XXXIII. THE FOURTH TO THE TENTH YEARS--AND PEACE…

XXXIII. THE FOURTH TO THE TENTH YEARS--AND PEACE

The fourth year of the war, 428 B.C., opened with the third invasion of Attica by Archidamus, but the Periclean policy of remaining within the walls was continued. Athens herself remaining impregnable, revolt broke out among her allies.[a]

One of the most remarkable events in the history of the Peloponnesian war is the revolt of Mytilene. The island of Lesbos contained five Æolian towns, which were indeed connected in a certain way, but were yet perfectly independent of one another; Mytilene, however, by the advantages of its position and by its excellent harbour, had risen far above the other four towns. The three smaller ones among them, Pyrrha, Eresus, and Antissa, had absolutely joined Mytilene, and were guided by it; but Methymna had not done so, and the relation in which the Lesbians stood to Athens was still very favourable: their contingent consisted in ships commanded by Lesbians, and they paid no tribute. But the fate of Samos had warned the few places standing in the same relation, Chios and Lesbos, and had rendered them suspicious of the intentions of the Athenians; and they feared lest the Athenians should treat them as they had treated the smaller islands, and should reduce them to the same state of dependence as Samos, by ordering them to deliver up their ships and pay tribute. But the more such places became aware of their importance, and the more they felt that by going over to the other side, they would cast a great weight into the scale, the more they naturally became inclined to revolt. Thus the Mytileneans were prepared for the step they took, and the revolt spread thence over the whole of Lesbos, with the exception of Methymna, which, as is always the case in confederations of states, from jealousy of Mytilene, sided with the Athenians, and directed their attention to the fact that treasonable plots were formed in Lesbos, and that a revolt was near at hand.

THE REVOLT OF MYTILENE

[Sidenote: [428-427 B.C.]]

At first the Athenians, with incredible carelessness, paid little attention to the information, a neglect which was the consequence of the strange anarchical condition of Athens, where the government had in reality no power. There was no magistracy to take the initiative, or to form a preliminary resolution or probuleuma in such cases. The people might indeed meet, and did meet every day, and any demagogue might propose a measure; but when this was not done, there was no authority on which it was incumbent to introduce such measures, and nothing was done. At Mytilene, on the other hand, although under the supremacy of Athens democracy everywhere gained the upper hand, there seems to have been a powerful aristocratic element, and the government must have been very strong. Everything was carefully and cautiously prepared, and was kept profoundly secret. The revolt was determined upon, and public opinion was in favour of it. But as they wished to proceed safely, and provide themselves sufficiently with arms and provisions, the undertaking was delayed, and the Athenians, who at first had neglected everything, at last fitted out an expedition which was to take Mytilene by surprise.

But on this occasion it became evident how injurious it was to Athens, down to the end of the war, that at such times of urgent necessity the government still continued to be as before, and that there had not been instituted a separate magistrate for war to take such measures in time. As all proceedings were public, and neither the preparations nor their object could be kept secret, all the plans were known to everybody, as they were discussed in the popular assembly. It was indeed resolved there to surprise Mytilene; but this decree was ludicrous, and its consequences might be foreseen.

A Mytilenean, who was staying at Athens, or some one else anxious to do them a service, on hearing of it, went to Eubœa, took a boat, and informed the Mytileneans of the danger that was threatening them. Had this not been done, the revolt would have been prevented, and that for the good of the Mytileneans themselves. The intention of the Athenians was to surprise the city during the celebration of a festival, which the Mytileneans solemnised at a considerable distance from their city, in conjunction with the other Lesbians. Knowing the design of the Athenians, they did not go out to the festival, and determined to raise the standard of revolt at once. They quickly applied to the Peloponnesians, with whom they had, no doubt, been already negotiating, and requested the Spartans to send them succour of some kind or another. The Spartans sent them a commander without a force, which was anything but what they would have liked. He undertook the command in the city, and exhorted them to be courageous and persevering. They were expected to undergo the hardships of famine for the sake of the Spartans, but the general did not bring them any additional strength to repel the Athenians. They had nothing but their own forces.

[Sidenote: [427 B.C.]]

The Athenian fleet now arrived and blockaded the city; after several little engagements the Mytileneans were reduced to extremities. Their envoys had at length prevailed upon the Peloponnesians to send them a motley fleet to relieve Mytilene. But it set sail with the usual slowness of the Spartans, and did not arrive until Mytilene, compelled by famine, had surrendered. Such was the care shown to save Mytilene! The long endurance of famine, shows how strongly the Mytileneans were bent upon escaping from the dominion of their enemies. How fearful it must have been, may be inferred from the fact, that in the end they preferred surrendering at discretion to an enraged enemy. The courage of the Mytileneans was like that of the Campanians in the Hannibalic War: they allowed themselves to be shut up like sheep in a fold, to be starved, and thus there remained nothing for them in the end, but to surrender. Many of those who had been most conspicuous, were taken prisoners by Paches, the Athenian general. The capitulation contained nothing else but a promise that the Athenian commander would not, on his own authority, order any one to be put to death, and that he would leave the decision to the people of Athens.

The war had already assumed the most fearful character: Alcidas, the Spartan admiral of the Peloponnesian fleet, which went to the relief of the Mytileneans, had, on his voyage, indulged in the most cruel piracy; he had captured all the ships he met with, without any regard as to what place they belonged to, and had thrown into the sea the crews of the allies and subjects of the Athenians, for whose deliverance the Spartans pretended to be anxious, as well as those of Athenian vessels. This barbarous mode of warfare was practised by the Spartans from the very beginning of the war. They not only captured the Athenian ships which sailed round Peloponnesus, but mutilated the crews, chopping off the hands of the sailors, and then drowned them.

This inhuman cruelty of the Spartans excited in the minds of the Athenians a desire to make reprisals; and thus it unfortunately became quite a natural feeling among the Athenians to devise inhuman vengeance upon the Mytileneans. They felt that Athens had given the Mytileneans no cause for revolt, that the alliance with them had been left unaltered as it had been before, and that if the Mytileneans had succeeded in joining the Spartans, they would have brought Athens into great danger, partly by their power, and partly by their example. It was, moreover, thought necessary to terrify Chios by a striking example, in order that the oligarchical party there might not attempt a similar undertaking. Those who did not see the necessity for such a measure, at least imagined that they saw it, for reasons of this kind are never anything else than an evil pretext. With all enticements of this description, the people were induced to despatch orders to the general Paches to avenge on the Mytileneans what the Spartans had done to the Athenians. He was to put to death all the men capable of bearing arms, and to sell women and children into slavery.

But the minds of the Athenians were too humane for such a design to be entertained by them for any length of time; and although it had been possible to carry out such a decree, through the existing confusion of ideas about morality, yet the better voice had not yet died away in their bosoms. The historian need not tell us that thousands could not close their eyes during the night in consequence of the terrible decree; and that through fear lest it should be carried into effect, they assembled early in the morning, even before sunrise. The morning after the day on which the decree had been passed, all the people met earlier than usual, and demanded of the prytanes once more to put the question to the vote, to see whether the decree should be carried into effect or not. This was done, and although the ferocious Cleon struggled with all fury to obtain the sanction of the first decree, yet humanity prevailed at this second voting.[b]

It is in this debate that Cleon first appears in the pages of Thucydides; he was opposed by Diodotus who, by calm logic rather than impassioned appeal, won the Athenians over to mercy. It is thus that Thucydides describes the escape of the Mytileneans:[a]

“And they immediately despatched another trireme with all speed, that they might not find the city destroyed through the previous arrival of the first; which had the start by a day and a night. The Mytilenean ambassadors having provided for the vessel wine and barley-cakes, and promising great rewards if they should arrive first, there was such haste in their course, that at the same time as they rowed they ate cakes kneaded with oil and wine; and some slept in turn while others rowed. And as there happened to be no wind against them, and the former vessel did not sail in any haste on so horrible a business, while this hurried on in the manner described; though the other arrived so much first that Paches had read the decree, and was on the point of executing the sentence, the second came to land after it, and prevented the butchery. Into such imminent peril did Mytilene come.

“The other party, whom Paches had sent off as the chief authors of the revolt, the Athenians put to death, according to the advice of Cleon, amounting to rather more than one thousand. They also dismantled the walls of the Mytileneans, and seized their ships.”[c]

It was resolved that only the leaders of the rebellion should be taken to account and conveyed to Athens, but that no harm should be done to the other Mytileneans. The Mytileneans were, of course, obliged to deliver up all their ships and arms; and their territory, with that of the other towns, except Methymna, made a cleruchia: that is, it was divided into equal lots, and given to Athenian citizens as fiefs. But this was, in point of fact, nothing else than the imposition of a permanent land-tax upon the former owners; for the Athenians let out their lots to the ancient proprietors for a small rent. The number of rebels who were carried to Athens and executed there, was, indeed, very great, sadly great; but they were real rebels, and their blood did not come upon the heads of the Athenians.

In the declamations of the sophists, we hear much of the evils of the Athenian democracy, of the misfortunes of the most distinguished men: and that of Paches is regarded as one of the most conspicuous cases. The people, it is said, were ungrateful towards Paches, the conqueror of Mytilene, who had, even before that conquest, distinguished himself as a general; and they now took him to account for the manner in which he had conducted the war; and he, in order to escape condemnation, made away with himself. This story is believed to have been related by the father of all sophists and declaimers, Isocrates, and is mentioned also by the sophists of later times, and by a Roman writer on military affairs. But the true account may be learnt from a poem of the Greek Anthology, where Paches is said to have abused his power in subduing the island: he dishonoured two noble ladies of Mytilene, who went to Athens to appeal to the sense of justice of the Athenian people.

On that occasion the Athenians showed their true humanity, for they forgot how dangerous enemies the Mytileneans had been to them, and notwithstanding the victory of Paches, they were inexorable towards him, and had he not put an end to his life, he would certainly have been condemned and handed over to the Eleven. Of this deed the friends of Athens need not be ashamed.

The conduct of the commander of the Spartan fleet, which appeared on the coast of Ionia, shows the Spartans in the same light in which they always appear, as immensely awkward and slow in all they undertook. It was in vain that the Corinthians and other enterprising people advised them to attack Mytilene, because the Athenians were in a newly-conquered city, and the appearance of a superior force of Peloponnesians would be sufficient to create a revolt in the city, and to crush the small force of the Athenians. But Alcidas, in torpid Spartan laziness, was immovable, and returned to Peloponnesus without undertaking or having effected anything, except that he received on board the suppliants who threw themselves into the sea, and carried on the most cruel piracy. The Spartans followed the principle of not punishing their generals, which was the very opposite to that of the Athenians, who often made their commanders responsible when fortune had been against them; and when they had neglected an opportunity, or been guilty of any crime, they never escaped unpunished.[b]

It was shortly after the fate of Mytilene was sealed, that Platæa fell into the power of ruthless Sparta, as described previously. The affair of Mytilene was followed by an internal war in the island of Corcyra. In describing this sedition Thucydides is unwontedly vivid and his final moralising upon the bloody event, as Grote says, “will ever remain memorable as the work of an analyst and a philosopher.”[a]

THUCYDIDES’ ACCOUNT OF THE REVOLT OF CORCYRA

Now the forty ships of the Peloponnesians which had gone to the relief of the Lesbians, (and which were flying, at the time we referred to them, across the open sea, and were pursued by the Athenians, and caught in a storm off Crete, and from that point had been dispersed,) on reaching the Peloponnese, found at Cyllene thirteen ships of the Leucadians and Ambracians, with Brasidas, son of Tellis, who had lately arrived as counsellor to Alcidas. For the Lacedæmonians wished, as they had failed in saving Lesbos, to make their fleet more numerous, and to sail to Corcyra, which was in a state of sedition; as the Athenians were stationed at Naupactus with only twelve ships; and in order that they might have the start of them, before any larger fleet reinforced them from Athens. So Brasidas and Alcidas proceeded to make preparations for these measures.

For the Corcyræans began their sedition on the return home of the prisoners taken in the sea-fights off Epidamnus, who had been sent back by the Corinthians, nominally on the security of eight hundred talents given for them by their proxeni, but in reality, because they had consented to bring over Corcyra to the Corinthians. These men then were intriguing, by visits to each of the citizens, to cause the revolt of the city from the Athenians. On the arrival of a ship from Athens and another from Corinth, with envoys on board, and on their meeting for a conference, the Corcyræans voted to continue allies of the Athenians according to their agreement, but to be on friendly terms with the Peloponnesians, as they had formerly been.

Now there was one Pithias, a volunteer proxenus of the Athenians, and the leader of the popular party; him these men brought to trial, on a charge of enslaving Corcyra to the Athenians. Having been acquitted, he brought to trial in return the five richest individuals of their party, charging them with cutting stakes in the ground sacred to Jupiter, and to the hero Alcinous; the penalty affixed being a stater for every stake. When they had been convicted, and, owing to the amount of the penalty, were sitting as suppliants in the temples, that they might be allowed to pay it by instalments, Pithias, who was a member of the council also, persuades that body to enforce the law. So when they were excluded from all hope by the severity of the law, and at the same time heard that Pithias was likely, while he was still in the council, to persuade the populace to hold as friends and foes the same as the Athenians did, they conspired together, and took daggers, and, having suddenly entered the council, assassinated Pithias and others, both counsellors and private persons, to the number of sixty. Some few, however, of the same party as Pithias, took refuge on board the Athenian trireme, which was still there.

Having perpetrated this deed, and summoned the Corcyræans to an assembly, they told them that this was the best thing for them, and that so they would be least in danger of being enslaved by the Athenians; and they moved, that in future they should receive neither party, except coming in a quiet manner with a single ship, but should consider a larger force as hostile. As they moved, so also they compelled them to adopt their motion. They likewise sent immediately ambassadors to Athens, to show, respecting what had been done, that it was for their best interests, and to prevail on the refugees there to adopt no measure prejudicial to them, that there might not be any reaction.

On their arrival, the Athenians arrested as revolutionists both the ambassadors and all who were persuaded by them, and lodged them in custody in Ægina. In the meantime, on the arrival of a Corinthian ship and some Lacedæmonian envoys, the dominant party of the Corcyræans attacked the commonalty, and defeated them in battle. When night came on, the commons took refuge in the citadel, and on the eminences in the city, and there established themselves in a body, having possession also of the Hyllaic harbour; while the other party occupied the market-place, where most of them dwelt, with the harbour adjoining it, looking towards the mainland.

The next day they had a few skirmishes, and both parties sent about into the country, inviting the slaves, and offering them freedom. The greater part of them joined the commons as allies; while the other party was reinforced by eight hundred auxiliaries from the continent.

After the interval of a day, a battle was again fought, and the commons gained the victory, having the advantage both in strength of position and in numbers: the women also boldly assisted them, throwing at the enemy with the tiling from the houses, and standing the brunt of the mêlée beyond what could have been expected from their nature. About twilight the rout of the oligarchical party was effected; and fearing that the commons might carry the arsenal at the first assault, and put them to the sword, they fired the houses round about the market-place, and the lodging-houses, to stop their advance, sparing neither their own nor other people’s; so that much property belonging to the merchants was consumed, and the whole city was in danger of being destroyed, if, in addition to the fire, there had been a wind blowing on it. After ceasing from the engagement, both sides remained quiet, and kept guard during the night. On victory declaring for the commons, the Corinthian ship stole out to sea; while the greater part of the auxiliaries passed over unobserved to the continent.

The day following, Nicostratus son of Diïtrephes, a general of the Athenians, came to their assistance from Naupactus with twelve ships and five hundred heavy-armed, and wished to negotiate a settlement, persuading them to agree with each other to bring to trial the ten chief authors of the sedition (who immediately fled), and for the rest to dwell in peace, having made an arrangement with each other, and with the Athenians, to have the same foes and friends. After effecting this he was going to sail away; but the leaders of the commons urged him to leave them five of his ships, that their adversaries might be less on the move; and they would themselves man and send with him an equal number of theirs. He consented to do so, and they proceeded to enlist their adversaries for the ships. They, fearing that they should be sent off to Athens, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of the Dioscuri; while Nicostratus was trying to persuade them to rise, and to encourage them. When he did not prevail on them, the commons, having armed themselves on this pretext, alleged that they had no good intentions, as was evident from their mistrust in not sailing with them; and removed their arms from their houses, and would have despatched some of them whom they met with, if Nicostratus had not prevented it. The rest, seeing what was going on, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of Juno, their number amounting to not less than four hundred. But the commons, being afraid of their making some new attempt, persuaded them to rise, and transferred them to the island in front of the temple, and provisions were sent over there for them.

When the sedition was at this point, on the fourth or fifth day after the transfer of the men to the island, the ships of the Peloponnesians, three-and-fifty in number, came up from Cyllene, having been stationed there since their return from Ionia. The commander of them, as before, was Alcidas, Brasidas sailing with him as counsellor. After coming to anchor at Sybota, a port on the mainland, as soon as it was morning they sailed towards Corcyra.

The Corcyræans, being in great confusion, and alarmed both at the state of things in the city and at the advance of the enemy, at once proceeded to equip sixty vessels, and to send them out, as they were successively manned, against the enemy; though the Athenians advised them to let them sail out first, and afterwards to follow themselves with all their ships together. On their vessels coming up to the enemy in this scattered manner, two immediately went over to them, while in others the crews were fighting amongst themselves, and there was no order in their measures. The Peloponnesians, seeing their confusion, drew up twenty of their ships against the Corcyræans, and the remainder against the twelve of the Athenians, amongst which were the two celebrated vessels, Salaminia and Paralus.

