History of Greece - Vol. 7/12

CHAPTER LVI. FROM THE FESTIVAL OF OLYMPIAD NINETY DOWN TO THE BATTLE OF MANTINEIA.

CHAPTER LVII. SICILIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE EXTINCTION OF THE GELONIAN DYNASTY.

CHAPTER LVIII. FROM THE RESOLUTION OF THE ATHENIANS TO ATTACK SYRACUSE, DOWN TO THE FIRST WINTER AFTER THEIR ARRIVAL IN SICILY.

For the two or three months immediately succeeding the final resolution taken by the Athenians to invade Sicily, described in the last chapter, the whole city was elate and bustling with preparation. I have already mentioned that this resolution, though long opposed by Nikias with a considerable minority, had at last been adopted—chiefly through the unforeseen working of that which he intended as a counter-manœuvre—with a degree of enthusiasm and unanimity, and upon an enlarged scale, which surpassed all the anticipations of its promoters. The prophets, circulators of oracles, and other accredited religious advisers, announced generally the favorable dispositions of the gods, and promised a triumphant result.[236] All classes in the city, rich and poor,—cultivators, traders, and seamen, old and young, all embraced the project with ardor; as requiring a great effort, yet promising unparalleled results, both of public aggrandizement and individual gain. Each man was anxious to put down his own name for personal service; so that the three generals, Nikias, Alkibiadês, and Lamachus, when they proceeded to make their selection of hoplites, instead of being forced to employ constraint and incur ill-will, as happened when an expedition was unpopular, had only to choose the fittest among a throng of eager volunteers. Every man provided himself with his best arms and with bodily accoutrements, useful as well as ostentatious, for a long voyage and for the exigencies of a varied land-and-sea-service. Among the trierarchs, or rich citizens, who undertook each in his turn the duty of commanding a ship of war, the competition was yet stronger. Each of them accounted it an honor to be named, and vied with his comrades to exhibit his ship in the most finished state of equipment. The state, indeed, furnished both the trireme with its essential tackle and oars, and the regular pay for the crew; but the trierarch, even in ordinary cases, usually incurred various expenses besides, to make the equipment complete and to keep the crew together. Such additional outlay, neither exacted nor defined by law, but only by custom and general opinion, was different in every individual case, according to temper and circumstances. But on the present occasion, zeal and forwardness were universal: each trierarch tried to procure for his own ship the best crew, by offers of additional reward to all, but especially to the thranitæ or rowers on the highest of the three tiers:[237] and it seems that the seamen were not appointed specially to one ship, but were at liberty to accept these offers, and to serve in any ship they preferred. Each trierarch spent more than had ever been known before in pay, outfit, provision, and even external decoration of his vessel. Besides the best crews which Athens herself could furnish, picked seamen were also required from subject-allies, and were bid for in the same way by the trierarchs.[238]

Such efforts were much facilitated by the fact, that five years had now elapsed since the Peace of Nikias, without any considerable warlike operations. While the treasury had become replenished with fresh accumulations,[239] 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 Periklês, 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 ardor, 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. Much of this was visible to the eye, contributing to heighten that general excitement of Athenian imagination which pervaded the whole city while the preparations were going forward: a mingled feeling of private sympathy and patriotism,—a dash of uneasiness from reflection on the distant and unknown region wherein the fleet was to act,—yet an elate confidence in Athenian force, such as had never before been entertained.[240] We hear of Sokratês the philosopher, and Meton the astronomer, as forming exceptions to this universal tone of sanguine anticipation: the familiar genius which constantly waited upon the philosopher is supposed to have forewarned him of the result. Nor is it impossible that he may have been averse to the expedition, though the fact is less fully certified than we could wish. Amidst a general predominance of the various favorable religious signs and prophecies, there were also some unfavorable. Usually, on all public matters of risk or gravity, there were prophets who gave assurances in opposite ways: those which turned out right were treasured up: the rest were at once forgotten, or never long remembered.[241]

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.

