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

>they had not at first believed in their superiority, the unexpected

shock to their pride causing them to give way more than their real

strength warrants; and this is probably now the case with the

Athenians.

 

“With us it is different. The original estimate of ourselves which

gave us courage in the days of our unskilfulness has been

strengthened, while the conviction superadded to it that we must be

the best seamen of the time, if we have conquered the best, has

given a double measure of hope to every man among us; and, for the

most part, where there is the greatest hope, there is also the

greatest ardour for action. The means to combat us which they have

tried to find in copying our armament are familiar to our warfare, and

will be met by proper provisions; while they will never be able to

have a number of heavy infantry on their decks, contrary to their

custom, and a number of darters (born landsmen, one may say,

Acarnanians and others, embarked afloat, who will not know how to

discharge their weapons when they have to keep still), without

hampering their vessels and falling all into confusion among

themselves through fighting not according to their own tactics. For

they will gain nothing by the number of their ships—I say this to

those of you who may be alarmed by having to fight against odds—as a

quantity of ships in a confined space will only be slower in executing

the movements required, and most exposed to injury from our means of

offence. Indeed, if you would know the plain truth, as we are credibly

informed, the excess of their sufferings and the necessities of

their present distress have made them desperate; they have no

confidence in their force, but wish to try their fortune in the only

way they can, and either to force their passage and sail out, or after

this to retreat by land, it being impossible for them to be worse

off than they are.

 

“The fortune of our greatest enemies having thus betrayed itself,

and their disorder being what I have described, let us engage in

anger, convinced that, as between adversaries, nothing is more

legitimate than to claim to sate the whole wrath of one’s soul in

punishing the aggressor, and nothing more sweet, as the proverb has

it, than the vengeance upon an enemy, which it will now be ours to

take. That enemies they are and mortal enemies you all know, since

they came here to enslave our country, and if successful had in

reserve for our men all that is most dreadful, and for our children

and wives all that is most dishonourable, and for the whole city the

name which conveys the greatest reproach. None should therefore relent

or think it gain if they go away without further danger to us. This

they will do just the same, even if they get the victory; while if

we succeed, as we may expect, in chastising them, and in handing

down to all Sicily her ancient freedom strengthened and confirmed,

we shall have achieved no mean triumph. And the rarest dangers are

those in which failure brings little loss and success the greatest

advantage.”

 

After the above address to the soldiers on their side, the Syracusan

generals and Gylippus now perceived that the Athenians were manning

their ships, and immediately proceeded to man their own also.

Meanwhile Nicias, appalled by the position of affairs, realizing the

greatness and the nearness of the danger now that they were on the

point of putting out from shore, and thinking, as men are apt to think

in great crises, that when all has been done they have still something

left to do, and when all has been said that they have not yet said

enough, again called on the captains one by one, addressing each by

his father’s name and by his own, and by that of his tribe, and

adjured them not to belie their own personal renown, or to obscure the

hereditary virtues for which their ancestors were illustrious: he

reminded them of their country, the freest of the free, and of the

unfettered discretion allowed in it to all to live as they pleased;

and added other arguments such as men would use at such a crisis,

and which, with little alteration, are made to serve on all

occasions alike—appeals to wives, children, and national

gods—without caring whether they are thought commonplace, but loudly

invoking them in the belief that they will be of use in the

consternation of the moment. Having thus admonished them, not, he

felt, as he would, but as he could, Nicias withdrew and led the troops

to the sea, and ranged them in as long a line as he was able, in order

to aid as far as possible in sustaining the courage of the men afloat;

while Demosthenes, Menander, and Euthydemus, who took the command on

board, put out from their own camp and sailed straight to the

barrier across the mouth of the harbour and to the passage left

open, to try to force their way out.

 