The Corcyræans, coming to the attack in bad order, and by few ships at a time, were distressed through their own arrangements; while the Athenians, fearing the enemy’s numbers and the chance of their surrounding them, did not attack their whole fleet, or even the centre of the division opposed to themselves, but took it in flank, and sank one ship. After this, when the Peloponnesians had formed in a circle, they began to sail round them, and endeavoured to throw them into confusion. The division which was opposed to the Corcyræans perceiving this, and fearing that the same thing might happen as had at Naupactus, advanced to their support. Thus the whole united fleet simultaneously attacked the Athenians, who now began to retire, rowing astern; at the same time wishing the vessels of the Corcyræans to retreat first, while they themselves drew off as leisurely as possible, and while the enemy were still ranged against them. The sea-fight then, having been of this character, ended at sunset.

The Corcyræans, fearing that the enemy, on the strength of his victory, might sail against the city, and either rescue the men in the island, or proceed to some other violent measures, carried the men over again to the sanctuary of Juno, and kept the city under guard. The Peloponnesians, however, though victorious in the engagement, did not dare to sail against the city, but withdrew with thirteen of the Corcyræan vessels to the continent, whence they had put out. The next day they advanced none the more against the city, though the inhabitants were in great confusion, and though Brasidas, it is said, advised Alcidas to do so, but was not equal to him in authority; but they landed on the promontory of Leucimne, and ravaged the country.

Meanwhile, the commons of the Corcyræans, being very much alarmed lest the fleet should sail against them, entered into negotiation with the suppliants and the rest for the preservation of the city. And some of them they persuaded to go on board the ships; for, notwithstanding the general dismay, they still manned thirty, in expectation of the enemy’s advance against them. But the Peloponnesians, after ravaging the land till mid-day, sailed away; and at nightfall the approach of sixty Athenian ships from Leucas was signalled to them, which the Athenians had sent with Eurymedon son of Thucles, as commander, on hearing of the sedition, and of the fleet about to go to Corcyra with Alcidas.

The Peloponnesians then immediately proceeded homeward by night with all haste, passing along shore; and having hauled their ships over the isthmus of Leucas, that they might not be seen doubling it, they sailed back. The Corcyræans, on learning the approach of the Athenian fleet and the retreat of the enemy, took and brought into the city the Messenians, who before had been without the walls: and having ordered the ships they had manned to sail round into the Hyllaic harbour, while they were going round, they put to death any of their opponents they might have happened to seize; and afterwards despatched, as they landed them from the ships, all that they had persuaded to go on board. They also went to the sanctuary of Juno, and persuaded about fifty men to take their trial, and condemned them all to death. The majority of the suppliants, who had not been prevailed on by them, when they saw what was being done, slew one another there on the sacred ground; while some hanged themselves on the trees, and others destroyed themselves as they severally could. During seven days that Eurymedon stayed after his arrival with his sixty ships, the Corcyræans were butchering those of their countrymen whom they thought hostile to them; bringing their accusations, indeed, against those only who were for putting down the democracy; but some were slain for private enmity also, and others for money owed them by those who had borrowed it. Every mode of death was thus had recourse to; and whatever ordinarily happens in such a state of things, happened then, and still more. For father murdered son, and they were dragged out of the sanctuaries, or slain in them; while in that of Bacchus some were walled up and perished. So savagely did the sedition proceed; while it appeared to do so all the more from its being amongst the earliest.[54]

For afterwards, even the whole of Greece, so to say, was convulsed; struggles being everywhere made by the popular leaders to call in the Athenians, by the oligarchical party, the Lacedæmonians. Now they would have had no pretext for calling them in, nor have been prepared to do so, in time of peace. But when pressed by war, and when an alliance also was maintained by both parties for the injury of their opponents and for their own gain therefrom, occasions of inviting them were easily supplied to such as wished to effect any revolution. And many dreadful things befell the cities through this sedition, which occur, and will always do so, as long as human nature is the same, but in a more violent or milder form, and varying in their phenomena, as the several variations of circumstances may in each case present themselves.

For in peace and prosperity both communities and individuals had better feelings, through not falling into urgent needs; whereas war, by taking away the free supply of daily wants, is a violent master, and assimilates most men’s tempers to their present condition. The states then were thus torn by sedition, and the later instances of it in any part, from having heard what had been done before, exhibited largely an excessive refinement of ideas, both in the eminent cunning of their plans, and the monstrous cruelty of their vengeance. The ordinary meaning of words was changed by them as they thought proper. For reckless daring was regarded as courage that was true to its friends; prudent delay, as specious cowardice; moderation, as a cloak for unmanliness; being intelligent in everything, as being useful for nothing. Frantic violence was assigned to the manly character; cautious plotting was considered a specious excuse for declining the contest.

The advocate for cruel measures was always trusted; while his opponent was suspected. He that plotted against another, if successful, was reckoned clever; he that suspected a plot, still cleverer; but he that forecasted for escaping the necessity of all such things, was regarded as one who broke up his party, and was afraid of his adversaries. In a word, the man was commended who anticipated one going to do an evil deed, or who persuaded to it one who had no thought of it. Moreover, kindred became a tie less close than party, because the latter was more ready for unscrupulous audacity. For such associations have nothing to do with any benefit from established laws, but are formed in opposition to those institutions by a spirit of rapacity. Again, their mutual grounds of confidence they confirmed not so much by any reference to the divine law as by fellowship in some act of lawlessness. The fair professions of their adversaries they received with a cautious eye to their actions, if they were stronger than themselves, and not with a spirit of generosity.

To be avenged on another was deemed of greater consequence than to escape being first injured oneself. As for oaths, if in any case exchanged with a view to a reconciliation, being taken by either party with regard to their immediate necessity, they only held good so long as they had no resources from any other quarter; but he that first, when occasion offered, took courage to break them, if he saw his enemy off his guard, wreaked his vengeance on him with greater pleasure for his confidence, than he would have done in an open manner; taking into account both the safety of the plan, and the fact that by taking a treacherous advantage of him he also won a prize for cleverness. And the majority of men, when dishonest, more easily get the name of talented, than, when simple, that of good; and of the one they are ashamed, while of the other they are proud. Now the cause of all these things was power pursued for the gratification of covetousness and ambition, and the consequent violence of parties when once engaged in contention.

For the leaders in the cities, having a specious profession on each side, put forward, respectively, the political equality of the people, or a moderate aristocracy, while in word they served the common interests, in truth they made them their prizes. And while struggling by every means to obtain an advantage over each other, they dared and carried out the most dreadful deeds; heaping on still greater vengeance, not only so far as was just and expedient for the state, but to the measure of what was pleasing to either party in each successive case: and whether by an unjust sentence of condemnation, or on gaining the ascendency by the strong hand, they were ready to glut the animosity they felt at the moment. Thus piety was in fashion with neither party; but those who had the luck to effect some odious purpose under fair pretences were the more highly spoken of. The neutrals amongst the citizens were destroyed by both parties; either because they did not join them in their quarrel, or for envy that they should so escape.

Thus every kind of villainy arose in Greece from these seditions. Simplicity, which is a very large ingredient in a noble nature, was laughed down and disappeared; and mutual opposition of feeling, with a want of confidence, prevailed to a great extent. For there was neither promise that could be depended on, nor oath that struck them with fear, to put an end to their strife; but all being in their calculations more strongly inclined to despair of anything proving trustworthy, they looked forward to their own escape from suffering more easily than they could place confidence in arrangements with others. And the men of more homely wit, generally speaking, had the advantage; for through fearing their own deficiency and the cleverness of their opponents, lest they might be worsted in words, and be first plotted against by means of the versatility of their enemy’s genius, they proceeded boldly to deeds. Whereas their opponents, arrogantly thinking that they should be aware beforehand, and that there was no need for their securing by action what they could by stratagem, were unguarded and more often ruined.

It was in Corcyra then that most of these things were first ventured on; both the deeds which men who were governed with a spirit of insolence, rather than of moderation, by those who afterwards afforded them an opportunity of vengeance, would do as the retaliating party; or which those who wished to rid themselves of their accustomed poverty, and passionately desired the possession of their neighbours’ goods, might unjustly resolve on; or which those who had begun the struggle, not from covetousness, but on a more equal footing, might savagely and ruthlessly proceed to, chiefly through being carried away by the rudeness of their anger. Thus the course of life being at that time thrown into confusion in the city, human nature, which is wont to do wrong even in spite of the laws, having then got the mastery of the law, gladly showed itself to be unrestrained in passion, above regard for justice, and an enemy to all superiority. They would not else have preferred vengeance to religion, and gain to innocence; in which state envy would have had no power to hurt them. And so men presume in their acts of vengeance to be the first to violate those common laws on such questions, from which all have a hope secured to them of being themselves rescued from misfortune; and they will not allow them to remain, in case of any one’s ever being in danger and in need of some of them.[c]

DEMOSTHENES AND SPHACTERIA

[Sidenote: [426-425 B.C.]]

These massacres at Corcyra, Mytilene, Platæa, and Melos were doubly disastrous; iniquity always striking back at its perpetrators, thus making two victims. Through such reversions to the barbarity of former days the sense of right, of justice will everywhere become enfeebled until it finally disappears.

As though nature herself had wished to take part in the general disorder, earthquakes visited Attica, Eubœa, and all of Bœotia, particularly Orchomenos. Pestilence had never made its appearance in the Peloponnesus: now for a year it raged among the Athenians with terrible mortality. Since its outbreak it had carried off forty-three hundred hoplites, three hundred horsemen, and innumerable victims among the general population. This was the last blow fate dealt the Athenians. To appease the god to whom all pollution was an offence, they caused the island of Apollo to be thoroughly purified as had already been done by the Pisistratidæ. Birth and death being alike forbidden at Delos, the remains of the dead buried there were exhumed and sent elsewhere, and the sick were transported to Rhenea, a neighbouring island. Finally, there were instituted in honour of Apollo games and horse-races which were to be celebrated every four years, the Greeks as well as the Romans thinking to gain thus the protection of a god, whom they caused to be represented by images at these festivals.

The Ionians, excluded from the Peloponnesian solemnities, flocked to those of Delos, where Nicias, at the first celebration, made himself remarkable for the magnificence of his gifts. In one night he caused to be constructed between Delos and Rhenea a bridge seven hundred metres long, carpeted and decorated with wreaths, across which was to pass the procession of the dead exiled in the name of religion from the holy island (425 B.C.).

It is a proof of the part taken by the people of Athens in the great things accomplished by Pericles, that in the four years passed without his enlightened counsel, they had displayed under the double scourge of plague and war that steadfastness he had particularly enjoined upon them: no disturbances took place in the city and no pettiness of spirit was shown in the choice of military chiefs. In vain Cleon thundered from the tribune. Into the hands of none but tried generals, were they noble, rich, or friends of peace, like Nicias and Demosthenes, was given the command of their armies. At Mytilene and Corcyra those who had placed their trust in Lacedæmon had perished; the destruction of Platæa was the only check received by Athens. She began to turn her gaze toward Sicily; soon she sent there twenty galleys to aid the Leontini against Syracuse. Her pretext was community of origin with the Leontini, but in reality she wished to prevent the exportation of Sicilian grain into the Peloponnesus.

Demosthenes was a true general, able and bold; to him war was a science made up of difficult combinations as well as courage. Leaving to his colleague, Nicias, the seas near Athens he set out for western waters, to destroy the influence of Corinth even in the gulf that bears his name. Aided by the Acarnanians he had the preceding year (426) vanquished in the land-battle of Olpæ, by force of superior tactics, the Peloponnesians, who lost so many men that the general had three hundred panoplies, his share of the plunder, consecrated in the temple at Athens. But this Acarnanian War, related at such length by Thucydides, could not have very serious results. An audacious enterprise by Demosthenes seemed, at one moment, to have brought it to a close. Struck, while navigating around the Peloponnesus, by the advantageous position of Pylos a promontory on the coast of Messene which commands the present harbour of Navarino, the best sea-port of the peninsula, left deserted by the Spartans since the Messenian War, the idea came to him that if he could occupy it with Messenians he would be “attaching a burning torch to the flank of the Peloponnesus.” He obtained from the people permission to act on this idea; but when the fleet which had set out for Corcyra and Italy arrived at Pylos, the generals commanding it shrank from the project and refused to execute it. The winds interposed in Demosthenes’ behalf, by driving the ships on to the coast and forcing the Athenians to land. Once on shore the soldiers, with that industry that characterised the Athenians, set to work to construct walls and fortifications, without either tools for cutting stone or hods for carrying mortar. At the end of six days the rampart was about finished and Demosthenes, with six galleys, took up his position on the point (425).

[Sidenote: [425 B.C.]]

Sparta was with reason alarmed at this move, the place chosen by Demosthenes at the west of the Peloponnesus, forming an excellent station for hostile fleets, and from Pylos the Athenians would be able to spread agitation through all Messene, perhaps even to incite the helots to fresh revolt. The Peloponnesian army was at once recalled from Attica where it had only arrived two weeks before, and also the fleet from Corcyra with the end in view of blockading Pylos by land and by sea. At the entrance to this harbour was an island fifteen stadia [not quite two miles] long called Sphacteria. The Lacedæmonians landed on this island a force of four hundred and twenty hoplites, and barred the channel on either side with vessels having their prows turned outward. Pylos had no other defence seaward than the difficulty of effecting a landing on her shores, but it was on this side that the attack began. It lasted two days and was unsuccessful. Brasidas, who had displayed great valour, was covered with wounds and lost his shield, which the waters carried over to the Athenians. There was still hope for the Lacedæmonians; but at this point forty Athenian galleys arriving from Zacynthus, assailed their fleet and after a furious combat drove their ships upon the land. Thus Sphacteria was surrounded by an armed circle that kept close guard about her night and day.

Sparta was thrown into consternation by the news of this defeat. Her population that in Lycurgus’ time numbered nine thousand was reduced in the year of the battle of Platæa to five thousand, which in another quarter of a century had dwindled to seven hundred; hence she could not support the loss of the men now held under siege by the Athenians. The ephors went in person to Pylos to examine the condition of affairs and saw no other way to preserve the lives of their fellow-citizens than to conclude an armistice with the Athenian generals. It was agreed that Laconia should send ambassadors to Athens, and that she should immediately surrender all the vessels, sixty galleys, that she had in the port of Pylos; Athens to continue the blockade of Sphacteria but allowing to pass in daily, two Attic phœnices of flour, two cotyles of wine, and a portion of meat per soldier, with half that allowance for the menials.

The Lacedæmonian deputies appeared in the assembly at Athens and, contrary to their usual custom, delivered a long discourse offering peace in exchange for the Spartan prisoners and adding that the treaty once made, all other cities would follow their example and lay down arms. Where now were all the causes of complaint held against Athens at the commencement of the war? The Spartans deserted their allies and the cause they had formerly held so just for the sake of some fellow-citizens in danger. But had they not also the preceding year betrayed the Ambracians after the defeat at Olpæ? Unfortunately Pericles was no longer there to urge upon the people a prudent generosity. Cleon exhorted the assembly to demand the restitution of the towns ceded when the Thirty Years’ Truce was concluded, and the deputies, unable to accept such terms, retired without having accomplished anything.

The armistice ceased with their return; but the Athenians, pretending the violation of certain conditions, refused to give up the Spartan vessels, which was an entirely gratuitous breach of faith since the ships were no longer of any use to the Spartans. Famine was the greatest danger the besieged had to fear; the island, thickly wooded as it was, offering peril to the enemy that would attempt to take it by force. Freedom was promised each helot who would carry provisions through the blockade, and many attempting and succeeding, the four hundred and twenty were enabled to hold out till the approach of winter.

The Athenians at Pylos had also to fear for themselves the difficulty of obtaining provisions through the severe season. The army already suffered, and this fact became known at Athens. Cleon, who had rejected the overtures of the Lacedæmonians, laid the blame on the generals. It was because of their lack of resolution, he said, that hostilities were so prolonged. In this he was right, the Athenians at Pylos numbering ten thousand men as against four hundred and twenty Spartans. Nicias, in a constant state of alarm, believed success even with their superior force impossible, and to silence the demagogue proposed to him to go himself to Sphacteria.

Cleon hesitated, but the impatient people took the general at his word, and Cleon was obliged to go; promising that in twenty days all trouble would be at an end. In truth this was time enough to effect his purpose when he once seriously set to work. He first prudently requested that Demosthenes co-operate with him, and was wise enough to take counsel of this able man at every step. Shortly after his arrival at Pylos a fire lighted on Sphacteria to cook food and imperfectly extinguished, was fanned by a violent wind into a blaze that destroyed the whole forest. This accident removed the principal obstacle in the way of an attack. Demosthenes made the preparations aided by Cleon, and one night they fell upon the island with their entire force. Having among their troops many that were lightly armed, they were able to reach the highest points and from there sorely harass the Lacedæmonians who were unused to the methods of attack of an enemy that uttered wild cries and fled as soon as they had struck. The ashes of the recently consumed forest rose into the air and blinded the besieged men, and unable longer to distinguish objects they stood motionless in one place and received from every side projectiles that their felt cuirasses were ill-fitted to turn aside. To render the combat a little less unequal they retired in a body to an elevated fort at the extremity of the island. This position gave them a decided advantage, and they were beginning to repulse their assailants when there appeared upon the rocks above them a corps of Messenians who had outflanked them.