These Hermæ, or half-statues of the god Hermês, 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; standing beside the outer doors of private houses as well as of temples, near the most frequented porticos, at the intersection of cross ways, in the public agora. They were thus present to the eye of every Athenian in all his acts of intercommunion, either for business or pleasure, with his fellow-citizens. The religious feelings of the Greeks considered the god to be planted or domiciliated where his statue stood,[242] so that the companionship, sympathy, and guardianship of Hermês became associated with most of the manifestations of conjunct life at Athens,—political, social, commercial, or gymnastic. Moreover, the quadrangular fashion of these statues, employed occasionally for other gods besides Hermês, was a most ancient relic handed down from the primitive rudeness of Pelasgian workmanship and was popular in Arcadia as well as peculiarly frequent in Athens.[243]

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, Andokidês affirms, and I incline to believe him, that there was but one which escaped unharmed.[244]

It is of course impossible for any one to sympathize fully with the feelings of a religion not his own: indeed, the sentiment with which, in the case of persons of different creeds, each regards the strong emotions growing out of causes peculiar to the other, is usually one of surprise that such trifles and absurdities can occasion any serious distress or excitement.[245] But 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,[246] 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.[247] 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 localized, 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 dishonored 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 porticos, 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 sympathizing. It was on the protection of the gods, that all their political constitution as well as the blessings of civil life depended; insomuch that the curses of the gods were habitually invoked as sanction and punishment for grave offences, political as well as others:[248] an extension and generalization of the feeling still attached to the judicial oath. This was, in the minds of the people of Athens, a sincere and literal conviction, not simply a form of speech to be pronounced in prayers and public harangues, without being ever construed as a reality in calculating consequences and determining practical measures. Accordingly, they drew from the mutilation of the Hermæ the inference, not less natural than terrifying, that heavy public misfortune was impending over the city, and that the political constitution to which they were attached was in imminent danger of being subverted.[249]

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.[250] It would doubtless have been so determined, had it been a mere undesigned accident happening to any venerated religious object, just as we are told that similar misgivings were occasioned by the occurrence, about this same time, of the melancholy festival of the Adonia, wherein the women loudly bewailed the untimely death of Adonis.[251] The mutilation of the Hermæ, however, was something much more ominous than the worst accident. It proclaimed itself as the deliberate act of organized 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 an 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 Alkibiadês, to frustrate or delay the expedition. How they pursued the former purpose, will be presently seen: towards the latter, nothing was ostensibly done, but the position of Teukrus, and other metics implicated, renders it more likely that they were influenced by sympathies with Corinth and Megara,[252] prompting them to intercept an expedition which was supposed to promise great triumphs to Athens, rather than corrupted by the violent antipathies of intestine politics. 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 Alkibiadês 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. Especially Nikias, exquisitely sensitive in his own religious conscience, and never hearty in his wish for going, a fact perfectly known to the enemy,[253] would hasten to consult his prophets, and might reasonably be expected to renew his opposition on the fresh ground offered to him, or at least to claim delay until the offended gods should have been appeased. We may judge how much such a proceeding was in the line of his character, and of the Athenian character, when we find him, two years afterwards, with the full concurrence of his soldiers, actually sacrificing the last opportunity of safe retreat for the half-ruined Athenian army in Sicily, and refusing even to allow the proposition to be debated, in consequence of an eclipse of the moon; and when we reflect that Spartans and other Greeks frequently renounced public designs if an earthquake happened before the execution.[254]

But though the chance of setting aside the expedition altogether might reasonably enter into the plans of the conspirators, as a likely consequence of the intense shock inflicted on the religious mind of Athens, and especially of Nikias, this calculation was not realized. Probably matters had already proceeded too far even for Nikias to recede. Notice had been sent round to all the allies; forces were already on their way to the rendezvous at Korkyra; the Argeian and Mantineian allies were arriving at Peiræus to embark. So much the more eagerly did the conspirators proceed in the other part of their plan, to work that exaggerated religious terror, which they had themselves artificially brought about, for the ruin of Alkibiadês.

Few men in Athens either had or deserved to have a greater number of enemies, political as well as private, than Alkibiades; 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 seem to have deliberately planned, his other enemies were ready to turn to profit.

