History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗
- Author: Thucydides
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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
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 reformed 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,
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