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The History of the Peloponnesian War
Book 6 - Chapter XX
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Seventeenth and Eighteenth Years of the War - Inaction of
the Athenian Army - Alcibiades at Sparta - Investment of Syracuse
The Athenian generals left in Sicily now divided the armament into
two parts, and, each taking one by lot, sailed with the whole for
Selinus and Egesta, wishing to know whether the Egestaeans would
give the money, and to look into the question of Selinus and ascertain
the state of the quarrel between her and Egesta. Coasting along
Sicily, with the shore on their left, on the side towards the Tyrrhene
Gulf they touched at Himera, the only Hellenic city in that part of
the island, and being refused admission resumed their voyage. On their
way they took Hyccara, a petty Sicanian seaport, nevertheless at war
with Egesta, and making slaves of the inhabitants gave up the town
to the Egestaeans, some of whose horse had joined them; after which
the army proceeded through the territory of the Sicels until it
reached Catana, while the fleet sailed along the coast with the slaves
on board. Meanwhile Nicias sailed straight from Hyccara along the
coast and went to Egesta and, after transacting his other business and
receiving thirty talents, rejoined the forces. They now sold their
slaves for the sum of one hundred and twenty talents, and sailed round
to their Sicel allies to urge them to send troops; and meanwhile
went with half their own force to the hostile town of Hybla in the
territory of Gela, but did not succeed in taking it.
Summer was now over. The winter following, the Athenians at once
began to prepare for moving on Syracuse, and the Syracusans on their side for
marching against them. From the moment when the Athenians failed to
attack them instantly as they at first feared and expected, every
day that passed did something to revive their courage; and when they
saw them sailing far away from them on the other side of
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Sicily, and going to Hybla only to fail in their attempts to storm it,
they thought less of them than ever, and called upon their generals,
as the multitude is apt to do in its moments of confidence, to lead
them to Catana, since the enemy would not come to them. Parties also
of the Syracusan horse employed in reconnoitring constantly rode up to
the Athenian armament, and among other insults asked them whether they
had not really come to settle with the Syracusans in a foreign country
rather than to resettle the Leontines in their own.
Aware of this, the Athenian generals determined to draw them out
in mass as far as possible from the city, and themselves in the
meantime to sail by night alongshore, and take up at their leisure a
convenient position. This they knew they could not so well do, if they
had to disembark from their ships in front of a force prepared for
them, or to go by land openly. The numerous cavalry of the
Syracusans (a force which they were themselves without) would then
be able to do the greatest mischief to their light troops and the
crowd that followed them; but this plan would enable them to take up a
position in which the horse could do them no hurt worth speaking of,
some Syracusan exiles with the army having told them of the spot
near the Olympieum, which they afterwards occupied. In pursuance of
their idea, the generals imagined the following stratagem. They sent
to Syracuse a man devoted to them, and by the Syracusan generals
thought to be no less in their interest; he was a native of Catana,
and said he came from persons in that place, whose names the Syracusan
generals were acquainted with, and whom they knew to be among the
members of their party still left in the city. He told them that the
Athenians passed the night in the town, at some distance from their
arms, and that if the Syracusans would name a day and come with all
their people at daybreak to attack the armament, they, their
friends, would close the gates upon the troops in the city, and set
fire to the vessels, while the Syracusans would easily take the camp
by an attack upon the stockade. In this they would be aided by many of
the Catanians, who were already prepared to act, and from whom he
himself came.
The generals of the Syracusans, who did not want confidence, and who
had intended even without this to march on Catana, believed the man
without any sufficient inquiry, fixed at once a day upon which they
would be there, and dismissed him, and the Selinuntines and others
of their allies having now arrived, gave orders for all the Syracusans
to march out in mass. Their preparations completed, and the time fixed
for their arrival being at hand, they set out for Catana, and passed
the night upon the river Symaethus, in the Leontine territory.
Meanwhile the Athenians no sooner knew of their approach than they
took all their forces and such of the Sicels or others as had joined
them, put them on board their ships and boats, and sailed by night
to Syracuse. Thus, when morning broke the Athenians were landing
opposite the Olympieum ready to seize their camping ground, and the
Syracusan horse having ridden up first to Catana and found that all
the armament had put to sea, turned back and told the infantry, and
then all turned back together, and went to the relief of the city.
In the meantime, as the march before the Syracusans was a long
one, the Athenians quietly sat down their army in a convenient
position, where they could begin an engagement when they pleased,
and where the Syracusan cavalry would have least opportunity of
annoying them, either before or during the action, being fenced off on
one side by walls, houses, trees, and by a marsh, and on the other
by cliffs. They also felled the neighbouring trees and carried them
down to the sea, and formed a palisade alongside of their ships, and
with stones which they picked up and wood hastily raised a fort at
Daskon, the most vulnerable point of their position, and broke down
the bridge over the Anapus. These preparations were allowed to go on
without any interruption from the city, the first hostile force to
appear being the Syracusan cavalry, followed afterwards by all the
foot together. At first they came close up to the Athenian army, and
then, finding that they did not offer to engage, crossed the
Helorine road and encamped for the night.
The next day the Athenians and their allies prepared for battle,
their dispositions being as follows: Their right wing was occupied
by the Argives and Mantineans, the centre by the Athenians, and the
rest of the field by the other allies. Half their army was drawn up
eight deep in advance, half close to their tents in a hollow square,
formed also eight deep, which had orders to look out and be ready to
go to the support of the troops hardest pressed. The camp followers
were placed inside this reserve. The Syracusans, meanwhile, formed
their heavy infantry sixteen deep, consisting of the mass levy of
their own people, and such allies as had joined them, the strongest
contingent being that of the Selinuntines; next to them the cavalry of
the Geloans, numbering two hundred in all, with about twenty horse and
fifty archers from Camarina. The cavalry was posted on their right,
full twelve hundred strong, and next to it the darters. As the
Athenians were about to begin the attack, Nicias went along the lines,
and addressed these words of encouragement to the army and the nations
composing it:
"Soldiers, a long exhortation is little needed by men like
ourselves, who are here to fight in the same battle, the force
itself being, to my thinking, more fit to inspire confidence than a
fine speech with a weak army. Where we have Argives, Mantineans,
Athenians, and the first of the islanders in the ranks together, it
were strange indeed, with so many and so brave companions in arms,
if we did not feel confident of victory; especially when we have
mass levies opposed to our picked troops, and what is more, Siceliots,
who may disdain us but will not stand against us, their skill not
being at all commensurate to their rashness. You may also remember
that we are far from home and have no friendly land near, except
what your own swords shall win you; and here I put before you a motive
just the reverse of that which the enemy are appealing to; their cry
being that they shall fight for their country, mine that we shall
fight for a country that is not ours, where we must conquer or
hardly get away, as we shall have their horse upon us in great
numbers. Remember, therefore, your renown, and go boldly against the
enemy, thinking the present strait and necessity more terrible than
they."
