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

CHAPTER XXIII

_Nineteenth Year of the War - Battles in the Great Harbour -

Retreat and Annihilation of the Athenian Army_

 

While the Athenians lingered on in this way without moving from

where they were, Gylippus and Sicanus now arrived at Syracuse. Sicanus

had failed to gain Agrigentum, the party friendly to the Syracusans

having been driven out while he was still at Gela; but Gylippus was

accompanied not only by a large number of troops raised in Sicily, but

by the heavy infantry sent off in the spring from Peloponnese in the

merchantmen, who had arrived at Selinus from Libya. They had been

carried to Libya by a storm, and having obtained two galleys and

pilots from the Cyrenians, on their voyage alongshore had taken

sides with the Euesperitae and had defeated the Libyans who were

besieging them, and from thence coasting on to Neapolis, a

Carthaginian mart, and the nearest point to Sicily, from which it is

only two days’ and a night’s voyage, there crossed over and came to

Selinus. Immediately upon their arrival the Syracusans prepared to

attack the Athenians again by land and sea at once. The Athenian

generals seeing a fresh army come to the aid of the enemy, and that

their own circumstances, far from improving, were becoming daily

worse, and above all distressed by the sickness of the soldiers, now

began to repent of not having removed before; and Nicias no longer

offering the same opposition, except by urging that there should be no

open voting, they gave orders as secretly as possible for all to be

prepared to sail out from the camp at a given signal. All was at

last ready, and they were on the point of sailing away, when an

eclipse of the moon, which was then at the full, took place. Most of

the Athenians, deeply impressed by this occurrence, now urged the

generals to wait; and Nicias, who was somewhat over-addicted to

divination and practices of that kind, refused from that moment even

to take the question of departure into consideration, until they had

waited the thrice nine days prescribed by the soothsayers.

 

The besiegers were thus condemned to stay in the country; and the

Syracusans, getting wind of what had happened, became more eager

than ever to press the Athenians, who had now themselves

acknowledged that they were no longer their superiors either by sea or

by land, as otherwise they would never have planned to sail away.

Besides which the Syracusans did not wish them to settle in any

other part of Sicily, where they would be more difficult to deal with,

but desired to force them to fight at sea as quickly as possible, in a

position favourable to themselves. Accordingly they manned their ships

and practised for as many days as they thought sufficient. When the

moment arrived they assaulted on the first day the Athenian lines, and

upon a small force of heavy infantry and horse sallying out against

them by certain gates, cut off some of the former and routed and

pursued them to the lines, where, as the entrance was narrow, the

Athenians lost seventy horses and some few of the heavy infantry.

 

Drawing off their troops for this day, on the next the Syracusans

went out with a fleet of seventy-six sail, and at the same time

advanced with their land forces against the lines. The Athenians put

out to meet them with eighty-six ships, came to close quarters, and

engaged. The Syracusans and their allies first defeated the Athenian

centre, and then caught Eurymedon, the commander of the right wing,

who was sailing out from the line more towards the land in order to

surround the enemy, in the hollow and recess of the harbour, and

killed him and destroyed the ships accompanying him; after which

they now chased the whole Athenian fleet before them and drove them

ashore.

 

Gylippus seeing the enemy’s fleet defeated and carried ashore beyond

their stockades and camp, ran down to the breakwater with some of

his troops, in order to cut off the men as they landed and make it

easier for the Syracusans to tow off the vessels by the shore being

friendly ground. The Tyrrhenians who guarded this point for the

Athenians, seeing them come on in disorder, advanced out against

them and attacked and routed their van, hurling it into the marsh of

Lysimeleia. Afterwards the Syracusan and allied troops arrived in

greater numbers, and the Athenians fearing for their ships came up

also to the rescue and engaged them, and defeated and pursued them

to some distance and killed a few of their heavy infantry. They

succeeded in rescuing most of their ships and brought them down by

their camp; eighteen however were taken by the Syracusans and their

allies, and all the men killed. The rest the enemy tried to burn by

means of an old merchantman which they filled with faggots and

pine-wood, set on fire, and let drift down the wind which blew full on

the Athenians. The Athenians, however, alarmed for their ships,

contrived means for stopping it and putting it out, and checking the

flames and the nearer approach of the merchantman, thus escaped the

danger.

