees, and even crawled along the line of march until their strength failed. The silent dejection of the previous day was now exchanged for universal tears and groans, and clamorous outbursts of sorrow, amidst which the army could not without the utmost difficulty be disengaged and put in motion.

After such heart-rending scenes, it might seem that their cup of bitterness was exhausted; but worse was yet in store, and the terrors of the future dictated a struggle against all the miseries of past and present. The generals did their best to keep up some sense of order as well as courage; and Nikias, particularly, in this closing hour of his career, displayed a degree of energy and heroism which he had never before seemed to possess. Though himself among the greatest personal sufferers of all, from his incurable complaint, he was seen everywhere in the ranks marshalling the troops, heartening up their dejection, and addressing them with a voice louder, more strenuous, and more commanding than was his wont.

“Keep up your hope still, Athenians (he said), even as we are now: others have been saved out of circumstances worse than ours. Be not too much humiliated, either with your defeats or with your present unmerited hardships. I too, having no advantage over any of you in strength,—nay, you see the condition to which I have been brought by my disease,—and accustomed even to superior splendor and good fortune in private as well as public life, I too am plunged in the same peril with the humblest soldier among you. Nevertheless, my conduct has been constantly pious towards the gods as well as just and blameless towards men; in recompense for which, my hope for the future is yet sanguine, at the same time that our actual misfortunes do not appall me in proportion to their intrinsic magnitude.[499] Perhaps, indeed, they may from this time forward abate; for our enemies have had their full swing of good fortune, and if, at the moment of our starting, we were under the jealous wrath of any of the gods, we have already undergone chastisement amply sufficient. Other people before us have invaded foreign lands, and after having done what was competent to human power, have suffered what was within the limit of human endurance. We too may reasonably hope henceforward to have the offended god dealing with us more mildly, for we are now objects fitter for his compassion than for his jealousy.[500] Look, moreover, at your own ranks, hoplites so numerous and so excellent: let that guard you against excessive despair, and recollect that, wherever you may sit down, you are yourselves at once a city; nor is there any other city in Sicily that can either repulse your attack or expel you if you choose to stay. Be careful yourselves to keep your march firm and orderly, every man of you with this conviction, that whatever spot he may be forced to fight in, that spot is his country and his fortress, and must be kept by victorious effort. As our provisions are very scanty, we shall hasten on night and day alike; and so soon as you reach any friendly village of the Sikels, who still remain constant to us from hatred to Syracuse, then consider yourselves in security. We have sent forward to apprize them, and intreat them to meet us with supplies. Once more, soldiers, recollect that to act like brave men is now a matter of necessity to you, and that if you falter, there is no refuge for you anywhere. Whereas if you now get clear of your enemies, such of you as are not Athenians will again enjoy the sight of home, while such of you as are Athenians will live to renovate the great power of our city, fallen though it now be. It is men that make a city; not walls, nor ships without men.”[501]

The efforts of both commanders were in full harmony with these strenuous words. The army was distributed into two divisions; the hoplites marching in a hollow oblong, with the baggage and unarmed in the interior. The front division was commanded by Nikias, the rear by Demosthenês. Directing their course towards the Sikel territory, in the interior of the island, they first marched along the left bank of the Anapus until they came to the ford of that river, which they found guarded by a Syracusan detachment. They forced the passage, however, without much resistance, and accomplished on that day a march of about five miles, under the delay arising from the harassing of the enemy’s cavalry and light troops. Encamping for that night on an eminence, they recommenced their march with the earliest dawn, and halted, after about two miles and a half, in a deserted village on a plain. They were in hopes of finding some provisions in the houses, and were even under the necessity of carrying along with them some water from this spot; there being none to be found farther on. As their intended line of march had now become evident, the Syracusans profited by this halt to get on before them, and to occupy in force a position on the road, called the Akræan cliff. Here the road, ascending a high hill, formed a sort of ravine bordered on each side by steep cliffs. The Syracusans erected a wall or barricade across the whole breadth of the road, and occupied the high ground on each side. But even to reach this pass was beyond the competence of the Athenians; so impracticable was it to get over the ground in the face of overwhelming attacks from the enemy’s cavalry and light troops. They were compelled, after a short march, to retreat to their camp of the night before.[502]