After this address Nicias at once led on the army. The Syracusans
were not at that moment expecting an immediate engagement, and some
had even gone away to the town, which was close by; these now ran up
as hard as they could and, though behind time, took their places
here or there in the main body as fast as they joined it. Want of zeal
or daring was certainly not the fault of the Syracusans, either in
this or the other battles, but although not inferior in courage, so
far as their military science might carry them, when this failed
them they were compelled to give up their resolution also. On the
present occasion, although they had not supposed that the Athenians
would begin the attack, and although constrained to stand upon their
defence at short notice, they at once took up their arms and
advanced to meet them. First, the stone-throwers, slingers, and
archers of either army began skirmishing, and routed or were routed by
one another, as might be expected between light troops; next,
soothsayers brought forward the usual victims, and trumpeters urged on
the heavy infantry to the charge; and thus they advanced, the
Syracusans to fight for their country, and each individual for his
safety that day and liberty hereafter; in the enemy's army, the
Athenians to make another's country theirs and to save their own
from suffering by their defeat; the Argives and independent allies
to help them in getting what they came for, and to earn by victory
another sight of the country they had left behind; while the subject
allies owed most of their ardour to the desire of self-preservation,
which they could only hope for if victorious; next to which, as a
secondary motive, came the chance of serving on easier terms, after
helping the Athenians to a fresh conquest.
The armies now came to close quarters, and for a long while fought
without either giving ground. Meanwhile there occurred some claps of
thunder with lightning and heavy rain, which did not fail to add to
the fears of the party fighting for the first time, and very little
acquainted with war; while to their more experienced adversaries these
phenomena appeared to be produced by the time of year, and much more
alarm was felt at the continued resistance of the enemy. At last the
Argives drove in the Syracusan left, and after them the Athenians
routed the troops opposed to them, and the Syracusan army was thus cut
in two and betook itself to flight. The Athenians did not pursue
far, being held in check by the numerous and undefeated Syracusan
horse, who attacked and drove back any of their heavy infantry whom
they saw pursuing in advance of the rest; in spite of which the
victors followed so far as was safe in a body, and then went back
and set up a trophy. Meanwhile the Syracusans rallied at the
Helorine road, where they re-formed as well as they could under the
circumstances, and even sent a garrison of their own citizens to the
Olympieum, fearing that the Athenians might lay hands on some of the
treasures there. The rest returned to the town.
The Athenians, however, did not go to the temple, but collected
their dead and laid them upon a pyre, and passed the night upon the
field. The next day they gave the enemy back their dead under truce,
to the number of about two hundred and sixty, Syracusans and allies,
and gathered together the bones of their own, some fifty, Athenians
and allies, and taking the spoils of the enemy, sailed back to Catana.
It was now winter; and it did not seem possible for the moment to
carry on the war before Syracuse, until horse should have been sent
for from Athens and levied among the allies in Sicily--to do away
with their utter inferiority in cavalry--and money should have been
collected in the country and received from Athens, and until some of
the cities, which they hoped would be now more disposed to listen to
them after the battle, should have been brought over, and corn and all
other necessaries provided, for a campaign in the spring against
Syracuse.
With this intention they sailed off to Naxos and Catana for the
winter. Meanwhile the Syracusans burned their dead and then held an
assembly, in which Hermocrates, son of Hermon, a man who with a
general ability of the first order had given proofs of military
capacity and brilliant courage in the war, came forward and encouraged
them, and told them not to let what had occurred make them give way,
since their spirit had not been conquered, but their want of
discipline had done the mischief. Still they had not been beaten by so
much as might have been expected, especially as they were, one might
say, novices in the art of war, an army of artisans opposed to the
most practised soldiers in Hellas. What had also done great mischief
was the number of the generals (there were fifteen of them) and the
quantity of orders given, combined with the disorder and
insubordination of the troops. But if they were to have a few
skilful generals, and used this winter in preparing their heavy
infantry, finding arms for such as had not got any, so as to make them
as numerous as possible, and forcing them to attend to their
training generally, they would have every chance of beating their
adversaries, courage being already theirs and discipline in the
field having thus been added to it. Indeed, both these qualities would
improve, since danger would exercise them in discipline, while their
courage would be led to surpass itself by the confidence which skill
inspires. The generals should be few and elected with full powers, and
an oath should be taken to leave them entire discretion in their
command: if they adopted this plan, their secrets would be better
kept, all preparations would be properly made, and there would be no
room for excuses.
The Syracusans heard him, and voted everything as he advised, and
elected three generals, Hermocrates himself, Heraclides, son of
Lysimachus, and Sicanus, son of Execestes. They also sent envoys to
Corinth and Lacedaemon to procure a force of allies to join them,
and to induce the Lacedaemonians for their sakes openly to address
themselves in real earnest to the war against the Athenians, that they
might either have to leave Sicily or be less able to send
reinforcements to their army there.