They saw the necessity of surrendering, but named a condition: that they be allowed to consult with the Lacedæmonians who were stationed on the neighbouring coast. Their compatriots replied: “You are free to act as you think best provided you incur no dishonour.” At this they laid down their arms and surrendered; the course wherein dishonour formerly lay for Sparta apparently containing it no more. One hundred and twenty-eight were killed in the engagement: of the two hundred and ninety-two survivors one hundred and twenty belonged to the noblest families of Sparta. Some one praised in the hearing of one of the prisoners the courage of those of his companions who had been slain: “It would be impossible,” he said, “to esteem the darts too highly if they are capable of distinguishing a brave man from a coward.” This retort was, for a Spartan, very Athenian in spirit. The blockade had lasted fifty-two days.

His victory at Sphacteria raised Cleon high in the estimation of the people. A decree gave him the right to live in the Prytaneum at the cost of the republic, and to perpetuate the memory of his success a statue of Victory was erected on the Acropolis. Aristophanes in revenge presented six months later his comedy of the Knights, in which Cleon as the “Paphlagonian,” the slave who ingratiates himself with Demos for the purpose of robbing him, causes blows to rain upon the faithful servants Nicias and Demosthenes, and finally serves up to his master the cake of Pylos that Demosthenes alone has prepared. We will only say in conclusion that though all the honour of the affair may go to Demosthenes, Cleon manifested in it an energy that was not without effect; that even in the account of Thucydides he does not appear to have borne himself discreditably as captain or soldier; and lastly, that all that he promised he performed.

The balance of power was now disturbed, fortune leaned to the side of the Athenians. Nevertheless, while the Lacedæmonians were taking their land-forces economically over into Attica from Laconia, Athens was ruining herself by maintaining fleets in all the seas of Greece, recruiting at heavy cost the rowers to man them. Her annual expenses amounted to twenty-five hundred talents. In 425 the reserved funds amassed by Pericles being exhausted, it became necessary to increase both the tribute paid her by her allies and the tax laid upon the revenues of her citizens. One of these measures was to cause disaffection later, and the other, that which weighed upon the rich, was to give rise to plots against the popular government, germs of disaster that the future was to bring to fruition.

FURTHER ATHENIAN SUCCESSES

[Sidenote: [425-424 B.C.]]

The Athenians had as yet no forebodings, but applied rare vigour to the following up of their success. Nicias, at the head of a considerable armament, landed on the isthmus and defeated the Corinthians, then he proceeded to the capture of Methone between Trœzen and Epidaurus on the peninsula, and extending towards Ægina. A garrison was left behind a wall that closed the isthmus, and from this post which communicated by fire signals with Piræus the Athenians made frequent raids into Argolis (425). The following year Nicias took the island of Cythera which, situated near the southern coast of the Peloponnesus, offered great facility for making raids into that district and for waylaying ships bound there. It commanded, moreover, the seas of Crete and Sicily in both of which Athens had stationed fleets for the support of the cities at war with Syracuse.

After having ravaged Laconia for seven days with impunity, Nicias returned to Thyrea in Cynuria, where the Spartans had established the Æginetans. He took the city despite the proximity of a Lacedæmonian army which did not venture to aid it, and his prisoners were sent to Athens and there put to death. This new-born national greatness, if such a return to savagery can merit the name, increased constantly in power: the foe was a criminal meriting punishment and his defeat equivalent to a sentence of death. In just this period occurred a tragedy, the story of which we would refuse to receive were it not for Thucydides’ direct affirmation; the massacre of two thousand of the bravest helots for the sole purpose of weakening the corps and of frightening those of their companions to whom the success of Athens might have given the idea of revolt. Overwhelmed by so many reverses and fearful of seeing war established permanently around Laconia, at Pylos, Cythera, and Cynuria, the Spartans shrank from further action. Whatever step they took might lead them into error and having never learned the lessons of misfortune, they remained irresolute and timid. The Athenians, on the contrary, were full of confidence in their good fortune. The Greeks in Sicily having brought their wars to a close by a general reconciliation, the generals sent to that country by the Athenians allowed themselves to be included in the treaty. On their return the people condemned two of them to exile and one to a heavy fine, on the pretext that they had it in their power to subjugate Sicily but had been bought off by presents. The Athenian people believed themselves to be irresistible, and in the loftiness of their aspirations denied to any enterprise, whether practicable or not, the possibility of defeat. This was the forerunner of the fatal madness that seized them when Alcibiades planned the unfortunate expedition into Sicily.

Athens was thus taking everywhere the offensive, and Sparta, paralysed, had entirely ceased to act; she had recourse again to Darius, begging aid more insistently than ever, thus betraying the cause of all Greece and dimming the glory of their deeds at Thermopylæ. The Athenians intercepted the Persian Artaphernes in Thrace. In the letter this envoy bore, the king set forth that not being able to grasp the meaning of the Spartans--no two of their envoys delivering to him the same message--he had thought best in order to come to a clear understanding, to send them a deputy. Athens at once took steps to neutralise Sparta’s measures; perhaps even to supplant her in the favour of the Great King, and sent Artaphernes back honourably accompanied by ambassadors. From now on Greece was to witness the shameful spectacle offered by the descendants of the victors of Salamis and Platæa bowing down to the successors of Xerxes. At Ephesus the embassy learnt of the death of the Great King and went no further; but Athens had none the less been false, in intent if not in deed, to all the traditions of her past, and was to expiate her sin without delay.

A CHECK TO ATHENS; BRASIDAS BECOMES AGGRESSIVE

[Sidenote: [424 B.C.]]

Demosthenes’ able plan had succeeded; the Peloponnesus was encircled by hostile posts; there now remained but to shut off the isthmus and imprison the Spartans in their retreat. One way of doing this was to occupy Megara, but a still better method would be to obtain an alliance with Bœotia. The attempt on Megara having failed, Demosthenes turned his attention to Bœotia. He held secret communication with the inhabitants of Chæronea, who promised to deliver over the city to a body of Athenians who were to leave Naupactus unseen, aided by the Phocians, while he himself was to storm Siphæ on the Gulf of Crissa, the Athenian general Hippocrates being charged with the capture of Delium, on the Eubœan side. These three enterprises were to be executed the same day, and if they succeeded, Bœotia, like the Peloponnesus, would be encircled by a hostile ring, and Thebes would be separated from Lacedæmon. But too many were in the secret to allow of its being kept, the enemy was warned and the three Athenian forces, failing to act in concert, lost the advantage that would have lain in a simultaneous attack.

The enterprise against Siphæ and Chæronea failed also and Hippocrates, delayed a few days in his advance, found arrayed against him in one body all the Bœotian forces that he and his colleagues had plotted to divide. He succeeded in occupying Delium and fortified the temple of Apollo found there. To the Bœotians it was profanation to turn a temple into a fortress, and this scruple was shared by many of the Athenians who entered but half-heartedly into the combat. A thousand hoplites with their chief perished in the action; contrary to sacred usage Thebes let the bodies of the dead lie without sepulture seventeen days, until the taking of Delium; holding them to be sacrilegious evil-doers whose wandering souls were to receive punishment in the infernal world.

Socrates had taken part in this battle. In company with his friend Laches and some others equally brave, he had held his ground to the last, retreating step by step before the Theban cavalry. Simultaneously with this display of heroism Aristophanes was writing his comedy, the Clouds.

Sparta possessed but one man of ability, Brasidas, who had saved Megara, menaced Piræus, and almost defeated Demosthenes at Pylos. Clear-sighted and brave to the point of audacity, he possessed an additional weapon, one that was capable of inflicting cruel wounds, and that the Spartans had hitherto known little how to use, eloquence. The sea being closed to him, he decided that it would be possible to injure Athens seriously both in fortune and renown without leaving the land. The very policy she had used against Sparta, Pylos, Cythera, and Methone, could now be turned against her in Chalcidice and Thrace. At the commencement of the war she had forced Perdiccas, king of Macedonia, to enter her alliance and had gained the friendship of Sitalces the powerful king of the Odrysians, whose territory extended from the Ægean Sea to the Danube, and from Byzantium to the source of the Strymon, a distance not to be covered under thirty days’ travel.

At Athens’ instigation Sitalces had in 429 invaded Macedonia, but since then his zeal had cooled. Perdiccas, on his side, had never lost an opportunity of secretly injuring the Athenians. Even at this moment he was urging Sparta to send an expedition to Chalcidice and the coast of Thrace. To deprive Athens of these regions whence she obtained her timber was to attack her in her navy, and to carry at the same time the centre of hostilities towards the north, was to draw her away from the Peloponnesus which had lately suffered so many ills. Brasidas was charged with the enterprise, but Sparta refused to engage in it deeply. He raised a force of seven hundred helots who were armed as hoplites, to which were added a thousand Peloponnesians attracted by Perdiccas’ promises. This was little; but Brasidas held in reserve the treacherous but magical word, Liberty, that was to open for him many gates.

He took possession in this way of Acanthus, Stagira, and Amphipolis itself fell into his power, he having entered one of its suburbs by stealth, and won over all the inhabitants by the generosity of his conditions. Amphipolitans and Athenians alike he permitted to remain with retention of all their rights and property; he also accorded to those who wished to leave, five days in which to carry away all their belongings. Not for an age had war been carried on with such humanity, and it was a Spartan who was setting the example! We must also note the lack of eagerness shown by Athens’ allies to cast off her yoke which, viewed in the light of facts, takes on an aspect much less odious than that in which it is represented by rhetoricians.

THE BANISHMENT OF THUCYDIDES

The approach of so active an enemy as Brasidas, and the blows he had dealt, should have led the Athenian generals in that region to concentrate their forces on the continent not far from Amphipolis, which was Athens’ principal stronghold on that side. One of these commanders had gone with seven galleys to Thasos, where there was no need of his presence, the island being secure from menace. Though too late to save Amphipolis he arrived in time to save the port, Eion. At the suggestion of Cleon the people punished this act of negligence by a twenty years’ sentence of exile. It is to this sentence that posterity owes a masterwork in which vigorous thoughts are expressed in a style of great conciseness, the exiled one being Thucydides, who employed his leisure in writing the history of the Peloponnesian War. The real culprit was Eucles, the commander of Amphipolis, who had allowed himself to be taken by surprise.

In according liberty to the towns he took, Brasidas deprived Athens of many subjects without bestowing any on Lacedæmonia who had no desire for conquest in such distant regions; hence the success of the adventurous general astonished Greece without arousing great enthusiasm in Sparta; neither did it cause much vexation at Athens after the first outburst of anger to which Thucydides fell a victim. Deprived of a few cities of importance, Athens retained her island empire; the loss of Amphipolis being her most serious reverse.

King Plistoanax, exiled in 445 from Sparta for having lent ear to the propositions of Pericles, had taken refuge on Mount Lycæus in Arcadia near the temple of Zeus, and had dwelt there nineteen years. The partisans of peace recalled the exile, who returned to his native land filled with the determination to end the war. Neither was Athens, for the moment, in a bellicose mood.

A TRUCE DECLARED; TWO TREATIES OF PEACE

[Sidenote: [423-421 B.C.]]

Her desire to reduce expenses and Sparta’s to recover captives that belonged to her most influential families brought about, in fact, a sort of union between the two nations. In March, 423, a truce of one year was declared, the conditions being that each side should retain all its possessions. The population forming the Peloponnesian league were authorised to navigate the waters surrounding their own coasts and those of their allies, but they were forbidden the use of war-galleys. The signers of the treaty must guarantee to all free access to the temple and oracle of Pythian Apollo, must harbour no refugees, free or slave, must protect all heralds and deputies journeying by land or sea, must, in a word, aid by every means in their power the conclusion of permanent peace.

While the treaty was being concluded at Athens, Brasidas entered Scione, on the peninsula of Pallene where he was received with open arms, the inhabitants decreeing him a golden crown, and binding his head with fillets as though he had been a victorious athlete. This victory being achieved two days after the conclusion of peace, the conquered territory ought to have been given back; this Sparta refused to do and hostilities broke out again. Nicias, arriving with a considerable force, took Scione, then Mende, which was delivered over to him by the people, and persuaded Perdiccas to ally himself again with Athens. Brasidas failed in an enterprise against Potidæa. The following year Cleon was named general. He urged Athens and with reason to repeat against Potidæa the vigour of her action at Pylos, it being necessary to check the advance of Brasidas. He first seized Torone and Galepsus, then established himself at Eion to await the auxiliaries that were on their way to him from Thrace and Macedonia. But his soldiers carried him along with them in a rush to Amphipolis, where Brasidas was stationed. This latter took advantage of a false move on the part of the Athenians to attack them by surprise, and won a victory that cost him his life. Cleon also fell in this action. In the account of Thucydides Cleon was one of the first to seek flight, but according to Diodorus he died bravely. Brasidas, mourned by all his allies who took part, fully armed, in his funeral procession, was interred with the ceremonies accorded to one of the ancient heroes. His tomb was enclosed within a consecrated circle and in his honour were instituted annual games and sacrifices (422).

The death of these two men facilitated the conclusion of peace; Brasidas by his activity and success, Cleon by his discourses having been for long the chief sustainers of war. Athens, which had experienced a serious check, lost confidence, as did also Sparta, the victory of Amphipolis having been gained not by her native troops but by a body of mercenaries upon whom no reliance could be placed; the war she had lightly undertaken against Athens had lasted ten years, with the menace of another contest in the near future; the Thirty Years’ Truce concluded with the Argives was on the point of expiring, and lastly her naval ports were still in the hands of the enemy and her citizens were still held captive. In both cities the balance of influence was on the side of the peace partisans, prudent Nicias in Athens, and the easy-going Plistoanax in Lacedæmon. There were two treaties of peace which were finally concluded in 421.

[Sidenote: [421 B.C.]]

The first treaty guaranteed to the Greeks, according to usage, the right to offer sacrifices at Delphi, to consult its oracle and to attend its festivals. It was agreed that each side should restore the cities taken in war; Thebes alone was to be allowed to retain Platæa, in exchange for which the Athenians would keep Nisæa in the Megarid, and Anactorium and Sollium in Acarnania. It was stipulated that “what was decreed for the majority of the allies should bind them all, unless hindrances should occur on the part of the gods and heroes.” All the allies save Corinth, Megara, and the Eleans, accepted these conditions. It was finally decided that peace should be ratified by an oath renewed each year and inscribed upon the columns of Olympia and Delphi, of the temple of Poseidon on the isthmus, in the citadel at Athens, and the Amyclæum at Sparta.

One of the articles of the treaty read that prisoners should be restored on both sides. When those of Sphacteria arrived, they were degraded from their rights as citizens, that the stain on Spartan courage might be removed by showing that Lacedæmon recognised no compromise with duty, even in the face of death. It is true that shortly after, these same citizens were reinstated in their former position.

The first of these treaties which brought temporary cessation to the ills the people had suffered for the last ten years, bore the name of the honourable man who had been instrumental in having it drawn, Nicias. Who had profited by all the blood that had been shed? Sparta had increased neither in strength nor in glory, while Greece simply retained her original empire, her people not for a moment renouncing the hatred that had armed them against each other. No side had gained, and civilisation had lost what ten years of peace would have added to the brilliancy of the Age of Pericles.[e]

FOOTNOTES

[54] [Over five hundred of the oligarchical party escaped to Mount Istone, and when the Athenian fleet sailed away proceeded to make frequent raids upon the democratic strongholds, till in 425 the Athenian fleet on the way to Sicily paused in Corcyra and aided the people to storm Istone. The prisoners left to the mob were foully butchered and the oligarchical party annihilated.]

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XXXIV. THE RISE OF ALCIBIADES

Thucydides remarks that after the Peace of Nicias, there was but one of the predictions current at the commencement of the Peloponnesian War that was reputed to have received its fulfilment: it was the one which declared that the war would last three times nine years. There were indeed three acts in this war; we have seen the first: the second was the uneasy truce which extends from 421 to 413 when, though there was no general war, war was everywhere. The last, from 413 to 404, includes the catastrophe and the train of circumstances which brought it about.

The first period is filled with Pericles; his policy survives him, and in spite of Cleon his spirit governs Athens; the second and third are entirely taken up by Alcibiades, his passions, his services, and his crimes.

[Sidenote: [450-421 B.C.]]

Alcibiades whose descent was derived from Ajax, was connected on his mother’s side with the Alemæonids. The death of his father Clinias, killed at Coronea, left him to the guardianship of his relatives, Pericles and Ariphron, who, on his attaining his majority, handed him over one of the great fortunes in Athens. With wealth and noble blood, he joined that beauty which in the estimation of this artist-people added to the brilliance of talents and virtue on the brows of Sophocles and Pericles, and always seemed a gift of the gods, even on the features of an athlete. Parasites, flatterers, all who are attracted by fortune, grace, and boldness, thronged round the footsteps of this rich and witty young man, who had become what in Athens was a power, namely the ruler of fashion. Accustomed in the midst of this train to find himself applauded for his wild actions, Alcibiades dared everything, and all with impunity. The force and flexibility of his temperament rendered him capable of vice and virtue, abstinence and debauchery, according to the hour, the day, or the place. In the city of Lycurgus there was no Spartan more harsh towards his body; in Asia he outdid the satraps in luxury and self-indulgence. But his audacity and his indomitable petulance compromised the long meditated plans of his ambition for the sake of a jest or an orgy. Lively and diverse passions carried him now in one direction, now in another, and always to excess, while in the stormy versatility of his character he did not find the curb which might have restrained him, namely, the sense of right and duty.