Every hour added to the distress of their position; for their food was all but exhausted, nor could any man straggle from the main body without encountering certain destruction from the cavalry. Accordingly, on the next morning, they tried one more desperate effort to get over the hilly ground into the interior. Starting very early, they arrived at the foot of the hill called the Akræan cliff, where they found the barricades placed across the road, with deep files of Syracusan hoplites behind them, and crowds of light troops lining the cliffs on each border. They made the most strenuous and obstinate efforts to force this inexpugnable position, but all their struggles were vain, while they suffered miserably from the missiles of the troops above. Amidst all the discouragement of this repulse, they were yet farther disheartened by storms of thunder and lightning, which occurred during the time, and which they construed as portents significant of their impending ruin.[503]

This fact strikingly illustrates both the change which the last two years had wrought in the contending parties, and the degree to which such religious interpretations of phenomena depended for their efficacy on predisposing temper, gloomy or cheerful. In the first battle between Nikias and the Syracusans, near the Great Harbor, some months before the siege was begun, a similar thunder-storm had taken place: on that occasion the Athenian soldiers had continued the battle unmoved, treating it as a natural event belonging to the season, and such indifference on their part had still farther imposed upon the alarmed Syracusans.[504] Now, both the self-confidence and the religious impression had changed sides.

Exhausted by their fruitless efforts, the Athenians fell back a short space to repose, when Gylippus tried to surround them by sending a detachment to block up the narrow road in their rear. This, however, they prevented, effecting their retreat into the open plain, where they passed the night, and on the ensuing day attempted once more the hopeless march over the Akræan cliff. But they were not allowed even to advance so far as the pass and the barricade. They were so assailed and harassed by the cavalry and darters, in flank and rear, that, in spite of heroic effort and endurance, they could not accomplish a progress of so much as one single mile. Extenuated by fatigue, half-starved, and with numbers of wounded men, they were compelled to spend a third miserable night in the same fatal plain.

As soon as the Syracusans had retired for the night to their camp, Nikias and Demosthenês took counsel. They saw plainly that the route which they had originally projected, over the Akræan cliff into the Sikel regions of the interior and from thence to Katana, had become impracticable, and that their unhappy troops would be still less in condition to force it on the morrow than they had been on the day preceding. Accordingly, they resolved to make off during the night, leaving numerous fires burning to mislead the enemy; but completely to alter the direction, and to turn down towards the southern coast on which lay Kamarina and Gela. Their guides informed them that if they could cross the river Kakyparis, which fell into the sea south of Syracuse, on the southeastern coast of Sicily, or a river still farther on, called the Erineus,—they might march up the right bank of either into the regions of the interior. Accordingly, they broke up in the night, amidst confusion and alarm; in spite of which, the front division of the army under Nikias got into full march, and made considerable advance. By daybreak this division reached the southeastern coast of the island not far south of Syracuse, and fell into the track of the Helôrine road, which they pursued until they arrived at the Kakyparis. Even here, however, they found a Syracusan detachment beforehand with them, raising a redoubt, and blocking up the ford; nor could Nikias pass it without forcing his way through them. He marched straightforward to the Erineus, which he crossed on the same day, and encamped his troops on some high ground on the other side.[505]

Except at the ford of the Kakyparis, his march had been all day unobstructed by the enemy; and he thought it wiser to push hid troops as fast as possible, in order to arrive at some place both of safety and subsistence, without concerning himself about the rear division under Demosthenês. That division, the larger half of the army, started both later and in great disorder. Unaccountable panics and darkness made them part company or miss their way, so that Demosthenês, with all his efforts to keep them together, made little progress, and fell much behind Nikias. He was overtaken by the Syracusans during the forenoon, seemingly before he reached the Kakyparis,[506] and at a moment when the foremost division was nearly six miles ahead, between the Kakyparis and the Erineus.