Amidst the mournful dismay spread by the discovery of so unparalleled a sacrilege, it appeared to the Athenian people,—as it would have appeared to the ephors at Sparta, or to the rulers in every oligarchical city of Greece,—that it was their paramount and imperative duty to detect and punish the authors. So long as these latter were walking about unknown and unpunished, the temples were defiled by their presence, and the whole city was accounted under the displeasure of the gods, who would inflict upon it heavy public misfortunes.[255] Under this displeasure every citizen felt himself comprehended, so that the sense of public security as well as of private comfort were alike unappeased, until the offenders should be discovered and atonement made by punishing or expelling them. Large rewards were accordingly proclaimed to any person who could give information, and even impunity to any accomplice whose confession might lay open the plot. Nor did the matter stop here. Once under this painful shock of religious and political terror, the Athenians became eager talkers and listeners on the subject of other recent acts of impiety. Every one was impatient to tell all that he knew, and more than he knew, about such incidents; while to exercise any strict criticism upon the truth of such reports, would argue weakness of faith and want of religious zeal, rendering the critic himself a suspected man, “metuunt dubitasse videri.” To rake out and rigorously visit all such offenders, and thus to display an earnest zeal for the honor of the gods, was accounted one auxiliary means of obtaining absolution from them for the recent outrage. Hence an additional public vote was passed, promising rewards and inviting information from all witnesses,—citizens, metics, or even slaves,—respecting any previous acts of impiety which might have come within their cognizance,[256] but at the same time providing that informers who gave false depositions should be punished capitally.[257]

The Senate of Five Hundred were invested with full powers of action; while Diognêtus, Peisander, Chariklês, and others, were named commissioners for receiving and prosecuting inquiries, and public assemblies were held nearly every day to receive reports.[258] 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,[259] by parties of revellers caricaturing and divulging the Eleusinian mysteries. It was under this latter head that the first impeachment was preferred against Alkibiadês.

So fully were the preparations of the armament now complete, that the trireme of Lamachus—who was doubtless more diligent about the military details than either of his two colleagues—was already moored in the outer harbor, and the last public assembly was held for the departing officers,[260] who probably laid before their countrymen an imposing account of the force assembled, when Pythonikus rose to impeach Alkibiadês. “Athenians,” said he, “you are going to despatch this great force and incur all this hazard, at a moment when I am prepared to show you that your general Alkibiadês is one of the profaners of the holy mysteries, in a private house. Pass a vote of impunity, and I will produce to you forthwith a slave of one here present, who, though himself not initiated in the mysteries, shall repeat to you what they are. Deal with me in any way you choose, if my statement prove untrue.” While Alkibiadês strenuously denied the allegation, the prytanes—senators presiding over the assembly, according to the order determined by lot for that year among the ten tribes—at once made proclamation for all uninitiated citizens to depart from the assembly, and went to fetch the slave—Andromachus by name—whom Pythonikus had indicated. On being introduced, Andromachus deposed before the assembly that he had been with his master in the house of Polytion, when Alkibiadês, Nikiadês, and Melêtus, went through the sham celebration of the mysteries; many other persons being present, and especially three other slaves besides himself. We must presume that he verified this affirmation by describing what the mysteries were which he had seen, the test which Pythonikus had offered.[261]

Such was the first direct attack made upon Alkibiadês by his enemies. Pythonikus, the demagogue Androklês, and other speakers, having put in evidence this irreverent proceeding,—probably in substance true,—enlarged upon it with the strongest invective, imputed to him many other acts of the like character, and even denounced him as cognizant of the recent mutilation of the Hermæ. All had been done, they said, with a view to accomplish his purpose of subverting the democracy, when bereft of its divine protectors; a purpose manifested by the constant tenor of his lawless, overbearing, antipopular demeanor. Infamous as this calumny was, so far as regarded the mutilation of the Hermæ,—for whatever else Alkibiadês may have done, of that act he was unquestionably innocent, being the very person who had most to lose by it, and whom it ultimately ruined,—they calculated upon the reigning excitement to get it accredited, and probably to procure his deposition from the command, preparatory to public trial. But in spite of all the disquietude arising from the recent sacrilege, their expectations were defeated. The strenuous denial of Alkibiadês, aided by his very peculiar position as commander of the armament, as well as by the reflection that the recent outrage tended rather to spoil his favorite projects in Sicily, found general credence. The citizens enrolled to serve, manifested strong disposition to stand by him; the allies from Argos and Mantineia were known to have embraced the service chiefly at his instigation; the people generally had become familiar with him as the intended conqueror in Sicily, and were loth to be balked of this project. From all these circumstances, his enemies, finding little disposition to welcome the accusations which they preferred, were compelled to postpone them until a more suitable time.[262]