One day he was to be seen with Socrates, welcoming with avidity the noble lessons of the philosopher, and weeping with admiration and enthusiasm; but on the morrow he would be crossing the agora with a trailing robe and indolent, dissolute mien, and would go with his too complacent friends to plunge into shameful pleasures. Yet the sage contended for him, and sometimes with success, against the crowd of his corruptors. In the early wars they shared the same tent. Socrates saved Alcibiades at Potidæa, and at Delium Alcibiades protected the retreat of Socrates.

From his childhood he exhibited the half heroic, half savage nature of his mind. He was playing at dice on the public way when a chariot approached; he told the charioteer to wait; the latter paid no heed and continued to advance; Alcibiades flung himself across the road and called out, “Now pass if you dare.” He was wrestling with one of his comrades and not being the strongest, he bit the arm of his adversary. “You bite like a woman.” “No, but like a lion,” he answered. He had caused a Cupid throwing a thunderbolt to be engraved on his shield.

He had a superb dog which had cost him more than seven thousand drachmæ. When all the town had admired it he cut off its tail, its finest ornament, that it might be talked of still more. “Whilst the Athenians are interested in my dog,” he said, “they will say nothing worse concerning me.” One day he was passing in the public square; the assembly was tumultuous and he inquired the cause; he was told that a distribution of money was on hand; he advanced and threw some himself amid the applause of the crowd: but according to the fashion among the exquisites of the day he was carrying a pet quail under his mantle: the terrified bird escaped and all the people ran, shouting, after it, that they might bring it back to its master. Alcibiades and the people of Athens were made to understand one another. “They detest him,” said Aristophanes, “need him and cannot do without him.”

One day he laid a wager to give a blow in the open street to Hipponicus, one of the most eminent men in the town; he won his bet, but the next day he presented himself at the house of the man he had so grossly insulted, removed his garments and offered himself to receive the chastisement he had deserved. He had married Hipparete, a woman of much virtue, and responded to her eager affection only by outrageous conduct. After long endurance she determined to lay a petition for divorce before the archon. Alcibiades, hearing this, hurried to the magistrate’s house and under the eyes of a cheering crowd carried off his wife in his arms across the public square, she not daring to resist; and brought her back to his house where she remained, well-pleased with this tender violence.

Alcibiades treated Athens as he did Hipponicus and Hipparete, and Athens, like Hipparete and Hipponicus, often forgave this medley of faults and amiable qualities in which there was always something of that wit and audacity which the Athenians prized above everything. His audacity indeed made sport alike of justice and religion. He may be excused for beating a teacher in whose school he had not found the Iliad: but at the Dionysia he struck one of his adversaries, in the very middle of the spectacle, regardless of the solemnity; and at another time, in order the better to celebrate a festival, he carried off the sacred vessel which was required at that very moment for a public and religious service. A painter having refused to work for him he kept him prisoner until he had finished decorating his house, but dismissed him loaded with presents. On one occasion when a poet was pursued by justice, he tore the act of indictment from the public archives. In a republic these actions were not very republican. But all Greece had such a weakness for Alcibiades! At Olympia he had seven chariots competing at once, thus eclipsing the magnificence of the kings of Syracuse and Cyrene; and he carried off two prizes in the same race, while another of his chariots came in fourth. Euripides sang of his victory and cities joined together to celebrate it. The Ephesians erected him a magnificent pavilion; the men of Chios fed his horses and provided him with a great number of victims; the Lesbians gave him wine and the whole assembly of Olympia took their seats at festive tables to which a private individual had invited them. Posterity, less indulgent than contemporaries, whilst recognising the eminent qualities of the man, will condemn the bad policy which made the expedition to Sicily, and the bad citizen who so many times gave the scandalous example of violating the laws and who dared to arm against his own country, to raise his hand against his mother. Alcibiades will remain the type of the most brilliant, but the most immoral and consequently the most dangerous citizen of a republic.

[Sidenote: [421-420 B.C.]]

In spite of his birth which classed him among the Eupatrids, Alcibiades, like Pericles, went over to the side of the people, and made himself the adversary of a man very different from himself, the superstitious Nicias, who was also a noble, rich and tried by long services. But Alcibiades had the advantage of him in audacity, fascination, and eloquence. Demosthenes regards him as the first orator of his time; not that he had a great flow of language; on the contrary, as his phrases did not come quickly enough, he frequently repeated the last words of his sentences; but the force and elegance of his speech and a certain lisp which was not displeasing, rendered him irresistible. His first political act was an unwelcome measure. He suggested an increase of the tribute of the allies, an imprudence which Pericles would not have committed. But Alcibiades had different schemes and different doctrines. He believed in the right of might and he made use of it; he looked forward to gigantic enterprises and he prepared the necessary means in advance. His inaction began to weigh on him. He was thirty-one years old and had as yet done nothing; so he bestirred himself considerably on the occasion of the treaty of 421. He would have liked to supplant Nicias and win the honour of the peace for himself. His flatteries to the prisoners of Sphacteria met with no success; the Spartans relied more on the old general, and Alcibiades bore them a grudge in consequence.

There was no lack of men opposed to this treaty. It was signed amidst the applause of the old, the rich, and the cultivators, but in it Athens, through Nicias’ fault, had allowed herself to be ignominiously tricked. The merchants who during the war had seen the sea closed to their rivals and open to their own vessels, the sailors, the soldiers, and all the people of the Piræus who lived on their pay or their booty, formed a numerous party. Alcibiades constituted himself its chief. The warlike spirit which was to disappear only with Greece itself soon gave him allies from outside.

What Sparta and Athens were doing on a large scale was being done by other towns on a small one. Strong or weak, obscure or illustrious, all had the same ambition: all desired subjects. The Eleans had subdued the Lepreatæ, Mantinea and the towns in her neighbourhood; Thebes had knocked down the walls of Thespiæ in order to keep that town at her mercy; and Argos had transferred within her own walls the inhabitants of several townships of Argos, though in doing so she granted them civil rights. Sparta watched with annoyance this movement for the concentration of lesser cities round more powerful ones. She proclaimed the independence of the Lepreatæ, and secretly encouraged the defection of the subjects of Mantinea and the hatred of Epidaurus against Argos. But since Sphacteria she had lost her prestige. At Corinth, at Megara, in Bœotia, it was openly said that she had basely sacrificed the interests of her allies; indignation was especially felt at her alliance with Athens. The Peloponnesian league was in fact dissolved; one people dreamed of reconstituting it for their own advantage.

The repose and prosperity of Argos in the midst of the general conflict had increased her resources and her liberal policy towards the towns of the district had augmented her strength. But the new-comers were a powerful reinforcement to the democratic party whose influence impelled Argos on a line of policy opposed to that of the Spartans. This town therefore might and wished to become the centre of an anti-Lacedæmonian league. Mantinea, where the democracy predominated; the Eleans, who had been offended by Lacedæmon; Corinth, which, by the treaty of Nicias, lost two important towns in Acarnania, were ready to join their grudges and their forces. The Argives skilfully seized the opportunity; twelve deputies were sent to all the Greek cities which desired to form a confederation from which the two cities which were equally menacing to the common liberty, namely Sparta and Athens, should be excluded. But an agreement could not be arrived at. A league of the northern states was thus rendered abortive; nothing could yet be done without Sparta or Athens.

Between these two towns there were many grounds for discontent. The lot had decided that Sparta should be the first to make the restitutions agreed on at the treaty of 421. For Athens the most valuable of these restitutions was that of Amphipolis and the towns of Chalcidice. Sparta withdrew her garrisons but did not restore the towns; and yet Nicias, deceived by the ephors, led the people to commit the mistake of not keeping the pledges which they had in their possession until Lacedæmon should have put an end to her bad faith. Sparta had negotiated for all her allies; and the most powerful were refusing to observe her engagements. The Bœotians restored Panactum, but kept the Athenian prisoners and only agreed to a truce of ten days. Athens, which had thought to win peace, was, ten days later, again at war with the Bœotians and uninterruptedly with Chalcidice. As regards the latter she had just given a terrible example of her anger. The whole male population of Scione had been put to death as a punishment for its recent revolt, in virtue of a decree of the people which the generals had carried with them.

All this furnished material which Alcibiades might work up into a war. First, he prevented the Athenians from evacuating Pylos. The helots and Messenians were simply withdrawn thence at the instance of Lacedæmon and were transported to Cephallenia. Then, warned by his friends at Argos that Sparta was seeking to draw that city into her alliance, he answered that Athens herself was quite ready to join the Argives. Athens at once concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with the Argives, the Mantineans and the Eleans. In the ardour of hatred against Sparta it was agreed that the alliance should last a hundred years; a long period for such spirits (420). We here remark a new and important point; it is that the alliance was concluded on a perfect footing of equality. The command of the allied troops was to belong to the people which should demand aid and on whose territory war should be made.

[Sidenote: [420-418 B.C.]]

The neutrality of the Argolid and of the centre of the Peloponnesus had hitherto preserved Lacedæmon from a continental invasion. War, after having long hovered on the outskirts of the peninsula, had not ventured, within the last few years, to do more than lay hold of certain points on the coasts to the west, south, and east, which were quite remote from Sparta, at Pylos, Cythera, and Methone. But now the Argives, the Mantineans and the Eleans were about to introduce it into the heart of the Peloponnesus, to bring it in the very face of the helots. Sparta became once more the patient, deliberate city of former days, even to the point of submitting to outrageous insults. On account of the despatch of the helots to Lepreum during the sacred truce, the Eleans had condemned the Lacedæmonians to a fine of two thousand minæ, and on their refusal to pay had excluded them by decree from the Olympic games. A Spartan of distinction, named Lichas, had however a chariot competing in the same race in which Alcibiades had displayed so much magnificence and obtained wreaths. When the judges learnt his name they had him ignominiously driven away with blows. Sparta did not avenge this outrage; she had ceased to believe in herself. At last Alcibiades passed over into the Peloponnesus with a few troops.

At Argos he persuaded the people to seize a port on the Saronic Gulf from the Epidaurians; from thence the Argives might the more easily receive succours from Athens which was in possession of Ægina opposite Epidaurus. But the Lacedæmonians sent this town three hundred hoplites who arrived by sea and repelled all attacks. At this news the Athenians wrote at the base of the column on which the treaty had been engraved, that Sparta had violated the peace, and the war began (419).

It was in vain that Aristophanes produced about this time his comedy entitled the Peace, resuming the theme he had taken up seven years before in the Acharnians. It was to no purpose that he personified War as a giant who crushes the towns in a mortar, using the generals for his pestles, and showed that with the return of Peace, drawn at last from the cavern in which she has been captive for thirteen years, banquets and feasts will recommence, the whole town will be given up to joy, and the armourers only will be in despair; he persuaded no one, not even the judges of the competition, who refused him the first prize.

The Lacedæmonians, under the command of Agis, entered the Argolid with the contingents of Bœotia, Megara, Corinth, Phlius, Pellene, and Tegea. The Argive general, cut off from the town by a clever manœuvre, proposed a truce which Agis accepted. This was not what was desired by the Athenians, who arrived shortly after, to the number of a thousand hoplites and three hundred horsemen; Alcibiades spoke in presence of the people of Argos and prevailed with them: the truce was broken, a march was made on Orchomenos and it was taken. The blame of the rupture fell on Agis. The Spartans, angry at his having given their enemies time to make this conquest, wished first to demolish his house and condemn him to a fine of a hundred thousand drachmæ; his prayers won his pardon; but it was determined that in future the kings of Sparta should be assisted in the war by a council of ten Spartans.

To repair his mistake, Agis went in search of the allies; he encountered them near Mantinea. “The two armies,” says Thucydides, “advanced against each other; the Argives with impetuosity, the Lacedæmonians slowly and, according to their custom, to the sound of a great number of pipes which beat time and kept them in line.” The Lacedæmonian left was driven in, but the right, commanded by the king, retrieved the fight and carried the day (418). This battle, which cost the allies eleven hundred men and the Spartans about three hundred, is regarded by Thucydides as the most important which the Greeks had fought for a long time. It restored the reputation of Sparta in the Peloponnesus, and in Argos the preponderance of the wealthy who suppressed the popular commune, put its leaders to death and made an alliance with Lacedæmon.

[Sidenote: [418-416 B.C.]]

This treaty broke up the confederation recently agreed on with Athens, Elis, and Mantinea. The last-named town even thought itself sufficiently endangered by the defection of Argos to consent to descend once more to the rank of an ally of the Spartans. A treaty, dictated by the latter, decreed that all the states, great and small, should be free and should keep their national laws with their independence. Sparta desired nothing but divisions and weakness round her. To the policy of concentration advocated by Athens, she opposed the policy of isolation which was to put all Greece at her feet, but would also afterwards place her, with Sparta herself, at the feet of Macedonia and of the Romans (417).

The victory of Agis was that of the oligarchy. At Sicyon, in Achaia, it again raised its head or established itself more firmly. We have just seen how it resumed power in Argos. But in that town, if we are to believe Pausanias, a crime analogous to those which founded the liberties of the people in Rome brought about the fall of the tyrants three months later. Expelled by an insurrection, the chief citizens retired to Sparta, whilst the people appealed to the Athenians, and men, women, and children laboured to join Argos with the sea by means of long walls. Alcibiades hurried thither with masons and carpenters to aid in the work; but the Lacedæmonians, under the guidance of the exiles, dispersed the workers. Argos, exhausted by these cruel discords, did not recover herself; and with her fell that idea of a league of secondary states which might perhaps have spared Greece many misfortunes by imposing peace and a certain caution on the two great states (417).

[Sidenote: [416 B.C.]]

The Athenians, who were acting weakly in Chalcidice, had recently lost two towns there and had seen the king of Macedon withdraw from their alliance; they resolved to avenge themselves for all their embarrassments on the Dorian island of Melos, which was insulting their maritime empire by its independence. At Naxos and Samos they had shown themselves merciful, because they were amongst the Ionians where they could reckon on a democratic party; at Melos, an outpost of the Dorians in the Cretan Sea, they were implacable because the blow struck at these islanders, faithful to their metropolis, was to find a mournful echo in Lacedæmon. A squadron of thirty-eight galleys summoned the town to submit, and on its refusal an army besieged it, took it, and exterminated all the adult male population. The women and children were sold (416). Before the attack a conference had taken place with the Melians.

“In order to obtain the best possible result for our negotiations,” said the Athenians, “let us start from a principle with which both sides shall be really satisfied, a principle which we know well and would employ with people who are as well acquainted with it as we are: it is that business between men is regulated by the laws of justice when an equal necessity obliges them to submit to it; but that those who have the advantage in strength do all that is in their power and that it is the part of the weak to yield,” and further: “nor do we fear that the divine protection will forsake us. In our principles and in our actions we neither depart from the idea which men have conceived of the Divinity nor from the line of conduct which they preserve amongst themselves. We believe, according to the received opinion, that the gods, and we know very well that men, by a necessity of nature, dominate wherever they have force. This is not a law that we have made; it is not we who have first applied it; we profit by it and shall transmit it to times to come; you yourselves, with the power which we enjoy, would follow the same course.”

The theory of force has rarely been so distinctly expressed. The reputation of the Athenians has suffered by it, without their having derived the slightest profit from this evil deed. But let us observe, even while we think with horror of the sanguinary act performed at Melos, that the practice, if not the theory of this right of the strongest is a very old one; it is the principle on which the whole of antiquity is based; it is nothing but the famous law, salus populi suprema lex, so many times evoked to justify odious enterprises or iniquitous cruelties; and it must be acknowledged with sadness that in all times and in almost all places men have thought with Euripides, “that wisdom and glory are: to hold a victorious hand over the head of one’s enemies.” Force is as old as the world, it is right which emerges slowly: can we believe that its reign will not come?

The Dorian colonists of Melos had counted on the support of Sparta. “She will abandon you,” the Athenians had answered; and the prudent city which, for its part regarded all things from the point of view of utility, had sent neither ship nor soldier. This inertia inflated the hopes of Athens: she believed that the moment had come for annexing to her empire the great island of the West where internal divisions had roused in several cities the desire for foreign protection.[b]

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XXXV. THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION

The largest island in the Mediterranean, Sicily has been a stepping-stone between African, Asiatic, and European nations. Freeman[e] has compared it with Great Britain in its “geographical and historical position.” Its original inhabitants seem to have been the Sicans who were invaded first by the Elymians and then by the Sicels. Relations with Sicily were begun as early as the Mycenæan age, and jars of Ægean ware have been unearthed in the tombs of Syracuse. The Phœnicians established factories and trading places in Sicily, and then came the Greeks overflowing the island and founding many a city and stronghold. As we have seen in a previous chapter, Sicily became one of the earliest and most important of the Greek colonies.