When the Syracusans discovered at dawn that their enemy had made off in the night, their first impulse was to accuse Gylippus of treachery in having permitted the escape. Such ungrateful surmises, however, were soon dissipated, and the cavalry set forth in rapid pursuit, until they overtook the rear division, which they immediately began to attack and impede. The advance of Demosthenês had been tardy before, and his division disorganized: but he was now compelled to turn and defend himself against an indefatigable enemy, who presently got before him and thus stopped him altogether. Their numerous light troops and cavalry assailed him on all sides and without intermission; employing nothing but missiles, however, and taking care to avoid any close encounter. While this unfortunate division were exerting their best efforts both to defend themselves, and if possible to get forward, they found themselves inclosed in a walled olive-ground, through the middle of which the road passed; a farm bearing the name, and probably once the property, of Polyzêlus, brother of the despot Gelon.[507] Entangled and huddled up in this inclosure, from whence exit at the farther end in the face of an enemy was found impossible, they were now overwhelmed with hostile missiles from the walls on all sides.[508] Though unable to get at the enemy, and deprived even of the resources of an active despair, they endured incessant harassing for the greater part of the day, without refreshment or repose, and with the number of their wounded continually increasing; until at length the remaining spirit of the unhappy sufferers was thoroughly broken. Perceiving their condition, Gylippus sent to them a herald with a proclamation; inviting all the islanders among them to come forth from the rest, and promising them freedom if they did so. The inhabitants of some cities, yet not many,—a fact much to their honor,—availed themselves of this offer and surrendered. Presently, however, a larger negotiation was opened, which ended by the entire division capitulating upon terms, and giving up their arms. Gylippus and the Syracusans engaged that the lives of all should be spared; that is, that none should be put to death either by violence, or by intolerable bonds, or by starvation. Having all been disarmed, they were forthwith conveyed away as prisoners to Syracuse, six thousand in number. It is a remarkable proof of the easy and opulent circumstances of many among these gallant sufferers, when we are told that the money which they had about them, even at this last moment of pressure, was sufficient to fill the concavities of four shields.[509] Disdaining either to surrender or to make any stipulation for himself personally, Demosthenês was on the point of killing himself with his own sword the moment that the capitulation was concluded; but his intention was prevented, and he was carried off a disarmed prisoner by the Syracusans.[510]

On the next day, Gylippus and the victorious Syracusans overtook Nikias on the right bank of the Erineus, apprized him of the capitulation of Demosthenês, and summoned him to capitulate also. He demanded leave to send a horseman for the purpose of verifying the statement; and on the return of the horseman, he made a proposition to Gylippus, that his army should be permitted to return home, on condition of Athens reimbursing to Syracuse the whole expense of the war, and furnishing hostages until payment should be made; one citizen against each talent of silver. These conditions were rejected; but Nikias could not yet bring himself to submit to the same terms for his division as Demosthenês. Accordingly, the Syracusans recommenced their attacks, which the Athenians, in spite of hunger and fatigue, sustained as they best could until night. It was the intention of Nikias again to take advantage of the night for the purpose of getting away. But on this occasion the Syracusans were on the watch, and as soon as they heard movement in the camp, they raised the pæan, or war-shout; thus showing that they were on the lookout, and inducing the Athenians again to lay down the arms which they had taken up for departure. A detachment of three hundred Athenians, nevertheless, still persisting in marching off, apart from the rest, forced their way through the posts of the Syracusans. These men got safely away, and nothing but the want of guides prevented them from escaping altogether.[511]

During all this painful retreat, the personal resolution displayed by Nikias was exemplary; his sick and feeble frame was made to bear up, and even to hearten up stronger men, against the extremity of hardship, exhausting the last fragment of hope or even possibility. It was now the sixth day of the retreat,—six days[512] of constant privation, suffering, and endurance of attack,—yet Nikias early in the morning attempted a fresh march, in order to get to the river Asinarus, which falls into the same sea, south of the Erineus, but is a more considerable stream, flowing deeply imbedded between lofty banks. This was a last effort of despair, with little hope of final escape, even if they did reach it. Yet the march was accomplished, in spite of renewed and incessant attacks all the way, from the Syracusan cavalry; who even got to the river before the Athenians, occupying the ford, and lining the high banks near it. Here the resolution of the unhappy fugitives at length gave way; when they reached the river, their strength, their patience, their spirit, and their hopes for the future, were all extinct. Tormented with raging thirst, and compelled by the attacks of the cavalry to march in one compact mass, they rushed into the ford all at once, treading down and tumbling over each other in the universal avidity for drink. Many thus perished from being pushed down upon the points of the spears, or lost their footing among the scattered articles of baggage, and were thus borne down under water.[513] Meanwhile, the Syracusans from above poured upon the huddled mass showers of missiles, while the Peloponnesian hoplites even descended into the river, came to close quarters with them, and slew considerable numbers. So violent, nevertheless, was the thirst of the Athenians, that all other suffering was endured in order to taste relief by drinking. And even when dead and wounded were heaped in the river,—when the water was tainted and turbid with blood, as well as thick with the mud trodden up,—still, the new-comers pushed their way in and swallowed it with voracity.[514]

