History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

a Corinthian, having eluded the Athenian ships on

guard, and helped the Syracusans in completing the remainder of the

cross wall. Meanwhile Gylippus went into the rest of Sicily to raise

land and naval forces, and also to bring over any of the cities that

either were lukewarm in the cause or had hitherto kept out of the

war altogether. Syracusan and Corinthian envoys were also dispatched

to Lacedaemon and Corinth to get a fresh force sent over, in any way

that might offer, either in merchant vessels or transports, or in

any other manner likely to prove successful, as the Athenians too were

sending for reinforcements; while the Syracusans proceeded to man a

fleet and to exercise, meaning to try their fortune in this way

also, and generally became exceedingly confident.

 

Nicias perceiving this, and seeing the strength of the enemy and his

own difficulties daily increasing, himself also sent to Athens. He had

before sent frequent reports of events as they occurred, and felt it

especially incumbent upon him to do so now, as he thought that they

were in a critical position, and that, unless speedily recalled or

strongly reinforced from home, they had no hope of safety. He

feared, however, that the messengers, either through inability to

speak, or through failure of memory, or from a wish to please the

multitude, might not report the truth, and so thought it best to write

a letter, to ensure that the Athenians should know his own opinion

without its being lost in transmission, and be able to decide upon the

real facts of the case.

 

His emissaries, accordingly, departed with the letter and the

requisite verbal instructions; and he attended to the affairs of the

army, making it his aim now to keep on the defensive and to avoid

any unnecessary danger.

 

At the close of the same summer the Athenian general Euetion marched

in concert with Perdiccas with a large body of Thracians against

Amphipolis, and failing to take it brought some galleys round into the

Strymon, and blockaded the town from the river, having his base at

Himeraeum.

 

Summer was now over. The winter ensuing, the persons sent by Nicias,

reaching Athens, gave the verbal messages which had been entrusted

to them, and answered any questions that were asked them, and

delivered the letter. The clerk of the city now came forward and

read out to the Athenians the letter, which was as follows:

 

“Our past operations, Athenians, have been made known to you by many

other letters; it is now time for you to become equally familiar

with our present condition, and to take your measures accordingly.

We had defeated in most of our engagements with them the Syracusans,

against whom we were sent, and we had built the works which we now

occupy, when Gylippus arrived from Lacedaemon with an army obtained

from Peloponnese and from some of the cities in Sicily. In our first

battle with him we were victorious; in the battle on the following day

we were overpowered by a multitude of cavalry and darters, and

compelled to retire within our lines. We have now, therefore, been

forced by the numbers of those opposed to us to discontinue the work

of circumvallation, and to remain inactive; being unable to make use

even of all the force we have, since a large portion of our heavy

infantry is absorbed in the defence of our lines. Meanwhile the

enemy have carried a single wall past our lines, thus making it

impossible for us to invest them in future, until this cross wall be

attacked by a strong force and captured. So that the besieger in

name has become, at least from the land side, the besieged in reality;

as we are prevented by their cavalry from even going for any

distance into the country.

 

“Besides this, an embassy has been dispatched to Peloponnese to

procure reinforcements, and Gylippus has gone to the cities in Sicily,

partly in the hope of inducing those that are at present neutral to

join him in the war, partly of bringing from his allies additional

contingents for the land forces and material for the navy. For I

understand that they contemplate a combined attack, upon our lines

with their land forces and with their fleet by sea. You must none of

you be surprised that I say by sea also. They have discovered that the

length of the time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships

and wasted our crews, and that with the entireness of our crews and

the soundness of our ships the pristine efficiency of our navy has

departed. For it is impossible for us to haul our ships ashore and

careen them, because, the enemy’s vessels being as many or more than

our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack. Indeed, they may be

seen exercising, and it lies with them to take the initiative; and not

having to maintain a blockade, they have greater facilities for drying

their ships.

 

“This we should scarcely be able to do, even if we had plenty of

ships to spare, and were freed from our present necessity of

exhausting all our strength upon the blockade. For it is already

difficult to carry in supplies past Syracuse; and were we to relax our

vigilance in the slightest degree it would become impossible. The

losses which our crews have suffered and still continue to suffer

arise from the following causes. Expeditions for fuel and for

forage, and the distance from which water has to be fetched, cause our

sailors to be cut off by the Syracusan cavalry; the loss of our

previous superiority emboldens our slaves to desert; our foreign

seamen are impressed by the unexpected appearance of a navy against

us, and the strength of the enemy’s resistance; such of them as were

pressed into the service take the first opportunity of departing to

their respective cities; such as were originally seduced by the

temptation of high pay, and expected little fighting and large

gains, leave us either by desertion to the enemy or by availing

themselves of one or other of the various facilities of escape which

the magnitude of Sicily affords them. Some even engage in trade

themselves and prevail upon the captains to take Hyccaric slaves on

board in their place; thus they have ruined the efficiency of our

navy.