 

After this the Syracusans set up a trophy for the sea-fight and

for the heavy infantry whom they had cut off up at the lines, where

they took the horses; and the Athenians for the rout of the foot

driven by the Tyrrhenians into the marsh, and for their own victory

with the rest of the army.

 

The Syracusans had now gained a decisive victory at sea, where until

now they had feared the reinforcement brought by Demosthenes, and

deep, in consequence, was the despondency of the Athenians, and

great their disappointment, and greater still their regret for

having come on the expedition. These were the only cities that they

had yet encountered, similar to their own in character, under

democracies like themselves, which had ships and horses, and were of

considerable magnitude. They had been unable to divide and bring

them over by holding out the prospect of changes in their governments,

or to crush them by their great superiority in force, but had failed

in most of their attempts, and being already in perplexity, had now

been defeated at sea, where defeat could never have been expected, and

were thus plunged deeper in embarrassment than ever.

 

Meanwhile the Syracusans immediately began to sail freely along

the harbour, and determined to close up its mouth, so that the

Athenians might not be able to steal out in future, even if they

wished. Indeed, the Syracusans no longer thought only of saving

themselves, but also how to hinder the escape of the enemy;

thinking, and thinking rightly, that they were now much the

stronger, and that to conquer the Athenians and their allies by land

and sea would win them great glory in Hellas. The rest of the Hellenes

would thus immediately be either freed or released from

apprehension, as the remaining forces of Athens would be henceforth

unable to sustain the war that would be waged against her; while they,

the Syracusans, would be regarded as the authors of this

deliverance, and would be held in high admiration, not only with all

men now living but also with posterity. Nor were these the only

considerations that gave dignity to the struggle. They would thus

conquer not only the Athenians but also their numerous allies, and

conquer not alone, but with their companions in arms, commanding

side by side with the Corinthians and Lacedaemonians, having offered

their city to stand in the van of danger, and having been in a great

measure the pioneers of naval success.

 

Indeed, there were never so many peoples assembled before a single

city, if we except the grand total gathered together in this war under

Athens and Lacedaemon. The following were the states on either side

who came to Syracuse to fight for or against Sicily, to help to

conquer or defend the island. Right or community of blood was not

the bond of union between them, so much as interest or compulsion as

the case might be. The Athenians themselves being Ionians went against

the Dorians of Syracuse of their own free will; and the peoples

still speaking Attic and using the Athenian laws, the Lemnians,

Imbrians, and Aeginetans, that is to say the then occupants of Aegina,

being their colonists, went with them. To these must be also added the

Hestiaeans dwelling at Hestiaea in Euboea. Of the rest some joined

in the expedition as subjects of the Athenians, others as

independent allies, others as mercenaries. To the number of the

subjects paying tribute belonged the Eretrians, Chalcidians, Styrians,

and Carystians from Euboea; the Ceans, Andrians, and Tenians from

the islands; and the Milesians, Samians, and Chians from Ionia. The

Chians, however, joined as independent allies, paying no tribute,

but furnishing ships. Most of these were Ionians and descended from

the Athenians, except the Carystians, who are Dryopes, and although

subjects and obliged to serve, were still Ionians fighting against

Dorians. Besides these there were men of Aeolic race, the Methymnians,

subjects who provided ships, not tribute, and the Tenedians and

Aenians who paid tribute. These Aeolians fought against their

Aeolian founders, the Boeotians in the Syracusan army, because they

were obliged, while the Plataeans, the only native Boeotians opposed

to Boeotians, did so upon a just quarrel. Of the Rhodians and

Cytherians, both Dorians, the latter, Lacedaemonian colonists,

fought in the Athenian ranks against their Lacedaemonian countrymen

with Gylippus; while the Rhodians, Argives by race, were compelled

to bear arms against the Dorian Syracusans and their own colonists,

the Geloans, serving with the Syracusans. Of the islanders round

Peloponnese, the Cephallenians and Zacynthians accompanied the

Athenians as independent allies, although their insular position

really left them little choice in the matter, owing to the maritime

supremacy of Athens, while the Corcyraeans, who were not only

Dorians but Corinthians, were openly serving against Corinthians and

Syracusans, although colonists of the former and of the same race as

the latter, under colour of compulsion, but really out of free will

through hatred of Corinth. The