Wretched, helpless, and demoralized as the army now was, Nikias could think no farther of resistance. He accordingly surrendered himself to Gylippus, to be dealt with at the discretion of that general and of the Lacedæmonians,[515] earnestly imploring that the slaughter of the defenceless soldiers might be arrested. Accordingly, Gylippus gave orders that no more should be killed, but that the rest should be secured as captives. Many were slain before this order was understood; but of those who remained, almost all were made captive, very few escaping. Nay, even the detachment of three hundred, who had broken out in the night, having seemingly not known whither to go, were captured, and brought in by troops sent forth for the purpose.[516] The triumph of the Syracusans was in every way complete, they hung the trees on the banks of the Asinarus with Athenian panoplies as trophy, and carried back their prisoners in joyous procession to the city.

The number of prisoners thus made, is not positively specified by Thucydidês, as in the case of the division of Demosthenês, which had capitulated and laid down their arms in a mass within the walls of the olive-ground. Of the captives from the division of Nikias, the larger proportion were seized by private individuals, and fraudulently secreted for their own profit; the number obtained for the state being comparatively small, seemingly not more than one thousand.[517] The various Sicilian towns became soon full of these prisoners, sold as slaves for private account.

Not less than forty thousand persons in the aggregate had started from the Athenian camp to commence the retreat, six days before. Of these probably many, either wounded or otherwise incompetent even when the march began, soon found themselves unable to keep up, and were left behind to perish. Each of the six days was a day of hard fighting and annoyance from an indefatigable crowd of light troops, with little, and at last seemingly nothing, to eat. The number was thus successively thinned, by wounds, privations, and straggling, so that the six thousand taken with Demosthenês, and perhaps three thousand or four thousand captured with Nikias, formed the melancholy remnant. Of the stragglers during the march, however, we are glad to learn that many contrived to escape the Syracusan cavalry and get to Katana, where also those who afterwards ran away from their slavery under private masters, found a refuge.[518] These fugitive Athenians served as auxiliaries to repel the attacks of the Syracusans upon Katana.[519]

It was in this manner, chiefly, that Athens came to receive again within her bosom a few of those ill-fated sons whom she had drafted forth in two such splendid divisions to Sicily. For of those who were carried as prisoners to Syracuse, fewer yet could ever have got home. They were placed for safe custody, along with the other prisoners, in the stone-quarries of Syracuse,—of which there were several, partly on the southern descent of the outer city towards the Nekropolis, or from the higher level to the lower level of Achradina,—partly in the suburb afterwards called Neapolis, under the southern cliff of Epipolæ. Into these quarries—deep hollows of confined space, with precipitous sides, and open at the top to the sky—the miserable prisoners were plunged, lying huddled one upon another, without the smallest protection or convenience. For subsistence, they received each day a ration of one pint of wheaten bread,—half the daily ration of a slave,—with no more than half a pint of water, so that they were not preserved from the pangs either of hunger or of thirst. Moreover, the heat of the midday sun, alternating with the chill of the autumn nights, was alike afflicting and destructive; while the wants of life having all to be performed where they were, without relief, the filth and stench presently became insupportable. Sick and wounded even at the moment of arrival, many of them speedily died; and happiest was he who died the first, leaving an unconscious corpse, which the Syracusans would not take the trouble to remove, to distress and infect the survivors. Under this condition and treatment they remained for seventy days; probably serving as a spectacle for the triumphant Syracusan population, with their wives and children, to come and look down upon, and to congratulate themselves on their own narrow escape from sufferings similar in kind at least, if not in degree. After that time the novelty of the spectacle had worn off, while the place must have become a den of abomination and a nuisance intolerable even to the citizens themselves. Accordingly, they now removed all the surviving prisoners, except the native Athenians and the few Italian or Sicilian Greeks among them. All those so removed were sold for slaves;[520] while the dead bodies were probably at the same time taken away, and the prison rendered somewhat less loathsome. What became of the remaining prisoners, we are not told; it may be presumed that those who could survive so great an extremity of suffering might after a certain time be allowed to get back to Athens on ransom. Perhaps some of them may have obtained their release; as was the case, we are told, with several of those who had been sold to private masters, by the elegance of their accomplishments and the dignity of their demeanor. The dramas of Euripidês were so peculiarly popular throughout all Sicily, that those Athenian prisoners who knew by heart considerable portions of them, won the affections of their masters. Some even of the stragglers from the army are affirmed to have procured for themselves, by the same attraction, shelter and hospitality during their flight. Euripidês, we are informed, lived to receive the thanks of several among these unhappy sufferers, after their return to Athens.[521] I cannot refrain from mentioning this story, though I fear its trustworthiness as matter of fact is much inferior to its pathos and interest.