 

“Now I need not remind you that the time during which a crew is in

its prime is short, and that the number of sailors who can start a

ship on her way and keep the rowing in time is small. But by far my

greatest trouble is, that holding the post which I do, I am

prevented by the natural indocility of the Athenian seaman from

putting a stop to these evils; and that meanwhile we have no source

from which to recruit our crews, which the enemy can do from many

quarters, but are compelled to depend both for supplying the crews

in service and for making good our losses upon the men whom we brought

with us. For our present confederates, Naxos and Catana, are incapable

of supplying us. There is only one thing more wanting to our

opponents, I mean the defection of our Italian markets. If they were

to see you neglect to relieve us from our present condition, and

were to go over to the enemy, famine would compel us to evacuate,

and Syracuse would finish the war without a blow.

 

“I might, it is true, have written to you something different and

more agreeable than this, but nothing certainly more useful, if it

is desirable for you to know the real state of things here before

taking your measures. Besides I know that it is your nature to love to

be told the best side of things, and then to blame the teller if the

expectations which he has raised in your minds are not answered by the

result; and I therefore thought it safest to declare to you the truth.

 

“Now you are not to think that either your generals or your soldiers

have ceased to be a match for the forces originally opposed to them.

But you are to reflect that a general Sicilian coalition is being

formed against us; that a fresh army is expected from Peloponnese,

while the force we have here is unable to cope even with our present

antagonists; and you must promptly decide either to recall us or to

send out to us another fleet and army as numerous again, with a

large sum of money, and someone to succeed me, as a disease in the

kidneys unfits me for retaining my post. I have, I think, some claim

on your indulgence, as while I was in my prime I did you much good

service in my commands. But whatever you mean to do, do it at the

commencement of spring and without delay, as the enemy will obtain his

Sicilian reinforcements shortly, those from Peloponnese after a longer

interval; and unless you attend to the matter the former will be

here before you, while the latter will elude you as they have done

before.”

 

Such were the contents of Nicias’s letter. When the Athenians had

heard it they refused to accept his resignation, but chose him two

colleagues, naming Menander and Euthydemus, two of the officers at the

seat of war, to fill their places until their arrival, that Nicias

might not be left alone in his sickness to bear the whole weight of

affairs. They also voted to send out another army and navy, drawn

partly from the Athenians on the muster-roll, partly from the

allies. The colleagues chosen for Nicias were Demosthenes, son of

Alcisthenes, and Eurymedon, son of Thucles. Eurymedon was sent off

at once, about the time of the winter solstice, with ten ships, a

hundred and twenty talents of silver, and instructions to tell the

army that reinforcements would arrive, and that care would be taken of

them; but Demosthenes stayed behind to organize the expedition,

meaning to start as soon as it was spring, and sent for troops to

the allies, and meanwhile got together money, ships, and heavy

infantry at home.

 

The Athenians also sent twenty vessels round Peloponnese to

prevent any one crossing over to Sicily from Corinth or Peloponnese.

For the Corinthians, filled with confidence by the favourable

alteration in Sicilian affairs which had been reported by the envoys

upon their arrival, and convinced that the fleet which they had before

sent out had not been without its use, were now preparing to

dispatch a force of heavy infantry in merchant vessels to Sicily,

while the Lacedaemonians did the like for the rest of Peloponnese. The

Corinthians also manned a fleet of twenty-five vessels, intending to

try the result of a battle with the squadron on guard at Naupactus,

and meanwhile to make it less easy for the Athenians there to hinder

the departure of their merchantmen, by obliging them to keep an eye

upon the galleys thus arrayed against them.

 

In the meantime the Lacedaemonians prepared for their invasion of

Attica, in accordance with their own previous resolve, and at the

instigation of the Syracusans and Corinthians, who wished for an

invasion to arrest the reinforcements which they heard that Athens was

about to send to Sicily. Alcibiades also urgently advised the

fortification of Decelea, and a vigorous prosecution of the war. But

the Lacedaemonians derived most encouragement from the belief that

Athens, with two wars on her hands, against themselves and against the

Siceliots, would be more easy to subdue, and from the conviction

that she had been the first to infringe the truce. In the former

war, they considered, the offence had been more on their own side,

both on account of the entrance of the Thebans into Plataea in time of