History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗
- Author: Thucydides
- Performer: -
Book online «History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗». Author Thucydides
the island, and that if he had himself been in command, he would
have done it.
Nicias, seeing the Athenians murmuring against Cleon for not sailing
now if it seemed to him so easy, and further seeing himself the object
of attack, told him that for all that the generals cared, he might
take what force he chose and make the attempt. At first Cleon
fancied that this resignation was merely a figure of speech, and was
ready to go, but finding that it was seriously meant, he drew back,
and said that Nicias, not he, was general, being now frightened, and
having never supposed that Nicias would go so far as to retire in
his favour. Nicias, however, repeated his offer, and resigned the
command against Pylos, and called the Athenians to witness that he did
so. And as the multitude is wont to do, the more Cleon shrank from the
expedition and tried to back out of what he had said, the more they
encouraged Nicias to hand over his command, and clamoured at Cleon
to go. At last, not knowing how to get out of his words, he
undertook the expedition, and came forward and said that he was not
afraid of the Lacedaemonians, but would sail without taking any one
from the city with him, except the Lemnians and Imbrians that were
at Athens, with some targeteers that had come up from Aenus, and
four hundred archers from other quarters. With these and the
soldiers at Pylos, he would within twenty days either bring the
Lacedaemonians alive, or kill them on the spot. The Athenians could
not help laughing at his fatuity, while sensible men comforted
themselves with the reflection that they must gain in either
circumstance; either they would be rid of Cleon, which they rather
hoped, or if disappointed in this expectation, would reduce the
Lacedaemonians.
After he had settled everything in the assembly, and the Athenians
had voted him the command of the expedition, he chose as his colleague
Demosthenes, one of the generals at Pylos, and pushed forward the
preparations for his voyage. His choice fell upon Demosthenes
because he heard that he was contemplating a descent on the island;
the soldiers distressed by the difficulties of the position, and
rather besieged than besiegers, being eager to fight it out, while the
firing of the island had increased the confidence of the general. He
had been at first afraid, because the island having never been
inhabited was almost entirely covered with wood and without paths,
thinking this to be in the enemy’s favour, as he might land with a
large force, and yet might suffer loss by an attack from an unseen
position. The mistakes and forces of the enemy the wood would in a
great measure conceal from him, while every blunder of his own
troops would be at once detected, and they would be thus able to
fall upon him unexpectedly just where they pleased, the attack being
always in their power. If, on the other hand, he should force them
to engage in the thicket, the smaller number who knew the country
would, he thought, have the advantage over the larger who were
ignorant of it, while his own army might be cut off imperceptibly,
in spite of its numbers, as the men would not be able to see where
to succour each other.
The Aetolian disaster, which had been mainly caused by the wood, had
not a little to do with these reflections. Meanwhile, one of the
soldiers who were compelled by want of room to land on the extremities
of the island and take their dinners, with outposts fixed to prevent a
surprise, set fire to a little of the wood without meaning to do so;
and as it came on to blow soon afterwards, almost the whole was
consumed before they were aware of it. Demosthenes was now able for
the first time to see how numerous the Lacedaemonians really were,
having up to this moment been under the impression that they took in
provisions for a smaller number; he also saw that the Athenians
thought success important and were anxious about it, and that it was
now easier to land on the island, and accordingly got ready for the
attempt, sent for troops from the allies in the neighbourhood, and
pushed forward his other preparations. At this moment Cleon arrived at
Pylos with the troops which he had asked for, having sent on word to
say that he was coming. The first step taken by the two generals after
their meeting was to send a herald to the camp on the mainland, to ask
if they were disposed to avoid all risk and to order the men on the
island to surrender themselves and their arms, to be kept in gentle
custody until some general convention should be concluded.
On the rejection of this proposition the generals let one day
pass, and the next, embarking all their heavy infantry on board a
few ships, put out by night, and a little before dawn landed on both
sides of the island from the open sea and from the harbour, being
about eight hundred strong, and advanced with a run against the
first post in the island.
The enemy had distributed his force as follows: In this first post
there were about thirty heavy infantry; the centre and most level
part, where the water was, was held by the main body, and by
Epitadas their commander; while a small party guarded the very end
of the island, towards Pylos, which was precipitous on the sea-side
and very difficult to attack from the land, and where there was also a
sort of old fort of stones rudely put together, which they thought
might be useful to them, in case they should be forced to retreat.
Such was their disposition.