SICILIAN HISTORY

The African city of Carthage, which we think of chiefly along with Roman history, early took up the grievances of the Phœnicians against the Greeks. In the sixth century B.C., various settlements had fallen by the ears with one another. About 580 B.C. the Greek adventurer Pentathlus threatened the Phœnician settlements, but was defeated and slain. Carthage, however, was awakened to the danger from Greek land-hunger, and about 560 B.C. sent an expedition under Malchus, who gave a severe check to Greek encroachment and an encouragement to Carthaginian ambition. Finally, by 480 B.C., the Carthaginians were ready to combine with the Persians against Greek prosperity and independence. While Xerxes assailed the mother-country, Carthage by agreement sent an enormous expedition against the Sicilian Greeks. Their general was Hamilcar, and the magnificence of his host has been as splendidly exaggerated as that of Xerxes. His success was equal to that of the Persian, except that Xerxes escaped alive, while Hamilcar perished.

[Sidenote: [481-447 B.C.]]

The chief instruments of the Sicilian victory were the tyrants who had gathered to themselves supreme power in their own cities or groups of cities as the tyrants of the mother-country had previously done. In Sicily there were four powerful masters of four chief cities: Anaxilaus of Rhegium in Italy, who crossing the straits, took possession of Zancle; his father-in-law Terillus of Himera; Gelo of Syracuse and his father-in-law, Theron of Acragas. It was a quarrel between Theron and Terillus that gave the Carthaginians their immediate excuse for invading Sicily. Terillus being thwarted by Theron played a treacherous part like that of Hippias, and begged the Persians to attack Acragas. Terillus called in Carthage to his aid against Theron. There is a tradition that the defeat of the Carthaginians happened on the same day as the battle of Salamis. Such traditions are always subject to scepticism, and yet the coincidence of Vicksburg and Gettysburg in American history is hardly more incredible.

Theron had called on Gelo to aid him in expelling the Carthaginians, and Gelo had won the greater glory. He died two years later leaving his younger brother Hiero to succeed him. It was Hiero’s privilege to thwart the ambition of the Etruscans as his elder brother had foiled Carthage. The naval battle of Cyme was the brilliant victory which led Pindar to write one of his loftiest songs. He and Simonides, Æschylus, and Bacchylides, were all received with honour at the opulent court of Hiero. The glitter of court life, however, was small compensation for the tyranny of the various despots of Sicily. Their ambitions clashed at the least pretext, always at the cost of the blood of their subjects. They had a curious way of deporting the inhabitants of an entire city to some other place to suit their own whims. And gradually time took its revenge upon them. Theron left as his heir a weak son, Thrasydæus who went to battle with Hiero, and, losing the battle, lost also his prestige and his power, for the cities Himera and Acragas formed themselves into democracies. Five years later, in 467 B.C., Hiero died, and his tyranny fell to his brother Thrasybulus whose blood-thirsty and tax-hungry cruelties aroused a revolution. He was besieged in Syracuse, compelled to surrender and sent into exile.

Life in Sicily is not to this day so quiet as in certain other portions of the globe, and it was inevitable in the change from despotism to democracy that there should be much friction and bloodshed, but the cities lost none of the prosperity they had acquired under the tyrants. Syracuse continued to be the principal city and power in the island; Agrigentum, as the Romans named Acragas, being the second in power.

Now a new source of danger appeared, this time not from a foreign invasion, or from the ambition of such pretenders as had tried to re-establish the power of Gelo. The new threat came from a racial jealousy. The old inhabitants, the Sicels, who had been crowded into the interior, gave birth to a Napoleonic ambition. A young man named Ducetius who first appeared in 461, having fed upon certain small successes in acquiring power, showed his ingenuity in 453 by forming a federation of Sicel towns with himself as prince. He seized an early opportunity to assail the Greeks, and justified the fidelity of the Sicels by capturing the towns of Morgantium, Ætna, and the Acragantine stronghold of Motya, building a new city--Palice. He now became important enough to merit the anger of Syracuse, and a large force from Syracuse and Agrigentum marched against him. The toy Napoleon met his little Waterloo. His partisans deserted him and he found himself alone. A desperate resolve occurred to him as the only means of saving his life. He rode by night to the gates of Syracuse, entered the city secretly, and sat himself down before the altar in the market place. He was soon surrounded by a crowd who had too keen a sense of the dramatic not to forgive him and let him off with the easy exile to Corinth. From this Elba this Napoleon soon emerged. He violated his parole laying the blame on an oracle, and took a body of colonists to Sicily where he founded the city of Calacta (or Kale Akte). He began gradually to reach out for more power, but his death in 440 ended his schemes and left his federation as a prize for Syracuse.

[Sidenote: [440-431 B.C.]]

While Syracuse was beginning to plume itself upon its leadership and to dream of more definite control, the city of Athens was building an empire, not over one island but many. It was only natural that she should wish to stand well with the rich cities of Sicily. At first there could hardly have been any thought of conquest, and Grote[f] points out that Plutarch is mistaken and is contradicted by Thucydides, when he implies that even as late as the quarrel between Corinth and Corcyra, the Athenians had thought of dominion over Sicily. Professor Bury[d] however sees a distinct desire to have influence, if not conquest, from a very early day. He says:

“During the fifth century the eyes of Athenian statesmen often wandered to western Greece beyond the seas. We can surprise some oblique glances, as early as the days of Themistocles; and we have seen how under Pericles a western policy definitely began. An alliance was formed with the Elymian town of Segesta, and subsequently treaties of alliance (the stone records are still partly preserved) were concluded with Leontini and Rhegium. One general object of Athens was to support the Ionian cities against the Dorian, which were predominant in number and power, and especially against Syracuse, the daughter and friend of Corinth. The same purpose of counter-acting the Dorian predominance may be detected in the foundation of Thurii. But Thurii did not effect this purpose. The colonists were a mixed body; other than Athenian elements gained the upper hand; and, in the end, Thurii became rather a Dorian centre and was no support to Athens. It is to be observed that at the time of the foundation of Thurii, and for nigh thirty years more, Athens is seeking merely influence in the west, she has no thought of dominion. The growth of her connection with Italian and Sicilian affairs was forced upon her by the conditions of commerce and the rivalry of Corinth.” Adolph Holm[b] is equally positive in accusing the Athenians of an early desire to obtain a footing in Sicily.

[Sidenote: [431-425 B.C.]]

The outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 B.C. found Sicily in a high state of prosperity, political equality, and intellectual health. According as the various cities had been founded by Dorian or Ionian colonists their family prejudices inclined them towards Sparta or Athens. The war in fact, according to Müller,[h] was called by the oracles, the Doric War. The preponderance in Sicily was largely toward Sparta and Corinth, for Corinth had been the mother-city to Syracuse. Grote[f] thus discusses the feelings of the various cities at this time:

“In that struggle the Italian and Sicilian Greeks had no direct concern, nor anything to fear from the ambition of Athens; who, though she had founded Thurii in 443 B.C., appears never to have aimed at any political ascendency even over that town--much less anywhere else on the coast. But the Sicilian Greeks, though forming a system apart in their own island, from which it suited the dominant policy of Syracuse to exclude all foreign interference, were yet connected by sympathy, and one side even by alliances, with the two main streams of Hellenic politics. Among the allies of Sparta were numbered all or most of the Dorian cities of Sicily--Syracuse, Camarina, Gela, Agrigentum, Selinus, perhaps Himera and Messana--together with Locri and Tarentum in Italy; among the allies of Athens, perhaps, the Chalcidic or Ionic Rhegium in Italy. Whether the Ionic cities in Sicily--Naxos, Catana, and Leontini--were at this time united with Athens by any special treaty, is very doubtful. But if we examine the state of politics prior to the breaking out of the war, it will be found that the connection of the Sicilian cities on both sides with central Greece was rather one of sympathy and tendency, than of pronounced obligation and action. The Dorian Sicilians, though sharing the antipathy of the Peloponnesian Dorians to Athens, had never been called upon for any co-operation with Sparta; nor had the Ionic Sicilians yet learned to look to Athens for protection against Syracuse.”

Sparta counted apparently upon the active assistance of Syracuse, and demanded that the Dorians in Italy and Sicily should contribute to her both ships and money. She realised no ships, a little money, and profuse expressions of interest and sympathy. The awakening of the old Dorio-Ionic blood feud suggested to the Syracusans, however, that while the Peloponnesian War was remote from them both geographically and commercially, it yet furnished a good excuse for attacking such cities in Sicily as were in any way attached to Athens. Naxos, Catana, and Leontini were looked upon as the first prizes to be seized. These towns were so far from being able to send aid to Athens that they were compelled to ask aid of her. They succeeded in forming an alliance with Camarina, which was a Dorian city but jealous of Syracuse, and with the town of Rhegium in Italy. The friendship of Rhegium brought over to Syracuse the Italian city of Locri. With the aid of Locri and practically all the Dorian cities, Syracuse was so strong that the Ionic allies were soon in desperate straits. They sent their eloquent orator Gorgias to implore the Athenians for aid and to advise them to grant it, lest when Syracuse had conquered all Sicily she should send her troops and ships to the aid of the Spartans and Corinthians. The Athenians sent twenty triremes under Laches, who after various minor successes fell under suspicion as to his honesty and efficiency, and was called home.

[Sidenote: [425-416 B.C.]]

The Ionians sent another appeal to Athens, and received the promise of forty more triremes. In the spring of 425 this fleet left Athens under command of Eurymedon and Sophocles. It was this fleet which, almost accidentally, paused on the Spartan coast at Pylos with the result that it gained for Athens the renowned victory of Sphacteria, as previously described. This victory was very profitable to Athens in its immediate glory, but was of very gloomy purport in the Sicilian matter, for the fleet having delayed to take part in the victory, and later pausing at Corcyra, did not reach Sicily before September. This delay had given the Syracusan allies time to undo what little had been achieved by Laches. He had won the friendship of the town of Messana, thus giving Athens command of the straits. The delay however had weakened the friendship of Messana, and lost its alliance. Furthermore, the cities which Athens had come to aid were found to be in a decided humour to put an end to the civil war. A congress of Sicilian cities was called at Gela.

This congress at Gela takes on a decided importance in political history because of the theories brought forward there by a Syracusan orator, Hermocrates, whose political creed has been compared to the Monroe Doctrine of the United States. The creed was not successfully carried out, and as has often happened in the history of the United States, the promulgators of the doctrine were by no means consistent in their actions. Hermocrates pleaded for a policy, which in modern phrase would be called “Sicily for the Sicilians.” He wished Sicily to regard herself as an entity, considering all foreigners to be outsiders, and all interference to be meddling. He was not rash enough or un-Grecian enough to deny the Sicilian cities the luxury of fighting with one another; but he called for unity against the invader or the intriguer from other shores. From his speech, as imagined by Thucydides,[i] the peroration is worth quoting for its cool common sense:

“And I call on you all, of your own free will, to act in the same manner as myself, and not to be compelled to do it by your enemies. For there is no disgrace in connections giving way to connections, whether a Dorian to a Dorian, or a Chalcidian to those of the same race; in a word, all of us who are neighbours, and live together in one country, and that an island, and are called by the one name of Sicilians. For we shall go to war again, I suppose, when it may so happen, and come to terms again amongst ourselves by means of general conferences; but to foreign invaders we shall always, if we are wise, offer united resistance, inasmuch as by our separate losses we are collectively endangered; and we shall never in future call in any allies or mediators. For by acting thus we shall at the present time avoid depriving Sicily of two blessings--riddance both of the Athenians and of civil war--and shall in future enjoy it by ourselves in freedom, and less exposed to the machinations of others.”

The Athenian expedition having been coldly received by the cities it came to rescue, returned to Athens, where Eurymedon was fined and Sophocles banished on a charge of bribery. And now the reservation made by Hermocrates as to the right of the Sicilian cities to war upon one another, was soon justified. And to such an extent that the Ionic cities began to realise that the Syracusans had been chiefly anxious to expel the foreign invader, in order that the island might be left entirely to Syracusan ambition. In the city of Leontini the aristocrats crushed the democrats, and turned the city into a Syracusan fort after destroying the greater portion of it. The common people appealed to Athens, and received in reply two triremes under Phæax in B.C. 422. Before he had accomplished anything the Peace of Nicias put a temporary close to the war.

In 417 B.C. the two Sicilian cities of Selinus and Segesta (or Egesta) quarrelled over a bit of territory. Syracuse aided Selinus, and Segesta, after appealing in vain to Agrigentum and to Carthage, sent envoys to Athens. The Leontine people also reminded Athens that Syracuse, having destroyed Leontini and assailed Segesta, was planning and accomplishing the gradual reduction of all Sicilian cities favourable to Athens, and thus building up an empire which would give Sparta unlimited aid. The people of Segesta asked only for men and ships, and promised to provide ample money for expenses.

[Sidenote: [416-415 B.C.]]

The idea of such an armada delighted the fire-brand Alcibiades, who saw in it a chance to be a leader and to find an abundance of the things he most desired--adventure, notoriety, and money. The cautious Nicias opposed the scheme, and secured a delay until ambassadors could be sent to Segesta to learn if the city were really wealthy enough to pay as it promised. And now it was a case of Greek meeting Sicilian. The people of Segesta had sent secret expeditions to all their friendly towns, Phœnician or Grecian, to borrow all the treasure they could wheedle out of their prospective allies. When the Athenian envoys appeared, they were taken to the temple of Venus and shown a great array of gifts, “bowls, wine ladles, censers, and other articles of furniture in no small quantity.” These were all silver or of silver gilt, and made a far greater showing than they merited. Then the Athenians were put through a round of entertainments. In each case the host displayed all his own plate, and in addition a large portion of the common fund, which was passed from house to house surreptitiously. The gullible Athenians were overwhelmed by the evident opulence of the private citizens of Segesta, and when sixty talents of uncoined silver (valued at over £12,000 or $60,000) were handed over to the Athenians for the first month’s expenses of the fleet, the embassy was thoroughly duped, and returned to Athens glowing with enthusiasm for an alliance with such a western Golconda. Then followed a tug of war between Nicias and Alcibiades. Nicias was to be one of the commanders of the expedition, and he could well claim that it was no fear of bodily danger that made him averse to it. He opposed it purely as a piece of folly. Alcibiades replied in favour of the expedition, and it was so evident that the people were determined to send the fleet that Nicias in a last effort tried to alarm the city by magnifying the difficulties of the task and demanding a tremendous force. To the Athenians, in their drunkenness for empire, and in that frenzy of “Westward Ho!” which, in the fifteenth century, attacked all Europe, the opposition of Nicias was only wind on flame. They rejoiced the more at the magnificence of the problem.

To decide upon sending a fleet of one hundred triremes instead of the sixty asked for, was folly enough; but to elect Nicias as the commander of the expedition, and to ally with him his bitter opponent, Alcibiades, was pure delirium. Still, Athens had just conquered Melos, and no task was too gigantic for her hopes.[a]

THE MUTILATION OF THE HERMÆ

For the two or three months immediately succeeding the final resolution taken by the Athenians to invade Sicily, the whole city was elate and bustling with preparation. The prophets, circulators of oracles, and other accredited religious advisers, announced generally the favourable dispositions of the gods, and promised a triumphant result. All classes in the city, rich and poor,--cultivators, traders, and seamen,--old and young, all embraced the project with ardour; as requiring a great effort, yet promising unparalleled results, both of public aggrandisement and individual gain. Each man was anxious to put down his own name for personal service; so that the three generals, Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus, when they proceeded to make their selection of hoplites, instead of being forced to employ constraint or incur ill-will, as happened when an expedition was adopted reluctantly with many dissentients, had only to choose the fittest among a throng of eager volunteers.

Such efforts were much facilitated by the fact that five years had now elapsed since the Peace of Nicias, without any considerable warlike operations. While the treasury had become replenished with fresh accumulations, and the triremes increased in number, the military population, reinforced by additional numbers of youth, had forgotten both the hardships of the war and the pressure of epidemic disease. Hence the fleet now got together, while it surpassed in number all previous armaments of Athens, except a single one in the second year of the previous war under Pericles, was incomparably superior even to that, and still more superior to all the rest in the other ingredients of force, material as well as moral, in picked men, universal ardour, ships as well as arms in the best condition, and accessories of every kind in abundance. Such was the confidence of success, that many Athenians went prepared for trade as well as for combat; so that the private stock, thus added to the public outfit and to the sums placed in the hands of the generals, constituted an unparalleled aggregate of wealth. After between two and three months of active preparations, the expedition was almost ready to start, when an event happened which fatally poisoned the prevalent cheerfulness of the city. This was the mutilation of the Hermæ, one of the most extraordinary events in all Grecian history.

[Sidenote: [415 B.C.]]

The Hermæ, or half-statues of the god Hermes, were blocks of marble about the height of the human figure. The upper part was cut into a head, face, neck, and bust; the lower part was left as a quadrangular pillar, broad at the base, without arms, body, or legs, but with the significant mark of the male sex in front. They were distributed in great numbers throughout Athens, and always in the most conspicuous situations. The religious feeling of the Greeks considered the god to be planted or domiciliated where his statue stood, so that the companionship, sympathy, and guardianship of Hermes became associated with most of the manifestations of conjunct life at Athens, political, social, commercial, or gymnastic.