The Athenian forces at Catana now at once sailed against Messina, in
the expectation of its being betrayed to them. The intrigue,
however, after all came to nothing: Alcibiades, who was in the secret,
when he left his command upon the summons from home, foreseeing that
he would be outlawed, gave information of the plot to the friends of
the Syracusans in Messina, who had at once put to death its authors,
and now rose in arms against the opposite faction with those of
their way of thinking, and succeeded in preventing the admission of
the Athenians. The latter waited for thirteen days, and then, as
they were exposed to the weather and without provisions, and met
with no success, went back to Naxos, where they made places for
their ships to lie in, erected a palisade round their camp, and
retired into winter quarters; meanwhile they sent a galley to Athens
for money and cavalry to join them in the spring. During the winter
the Syracusans built a wall on to the city, so as to take in the
statue of Apollo Temenites, all along the side looking towards
Epipolae, to make the task of circumvallation longer and more
difficult, in case of their being defeated, and also erected a fort at
Megara and another in the Olympieum, and stuck palisades along the sea
wherever there was a landing Place. Meanwhile, as they knew that the
Athenians were wintering at Naxos, they marched with all their
people to Catana, and ravaged the land and set fire to the tents and
encampment of the Athenians, and so returned home. Learning also
that the Athenians were sending an embassy to Camarina, on the
strength of the alliance concluded in the time of Laches, to gain,
if possible, that city, they sent another from Syracuse to oppose
them. They had a shrewd suspicion that the Camarinaeans had not sent
what they did send for the first battle very willingly; and they now
feared that they would refuse to assist them at all in future, after
seeing the success of the Athenians in the action, and would join
the latter on the strength of their old friendship. Hermocrates,
with some others, accordingly arrived at Camarina from Syracuse, and
Euphemus and others from the Athenians; and an assembly of the
Camarinaeans having been convened, Hermocrates spoke as follows, in
the hope of prejudicing them against the Athenians:
"Camarinaeans, we did not come on this embassy because we were
afraid of your being frightened by the actual forces of the Athenians,
but rather of your being gained by what they would say to you before
you heard anything from us. They are come to Sicily with the pretext
that you know, and the intention which we all suspect, in my opinion
less to restore the Leontines to their homes than to oust us from
ours; as it is out of all reason that they should restore in Sicily
the cities that they lay waste in Hellas, or should cherish the
Leontine Chalcidians because of their Ionian blood and keep in
servitude the Euboean Chalcidians, of whom the Leontines are a colony.
No; but the same policy which has proved so successful in Hellas is
now being tried in Sicily. After being chosen as the leaders of the
Ionians and of the other allies of Athenian origin, to punish the
Mede, the Athenians accused some of failure in military service,
some of fighting against each other, and others, as the case might be,
upon any colourable pretext that could be found, until they thus
subdued them all. In fine, in the struggle against the Medes, the
Athenians did not fight for the liberty of the Hellenes, or the
Hellenes for their own liberty, but the former to make their
countrymen serve them instead of him, the latter to change one
master for another, wiser indeed than the first, but wiser for evil.
"But we are not now come to declare to an audience familiar with
them the misdeeds of a state so open to accusation as is the Athenian,
but much rather to blame ourselves, who, with the warnings we
possess in the Hellenes in those parts that have been enslaved through
not supporting each other, and seeing the same sophisms being now
tried upon ourselves--such as restorations of Leontine kinsfolk and
support of Egestaean allies--do not stand together and resolutely
show them that here are no Ionians, or Hellespontines, or islanders,
who change continually, but always serve a master, sometimes the
Mede and sometimes some other, but free Dorians from independent
Peloponnese, dwelling in Sicily. Or, are we waiting until we be
taken in detail, one city after another; knowing as we do that in no
other way can we be conquered, and seeing that they turn to this plan,
so as to divide some of us by words, to draw some by the bait of an
alliance into open war with each other, and to ruin others by such
flattery as different circumstances may render acceptable? And do we
fancy when destruction first overtakes a distant fellow countryman
that the danger will not come to each of us also, or that he who
suffers before us will suffer in himself alone?
"As for the Camarinaean who says that it is the Syracusan, not he,
that is the enemy of the Athenian, and who thinks it hard to have to
encounter risk in behalf of my country, I would have him bear in
mind that he will fight in my country, not more for mine than for
his own, and by so much the more safely in that he will enter on the
struggle not alone, after the way has been cleared by my ruin, but
with me as his ally, and that the object of the Athenian is not so
much to punish the enmity of the Syracusan as to use me as a blind
to secure the friendship of the Camarinaean. As for him who envies
or even fears us (and envied and feared great powers must always
be), and who on this account wishes Syracuse to be humbled to teach us
a lesson, but would still have her survive, in the interest of his own
security the wish that he indulges is not humanly possible. A man
can control his own desires, but he cannot likewise control
circumstances; and in the event of his calculations proving
mistaken, he may live to bewail his own misfortune, and wish to be
again envying my prosperity. An idle wish, if he now sacrifice us
and refuse to take his share of perils which are the same, in
reality though not in name, for him as for us; what is nominally the
preservation of our power being really his own salvation. It was to be
expected that you, of all people in the world, Camarinaeans, being our
immediate neighbours and the next in danger, would have foreseen this,
and instead of supporting us in the lukewarm way that you are now
doing, would rather come to us of your own accord, and be now offering
at Syracuse the aid which you would have asked for at Camarina, if
to Camarina the Athenians had first come, to encourage us to resist
the invader. Neither you, however, nor the rest have as yet
bestirred yourselves in this direction.
"Fear perhaps will make you study to do right both by us and by
the invaders, and plead that you have an alliance with the
Athenians. But you made that alliance, not against your friends, but
against the enemies that might attack you, and to help the Athenians
when they were wronged by others, not when as now they are wronging
their neighbours. Even the Rhegians, Chalcidians though they be,
refuse to help to restore the Chalcidian Leontines; and it would be
strange if, while they suspect the gist of this fine pretence and
are wise without reason, you, with every reason on your side, should
yet choose to assist your natural enemies, and should join with
their direst foes in undoing those whom nature has made your own
kinsfolk. This is not to do right; but you should help us without fear
of their armament, which has no terrors if we hold together, but
only if we let them succeed in their endeavours to separate us;
since even after attacking us by ourselves and being victorious in
battle, they had to go off without effecting their purpose.