Upon the treatment of Nikias and Demosthenês, not merely the Syracusans, but also the allies present, were consulted, and much difference of opinion was found. To keep them in confinement simply, without putting them to death, was apparently the opinion advocated by Hermokratês.[522] But Gylippus, then in full ascendency and an object of deep gratitude for his invaluable services, solicited as a reward to himself to be allowed to conduct them back as prisoners to Sparta. To achieve this would have earned for him signal honor in the eyes of his countrymen; for while Demosthenês, from his success at Pylos, was their hated enemy, Nikias had always shown himself their friend as far as an Athenian could do so. It was to him that they owed the release of their prisoners taken at Sphakteria; and he had calculated upon this obligation when he surrendered himself prisoner to Gylippus, and not to the Syracusans.

In spite of all his influence, however, Gylippus could not carry this point. First, the Corinthians both strenuously opposed him themselves, and prevailed on the other allies to do the same. They were afraid that the wealth of Nikias would always procure for him the means of escaping from imprisonment, so as to do them farther injury, and they insisted on his being put to death. Next, those Syracusans, who had been in secret correspondence with Nikias during the siege, were yet more anxious to get him put out of the way, being apprehensive that, if tortured by their political opponents, he might disclose their names and intrigues. Such various influences prevailed, and Nikias as well as Demosthenês was ordered to be put to death by a decree of the public assembly, much to the discontent of Gylippus. Hermokratês vainly opposed the resolution, but perceiving that it was certain to be carried, he sent to them a private intimation before the discussion closed; and procured for them, through one of the sentinels, the means of dying by their own hands. Their bodies were publicly exposed before the city gates to the view of the Syracusan citizens;[523] while the day on which the final capture of Nikias and his army was accomplished, came to be celebrated as an annual festival, under the title of the Asinaria, on the twenty-sixth day of the Dorian month Karneius.[524]

Such was the close of the expedition, or rather of the two expeditions, undertaken by Athens against Syracuse. Never in Grecian history had a force so large, so costly, so efficient, and so full of promise and confidence, been turned out; never in Grecian history had ruin so complete and sweeping, or victory so glorious and unexpected, been witnessed.[525] Its consequences were felt from one end of the Grecian world to the other, as will appear in the coming chapters.

The esteem and admiration felt at Athens towards Nikias had been throughout lofty and unshaken; after his death it was exchanged for disgrace. His name was omitted, while that of his colleague Demosthenês was engraved, on the funereal pillar erected to commemorate the fallen warriors. This difference Pausanias explains by saying that Nikias was conceived to have disgraced himself as a military man by his voluntary surrender, which Demosthenês had disdained.[526]

The opinion of Thucydidês deserves special notice, in the face of this judgment of his countrymen. While he says not a word about Demosthenês, beyond the fact of his execution, he adds in reference to Nikias a few words of marked sympathy and commendation. “Such, or nearly such, (he says,) were the reasons why Nikias was put to death; though he assuredly, among all Greeks of my time, least deserved to come to so extreme a pitch of ill-fortune, considering his exact performance of established duties to the divinity.”[527]

If we were judging Nikias merely as a private man, and setting his personal conduct in one scale against his personal suffering on the other, the remark of Thucydidês would be natural and intelligible. But the general of a great expedition, upon whose conduct the lives of thousands of brave men as well as the most momentous interests of his country, depend, cannot be tried by any such standard. His private merit becomes a secondary point in the case, as compared with the discharge of his responsible public duties, by which he must stand or fall.