About the end of May 415 B.C., in the course of one and the same night, all these Hermæ, one of the most peculiar marks of the city, were mutilated by unknown hands. Their characteristic features were knocked off or levelled, so that nothing was left except a mass of stone with no resemblance to humanity or deity. All were thus dealt with in the same way, save and except very few: nay, Andocides affirms that there was but one which escaped unharmed. If we take that reasonable pains, which is incumbent on those who study the history of Greece, to realize in our minds the religious and political associations of the Athenians,--noted in ancient times for their superior piety, as well as for their accuracy and magnificence about the visible monuments embodying that feeling,--we shall in part comprehend the intensity of mingled dismay, terror, and wrath, which beset the public mind, on the morning after this nocturnal sacrilege, alike unforeseen and unparalleled. Amidst all the ruin and impoverishment which had been inflicted by the Persian invasion of Attica, there was nothing which was so profoundly felt or so long remembered as the deliberate burning of the statues and temples of the gods. If we could imagine the excitement of a Spanish or Italian town, on finding that all the images of the Virgin had been defaced during the same night, we should have a parallel, though a very inadequate parallel, to what was now felt at Athens--where religious associations and persons were far more intimately allied with all civil acts and with all the proceedings of every-day life--where, too, the god and his efficiency were more forcibly localised, as well as identified with the presence and keeping of the statue. To the Athenians, when they went forth on the following morning, each man seeing the divine guardian at his doorway dishonoured and defaced, and each man gradually coming to know that the devastation was general,--it would seem that the town had become as it were godless--that the streets, the market-place, the porticoes, were robbed of their divine protectors; and what was worse still, that these protectors, having been grossly insulted, carried away with them alienated sentiments--wrathful and vindictive instead of tutelary and sympathising.

Such was the mysterious incident which broke in upon the eager and bustling movement of Athens a few days before the Sicilian expedition was in condition for starting. In reference to that expedition, it was taken to heart as a most depressing omen. The mutilation of the Hermæ, however, was something much more ominous than the worst accident. It proclaimed itself as the deliberate act of organised conspirators, not inconsiderable in number, whose names and final purpose were indeed unknown, but who had begun by committing sacrilege of a character flagrant and unheard of. For intentional mutilation of a public and sacred statue, where the material afforded no temptation to plunder, is a case to which we know no parallel: much more, mutilation by wholesale--spread by one band and in one night throughout the entire city. Though neither the parties concerned, nor their purposes, were ever more than partially made out, the concert and conspiracy itself is unquestionable.

It seems probable, as far as we can form an opinion, that the conspirators had two objects, perhaps some of them one and some the other--to ruin Alcibiades--to frustrate or delay the expedition. Indeed the two objects were intimately connected with each other; for the prosecution of the enterprise, while full of prospective conquest to Athens, was yet more pregnant with future power and wealth to Alcibiades himself. Such chances would disappear if the expedition could be prevented; nor was it at all impossible that the Athenians, under the intense impression of religious terror consequent on the mutilation of the Hermæ, might throw up the scheme altogether.

Few men in Athens either had, or deserved to have, a greater number of enemies, political as well as private, than Alcibiades; many of them being among the highest citizens, whom he offended by his insolence, and whose liturgies and other customary exhibitions he outshone by his reckless expenditure. His importance had been already so much increased and threatened to be so much more increased by the Sicilian enterprise, that they no longer observed any measures in compassing his ruin. That which the mutilators of the Hermæ seemed to have deliberately planned, his other enemies were ready to turn to profit.

While the senate of Five Hundred were invested with full powers of action, Diognetus, Pisander, Charicles, and others, were named commissioners for receiving and prosecuting inquiries: and public assemblies were held nearly every day to receive reports. The first informations received, however, did not relate to the grave and recent mutilation of the Hermæ, but to analogous incidents of older date; to certain defacements of other statues, accomplished in drunken frolic--and above all, to ludicrous ceremonies celebrated in various houses, by parties of revellers caricaturing and divulging the Eleusinian mysteries. It was under this latter head that the first impeachment was preferred against Alcibiades.

But Alcibiades saw full well the danger of having such charges hanging over his head, and the peculiar advantage which he derived from his accidental position at the moment. He implored the people to investigate the charges at once; proclaiming his anxiety to stand trial and even to suffer death, if found guilty,--accepting the command only in case he should be acquitted,--and insisting above all things on the mischief to the city of sending him on such an expedition with the charge undecided, as well as on the hardship to himself of being aspersed by calumny during his absence, without power of defence. Such appeals, just and reasonable in themselves, and urged with all the vehemence of a man who felt that the question was one of life or death to his future prospects, were very near prevailing. His enemies could only defeat them by the trick of putting up fresh speakers, less notorious for hostility to Alcibiades. These men affected a tone of candour, deprecated the delay which would be occasioned in the departure of the expedition, if he were put upon his trial forthwith; and proposed deferring the trial until a certain number of days after his return. Such was the determination ultimately adopted: the supporters of Alcibiades probably not fully appreciating its consequences, and conceiving that the speedy departure of the expedition was advisable even for his interest, as well as agreeable to their own feelings. And thus his enemies, though baffled in their first attempt to bring on his immediate ruin, carried a postponement which insured to them leisure for thoroughly poisoning the public mind against him, and choosing their own time for his trial. They took care to keep back all farther accusation until he and the armament had departed.

THE FLEET SAILS

The spectacle of its departure was indeed so imposing, and the moment so full of anxious interest, that it banished even the recollection of the recent sacrilege. The entire armament was not mustered at Athens; for it had been judged expedient to order most of the allied contingents to rendezvous at once at Corcyra. But the Athenian force alone was astounding to behold. The condition, the equipment, the pomp both of wealth and force, visible in the armament, were still more impressive than the number. At day-break on the day appointed, when all the ships were ready in Piræus for departure, the military force was marched down in a body from the city and embarked. They were accompanied by nearly the whole population, metics and foreigners as well as citizens, so that the appearance was that of a collective emigration like the flight to Salamis sixty-five years before. While the crowd of foreigners, brought thither by curiosity, were amazed by the grandeur of the spectacle--the citizens accompanying were moved by deeper and more stirring anxieties. Their sons, brothers, relatives, and friends, were just starting on the longest and largest enterprise which Athens had ever undertaken; against an island extensive as well as powerful, known to none to them accurately, and into a sea of undefined possibilities--glory and profit on the one side, but hazards of unassignable magnitude on the other. At this final parting, ideas of doubt and danger became far more painfully present than they had been in any of the preliminary discussions; and in spite of all the reassuring effect of the unrivalled armament before them, the relatives now separating at the water’s edge could not banish the dark presentiment that they were bidding each other farewell for the last time.

The moment immediately succeeding this farewell--when all the soldiers were already on board and the celeustes was on the point of beginning his chant to put the rowers in motion--was peculiarly solemn and touching. Silence having been enjoined and obtained, by sound of trumpet, the crews in every ship, and the spectators on shore, followed the voice of the herald in praying to the gods for success, and in singing the pæan. On every deck were seen bowls of wine prepared, out of which the officers and the epibatæ made libations, with goblets of silver and gold. At length the final signal was given, and the whole fleet quitted Piræus in single file--displaying the exuberance of their yet untried force by a race of speed as far as Ægina. Never in Grecian history was an invocation more unanimous, emphatic, and imposing, addressed to the gods; never was the refusing nod of Zeus more stern or peremptory.[f]

The customary libations were poured out; and, after the triumphant pæan had been sung, the whole fleet set sail, and contended for the prize of naval skill and celerity, until they reached the shores of Ægina, from whence they enjoyed a prosperous voyage to their confederates at Corcyra.

At Corcyra the commanders reviewed the strength of the armament, which consisted of a hundred and thirty-four ships of war, with a proportional number of transports and tenders. The heavy-armed troops, exceeding five thousand, were attended with a sufficient body of slingers and archers. The army, abundantly provided with every other article, was extremely deficient in horses, which amounted to no more than thirty. But, at a moderate computation, we may estimate the whole military and naval strength, including slaves and servants, at twenty thousand men.[55]

With this powerful host, had the Athenians at once surprised and assailed the unprepared security of Syracuse, the expedition, however adventurous and imprudent, might, perhaps, have been crowned with success. But the timid mariners of Greece would have trembled at the proposal of trusting such a numerous fleet on the broad expanse of the Ionian Sea. They determined to cross the narrowest passage between Italy and Sicily, after coasting along the eastern shores of the former, until they reached the strait of Messana. That this design might be executed with the greater safety, they despatched three light vessels to examine the disposition of the Italian cities, and to solicit admission into their harbours. Neither the ties of consanguinity, nor the duties acknowledged by colonies towards their parent state, could prevail on the suspicious Thurians to open their gates, or even to furnish a market, to their Athenian ancestors. The towns of Tarentum and Locri prohibited them the use of their harbours, and refused to supply them with water; and they coasted the whole extent of the shore, from the promontory of Iapygia to that of Rhegium, before any one city would allow them to purchase the commodities for which they had immediate use. The magistrates of Rhegium granted this favour, but they granted nothing more.

A considerable detachment was sent to examine the preparations and the strength of Syracuse, and to proclaim liberty, and offer protection, to all the captives and strangers confined within its walls.

With another detachment Alcibiades sailed to Naxos, and persuaded the inhabitants to accept the alliance of Athens. The remainder of the armament proceeded to Catana, which refused to admit the ships into the harbour, or the troops into the city. But on the arrival of Alcibiades, the Catanians allowed him to address the assembly, and propose his demands. The artful Athenian transported the populace, and even the magistrates themselves, by the charms of his eloquence; the citizens flocked from every quarter, to hear a discourse which was purposely protracted for several hours; the soldiers forsook their posts; and the enemy, who had prepared to avail themselves of this negligence, burst through the unguarded gates, and became masters of the city. Those of the Catanians who were most attached to the interests of Syracuse, fortunately escaped death by the celerity of their flight. The rest accepted the proffered friendship of the Athenians. This success would probably have been followed by the surrender of Messana, which Alcibiades had filled with distrust and sedition. But when the plot was ripe for execution, the man who had contrived, and who alone could conduct it, was disqualified from serving his country. The arrival of the Salaminian galley recalled Alcibiades to Athens, that he might stand trial for his life.

ALCIBIADES TAKES FLIGHT

Alcibiades escaped to Thurii, and afterwards to Argos; and when he understood that the Athenians had set a price on his head, he finally took refuge in Sparta, where his active genius seized the first opportunity to advise and promote those fatal measures, which, while they gratified his private resentment, occasioned the ruin of his country.

The removal of Alcibiades soon appeared in the languid operations of the Athenian armament. The cautious timidity of Nicias, supported by wealth, eloquence, and authority, gained an absolute ascendant over the more warlike and enterprising character of Lamachus, whose poverty exposed him to contempt. Instead of making a bold impression on Selinus or Syracuse, Nicias contented himself with taking possession of the inconsiderable colony of Hyccara. He ravaged, or laid under contribution, some places of smaller note, and obtained thirty talents from the Segestans, which, added to the sale of the booty, furnished about thirty thousand pounds sterling, a sum that might be usefully employed in the prosecution of an expensive war. But this advantage did not compensate for the courage inspired into the Syracusans by delay, and for the dishonour sustained by the Athenian troops, in their unsuccessful attempts against Hybla and Himera, as well as for their dejection at being confined, during the greatest part of the summer, in the inactive quarters of Naxos and Catana.

Ancient Syracuse, of which the ruined grandeur still forms an object of admiration, was situated on a spacious promontory, washed on three sides by the sea, and defended on the west by abrupt and almost inaccessible mountains. The town was built in a triangular form, whose summit may be conceived on the lofty mountain Epipolæ. Adjacent to these natural fortifications, the western or inland division of the city was distinguished by the name of Tyche, or Fortune, being adorned by a magnificent temple of that flattering divinity. The triangle gradually widening towards the base, comprehended the vast extent of Achradina, reaching from the northern shore of the promontory to the southern island, Ortygia. This small island, composing the whole of modern Syracuse, formed but the third and least extensive division of the ancient; which was fortified by walls eighteen miles in circuit, enriched by a triple harbour, and peopled by above two hundred thousand warlike citizens or industrious slaves.

When the Syracusans heard the first rumours of the Athenian invasion, they despised, or affected to despise them, as idle lies invented to amuse the ignorance of the populace. The hostile armament had arrived at Rhegium before they could be persuaded, by the wisdom of Hermocrates, to provide against a danger which their presumption painted as imaginary. But when they received undoubted intelligence that the enemy had reached the Italian coast, when they beheld their numerous fleet commanding the sea of Sicily and ready to make a descent on their defenceless island, they were seized with a degree of just terror and alarm proportional to their false security. The dilatory operations of the enemy not only removed the recent terror and trepidation of the Syracusans, but inspired them with unusual firmness. They requested the generals, whom they had appointed to the number of fifteen, to lead them to Catana, that they might attack the hostile camp. Their cavalry harassed the Athenians by frequent incursions, beat up their quarters, intercepted their convoys, destroyed their advanced posts, and even proceeded so near to the main body, that they were distinctly heard demanding, with loud insults, whether those boasted lords of Greece had left their native country, that they might form a precarious settlement at the foot of Mount Ætna.

NICIAS TRIES STRATEGY

[Sidenote: [415-414 B.C.]]

Provoked by these indignities, and excited by the impatient resentment of his own troops, Nicias was still restrained from an open attempt against Syracuse by the difficulties attending that enterprise. He employed a stratagem. A citizen of Catana, whose subtile and daring genius, prepared alike to die or to deceive, ought to have preserved his name from oblivion, appeared in Syracuse as a deserter from his native city; the unhappy fate of which, in being subjected to the imperious commands, or licentious disorder of the Athenians, he lamented with perfidious tears, and with the plaintive accents of well-dissembled sorrow. “The Athenians,” he said, “spurned the confinement of the military life; their posts were forsaken, their ships unguarded, they disdained the duties of the camp, and indulged in the pleasures of the city. On an appointed day it would be easy for the Syracusans, assisted by the conspirators of Catana, to attack them unprepared, to mount their undefended ramparts, to demolish their encampment, and to burn their fleet.” This daring proposal well corresponded with the keen sentiments of revenge which animated the inhabitants of Syracuse. The day was named; the plan of the enterprise was concerted, and the treacherous Catanian returned home to revive the hopes, and to confirm the resolution, of his pretended associates.

The success of this intrigue gave the utmost satisfaction to Nicias, whose armament prepared to sail for Syracuse on the day appointed by the inhabitants of that city for assaulting, with their whole force, the Athenian camp. Already had they marched, with this view, to the fertile plain of Leontini, when, after twelve hours’ sail, the Athenian fleet arrived in the great harbour, disembarked their troops, and fortified a camp without the western wall, near to a celebrated temple of Olympian Jupiter, a situation which had been pointed out by some Syracusan exiles, and which was well adapted to every purpose of accommodation and defence. Meanwhile the cavalry of Syracuse, having proceeded to the walls of Catana, had discovered, to their infinite regret, the departure of the Athenians. The unwelcome intelligence was conveyed, with the utmost expedition, to the infantry, who immediately marched back to protect Syracuse. The rapid return of the war-like youth restored the courage of the aged Syracusans. They were joined by the forces of Gela, Selinus, and Camarina; and it was determined to attack the hostile encampment.

The attack was begun with fury, and continued with perseverance for several hours. Both sides were animated by every principle that can inspire and urge the utmost vigour of exertion, and victory was still doubtful, when a tempest suddenly arose, accompanied with unusual peals of thunder. This event, which little affected the Athenians, confounded the unexperienced credulity of the enemy, who were broken and put to flight. The Syracusans escaped to their city, and the Athenians returned to their camp. In such an obstinate conflict the vanquished lost two hundred and sixty, the victors only fifty men.

The voyage, the encampment, and the battle, employed the dangerous activity, and gratified the impetuous ardour of the Athenians, but did not facilitate the conquest of Syracuse. Without more powerful preparations, Nicias despaired of taking the place, either by assault, or by a regular siege. Soon after his victory he returned with the whole armament to Naxos and Catana. Nicias had reason to expect that his victory over the Syracusans would procure him respect and assistance from the inferior states of Sicily. His emissaries were diffused over that island and the neighbouring coast of Italy. Messengers were sent to Tuscany, where Pisa and other cities had been founded by Greek colonies. An embassy was despatched to Carthage, the rival and enemy of Syracuse. Nicias gave orders to collect materials for circumvallation, iron, bricks, and all necessary stores. He demanded horses from the Segestans; and required from Athens reinforcements and a large pecuniary supply; and neglected nothing that might enable him to open the ensuing campaign with vigour and effect.

While the Athenians thus prepared for the attack of Syracuse, the citizens of that capital displayed equal activity in providing for their own defence. By the advice of Hermocrates, they appointed himself, Heraclides, and Sicanus; three, instead of fifteen generals. The commanders newly elected, both in civil and military affairs, were invested with unlimited power, which was usefully employed to purchase or prepare arms, daily to exercise the troops, and to strengthen and extend the fortifications of Syracuse. They likewise despatched ambassadors to the numerous cities and republics with which they had been connected in peace, or allied in war, to solicit the continuance of their friendship, and to counteract the dangerous designs of the Athenians.

Meanwhile the expected reinforcements arrived from Athens. In addition to his original force, Nicias had likewise collected a body of six hundred cavalry, and the sum of four hundred talents; and, in the eighteenth summer of the war, the activity of the troops and workmen had completed all necessary preparations for undertaking the siege of Syracuse.