But Alkibiadês 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 Alkibiadês. These men affected a tone of candor, 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.[263] Such was the determination ultimately adopted; the supporters of Alkibiadês 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.[264]

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 Korkyra. But the Athenian force alone was astounding to behold. There were one hundred triremes, sixty of which were in full trim for rapid nautical movement, while the remaining forty were employed as transports for the soldiers. There were fifteen hundred select citizen hoplites, chosen from the general muster-roll, and seven hundred Thêtes, or citizens too poor to be included in the muster-roll, who served as hoplites on shipboard,—epibatæ, or marines,—each with a panoply furnished by the state. To these must be added, five hundred Argeian and two hundred and fifty Mantineian hoplites, paid by Athens and transported on board Athenian ships.[265] The number of horsemen was so small, that all were conveyed in a single horse transport. But the condition, the equipment, the pomp both of wealth and force, visible in the armament, was still more impressive than the number. At daybreak on the day appointed, when all the ships were ready in Peiræus, 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 of 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 keleustês 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, both 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 Peiræus in single file, displaying the exuberance of their yet untried force by a race of speed as far as Ægina.[266] 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. All these details, given by Thucydidês, of the triumphant promise which now issued from Peiræus, derive a painful interest from their contrast with the sad issue which will hereafter be unfolded.

The fleet made straight for Korkyra, where the contingents of the maritime allies, with the ships for burden and provisions, were found assembled. The armament thus complete was passed in review, and found to comprise one hundred and thirty-four triremes with two Rhodian pentekonters; five thousand one hundred hoplites; four hundred and eighty bowmen, eighty of them Kretan; seven hundred Rhodian slingers; and one hundred and twenty Megarian exiles serving as light troops. Of vessels of burden, in attendance with provisions, muniments of war, bakers, masons, and carpenters, etc., the number was not less than five hundred; besides which, there was a considerable number of private trading-ships, following it voluntarily for purposes of profit.[267] Three fast-sailing triremes were despatched in advance to ascertain which of the cities in Italy and Sicily would welcome the arrival of the armament; and especially to give notice at Egesta, that the succor solicited was now on its way, requiring at the same time that the money promised by the Egestæans should be produced. Having then distributed by lot the armament into three divisions, one under each of the generals, Nikias, Alkibiadês, and Lamachus, they crossed the Ionic gulf from Korkyra to the Iapygian promontory.

In their progress southward along the coast of Italy to Rhegium, they met with a very cold reception from the various Grecian cities. None would receive them within their walls or even sell them provisions without. The utmost which they would grant was, the liberty of taking moorings and of watering; and even thus much was denied to them both at Tarentum and at the Epizephyrian Lokri. At Rhegium, immediately on the Sicilian strait, though the town-gate was still kept shut, they were so far more hospitably treated, that a market of provisions was furnished to them, and they were allowed to encamp in the sacred precinct of Artemis, not far from the walls. They here hauled their ships ashore and took repose until the return of the three scout-ships from Egesta; while the generals entered into negotiation with the magistrates and people of Rhegium, endeavoring to induce them to aid the armament in reëstablishing the dispossessed Leontines, who were of common Chalkidian origin with themselves. But the answer returned was discouraging. The Rhegines would promise nothing more than neutrality, and coöperation in any course of policy which it might suit the other Italian Greeks to adopt. Probably they, as well as the other Italian Greeks, were astonished and intimidated by the magnitude of the newly-arrived force, and desired to leave themselves open latitude of conduct for the future, not without mistrust of Athens and her affected forwardness for the restoration of the Leontines. To the Athenian generals, however, such a negative from Rhegium was an unwelcome disappointment; for that city had been the ally of Athens in the last war, and they had calculated on the operation of Chalkidic sympathies.[268]

It was not until after the muster of the Athenians at Korkyra, about July 415 B.C., that the Syracusans became thoroughly convinced both of their approach, and of the extent of their designs against Sicily. Intimation had indeed reached Syracuse, from several quarters, of the resolution taken by the Athenians in the preceding March to assist Egesta and Leontini, and of the preparations going on in consequence. There was, however, a prevailing indisposition to credit such tidings. Nothing in the state of Sicily held out any encouragement to Athenian ambition: the Leontines could give no aid, the Egestæans very little, and that little at the opposite corner of the island; while the Syracusans considered themselves fully able to cope with any force which Athens was likely to send. Some derided the intelligence as mere idle rumor; others anticipated, at most, nothing more serious than the expedition sent from Athens ten years before.[269] No one could imagine the new eagerness and obstinacy with which she had just thrown herself into the scheme of Sicilian conquest, nor the formidable armament presently about to start. Nevertheless, the Syracusan generals thought it their duty to make preparations, and strengthen the military condition of the state.[270]