"United, therefore, we have no cause to despair, but rather new
encouragement to league together; especially as succour will come to
us from the Peloponnesians, in military matters the undoubted
superiors of the Athenians. And you need not think that your prudent
policy of taking sides with neither, because allies of both, is either
safe for you or fair to us. Practically it is not as fair as it
pretends to be. If the vanquished be defeated, and the victor conquer,
through your refusing to join, what is the effect of your abstention
but to leave the former to perish unaided, and to allow the latter
to offend unhindered? And yet it were more honourable to join those
who are not only the injured party, but your own kindred, and by so
doing to defend the common interests of Sicily and save your friends
the Athenians from doing wrong.
"In conclusion, we Syracusans say that it is useless for us to
demonstrate either to you or to the rest what you know already as well
as we do; but we entreat, and if our entreaty fail, we protest that we
are menaced by our eternal enemies the Ionians, and are betrayed by
you our fellow Dorians. If the Athenians reduce us, they will owe
their victory to your decision, but in their own name will reap the
honour, and will receive as the prize of their triumph the very men
who enabled them to gain it. On the other hand, if we are the
conquerors, you will have to pay for having been the cause of our
danger. Consider, therefore; and now make your choice between the
security which present servitude offers and the prospect of conquering
with us and so escaping disgraceful submission to an Athenian master
and avoiding the lasting enmity of Syracuse."
Such were the words of Hermocrates; after whom Euphemus, the
Athenian ambassador, spoke as follows:
"Although we came here only to renew the former alliance, the attack
of the Syracusans compels us to speak of our empire and of the good
right we have to it. The best proof of this the speaker himself
furnished, when he called the Ionians eternal enemies of the
Dorians. It is the fact; and the Peloponnesian Dorians being our
superiors in numbers and next neighbours, we Ionians looked out for
the best means of escaping their domination. After the Median War we
had a fleet, and so got rid of the empire and supremacy of the
Lacedaemonians, who had no right to give orders to us more than we
to them, except that of being the strongest at that moment; and
being appointed leaders of the King's former subjects, we continue
to be so, thinking that we are least likely to fall under the dominion
of the Peloponnesians, if we have a force to defend ourselves with,
and in strict truth having done nothing unfair in reducing to
subjection the Ionians and islanders, the kinsfolk whom the Syracusans
say we have enslaved. They, our kinsfolk, came against their mother
country, that is to say against us, together with the Mede, and,
instead of having the courage to revolt and sacrifice their property
as we did when we abandoned our city, chose to be slaves themselves,
and to try to make us so.
"We, therefore, deserve to rule because we placed the largest
fleet and an unflinching patriotism at the service of the Hellenes,
and because these, our subjects, did us mischief by their ready
subservience to the Medes; and, desert apart, we seek to strengthen
ourselves against the Peloponnesians. We make no fine profession of
having a right to rule because we overthrew the barbarian
single-handed, or because we risked what we did risk for the freedom
of the subjects in question any more than for that of all, and for our
own: no one can be quarrelled with for providing for his proper
safety. If we are now here in Sicily, it is equally in the interest of
our security, with which we perceive that your interest also
coincides. We prove this from the conduct which the Syracusans cast
against us and which you somewhat too timorously suspect; knowing that
those whom fear has made suspicious may be carried away by the charm
of eloquence for the moment, but when they come to act follow their
interests.
"Now, as we have said, fear makes us hold our empire in Hellas,
and fear makes us now come, with the help of our friends, to order
safely matters in Sicily, and not to enslave any but rather to prevent
any from being enslaved. Meanwhile, let no one imagine that we are
interesting ourselves in you without your having anything to do with
us, seeing that, if you are preserved and able to make head against
the Syracusans, they will be less likely to harm us by sending
troops to the Peloponnesians. In this way you have everything to do
with us, and on this account it is perfectly reasonable for us to
restore the Leontines, and to make them, not subjects like their
kinsmen in Euboea, but as powerful as possible, to help us by annoying
the Syracusans from their frontier. In Hellas we are alone a match for
our enemies; and as for the assertion that it is out of all reason
that we should free the Sicilian, while we enslave the Chalcidian, the
fact is that the latter is useful to us by being without arms and
contributing money only; while the former, the Leontines and our other
friends, cannot be too independent.
"Besides, for tyrants and imperial cities nothing is unreasonable if
expedient, no one a kinsman unless sure; but friendship or enmity is
everywhere an affair of time and circumstance. Here, in Sicily, our
interest is not to weaken our friends, but by means of their
strength to cripple our enemies. Why doubt this? In Hellas we treat
our allies as we find them useful. The Chians and Methymnians govern
themselves and furnish ships; most of the rest have harder terms and
pay tribute in money; while others, although islanders and easy for us
to take, are free altogether, because they occupy convenient positions
round Peloponnese. In our settlement of the states here in Sicily,
we should therefore; naturally be guided by our interest, and by fear,
as we say, of the Syracusans. Their ambition is to rule you, their
object to use the suspicions that we excite to unite you, and then,
when we have gone away without effecting anything, by force or through
your isolation, to become the masters of Sicily. And masters they must
become, if you unite with them; as a force of that magnitude would
be no longer easy for us to deal with united, and they would be more
than a match for you as soon as we were away.
"Any other view of the case is condemned by the facts. When you
first asked us over, the fear which you held out was that of danger to
Athens if we let you come under the dominion of Syracuse; and it is
not right now to mistrust the very same argument by which you
claimed to convince us, or to give way to suspicion because we are
come with a larger force against the power of that city. Those whom
you should really distrust are the Syracusans. We are not able to stay
here without you, and if we proved perfidious enough to bring you into
subjection, we should be unable to keep you in bondage, owing to the
length of the voyage and the difficulty of guarding large, and in a
military sense continental, towns: they, the Syracusans, live close to
you, not in a camp, but in a city greater than the force we have
with us, plot always against you, never let slip an opportunity once
offered, as they have shown in the case of the Leontines and others,
and now have the face, just as if you were fools, to invite you to aid
them against the power that hinders this, and that has thus far
maintained Sicily independent. We, as against them, invite you to a
much more real safety, when we beg you not to betray that common
safety which we each have in the other, and to reflect that they, even
without allies, will, by their numbers, have always the way open to
you, while you will not often have the opportunity of defending
yourselves with such numerous auxiliaries; if, through your
suspicions, you once let these go away unsuccessful or defeated, you
will wish to see if only a handful of them back again, when the day is
past in which their presence could do anything for you.