The plan which Nicias adopted for conquering the city, was to draw a wall on either side. When these circumvallations had surrounded the place by land, he expected, by his numerous fleet, to block up the wide extent of the Syracusan harbours. The whole strength of the Athenian armament was employed in the former operations; and as all necessary materials had been provided with due attention, the works rose with a rapidity which surprised and terrified the besieged. Their former as well as their recent defeats deterred them from opposing the enemy in a general engagement; but the advice of Hermocrates persuaded them to raise walls which might traverse and interrupt those of the Athenians. The imminent danger urged the activity of the workmen; the hostile bulwarks approached each other; frequent skirmishes took place, in one of which the brave Lamachus unfortunately fell a victim to his rash valour; but the Athenian troops maintained their usual superiority.

Encouraged by success, Nicias pushed the enemy with vigour. The Syracusans lost hopes of defending their new works, or of preventing the complete circumvallation of their city. New generals were named in the room of Hermocrates and his colleagues; and this injudicious alteration increased the calamities of Syracuse, which at length prepared to capitulate.

While the assembly deliberated concerning the execution of a measure, which, however disgraceful, was declared to be necessary, a Corinthian galley, commanded by Gongylus, entered the central harbour of Ortygia, which being strongly fortified, and penetrating into the heart of the city, served as the principal and most secure station for the Syracusan fleet. Gongylus announced a speedy and effectual relief to the besieged city. He acquainted the Syracusans, that the embassy, sent the preceding year to crave the assistance of Peloponnesus, had been crowned with success. His own countrymen had warmly embraced the cause of their kinsmen, and most respectable colony. They had fitted out a considerable fleet, the arrival of which might be expected every hour. The Lacedæmonians also had sent a small squadron, and the whole armament was conducted by the Spartan Gylippus, an officer of tried valour and ability.

While the desponding citizens of Syracuse listened to this intelligence with pleasing astonishment, a messenger arrived by land from Gylippus himself. That experienced commander, instead of pursuing a direct course, which might have been intercepted by the Athenian fleet, had landed with four galleys on the western coast of the island. The name of a Spartan general determined the wavering irresolution of the Sicilians. The troops of Himera, Selinus, and Gela flocked to his standard; and he approached Syracuse on the side of Epipolæ, where the line of contravallation was still unfinished, with a body of several thousand men.

SPARTAN AID

The most courageous of the citizens sallied forth to meet this generous and powerful protector. The junction was happily effected; the ardour of the troops kindled into enthusiasm; and they distinguished that memorable day by surprising several important Athenian posts. This first success reanimated the activity of the soldiers and workmen. The traverse wall was extended with the utmost diligence, and a vigorous sally deprived the enemy of the strong castle of Labdalum. Nicias, perceiving that the interest of the Athenians in Sicily would be continually weakened by delay, wished to bring the fortune of the war to the decision of a battle. Nor did Gylippus decline the engagement. The first action was unfavourable to the Syracusans, who had been imprudently posted in the defiles between their own and the enemy’s walls, which rendered of no avail their superiority in cavalry and archers. The magnanimity of Gylippus acknowledged this error, for which he completely atoned by his judicious conduct in the succeeding engagements.

The Syracusans soon extended their works beyond the line of circumvallation, so that it was impossible to block up their city, without forcing their ramparts. The besiegers, while they maintained the superiority of their arms, had been abundantly supplied with necessaries from the neighbouring territory; but every place was alike hostile to them after their defeat. The soldiers who went out in quest of wood and water, were unexpectedly attacked and cut off by the enemy’s cavalry, or by the reinforcements which arrived from every quarter to the assistance of Syracuse; and they were at length reduced to depend for every necessary supply on the precarious bounty of the Italian shore.

Nicias, whose sensibility deeply felt the public distress, wrote a most desponding letter to the Athenians. He honestly described, and lamented, the misfortunes and disorders of his army. The slaves deserted in great numbers; the mercenary troops, who fought only for pay and subsistence, preferred the more secure and lucrative service of Syracuse. He therefore exhorted the assembly either to call them home without delay, or to send immediately a second armament, not less powerful than the first.

The principal squadrons of Syracuse lay in the harbour of Ortygia, separated, by an island of the same name, from the station of the Athenian fleet. While Hermocrates sailed forth with eighty galleys, to venture a naval engagement, Gylippus attacked the hostile fortifications at Plemmyrium, a promontory opposite to Ortygia, which confined the entrance of the Great Harbour. The defeat of the Syracusans at sea, whereby they lost fourteen vessels, was balanced by their victory on land, in which they took three fortresses, containing a large quantity of military and naval stores, and a considerable sum of money. In some subsequent actions, which scarcely deserve the name of battles, their fleet was still unsuccessful; but as they engaged with great caution, and found everywhere a secure retreat on a friendly shore, their loss was extremely inconsiderable. The want of success, in their first attempt, did not abate their resolution to gain the command at sea.

By unexampled assiduity the Syracusans at length prevailed in a general engagement, which was fought in the Great Harbour. Seven Athenian ships were sunk, many more were disabled, and Nicias saved the remains of his shattered and dishonoured armament by retiring behind a line of merchantmen and transports, from the masts of which had been suspended huge masses of lead, named dolphins from their form, sufficient to crush by their falling weight the stoutest galleys of antiquity. This unexpected obstacle arrested the progress of the victors; but the advantages already obtained elevated them with the highest hopes, and reduced the enemy to despair.

ALCIBIADES AGAINST ATHENS

[Sidenote: [414-413 B.C.]]

The Athenian misfortunes in Sicily were attended by misfortunes at home still more dreadful. In the eighteenth year of the war, Alcibiades accompanied to Sparta the ambassadors of Corinth and Syracuse, who had solicited and obtained assistance to the besieged city. On that occasion the Athenian exile first acquired the confidence of the Spartans, by condemning, in the strongest terms, the injustice and ambition of his ungrateful countrymen, “whose cruelty towards himself equalled their inveterate hostility to the Lacedæmonian republic; but that republic might, by following his advice, disarm their resentment. The town of Decelea was situated on the Attic frontier, at an equal distance of fifteen miles from Thebes and Athens. This place, which commanded an extensive and fertile plain, might be surprised and fortified by the Spartans, who, instead of harassing their foes by annual incursions, might thus infest them by a continual war. The wisdom of Sparta had too long neglected such a salutary and decisive measure, especially as the existence of a similar design had often been suggested by the fears of the enemy, who trembled even at the apprehension of seeing a foreign garrison in their territory.”

This advice first proposed, and often urged, by Alcibiades, was adopted in the commencement of the ensuing spring, when the warlike Agis led a powerful army into Attica. The defenceless inhabitants of the frontier fled before his irresistible arms; but instead of pursuing them, as usual, into the heart of the country, he stopped short at Decelea. As all necessary materials had been provided in great abundance, the place was speedily fortified on every side, and the walls of Decelea, which might be distinctly seen across the intermediate plain, bid defiance to those of Athens.

The latter city was kept in continual alarm by the watchful hostility of a neighbouring garrison. The open country was entirely laid waste, and the usual communication with the valuable island of Eubœa was interrupted, from which, in seasons of scarcity, or during the ravages of war, the Athenians commonly derived their supplies of corn, wine, and oil, and whatever is most necessary to life. Harassed by the fatigues of unremitting service, and deprived of daily bread, the slaves murmured, complained, and revolted to the enemy; and their defection robbed the state of twenty thousand useful artisans. Since the latter years of Pericles, the Athenians had not been involved in such distress.

The domestic calamities of the republic did not, however, prevent the most vigorous exertions abroad. Twenty galleys, stationed at Naupactus, watched the motions of the Peloponnesian fleet destined to the assistance of Syracuse; thirty carried on the war in Macedonia, to reduce the rebellion of Amphipolis; a considerable squadron collected tribute, and levied soldiers, in the colonies of Asia; another, still more powerful, ravaged the coast of Peloponnesus. Never did any kingdom or republic equal the magnanimity of Athens; never in ancient or modern times did the courage of any state, entertain an ambition so far superior to its power, or exert efforts so disproportionate to its strength. Amidst the difficulties and dangers which encompassed them on every side, the Athenians persisted in the siege of Syracuse, a city little inferior to their own; and, undaunted by the actual devastation of their country, unterrified by the menaced assault of their walls, they sent, without delay, such a reinforcement into Sicily, as afforded the most promising hopes of success in their expedition against that island.

ATHENIAN REINFORCEMENTS

[Sidenote: [413 B.C.]]

The Syracusans had scarcely time to rejoice at their victory, or Nicias to bewail his defeat, when a numerous and formidable armament appeared on the Sicilian coast. The foremost galleys, their prows adorned with gaudy streamers, pursued a secure course towards the harbour of Syracuse. The emulation of the rowers was animated by the mingled sounds of trumpet and clarion; and the regular decoration, the elegant splendour, which distinguished every part of the equipment, exhibited a pompous spectacle of naval triumph. Their appearance, even at a distance, announced the country to which they belonged; and both the joy of the besiegers and the terror of the besieged, testified that Athens was the only city in the world capable of sending to the sea such a beautiful and magnificent contribution. The Syracusans employed not unavailing efforts to check the progress, or to hinder the approach, of the hostile armament; which, besides innumerable foreign vessels and transports, consisted of seventy-three Athenian galleys, commanded by the experienced valour of Demosthenes and Eurymedon. The pikemen on board exceeded five thousand; the light-armed troops were nearly as numerous; and, including the rowers, workmen, and attendants, the whole strength may be reckoned equal to that originally sent with Nicias, which amounted to above twenty thousand men.

The misfortunes hitherto attending the operations in Sicily had lowered the character of the general; and this circumstance, as well as the superior abilities of Demosthenes, entitled him to assume the tone of authority in their conjunct deliberations. After ravaging the banks of the Anapus, and making some ineffectual attempts against the fortifications on that side, Demosthenes chose the first hour of a moonlit night, to proceed with the flower of the army to seize the fortresses in Epipolæ. The march was performed with successful celerity; the outposts were surprised, the guards put to the sword; and three separate encampments, of the Syracusans, the Sicilians, the allies, formed a feeble opposition to the Athenian ardour. As if their victory had already been complete, the assailants began to pull down the wooden battlements, or to urge the pursuit with a rapidity which disordered their ranks.

Meanwhile, the vigilant activity of Gylippus had assembled the whole force of Syracuse. At the approach of the enemy his vanguard retired. The Athenians were decoyed within the intricate windings of the walls, and their irregular fury was first checked by the firmness of a Theban phalanx. A resistance so sudden and unexpected might alone have been decisive; but other circumstances were adverse to the Athenians: their ignorance of the ground, the alternate obscurity of night, and the deceitful glare of the moon, which, shining in the front of the Thebans, illumined the splendour of their arms, and multiplied the terror of their numbers. The foremost ranks of the pursuers were repelled; and, as they retreated to the main body, encountered the advancing Argives and Corcyræans, who, singing the pæan in their Doric dialect and accent, were unfortunately taken for enemies. Fear, and then rage, seized the Athenians, who, thinking themselves encompassed on all sides, determined to force their way, and committed much bloodshed among their allies, before the mistake could be discovered.

To prevent the repetition of this dreadful error, their scattered bands were obliged at every moment to demand the watchword, which was at length betrayed to their adversaries. The consequence of this was doubly fatal. At every rencounter the silent Athenians were slaughtered without mercy, while the enemy, who knew their watchword, might at pleasure join, or decline, the battle, and easily oppress their weakness, or elude their strength. The terror and confusion increased; the rout became general; Gylippus pursued in good order with his victorious troops. The vanquished could not descend in a body with the celerity of fear, by the narrow passages through which they had mounted. Many abandoned their arms, and explored the unknown paths of the rocky Epipolæ. Others threw themselves from precipices, rather than await the pursuers. Several thousands were left dead or wounded on the scene of action; and in the morning the greater part of the stragglers were intercepted and cut off by the Syracusan cavalry.

ATHENIAN DISASTER

This dreadful and unexpected disaster suspended the operations of the siege. The Athenian generals spent the time in fruitless deliberations concerning their future measures, while the army lay encamped on the marshy and unhealthy banks of the Anapus. A general sickness broke out in the camp. Demosthenes urged this calamity as a new reason for hastening their departure, while it was yet possible to cross the Ionian Sea, without risking the danger of a winter’s tempest. But Nicias opposed the design of leaving Sicily until they should be warranted to take this important step by the positive authority of the republic. The colleagues of Nicias were confounded with the firmness of an opposition so unlike the flexible timidity of his ordinary character, but they submitted to his opinion, an opinion equally fatal to himself and to them, and to the armament which they commanded.

Meanwhile the prudence of Gylippus profited by the fame of his victory, to draw a powerful reinforcement from the Sicilian cities; and the transports, so long expected from Peloponnesus, finally arrived in the harbour of Ortygia. This squadron formed the last assistance sent to either of the contending parties, and nothing further was required to complete the actors in the scene; for by the accession of the Cyrenians, Syracuse was either attacked or defended by all the various divisions of the Grecian name, which formed, in that age, the most civilised portion of the inhabitants of Asia, Africa, and Europe. The arrival of such powerful auxiliaries to the besieged, and the increasing force of the malady, totally disconcerted the Athenians. Even Nicias agreed to set sail. Every necessary preparation was made for this purpose, and the cover of night was chosen, as most proper for concealing their own disgrace, and for eluding the vengeance of the enemy. But the night appointed for their departure was distinguished by an inauspicious eclipse of the moon. The voyage was deferred till the mystical number of thrice nine days. But before the expiration of that time it was no longer practicable; for the design was soon discovered to the Syracusans, and this discovery, added to the encouragement derived from the circumstances of which we have already taken notice, increased their eagerness to attack the enemy by sea and land. Their attempts failed to destroy, by fire-ships, the Athenian fleet. They were more successful in employing superior numbers to divide the strength and to weaken the resistance of an enfeebled and dejected foe. During three days there was a perpetual succession of military and naval exploits. On the first day fortune hung in suspense; the second deprived the Athenians of a considerable squadron commanded by Eurymedon; and this misfortune was embittered on the third day, by the loss of eighteen galleys, with their crews.

A design, suggested by the wisdom of Hermocrates, was eagerly adopted by the active zeal of his fellow-citizens, who strove, with unremitting ardour, to throw a chain of vessels across the mouth of the Great Harbour, about a mile in breadth. The labour was complete before Nicias, totally occupied by other objects, attempted to interrupt it. After repeated defeats, and although he was so miserably tormented by the stone, that he had frequently solicited his recall, that virtuous commander, whose courage rose in adversity, used the utmost diligence to retrieve the affairs of his country. The shattered galleys were speedily refitted, and again prepared, to the number of a hundred and ten, to risk the event of a battle. As they had suffered greatly, on former occasions, by the hardness and massive solidity of the Syracusan prows, Nicias provided them with grappling-irons, fitted to prevent the recoil of their opponents, and the repetition of the hostile stroke. The decks were crowded with armed men, and the contrivance to which the enemy had hitherto chiefly owed their success, of introducing the firmness and stability of a military, into a naval engagement, was adopted in its full extent by the Athenians. When Gylippus and the Syracusan commanders were apprised of the designs of the enemy, they hastened to the defence of the bar which had been thrown across the entrance of the harbour. Even the Athenian grappling-irons had not been overlooked; to elude the dangerous grasp of these instruments, the prows of the Syracusan vessels were covered with wet and slippery hides.

The first impression of the Athenians was irresistible; they burst through the passage of the bar, and repelled the squadrons on either side. As the entrance widened, the Syracusans, in their turn, rushed into the harbour, which was more favourable than the open sea to their mode of fighting. Thither the foremost of the Athenians returned, either compelled by superior force, or that they might assist their companions. The engagement became general in the mouth of the harbour; and in this narrow space two hundred galleys fought, during the greatest part of the day, with an obstinate and persevering valour. It would require the expressive energy of Thucydides, and the imitative, though inimitable, sounds and expressions of the Grecian tongue, to describe the noise, the tumult, and the ardour of the contending squadrons. The battle was not long confined to the shock of adverse prows, and to the distant hostility of darts and arrows. The nearest vessels grappled, and closed with each other, and their decks were soon converted into a field of blood. While the heavy-armed troops boarded the enemy’s ships, they left their own exposed to a similar misfortune; the fleets were divided into massive clusters of adhering galleys; and the confusion of their mingled shouts overpowered the voice of authority. The singular and tremendous spectacle of an engagement more fierce and obstinate than any that had ever been beheld in the Grecian seas, totally suspended the powers of the numerous and adverse battalions which encircled the coast.

Hope, fear, the shouts of victory, the shrieks of despair, the anxious solicitude of doubtful success, animated the countenances, the voice, and the gestures of the Athenians, whose whole reliance centred in their fleet. When at length their galleys evidently gave way on every side, the contrast of alternate, and the rapid tumult of successive passions, subsided in a melancholy calm. This dreadful pause of astonishment and terror was followed by the disordered trepidation of flight and fear; many escaped to the camp; others ran, uncertain whither to direct their steps; while Nicias, with a small, but undismayed band, remained on the shore to protect the landing of their unfortunate galleys. But the retreat of the Athenians could not probably have been effected, had it not been favoured by the actual circumstances of the enemy, as well as by the peculiar prejudices of ancient superstition. In this well-fought battle, the vanquished had lost fifty and the victors forty vessels. It was incumbent on the latter to employ their immediate and most strenuous efforts to recover the dead bodies of their friends, that they might be honoured with the sacred and indispensable rites of funeral. The day was far spent; the strength of the sailors had been exhausted by a long continuance of unremitting labour; and both they and their companions on shore were more desirous to return to Syracuse to enjoy the fruits of victory, than to irritate the dangerous despair of the vanquished Athenians.