The advanced post thus attacked by the Athenians was at once put
to the sword, the men being scarcely out of bed and still arming,
the landing having taken them by surprise, as they fancied the ships
were only sailing as usual to their stations for the night. As soon as
day broke, the rest of the army landed, that is to say, all the
crews of rather more than seventy ships, except the lowest rank of
oars, with the arms they carried, eight hundred archers, and as many
targeteers, the Messenian reinforcements, and all the other troops
on duty round Pylos, except the garrison on the fort. The tactics of
Demosthenes had divided them into companies of two hundred, more or
less, and made them occupy the highest points in order to paralyse the
enemy by surrounding him on every side and thus leaving him without
any tangible adversary, exposed to the cross-fire of their host; plied
by those in his rear if he attacked in front, and by those on one
flank if he moved against those on the other. In short, wherever he
went he would have the assailants behind him, and these light-armed
assailants, the most awkward of all; arrows, darts, stones, and slings
making them formidable at a distance, and there being no means of
getting at them at close quarters, as they could conquer flying, and
the moment their pursuer turned they were upon him. Such was the
idea that inspired Demosthenes in his conception of the descent, and
presided over its execution.
Meanwhile the main body of the troops in the island (that under
Epitadas), seeing their outpost cut off and an army advancing
against them, serried their ranks and pressed forward to close with
the Athenian heavy infantry in front of them, the light troops being
upon their flanks and rear. However, they were not able to engage or
to profit by their superior skill, the light troops keeping them in
check on either side with their missiles, and the heavy infantry
remaining stationary instead of advancing to meet them; and although
they routed the light troops wherever they ran up and approached too
closely, yet they retreated fighting, being lightly equipped, and
easily getting the start in their flight, from the difficult and
rugged nature of the ground, in an island hitherto desert, over
which the Lacedaemonians could not pursue them with their heavy
armour.
After this skirmishing had lasted some little while, the
Lacedaemonians became unable to dash out with the same rapidity as
before upon the points attacked, and the light troops finding that
they now fought with less vigour, became more confident. They could
see with their own eyes that they were many times more numerous than
the enemy; they were now more familiar with his aspect and found him
less terrible, the result not having justified the apprehensions which
they had suffered, when they first landed in slavish dismay at the
idea of attacking Lacedaemonians; and accordingly their fear
changing to disdain, they now rushed all together with loud shouts
upon them, and pelted them with stones, darts, and arrows, whichever
came first to hand. The shouting accompanying their onset confounded
the Lacedaemonians, unaccustomed to this mode of fighting; dust rose
from the newly burnt wood, and it was impossible to see in front of
one with the arrows and stones flying through clouds of dust from
the hands of numerous assailants. The Lacedaemonians had now to
sustain a rude conflict; their caps would not keep out the arrows,
darts had broken off in the armour of the wounded, while they
themselves were helpless for offence, being prevented from using their
eyes to see what was before them, and unable to hear the words of
command for the hubbub raised by the enemy; danger encompassed them on
every side, and there was no hope of any means of defence or safety.
At last, after many had been already wounded in the confined space
in which they were fighting, they formed in close order and retired on
the fort at the end of the island, which was not far off, and to their
friends who held it. The moment they gave way, the light troops became
bolder and pressed upon them, shouting louder than ever, and killed as
many as they came up with in their retreat, but most of the
Lacedaemonians made good their escape to the fort, and with the
garrison in it ranged themselves all along its whole extent to repulse
the enemy wherever it was assailable. The Athenians pursuing, unable
to surround and hem them in, owing to the strength of the ground,
attacked them in front and tried to storm the position. For a long
time, indeed for most of the day, both sides held out against all
the torments of the battle, thirst, and sun, the one endeavouring to
drive the enemy from the high ground, the other to maintain himself
upon it, it being now more easy for the Lacedaemonians to defend
themselves than before, as they could not be surrounded on the flanks.
The struggle began to seem endless, when the commander of the
Messenians came to Cleon and Demosthenes, and told them that they were
losing their labour: but if they would give him some archers and light
troops to go round on the enemy’s rear by a way he would undertake
to find, he thought he could force the approach. Upon receiving what
he asked for, he started from a point out of sight in order not to
be seen by the enemy, and creeping on wherever the precipices of the
island permitted, and where the Lacedaemonians, trusting to the
strength of the ground, kept no guard, succeeded after the greatest
difficulty in getting round without their seeing him, and suddenly
appeared on the high ground in their rear, to the dismay of the
surprised enemy and the still greater joy of his expectant friends.
Comments (0)