"But we hope, Camarinaeans, that the calumnies of the Syracusans
will not be allowed to succeed either with you or with the rest: we
have told you the whole truth upon the things we are suspected of, and
will now briefly recapitulate, in the hope of convincing you. We
assert that we are rulers in Hellas in order not to be subjects;
liberators in Sicily that we may not be harmed by the Sicilians;
that we are compelled to interfere in many things, because we have
many things to guard against; and that now, as before, we are come
as allies to those of you who suffer wrong in this island, not without
invitation but upon invitation. Accordingly, instead of making
yourselves judges or censors of our conduct, and trying to turn us,
which it were now difficult to do, so far as there is anything in
our interfering policy or in our character that chimes in with your
interest, this take and make use of; and be sure that, far from
being injurious to all alike, to most of the Hellenes that policy is
even beneficial. Thanks to it, all men in all places, even where we
are not, who either apprehend or meditate aggression, from the near
prospect before them, in the one case, of obtaining our intervention
in their favour, in the other, of our arrival making the venture
dangerous, find themselves constrained, respectively, to be moderate
against their will, and to be preserved without trouble of their
own. Do not you reject this security that is open to all who desire
it, and is now offered to you; but do like others, and instead of
being always on the defensive against the Syracusans, unite with us,
and in your turn at last threaten them."
Such were the words of Euphemus. What the Camarinaeans felt was
this. Sympathizing with the Athenians, except in so far as they
might be afraid of their subjugating Sicily, they had always been at
enmity with their neighbour Syracuse. From the very fact, however,
that they were their neighbours, they feared the Syracusans most of
the two, and being apprehensive of their conquering even without them,
both sent them in the first instance the few horsemen mentioned, and
for the future determined to support them most in fact, although as
sparingly as possible; but for the moment in order not to seem to
slight the Athenians, especially as they had been successful in the
engagement, to answer both alike. Agreeably to this resolution they
answered that as both the contending parties happened to be allies
of theirs, they thought it most consistent with their oaths at present
to side with neither; with which answer the ambassadors of either
party departed.
In the meantime, while Syracuse pursued her preparations for war,
the Athenians were encamped at Naxos, and tried by negotiation to gain
as many of the Sicels as possible. Those more in the low lands, and
subjects of Syracuse, mostly held aloof; but the peoples of the
interior who had never been otherwise than independent, with few
exceptions, at once joined the Athenians, and brought down corn to the
army, and in some cases even money. The Athenians marched against
those who refused to join, and forced some of them to do so; in the
case of others they were stopped by the Syracusans sending garrisons
and reinforcements. Meanwhile the Athenians moved their winter
quarters from Naxos to Catana, and reconstructed the camp burnt by the
Syracusans, and stayed there the rest of the winter. They also sent
a galley to Carthage, with proffers of friendship, on the chance of
obtaining assistance, and another to Tyrrhenia; some of the cities
there having spontaneously offered to join them in the war. They
also sent round to the Sicels and to Egesta, desiring them to send
them as many horses as possible, and meanwhile prepared bricks,
iron, and all other things necessary for the work of
circumvallation, intending by the spring to begin hostilities.
In the meantime the Syracusan envoys dispatched to Corinth and
Lacedaemon tried as they passed along the coast to persuade the
Italiots to interfere with the proceedings of the Athenians, which
threatened Italy quite as much as Syracuse, and having arrived at
Corinth made a speech calling on the Corinthians to assist them on the
ground of their common origin. The Corinthians voted at once to aid
them heart and soul themselves, and then sent on envoys with them to
Lacedaemon, to help them to persuade her also to prosecute the war
with the Athenians more openly at home and to send succours to Sicily.
The envoys from Corinth having reached Lacedaemon found there
Alcibiades with his fellow refugees, who had at once crossed over in a
trading vessel from Thurii, first to Cyllene in Elis, and afterwards
from thence to Lacedaemon; upon the Lacedaemonians' own invitation,
after first obtaining a safe conduct, as he feared them for the part
he had taken in the affair of Mantinea. The result was that the
Corinthians, Syracusans, and Alcibiades, pressing all the same request
in the assembly of the Lacedaemonians, succeeded in persuading them;
but as the ephors and the authorities, although resolved to send
envoys to Syracuse to prevent their surrendering to the Athenians,
showed no disposition to send them any assistance, Alcibiades now came
forward and inflamed and stirred the Lacedaemonians by speaking as
follows:
"I am forced first to speak to you of the prejudice with which I
am regarded, in order that suspicion may not make you disinclined to
listen to me upon public matters. The connection, with you as your
proxeni, which the ancestors of our family by reason of some
discontent renounced, I personally tried to renew by my good offices
towards you, in particular upon the occasion of the disaster at Pylos.
But although I maintained this friendly attitude, you yet chose to
negotiate the peace with the Athenians through my enemies, and thus to
strengthen them and to discredit me. You had therefore no right to
complain if I turned to the Mantineans and Argives, and seized other
occasions of thwarting and injuring you; and the time has now come
when those among you, who in the bitterness of the moment may have
been then unfairly angry with me, should look at the matter in its
true light, and take a different view. Those again who judged me
unfavourably, because I leaned rather to the side of the commons, must
not think that their dislike is any better founded. We have always
been hostile to tyrants, and all who oppose arbitrary power are called
commons; hence we continued to act as leaders of the multitude;
besides which, as democracy was the government of the city, it was
necessary in most things to conform to established conditions.