Hermokratês, however, whose information was more complete, judged these preparations insufficient, and took advantage of a public assembly—held seemingly about the time that the Athenians were starting from Peiræus—to impress such conviction on his countrymen, as well as to correct their incredulity. He pledged his own credit that the reports which had been circulated were not merely true, but even less than the full truth; that the Athenians were actually on their way, with an armament on the largest scale, and vast designs of conquering all Sicily. While he strenuously urged that the city should be put in immediate condition for repelling a most formidable invasion, he deprecated all alarm as to the result, and held out the firmest assurances of ultimate triumph. The very magnitude of the approaching force would intimidate the Sicilian cities and drive them into hearty defensive coöperation with Syracuse. Rarely indeed did any large or distant expedition ever succeed in its object, as might be seen from the failure of the Persians against Greece, by which failure Athens herself had so largely profited. Preparations, however, both effective and immediate, were indispensable; not merely at home, but by means of foreign missions, to the Sicilian and Italian Greeks, to the Sikels, and to the Carthaginians, who had for some time been suspicious of the unmeasured aggressive designs of Athens, and whose immense wealth would now be especially serviceable, and to Lacedæmon and Corinth, for the purpose of soliciting aid in Sicily, as well as renewed invasion of Attica. So confident did he (Hermokratês) feel of their powers of defence, if properly organized, that he would even advise the Syracusans with their Sicilian[271] allies to put to sea at once, with all their naval force and two months’ provisions, and to sail forthwith to the friendly harbor of Tarentum, from whence they would be able to meet the Athenian fleet and prevent it even from crossing the Ionic gulf from Korkyra. They would thus show that they were not only determined on defence, but even forward in coming to blows: the only way of taking down the presumption of the Athenians, who now speculated upon Syracusan lukewarmness, because they had rendered no aid to Sparta when she solicited it at the beginning of the war. The Syracusans would probably be able to deter or obstruct the advance of the expedition until winter approached: in which case Nikias, the ablest of the three generals, who was understood to have undertaken the scheme against his own consent, would probably avail himself of the pretext to return.[272]

Though these opinions of Hermokratês were espoused farther by various other citizens in the assembly, the greater number of speakers held an opposite language, and placed little faith in his warnings. We have already noticed Hermokratês nine years before as envoy of Syracuse and chief adviser at the congress of Gela,—then, as now, watchful to bar the door against Athenian interference in Sicily,—then, as now, belonging to the oligarchical party, and of sentiments hostile to the existing democratical constitution; but brave as well as intelligent in foreign affairs. A warm and even angry debate arose upon his present speech.[273] Though there was nothing, in the words of Hermokratês himself, disparaging either to the democracy or to the existing magistrates, yet it would seem that his partisans who spoke after him must have taken up a more criminative tone, and must have exaggerated that which he characterized as the “habitual quiescence” of the Syracusans, into contemptible remissness and disorganization under those administrators and generals, characterized as worthless, whom the democracy preferred. Amidst the speakers, who, in replying to Hermokratês and the others, indignantly repelled such insinuations and retorted upon their authors, a citizen named Athenagoras was the most distinguished. He was at this time the leading democratical politician, and the most popular orator, in Syracuse.[274]