It is observed by the Roman orator Cicero, with no less truth than elegance, that not only the navy of Athens, but the glory and the empire of that republic, suffered shipwreck in the fatal harbour of Syracuse. The despondent degeneracy which immediately followed this ever memorable engagement was testified in the neglect of a duty which the Athenians had never neglected before, and in denying a part of their national character, which it had hitherto been their greatest glory to maintain. They abandoned to insult and indignity the bodies of the slain; and when it was proposed to them by their commanders to prepare next day for a second engagement, since their vessels were still more numerous than those of the enemy, they, who had seldom avoided a superior, and who had never declined the encounter of an equal force, declared, that no motive could induce them to withstand the weaker armament of Syracuse. Their only desire was to escape by land, under cover of the night, from a foe whom they had not courage to oppose, and from a place where every object was offensive to their sight, and most painful to their reflection.

The behaviour of the Syracusans might have proved extremely favourable to this design. The coincidence of a festival and a victory demanded an accumulated profusion of such objects as soothe the senses and please the fancy. Amidst these giddy transports, the Syracusans lost all remembrance of an enemy whom they despised; even the soldiers on guard joined the dissolute or frivolous amusements of their companions; and, during the greatest part of the night, Syracuse presented a mixed scene of secure gayety, of thoughtless jollity, and of mad and dangerous disorder.

The firm and vigilant mind of Hermocrates alone withstood, but was unable to divert, the general current. It was impossible to rouse to the fatigues of war men buried in wine and pleasure, and intoxicated with victory; and, as he could not intercept by force, he determined to retard by stratagem, the intended retreat of the Athenians, whose numbers and resentment would still render them formidable to whatever part of Sicily they might remove their camp. A select band of horsemen, assuming the character of traitors, fearlessly approached the hostile ramparts, and warned the Athenians of the danger of departing that night, as many ambuscades lurked in the way, and all the most important passes were occupied by the enemy. The frequency of treason gained credit to the perfidious advice; and the Athenians, having changed their first resolution, were persuaded by Nicias to wait two days longer, that such measures might be taken as seemed best adapted to promote the safety and celerity of their march.

The superior rank of Nicias entitled him to a pre-eminence of toil and of woe; and he deserves the regard of posterity by his character and sufferings, and still more by the melancholy firmness of his conduct.[j]

Few pages of history are more eloquent than those wherein Thucydides describes the epic miseries of the defeated host of Athens. They have furthermore the merit of great accuracy. The rest of this chapter may therefore be given over to his vivid and tragic picture of the retreat.[a]

THUCYDIDES’ FAMOUS ACCOUNT OF THE FINAL DISASTERS

When Nicias and Demosthenes thought they were sufficiently prepared, the removal of the army took place, on the third day after the sea-fight. It was a wretched scene then, not on account of the single circumstance alone, that they were retreating after having lost all their ships, and while both themselves and their country were in danger, instead of being in high hope; but also because, on leaving their camp, every one had grievous things both to behold with his eyes and to feel in his heart. For as the dead lay unburied, and any one saw a friend on the ground, he was struck at once with grief and fear. And the living who were being left behind, wounded or sick, were to the living a much more sorrowful spectacle than the dead, and more piteous than those who had perished. For having recourse to entreaties and wailings, they reduced them to utter perplexity, begging to be taken away, and appealing to each individual friend or relative that any of them might anywhere see; or hanging on their comrades, as they were now going away; or following as far as they could, and when in any case the strength of their body failed, not being left behind without many appeals to heaven and many lamentations. So that the whole army, being filled with tears and distress of this kind, did not easily get away, although from an enemy’s country, and although they had both suffered already miseries too great for tears to express, and were still afraid for the future, lest they might suffer more. There was also amongst them much dejection and depreciation of their own strength. For they resembled nothing but a city starved out and attempting to escape; and no small one too, for of their whole multitude there were not less than forty thousand on the march.

Of these, all the rest took whatever each one could that was useful, and the heavy-armed and cavalry themselves, contrary to custom, carried their own food under their arms, some for want of servants, others through distrusting them; for they had for a long time been deserting, and did so in greatest numbers at that moment. And even what they carried was not sufficient; for there was no longer any food in the camp. Nor, again, was their other misery, and their equal participation in sufferings (though it affords some alleviation to endure with others), considered even on that account easy to bear at the present time; especially, when they reflected from what splendour and boasting at first they had been reduced to such an abject termination. For this was the greatest reverse that ever befell a Grecian army; since, in contrast to their having come to enslave others, they had to depart in fear of undergoing that themselves; and instead of the prayers and hymns, with which they sailed from home, they had to start on their return with omens the very contrary; going by land, instead of by sea, and relying on a military rather than a naval force. But nevertheless, in consequence of the greatness of the danger still impending, all these things seemed endurable to them.

Nicias, seeing the army dejected, and greatly changed, passed along the ranks, and encouraged and cheered them, as well as existing circumstances allowed; speaking still louder than before, as he severally came opposite to them, in the earnestness of his feeling, and from wishing to be of service to them by making himself audible to as many as possible. If he saw them anywhere straggling, and not marching in order, he collected and brought them to their post; while Demosthenes also did no less to those who were near him, addressing them in a similar manner. They marched in the form of a hollow square, the division under Nicias taking the lead, and that of Demosthenes following; while the baggage bearers and the main crowd of camp followers were enclosed within the heavy-armed.

When they had come to the river Anapus, they found drawn up a body of the Syracusans and allies; but having routed these, and secured the passage, they proceeded onwards; while the Syracusans pressed them with charges of horse, as their light-armed did with their missiles. On that day the Athenians advanced about five miles, and then halted for the night on a hill. The day following, they commenced their march at an early hour, and having advanced about two and a half miles, descended into a level district, and there encamped, wishing to procure some eatables from the houses (for the place was inhabited), and to carry on with them water from it, since for many miles before them, in the direction they were to go, it was not plentiful. The Syracusans, in the meantime, had gone on before, and were blocking up the pass in advance of them. For there was there a steep hill, with a precipitous ravine on either side of it, called the Acræum Lepas. The next day the Athenians advanced, and the horse and dart-men of the Syracusans and allies, each in great numbers, impeded their progress, hurling their missiles upon them, and annoying them with cavalry charges. The Athenians fought for a long time, and then returned again to the same camp, no longer having provisions as they had before; and it was no more possible to leave their position, because of the cavalry.

Starting early, they began their march again, and forced their way to the hill which had been fortified; where they found before them the enemy’s infantry drawn up for the defence of the wall many spears deep; for the pass was but narrow. The Athenians charged and assaulted the wall, but being annoyed with missiles by a large body from the hill, which was steep (for those on the heights more easily reached their aim), and not being able to force a passage, they retreated again, and rested. There happened also to be at the same time some claps of thunder and rain, as is generally the case when the year is now verging on autumn; in consequence of which the Athenians were still more dispirited, and thought that all these things also were conspiring together for their ruin. While they were resting, Gylippus and the Syracusans sent a part of their troops to intercept them again with a wall on their rear, where they had already passed: but they, on their side also, sent some of their men against them, and prevented their doing it. After this, the Athenians returned again with all their army into the more level country, and there halted for the night. The next day they marched forward, while the Syracusans discharged their weapons on them, surrounding them on all sides, and disabled many with wounds; retreating if the Athenians advanced against them, and pressing on them if they gave way; most especially attacking their extreme rear, in the hope that by routing them little by little, they might strike terror into the whole army. The Athenians resisted this mode of attack for a long time, but then, after advancing five or six furlongs, halted for rest on the plain; while the Syracusans went to their camp.

During the night, their troops being in a wretched condition, both from the want of all provisions which was now felt, and from so many men being disabled by wounds in the numerous attacks that had been made upon them by the enemy, Nicias and Demosthenes determined to light as many fires as possible, and then lead off the army, no longer by the same route as they had intended, but in the opposite direction to where the Syracusans were watching for them, namely, to the sea. Now the whole of this road would lead the armament, not towards Catana, but to the other side of Sicily, to Camarina, and Gela, and the cities in that direction, whether Grecian or barbarian. They kindled therefore many fires, and began their march in the night.

And as all armies, especially the largest, are liable to have terrors and panics amongst them, particularly when marching at night, and through an enemy’s country, and with the enemy not far off; so they also were thrown into alarm; and the division of Nicias, taking the lead as it did, kept together and got a long way in advance; while that of Demosthenes, containing about half or more, was separated from the others, and proceeded in greater disorder. By the morning, nevertheless, they arrived at the seacoast, and entering on what is called the Helorine road, continued their march, in order that when they had reached the river Cacyparis, they might march up along its banks through the interior; for they hoped also that in this direction the Sicels, to whom they had sent, would come to meet them. But when they had reached the river, they found a guard of the Syracusans there too, intercepting the pass with a wall and a palisade, having carried which, they crossed the river, and marched on again to another called the Erineus; for this was the route which their guides directed them to take.

Demosthenes Surrenders His Detachment

In the meantime the Syracusans and allies, as soon as it was day, and they found that the Athenians had departed, most of them charged Gylippus with having purposely let them escape; and pursuing with all haste by the route which they had no difficulty in finding they had taken, they overtook them about dinner-time. When they came up with the troops under Demosthenes, which were behind the rest, and marching more slowly and disorderly, ever since they had been thrown into confusion during the night, at the time we have mentioned, they immediately fell upon and engaged them; and the Syracusan horse surrounded them with greater ease from their being divided, and confined them in a narrow space.

The division of Nicias was six miles in advance; for he led them on more rapidly, thinking that their preservation depended, under such circumstances, not on staying behind, if they could help it, and on fighting, but on retreating as quickly as possible, and only fighting as often as they were compelled. Demosthenes, on the other hand, was, generally speaking, involved in more incessant labour (because, as he was retreating in the rear, he was the first that the enemy attacked), and on that occasion, finding that the Syracusans were in pursuit, he was not so much inclined to push on, as to form his men for battle; until, through thus loitering, he was surrounded by them, and both himself and the Athenians with him were thrown into great confusion. Being driven back into a certain spot which had a wall all round it, with a road on each side, and many olive trees growing about, they were annoyed with missiles in every direction. This kind of attack the Syracusans naturally adopted, instead of close combat; since risking their lives against men reduced to despair was no longer for their advantage, so much as for that of the Athenians. Besides, after success which was now so signal, each man spared himself in some degree, that he might not be cut off before the end of the business. They thought too that, even as it was, they should by this kind of fighting subdue and capture the Athenians.

At any rate, when, after plying the Athenians and their allies with missiles all day from every quarter, they saw them now distressed by wounds and other sufferings, Gylippus with the Syracusans and allies made a proclamation, in the first place, that any of the islanders who chose should come over to them, on condition of retaining his liberty; and some few states went over. Afterwards, terms were made with all the troops under Demosthenes, that they should surrender their arms, and that no one should be put to death, either by violence or imprisonment, or want of such nourishment as was most absolutely requisite. Thus there surrendered, in all, to the number of six thousand; and they laid down the whole of the money in their possession, throwing it into the hollow of shields, four of which they filled with it. These they immediately led back to the city, while Nicias and his division arrived that day on the banks of the river Erineus; having crossed which, he posted his army on some high ground.

Nicias Parleys, Fights, and Surrenders

The Syracusans, having overtaken him the next day, told him that Demosthenes and his division had surrendered themselves, and called on him also to do the same. Being incredulous of the fact, he obtained a truce to enable him to send a horseman to see. When he had gone, and brought word back again that they had surrendered, Nicias sent a herald to Gylippus and the Syracusans, saying that he was ready to agree with the Syracusans, on behalf of the Athenians, to repay whatever money the Syracusans had spent on the war, on condition of their letting his army go; and that until the money was paid, he would give Athenians as hostages, one for every talent. The Syracusans and Gylippus did not accede to these proposals, but fell upon this division also, and surrounded them on all sides, and annoyed them with their missiles until late in the day. And they too, like the others, were in a wretched plight for want of food and necessaries. Nevertheless, they watched for the quiet of the night, and then intended to pursue their march. And they were now just taking up their arms, when the Syracusans perceived it and raised their pæan. The Athenians, therefore, finding that they had not eluded their observation, laid their arms down again; excepting about three hundred men who forced their way through the sentinels, and proceeded, during the night, how and where they could.

As soon as it was day, Nicias led his troops forward; while the Syracusans and allies pressed on them in the same manner, discharging their missiles at them, and striking them down with their javelins on every side. The Athenians were hurrying on to reach the river Assinarus, being urged to this at once by the attack made on every side of them by the numerous cavalry and the rest of the light-armed multitude (for they thought they should be more at ease if they were once across the river), and also by their weariness and craving for drink. When they reached its banks, they rushed into it without any more regard for order, every man anxious to be himself the first to cross it; while the attack of the enemy rendered the passage more difficult. For being compelled to advance in a dense body, they fell upon and trod down one another; and some of them died immediately on the javelins and articles of baggage, while others were entangled together, and floated down the stream. On the other side of the river, too, the Syracusans lined the bank, which was precipitous, and from the higher ground discharged their missiles on the Athenians, while most of them were eagerly drinking in confusion amongst themselves in the hollow bed of the stream. The Peloponnesians, moreover, charged them and butchered them, especially those in the river. And thus the water was immediately spoiled; but nevertheless it was drunk by them, mud and all, and bloody as it was, it was even fought for by most of them.

At length, when many dead were now heaped one upon another in the river, and the army was destroyed, either at the river, or, if any part had escaped, by the cavalry, Nicias surrendered himself to Gylippus, placing more confidence in him than in the Syracusans; and desired him and the Lacedæmonians to do what they pleased with himself, but to stop butchering the rest of the soldiers. After this, Gylippus commanded to make prisoners; and they collected all that were alive, excepting such as they concealed for their own benefit (of whom there was a large number). They also sent a party in pursuit of the three hundred, who had forced their way through the sentinels during the night, and took them. The part of the army, then, that was collected as general property, was not large, but that which was secreted was considerable; and the whole of Sicily was filled with them, inasmuch as they had not been taken on definite terms of surrender, like those with Demosthenes. Indeed no small part was actually put to death; for this was the most extensive slaughter, and surpassed by none of all that occurred in this Sicilian war. In the other encounters also, which were frequent on their march, no few had fallen. But many also escaped; some at the moment, others after serving as slaves, and running away subsequently. These found a place of refuge at Catana.

The Fate of the Captives

When the Syracusans and allies were assembled together, they took with them as many prisoners as they could, with the spoils, and returned to the city. All the rest of the Athenians and the allies that they had taken, they sent down into the quarries, thinking this the safest way of keeping them; but Nicias and Demosthenes they executed, against the wish of Gylippus. For he thought it would be a glorious distinction for him, in addition to all his other achievements, to take to the Lacedæmonians the generals who had commanded against them. And it so happened, that one of these, namely Demosthenes, was regarded by them as their most inveterate enemy, in consequence of what had occurred on the island and at Pylos; the other, for the same reasons, as most in their interest; for Nicias had exerted himself for the release of the Lacedæmonians taken from the island, by persuading the Athenians to make a treaty. On this account the Lacedæmonians had friendly feelings towards him; and indeed it was mainly for the same reasons that he reposed confidence in Gylippus, and surrendered himself to him. But certain of the Syracusans (as it was said) were afraid, some of them, since they had held communication with him, that if put to the torture, he might cause them trouble on that account in the midst of their success; others, and especially the Corinthians, lest he might bribe some, as he was rich, and effect his escape, and so they should again incur mischief through his agency; and therefore they persuaded the allies, and put him to death. For this cause then, or something very like it, he was executed, having least of all the Greeks deserved to meet with such a misfortune, on account of his devoted attention to the practice of every virtue.

As for those in the quarries, the Syracusans treated them with cruelty during the first period of their captivity. For as they were in a hollow place, and many in a small compass, the sun, as well as the suffocating closeness, distressed them at first, in consequence of their not being under cover; and then, on the contrary, the nights coming on autumnal and cold, soon worked in them an alteration from health to disease, by means of the change. Since, too, in consequence of their want of room, they did everything in the same place; and the dead, moreover, were piled up on one another--such as died from their wounds, and from the change they had experienced, and such like. There were, besides, intolerable stenches; while at the same time they were tormented with hunger and thirst, for during eight months they gave each of them daily only a cotyle[56] of water, and two of corn. And of all the other miseries which it was likely that men thrown into such a place would suffer, there was none that did not fall to their lot. For some seventy days they thus lived all together; then the rest of them were sold, except the Athenians, and whatever Siceliots or Italians had joined them in the expedition.

The total number of those who were taken, though it were difficult to speak with exactness, was still not less than seven thousand. “And this,” says Thucydides in conclusion, “was the greatest Grecian exploit of all that were performed in this war; nay, in my opinion, of all Grecian achievements that we have heard of also; and was at once most splendid for the conquerors, and most disastrous for the conquered. For being altogether vanquished at all points, and having suffered in no slight degree in any respect, they were destroyed (as the saying is) with utter destruction, both army, and navy, and everything; and only a few out of many returned home. Such were the events which occurred in Sicily.”[i]

FOOTNOTES

[55] [Adolph Holm rates it at thirty thousand men.]

[56] The cotyle was a little more than half an English pint; and the allowance of food here mentioned was only half of that commonly given to a slave.

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