However, we endeavoured to be more moderate than the licentious temper
of the times; and while there were others, formerly as now, who
tried to lead the multitude astray--the same who banished me--our
party was that of the whole people, our creed being to do our part
in preserving the form of government under which the city enjoyed
the utmost greatness and freedom, and which we had found existing.
As for democracy, the men of sense among us knew what it was, and I
perhaps as well as any, as I have the more cause to complain of it;
but there is nothing new to be said of a patent absurdity; meanwhile
we did not think it safe to alter it under the pressure of your
hostility.
"So much then for the prejudices with which I am regarded: I now can
call your attention to the questions you must consider, and upon which
superior knowledge perhaps permits me to speak. We sailed to Sicily
first to conquer, if possible, the Siceliots, and after them the
Italiots also, and finally to assail the empire and city of
Carthage. In the event of all or most of these schemes succeeding,
we were then to attack Peloponnese, bringing with us the entire
force of the Hellenes lately acquired in those parts, and taking a
number of barbarians into our pay, such as the Iberians and others
in those countries, confessedly the most warlike known, and building
numerous galleys in addition to those which we had already, timber
being plentiful in Italy; and with this fleet blockading Peloponnese
from the sea and assailing it with our armies by land, taking some
of the cities by storm, drawing works of circumvallation round others,
we hoped without difficulty to effect its reduction, and after this to
rule the whole of the Hellenic name. Money and corn meanwhile for
the better execution of these plans were to be supplied in
sufficient quantities by the newly acquired places in those countries,
independently of our revenues here at home.
"You have thus heard the history of the present expedition from
the man who most exactly knows what our objects were; and the
remaining generals will, if they can, carry these out just the same.
But that the states in Sicily must succumb if you do not help them,
I will now show. Although the Siceliots, with all their
inexperience, might even now be saved if their forces were united, the
Syracusans alone, beaten already in one battle with all their people
and blockaded from the sea, will be unable to withstand the Athenian
armament that is now there. But if Syracuse falls, all Sicily falls
also, and Italy immediately afterwards; and the danger which I just
now spoke of from that quarter will before long be upon you. None need
therefore fancy that Sicily only is in question; Peloponnese will be
so also, unless you speedily do as I tell you, and send on board
ship to Syracuse troops that shall able to row their ships themselves,
and serve as heavy infantry the moment that they land; and what I
consider even more important than the troops, a Spartan as
commanding officer to discipline the forces already on foot and to
compel recusants to serve. The friends that you have already will thus
become more confident, and the waverers will be encouraged to join
you. Meanwhile you must carry on the war here more openly, that the
Syracusans, seeing that you do not forget them, may put heart into
their resistance, and that the Athenians may be less able to reinforce
their armament. You must fortify Decelea in Attica, the blow of
which the Athenians are always most afraid and the only one that
they think they have not experienced in the present war; the surest
method of harming an enemy being to find out what he most fears, and
to choose this means of attacking him, since every one naturally knows
best his own weak points and fears accordingly. The fortification in
question, while it benefits you, will create difficulties for your
adversaries, of which I shall pass over many, and shall only mention
the chief. Whatever property there is in the country will most of it
become yours, either by capture or surrender; and the Athenians will
at once be deprived of their revenues from the silver mines at
Laurium, of their present gains from their land and from the law
courts, and above all of the revenue from their allies, which will
be paid less regularly, as they lose their awe of Athens and see you
addressing yourselves with vigour to the war. The zeal and speed
with which all this shall be done depends, Lacedaemonians, upon
yourselves; as to its possibility, I am quite confident, and I have
little fear of being mistaken.
"Meanwhile I hope that none of you will think any the worse of me
if, after having hitherto passed as a lover of my country, I now
actively join its worst enemies in attacking it, or will suspect
what I say as the fruit of an outlaw's enthusiasm. I am an outlaw from
the iniquity of those who drove me forth, not, if you will be guided
by me, from your service; my worst enemies are not you who only harmed
your foes, but they who forced their friends to become enemies; and
love of country is what I do not feel when I am wronged, but what I
felt when secure in my rights as a citizen. Indeed I do not consider
that I am now attacking a country that is still mine; I am rather
trying to recover one that is mine no longer; and the true lover of
his country is not he who consents to lose it unjustly rather than
attack it, but he who longs for it so much that he will go all lengths
to recover it. For myself, therefore, Lacedaemonians, I beg you to use
me without scruple for danger and trouble of every kind, and to
remember the argument in every one's mouth, that if I did you great
harm as an enemy, I could likewise do you good service as a friend,
inasmuch as I know the plans of the Athenians, while I only guessed
yours. For yourselves I entreat you to believe that your most
capital interests are now under deliberation; and I urge you to send
without hesitation the expeditions to Sicily and Attica; by the
presence of a small part of your forces you will save important cities
in that island, and you will destroy the power of Athens both
present and prospective; after this you will dwell in security and
enjoy the supremacy over all Hellas, resting not on force but upon
consent and affection."
Such were the words of Alcibiades. The Lacedaemonians, who had
themselves before intended to march against Athens, but were still
waiting and looking about them, at once became much more in earnest
when they received this particular information from Alcibiades, and
considered that they had heard it from the man who best knew the truth
of the matter. Accordingly they now turned their attention to the
fortifying of Decelea and sending immediate aid to the Sicilians;
and naming Gylippus, son of Cleandridas, to the command of the
Syracusans, bade him consult with that people and with the Corinthians
and arrange for succours reaching the island, in the best and
speediest way possible under the circumstances. Gylippus desired the
Corinthians to send him at once two ships to Asine, and to prepare the
rest that they intended to send, and to have them ready to sail at the
proper time. Having settled this, the envoys departed from Lacedaemon.
In the meantime arrived the Athenian galley from Sicily sent by
the generals for money and cavalry; and the Athenians, after hearing
what they wanted, voted to send the supplies for the armament and
the cavalry. And the winter ended, and with it ended the seventeenth
year of the present war of which Thucydides is the historian.