Tried by this more appropriate standard, what are we to say of Nikias? We are compelled to say, that if his personal suffering could possibly be regarded in the light of an atonement, or set in an equation against the mischief brought by himself both on his army and his country, it would not be greater than his deserts. I shall not here repeat the separate points in his conduct which justify this view, and which have been set forth as they have occurred, in the preceding pages. Admitting fully both the good intentions of Nikias, and his personal bravery, rising even into heroism during the last few days in Sicily, it is not the less incontestable, that, first, the failure of the enterprise, next, the destruction of the armament, is to be traced distinctly to his lamentable misjudgment. Sometimes petty trifling, sometimes apathy and inaction, sometimes presumptuous neglect, sometimes obstinate blindness even to urgent and obvious necessities, one or other of these his sad mental defects, will be found operative at every step, whereby this fated armament sinks down from exuberant efficiency into the last depth of aggregate ruin and individual misery. His improvidence and incapacity stand proclaimed, not merely in the narrative of the historian, but even in his own letter to the Athenians, and in his own speeches both before the expedition and during its closing misfortunes, when contrasted with the reality of his proceedings. The man whose flagrant incompetency brought such wholesale ruin upon two fine armaments intrusted to his command, upon the Athenian maritime empire, and ultimately upon Athens herself, must appear on the tablets of history under the severest condemnation, even though his personal virtues had been loftier than those of Nikias.

And yet our great historian, after devoting two immortal books to this expedition, after setting forth emphatically both the glory of its dawn and the wretchedness of its close, with a dramatic genius parallel to the Œdipus Tyrannus of Sophoklês, when he comes to recount the melancholy end of the two commanders, has no words to spare for Demosthenês,—far the abler officer of the two, who perished by no fault of his own,—but reserves his flowers to strew on the grave of Nikias, the author of the whole calamity—“What a pity! Such a respectable and religious man!”

Thucydidês is here the more instructive, because he exactly represents the sentiment of the general Athenian public towards Nikias during his lifetime. They could not bear to condemn, to mistrust, to dismiss, or to do without, so respectable and religious a citizen. The private qualities of Nikias were not only held to entitle him to the most indulgent construction of all his public shortcomings, but also insured to him credit for political and military competence altogether disproportionate to his deserts. When we find Thucydidês, after narrating so much improvidence and mismanagement on the grand scale, still keeping attention fixed on the private morality and decorum of Nikias, as if it constituted the main feature of his character, we can understand how the Athenian people originally came both to over-estimate this unfortunate leader, and continued over-estimating him with tenacious fidelity even after glaring proof of his incapacity. Never in the political history of Athens did the people make so fatal a mistake in placing their confidence.

In reviewing the causes of popular misjudgment, historians are apt to enlarge prominently, if not exclusively, on demagogues and demagogic influences. Mankind being usually considered in the light of governable material, or as instruments for exalting, arming, and decorating their rulers, whatever renders them more difficult to handle in this capacity, ranks first in the category of vices. Nor can it be denied that this was a real and serious cause: clever criminative speakers often passed themselves off for something above their real worth; though useful and indispensable as a protection against worse, they sometimes deluded the people into measures impolitic or unjust. But, even if we grant, to the cause of misjudgment here indicated, a greater practical efficiency than history will fairly sanction, still, it is only one among others more mischievous. Never did any man at Athens, by mere force of demagogic qualities, acquire a measure of esteem at once so exaggerated and so durable, combined with so much power of injuring his fellow-citizens, as the anti-demagogic Nikias. The man who, over and above his shabby manœuvre about the expedition against Sphakteria, and his improvident sacrifice of Athenian interests in the alliance with Sparta, ended by inflicting on his country that cruel wound which destroyed so many of her citizens as well as her maritime empire, was not a leather-seller of impudent and criminative eloquence, but a man of ancient family and hereditary wealth, munificent and affable, having credit not merely for the largesses which he bestowed, but also for all the insolences, which as a rich man he might have committed, but did not commit,—free from all pecuniary corruption,—a brave man, and above all, an ultra-religious man, believed therefore to stand high in the favor of the gods, and to be fortunate. Such was the esteem which the Athenians felt for this union of good qualities purely personal and negative with eminent station, that they presumed the higher aptitudes of command,[528] and presumed them, unhappily, after proof that they did not exist,—after proof that what they had supposed to be caution was only apathy and mental weakness. No demagogic arts or eloquence would ever have created in the people so deep-seated an illusion as the imposing respectability of Nikias. Now it was against the overweening ascendency of such decorous and pious incompetence, when aided by wealth and family advantages, that the demagogic accusatory eloquence ought to have served as a natural bar and corrective. Performing the functions of a constitutional opposition, it afforded the only chance of that tutelary exposure whereby blunders and shortcomings might be arrested in time. How insufficient was the check which it provided,—even at Athens, where every one denounces it as having prevailed in devouring excess,—the history of Nikias is an ever-living testimony.