“Every one[275] (said he), except only cowards and bad citizens, must wish that the Athenians would be fools enough to come here and put themselves into our power. The tales which you have just heard are nothing better than fabrications, got up to alarm you; and I wonder at the folly of these alarmists in fancying that their machinations are not seen through.[276] You will be too wise to take measure of the future from their reports: you will rather judge from what able men, such as the Athenians, are likely to do. Be assured that they will never leave behind them the Peloponnesians in menacing attitude, to come hither and court a fresh war not less formidable: indeed, I think they account themselves lucky that we, with our powerful cities, have never come across to attack them. And if they should come, as it is pretended, they will find Sicily a more formidable foe than Peloponnesus: nay, our own city alone will be a match for twice the force which they can bring across. The Athenians, knowing all this well enough, will mind their own business, in spite of all the fictions which men on this side of the water conjure up, and which they have already tried often before, sometimes even worse than on the present occasion, in order to terrify you, and get themselves nominated to the chief posts.[277] One of these days, I fear they may even succeed, from our want of precautions beforehand. Such intrigues leave but short moments of tranquillity to our city; they condemn it to an intestine discord worse than foreign war, and have sometimes betrayed it even to despots and usurpers. However, if you will listen to me, I will try and prevent anything of this sort at present; by simple persuasion to you, by chastisement to these conspirators, and by watchful denunciation of the oligarchical party generally. Let me ask, indeed, what is it that you younger nobles covet? To get into command at your early age? The law forbids you, because you are yet incompetent. Or, do you wish not to be under equal laws with the many? But how can you pretend that citizens of the same city should not have the same rights? Some one will tell me[278] that democracy is neither intelligent nor just, and that the rich are the persons best fitted to command. But I affirm, first, that the people are the sum total, and the oligarchy merely a fraction; next, that rich men are the best trustees of the aggregate wealth existing in the community,—intelligent men, the best counsellors,—and the multitude, the best qualified for hearing and deciding after such advice. In a democracy, these functions, one and all, find their proper place. But oligarchy, though imposing on the multitude a full participation in all hazards, is not content even with an exorbitant share in the public advantages, but grasps and monopolizes the whole for itself.[279] This is just what you young and powerful men are aiming at, though you will never be able to keep it permanently in a city such as Syracuse. Be taught by me, or at least alter your views, and devote yourselves to the public advantage of our common city. Desist from practising, by reports such as these, upon the belief of men who know you too well to be duped. If even there be any truth in what you say, and if the Athenians do come, our city will repel them in a manner worthy of her reputation. She will not take you at your word, and choose you commanders, in order to put the yoke upon her own neck. She will look for herself, construe your communications for what they really mean, and, instead of suffering you to talk her out of her free government, will take effective precautions for maintaining it against you.”

Immediately after this vehement speech from Athenagoras, one of the stratêgi who presided in the assembly interposed; permitting no one else to speak, and abruptly closing the assembly, with these few words: “We generals deprecate this interchange of personal vituperation, and trust that the hearers present will not suffer themselves to be biased by it. Let us rather take care, in reference to the reports just communicated, that we be one and all in a condition to repel the invader. And even should the necessity not arise, there is no harm in strengthening our public force with horses, arms, and the other muniments of war. We generals shall take upon ourselves the care and supervision of these matters, as well as of the missions to neighboring cities, for procuring information and for other objects. We have, indeed, already busied ourselves for the purpose, and we shall keep you informed of what we learn.”

The language of Athenagoras, indicating much virulence of party feeling, lets us somewhat into the real working of politics among the Syracusan democracy. Athenagoras at Syracuse was like Kleon at Athens, the popular orator of the city. But he was by no means the most influential person, nor had he the principal direction of public affairs. Executive and magisterial functions belonged chiefly to Hermokratês and his partisans, the opponents of Athenagoras. Hermokratês has already appeared as taking the lead at the congress of Gela nine years before, and will be seen throughout the coming period almost constantly in the same position; while the political rank of Athenagoras is more analogous to that which we should call a leader of opposition, a function of course suspended under pressing danger, so that we hear of him no more. At Athens as at Syracuse, the men who got to real power and handled the force and treasures of the state, were chiefly of the rich families, often of oligarchical sentiments, acquiescing in the democracy as an uncomfortable necessity, and continually open to be solicited by friends or kinsmen to conspire against it. Their proceedings were doubtless always liable to the scrutiny, and their persons to the animadversion, of the public assembly: hence arose the influence of the demagogue, such as Athenagoras and Kleon, the bad side of whose character is so constantly kept before the readers of Grecian history. By whatever disparaging epithets such character may be surrounded, it is in reality the distinguishing feature of a free government under all its forms, whether constitutional monarchy or democracy. By the side of the real political actors, who hold principal office and wield personal powers, there are always abundant censors and critics,—some better, others worse, in respect of honesty, candor, wisdom, or rhetoric,—the most distinguished of whom acquires considerable importance, though holding a function essentially inferior to that of the authorized magistrate or general.