The next summer, at the very beginning of the season, the
Athenians in Sicily put out from Catana, and sailed along shore to
Megara in Sicily, from which, as I have mentioned above, the
Syracusans expelled the inhabitants in the time of their tyrant
Gelo, themselves occupying the territory. Here the Athenians landed
and laid waste the country, and after an unsuccessful attack upon a
fort of the Syracusans, went on with the fleet and army to the river
Terias, and advancing inland laid waste the plain and set fire to
the corn; and after killing some of a small Syracusan party which they
encountered, and setting up a trophy, went back again to their
ships. They now sailed to Catana and took in provisions there, and
going with their whole force against Centoripa, a town of the
Sicels, acquired it by capitulation, and departed, after also
burning the corn of the Inessaeans and Hybleans. Upon their return
to Catana they found the horsemen arrived from Athens, to the number
of two hundred and fifty (with their equipments, but without their
horses which were to be procured upon the spot), and thirty mounted
archers and three hundred talents of silver.
The same spring the Lacedaemonians marched against Argos, and went
as far as Cleonae, when an earthquake occurred and caused them to
return. After this the Argives invaded the Thyreatid, which is on
their border, and took much booty from the Lacedaemonians, which was
sold for no less than twenty-five talents. The same summer, not long
after, the Thespian commons made an attack upon the party in office,
which was not successful, but succours arrived from Thebes, and some
were caught, while others took refuge at Athens.
The same summer the Syracusans learned that the Athenians had been
joined by their cavalry, and were on the point of marching against
them; and seeing that without becoming masters of Epipolae, a
precipitous spot situated exactly over the town, the Athenians could
not, even if victorious in battle, easily invest them, they determined
to guard its approaches, in order that the enemy might not ascend
unobserved by this, the sole way by which ascent was possible, as
the remainder is lofty ground, and falls right down to the city, and
can all be seen from inside; and as it lies above the rest the place
is called by the Syracusans Epipolae or Overtown. They accordingly
went out in mass at daybreak into the meadow along the river Anapus,
their new generals, Hermocrates and his colleagues, having just come
into office, and held a review of their heavy infantry, from whom they
first selected a picked body of six hundred, under the command of
Diomilus, an exile from Andros, to guard Epipolae, and to be ready
to muster at a moment's notice to help wherever help should be
required.
Meanwhile the Athenians, the very same morning, were holding a
review, having already made land unobserved with all the armament from
Catana, opposite a place called Leon, not much more than half a mile
from Epipolae, where they disembarked their army, bringing the fleet
to anchor at Thapsus, a peninsula running out into the sea, with a
narrow isthmus, and not far from the city of Syracuse either by land
or water. While the naval force of the Athenians threw a stockade
across the isthmus and remained quiet at Thapsus, the land army
immediately went on at a run to Epipolae, and succeeded in getting
up by Euryelus before the Syracusans perceived them, or could come
up from the meadow and the review. Diomilus with his six hundred and
the rest advanced as quickly as they could, but they had nearly
three miles to go from the meadow before reaching them. Attacking in
this way in considerable disorder, the Syracusans were defeated in
battle at Epipolae and retired to the town, with a loss of about three
hundred killed, and Diomilus among the number. After this the
Athenians set up a trophy and restored to the Syracusans their dead
under truce, and next day descended to Syracuse itself; and no one
coming out to meet them, reascended and built a fort at Labdalum, upon
the edge of the cliffs of Epipolae, looking towards Megara, to serve
as a magazine for their baggage and money, whenever they advanced to
battle or to work at the lines.
Not long afterwards three hundred cavalry came to them from
Egesta, and about a hundred from the Sicels, Naxians, and others;
and thus, with the two hundred and fifty from Athens, for whom they
had got horses from the Egestaeans and Catanians, besides others
that they bought, they now mustered six hundred and fifty cavalry in
all. After posting a garrison in Labdalum, they advanced to Syca,
where they sat down and quickly built the Circle or centre of their
wall of circumvallation. The Syracusans, appalled at the rapidity with
which the work advanced, determined to go out against them and give
battle and interrupt it; and the two armies were already in battle
array, when the Syracusan generals observed that their troops found
such difficulty in getting into line, and were in such disorder,
that they led them back into the town, except part of the cavalry.
These remained and hindered the Athenians from carrying stones or
dispersing to any great distance, until a tribe of the Athenian
heavy infantry, with all the cavalry, charged and routed the Syracusan
horse with some loss; after which they set up a trophy for the cavalry
action.
The next day the Athenians began building the wall to the north of
the Circle, at the same time collecting stone and timber, which they
kept laying down towards Trogilus along the shortest line for their
works from the great harbour to the sea; while the Syracusans,
guided by their generals, and above all by Hermocrates, instead of
risking any more general engagements, determined to build a
counterwork in the direction in which the Athenians were going to
carry their wall. If this could be completed in time, the enemy's
lines would be cut; and meanwhile, if he were to attempt to
interrupt them by an attack, they would send a part of their forces
against him, and would secure the approaches beforehand with their
stockade, while the Athenians would have to leave off working with
their whole force in order to attend to them. They accordingly sallied
forth and began to build, starting from their city, running a cross
wall below the Athenian Circle, cutting down the olives and erecting
wooden towers. As the Athenian fleet had not yet sailed round into the
great harbour, the Syracusans still commanded the seacoast, and the
Athenians brought their provisions by land from Thapsus.
The Syracusans now thought the stockades and stonework of their
counterwall sufficiently far advanced; and as the Athenians, afraid of
being divided and so fighting at a disadvantage, and intent upon their
own wall, did not come out to interrupt them, they left one tribe to
guard the new work and went back into the city. Meanwhile the
Athenians destroyed their pipes of drinking-water carried
underground into the city; and watching until the rest of the
Syracusans were in their tents at midday, and some even gone away into
the city, and those in the stockade keeping but indifferent guard,
appointed three hundred picked men of their own, and some men picked
from the light troops and armed for the purpose, to run suddenly as
fast as they could to the counterwork, while the rest of the army
advanced in two divisions, the one with one of the generals to the
city in case of a sortie, the other with the other general to the
stockade by the postern gate. The three hundred attacked and took
the stockade, abandoned by its garrison, who took refuge in the
outworks round the statue of Apollo Temenites. Here the pursuers burst
in with them, and after getting in were beaten out by the
Syracusans, and some few of the Argives and Athenians slain; after
which the whole army retired, and having demolished the counterwork
and pulled up the stockade, carried away the stakes to their own
lines, and set up a trophy.