The Syracusans and their allies had already put out with about the

same number of ships as before, a part of which kept guard at the

outlet, and the remainder all round the rest of the harbour, in

order to attack the Athenians on all sides at once; while the land

forces held themselves in readiness at the points at which the vessels

might put into the shore. The Syracusan fleet was commanded by Sicanus

and Agatharchus, who had each a wing of the whole force, with Pythen

and the Corinthians in the centre. When the rest of the Athenians came

up to the barrier, with the first shock of their charge they

overpowered the ships stationed there, and tried to undo the

fastenings; after this, as the Syracusans and allies bore down upon

them from all quarters, the action spread from the barrier over the

whole harbour, and was more obstinately disputed than any of the

preceding ones. On either side the rowers showed great zeal in

bringing up their vessels at the boatswains’ orders, and the

helmsmen great skill in manoeuvring, and great emulation one with

another; while the ships once alongside, the soldiers on board did

their best not to let the service on deck be outdone by the others; in

short, every man strove to prove himself the first in his particular

department. And as many ships were engaged in a small compass (for

these were the largest fleets fighting in the narrowest space ever

known, being together little short of two hundred), the regular

attacks with the beak were few, there being no opportunity of

backing water or of breaking the line; while the collisions caused

by one ship chancing to run foul of another, either in flying from

or attacking a third, were more frequent. So long as a vessel was

coming up to the charge the men on the decks rained darts and arrows

and stones upon her; but once alongside, the heavy infantry tried to

board each other’s vessel, fighting hand to hand. In many quarters

it happened, by reason of the narrow room, that a vessel was

charging an enemy on one side and being charged herself on another,

and that two or sometimes more ships had perforce got entangled

round one, obliging the helmsmen to attend to defence here, offence

there, not to one thing at once, but to many on all sides; while the

huge din caused by the number of ships crashing together not only

spread terror, but made the orders of the boatswains inaudible. The

boatswains on either side in the discharge of their duty and in the

heat of the conflict shouted incessantly orders and appeals to their

men; the Athenians they urged to force the passage out, and now if

ever to show their mettle and lay hold of a safe return to their

country; to the Syracusans and their allies they cried that it would

be glorious to prevent the escape of the enemy, and, conquering, to

exalt the countries that were theirs. The generals, moreover, on

either side, if they saw any in any part of the battle backing

ashore without being forced to do so, called out to the captain by

name and asked him—the Athenians, whether they were retreating

because they thought the thrice hostile shore more their own than

that sea which had cost them so much labour to win; the Syracusans,

whether they were flying from the flying Athenians, whom they well

knew to be eager to escape in whatever way they could.

 

Meanwhile the two armies on shore, while victory hung in the

balance, were a prey to the most agonizing and conflicting emotions;

the natives thirsting for more glory than they had already won,

while the invaders feared to find themselves in even worse plight than

before. The all of the Athenians being set upon their fleet, their

fear for the event was like nothing they had ever felt; while their

view of the struggle was necessarily as chequered as the battle

itself. Close to the scene of action and not all looking at the same

point at once, some saw their friends victorious and took courage

and fell to calling upon heaven not to deprive them of salvation,

while others who had their eyes turned upon the losers, wailed and

cried aloud, and, although spectators, were more overcome than the

actual combatants. Others, again, were gazing at some spot where the

battle was evenly disputed; as the strife was protracted without

decision, their swaying bodies reflected the agitation of their minds,

and they suffered the worst agony of all, ever just within reach of

safety or just on the point of destruction. In short, in that one

Athenian army as long as the sea-fight remained doubtful there was

every sound to be heard at once, shrieks, cheers, “We win,” “We lose,”

and all the other manifold exclamations that a great host would

necessarily utter in great peril; and with the men in the fleet it was

nearly the same; until at last the Syracusans and their allies,

after the battle had lasted a long while, put the Athenians to flight,

and with much shouting and cheering chased them in open rout to the

shore. The naval force, one one way, one another, as many as were

not taken afloat now ran ashore and rushed from on board their ships

to their camp; while the army, no more divided, but carried away by

one impulse, all with shrieks and groans deplored the event, and ran

down, some to help the ships, others to guard what was left of their

wall, while the remaining and most numerous part already began to

consider how they should save themselves. Indeed, the panic of the

present moment had never been surpassed. They now suffered very nearly

what they had inflicted at Pylos; as then the Lacedaemonians with

the loss of their fleet lost also the men who had crossed over to

the island, so now the Athenians had no hope of escaping by land,

without the help of some extraordinary accident.

 

The sea-fight having been a severe one, and many ships and lives

having been lost on both sides, the victorious Syracusans and their

allies now picked up their wrecks and dead, and sailed off to the city

and set up a trophy. The Athenians, overwhelmed by their misfortune,

never even thought of asking leave to take up their dead or wrecks,

but wished to retreat that very night. Demosthenes, however, went to

Nicias and gave it as his opinion that they should man the ships

they had left and make another effort to force their passage out

next morning; saying that they had still left more ships fit for

service than the enemy,