The next day the Athenians from the Circle proceeded to fortify
the cliff above the marsh which on this side of Epipolae looks towards
the great harbour; this being also the shortest line for their work to
go down across the plain and the marsh to the harbour. Meanwhile the
Syracusans marched out and began a second stockade, starting from
the city, across the middle of the marsh, digging a trench alongside
to make it impossible for the Athenians to carry their wall down to
the sea. As soon as the Athenians had finished their work at the cliff
they again attacked the stockade and ditch of the Syracusans. Ordering
the fleet to sail round from Thapsus into the great harbour of
Syracuse, they descended at about dawn from Epipolae into the plain,
and laying doors and planks over the marsh, where it was muddy and
firmest, crossed over on these, and by daybreak took the ditch and the
stockade, except a small portion which they captured afterwards. A
battle now ensued, in which the Athenians were victorious, the right
wing of the Syracusans flying to the town and the left to the river.
The three hundred picked Athenians, wishing to cut off their
passage, pressed on at a run to the bridge, when the alarmed
Syracusans, who had with them most of their cavalry, closed and routed
them, hurling them back upon the Athenian right wing, the first
tribe of which was thrown into a panic by the shock. Seeing this,
Lamachus came to their aid from the Athenian left with a few archers
and with the Argives, and crossing a ditch, was left alone with a
few that had crossed with him, and was killed with five or six of
his men. These the Syracusans managed immediately to snatch up in
haste and get across the river into a place of security, themselves
retreating as the rest of the Athenian army now came up.
Meanwhile those who had at first fled for refuge to the city, seeing
the turn affairs were taking, now rallied from the town and formed
against the Athenians in front of them, sending also a part of their
number to the Circle on Epipolae, which they hoped to take while
denuded of its defenders. These took and destroyed the Athenian
outwork of a thousand feet, the Circle itself being saved by Nicias,
who happened to have been left in it through illness, and who now
ordered the servants to set fire to the engines and timber thrown down
before the wall; want of men, as he was aware, rendering all other
means of escape impossible. This step was justified by the result, the
Syracusans not coming any further on account of the fire, but
retreating. Meanwhile succours were coming up from the Athenians
below, who had put to flight the troops opposed to them; and the fleet
also, according to orders, was sailing from Thapsus into the great
harbour. Seeing this, the troops on the heights retired in haste,
and the whole army of the Syracusans re-entered the city, thinking
that with their present force they would no longer be able to hinder
the wall reaching the sea.
After this the Athenians set up a trophy and restored to the
Syracusans their dead under truce, receiving in return Lamachus and
those who had fallen with him. The whole of their forces, naval and
military, being now with them, they began from Epipolae and the cliffs
and enclosed the Syracusans with a double wall down to the sea.
Provisions were now brought in for the armament from all parts of
Italy; and many of the Sicels, who had hitherto been looking to see
how things went, came as allies to the Athenians: there also arrived
three ships of fifty oars from Tyrrhenia. Meanwhile everything else
progressed favourably for their hopes. The Syracusans began to despair
of finding safety in arms, no relief having reached them from
Peloponnese, and were now proposing terms of capitulation among
themselves and to Nicias, who after the death of Lamachus was left
sole commander. No decision was come to, but, as was natural with
men in difficulties and besieged more straitly than before, there
was much discussion with Nicias and still more in the town. Their
present misfortunes had also made them suspicious of one another;
and the blame of their disasters was thrown upon the ill-fortune or
treachery of the generals under whose command they had happened; and
these were deposed and others, Heraclides, Eucles, and Tellias,
elected in their stead.
Meanwhile the Lacedaemonian, Gylippus, and the ships from Corinth
were now off Leucas, intent upon going with all haste to the relief of
Sicily. The reports that reached them being of an alarming kind, and
all agreeing in the falsehood that Syracuse was already completely
invested, Gylippus abandoned all hope of Sicily, and wishing to save
Italy, rapidly crossed the Ionian Sea to Tarentum with the Corinthian,
Pythen, two Laconian, and two Corinthian vessels, leaving the
Corinthians to follow him after manning, in addition to their own ten,
two Leucadian and two Ambraciot ships. From Tarentum Gylippus first
went on an embassy to Thurii, and claimed anew the rights of
citizenship which his father had enjoyed; failing to bring over the
townspeople, he weighed anchor and coasted along Italy. Opposite the
Terinaean Gulf he was caught by the wind which blows violently and
steadily from the north in that quarter, and was carried out to sea;
and after experiencing very rough weather, remade Tarentum, where he
hauled ashore and refitted such of his ships as had suffered most from
the tempest. Nicias heard of his approach, but, like the Thurians,
despised the scanty number of his ships, and set down piracy as the
only probable object of the voyage, and so took no precautions for the
present.
About the same time in this summer, the Lacedaemonians invaded Argos
with their allies, and laid waste most of the country. The Athenians
went with thirty ships to the relief of the Argives, thus breaking
their treaty with the Lacedaemonians in the most overt manner. Up to
this time incursions from Pylos, descents on the coast of the rest
of Peloponnese, instead of on the Laconian, had been the extent of
their co-operation with the Argives and Mantineans; and although the
Argives had often begged them to land, if only for a moment, with
their heavy infantry in Laconia, lay waste ever so little of it with
them, and depart, they had always refused to do so. Now, however,
under the command of Phytodorus, Laespodius, and Demaratus, they
landed at Epidaurus Limera, Prasiae, and other places, and plundered
the country; and thus furnished the Lacedaemonians with a better
pretext for hostilities against Athens. After the Athenians had
retired from Argos with their fleet, and the Lacedaemonians also,
the Argives made an incursion into the Phlisaid, and returned home
after ravaging their land and killing some of the inhabitants.
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