We observe here, that Athenagoras, far from being inclined to push the city into war, is averse to it, even beyond reasonable limit; and denounces it as the interested policy of the oligarchical party. This may show how little it was any constant interest or policy on the part of the persons called demagogues, to involve their city in unnecessary wars: a charge which has been frequently advanced against them, because it so happens that Kleon, in the first half of the Peloponnesian war, discountenanced the propositions of peace between Athens and Sparta. We see by the harangue of Athenagoras that the oligarchical party were the usual promoters of war: a fact which we should naturally expect, seeing that the rich and great, in most communities, have accounted the pursuit of military glory more conformable to their dignity than any other career. At Syracuse, the ascendency of Hermokratês was much increased by the invasion of the Athenians, while Athenagoras does not again appear. The latter was egregiously mistaken in his anticipations respecting the conduct of Athens, though right in his judgment respecting her true political interest. But it is very unsafe to assume that nations will always pursue their true political interest, where present temptations of ambition or vanity intervene. Positive information was in this instance a surer guide than speculations à priori founded upon the probable policy of Athens. But that the imputations advanced by Athenagoras against the oligarchical youth, of promoting military organization with a view to their own separate interest, were not visionary, may be seen by the analogous case of Argos, two or three years before. The democracy of Argos, contemplating a more warlike and aggressive policy, had been persuaded to organize and train the select regiment of one thousand hoplites, chosen from the oligarchical youth: within three years, this regiment subverted the democratical constitution.[280] Now the persons, respecting whose designs Athenagoras expresses so much apprehension, were exactly the class at Syracuse corresponding to the select thousand at Argos.

The political views, proclaimed in this remarkable speech, are deserving of attention, though we cannot fully understand it without having before us those speeches to which it replies. Not only is democratical constitution forcibly contrasted with oligarchy, but the separate places which it assigns to wealth, intelligence, and multitude, are laid down with a distinctness not unworthy of Aristotle.

Even before the debate here adverted to, the Syracusan generals had evidently acted upon views more nearly approaching to those of Hermokratês than to those of Athenagoras. Already alive to the danger, they were apprized by their scouts when the Athenian armament was passing from Korkyra to Rhegium, and pushed their preparations with the utmost activity, distributing garrisons and sending envoys among their Sikel dependencies, while the force within the city was mustered and placed under all the conditions of war.[281] The halt of the Athenians at Rhegium afforded increased leisure for such equipment. That halt was prolonged for more than one reason. In the first place, Nikias and his colleagues wished to negotiate with the Rhegines, as well as to haul ashore and clean their ships: next, they awaited the return of the three scout-ships from Egesta: lastly, they had as yet formed no plan of action in Sicily.

The ships from Egesta returned with disheartening news. Instead of the abundant wealth which had been held forth as existing in that town, and upon which the resolutions of the Athenians as to Sicilian operations had been mainly grounded, it turned out that no more than thirty talents in all could be produced. What was yet worse, the elaborate fraud, whereby the Egestæans had duped the commissioners on their first visit, was now exposed; and these commissioners, on returning to Rhegium from their second visit, were condemned to the mortification of proclaiming their own credulity, visited by severe taunts and reproaches from the army. Disappointed in the source from whence they had calculated on obtaining money,—for it appears that both Alkibiadês and Lamachus had sincerely relied on the pecuniary resources of Egesta, though Nikias was always mistrustful,—the generals now discussed their plan of action.

Nikias—availing himself of the fraudulent conduct on the part of the Egestæan allies, now become palpable—wished to circumscribe his range of operations within the rigorous letter of the vote which the Athenian assembly had passed. He proposed to sail at once against Selinus; then, formally to require the Egestæans to provide the means of maintaining the armament, or, at least, of maintaining those sixty triremes which they themselves had solicited. Since this requisition would not be realized, he would only tarry long enough to obtain from the Selinuntines some tolerable terms of accommodation with Egesta, and then return home; exhibiting, as they sailed along, to all the maritime cities, this great display of Athenian naval force. And while he would be ready to profit by any opportunity which accident might present for serving the Leontines or establishing new alliances, he strongly deprecated any prolonged stay in the island for speculative enterprises, all at the cost of Athens.[282]

Against this scheme Alkibiadês protested, as narrow, timid, and disgraceful to the prodigious force with which they had been intrusted. He proposed to begin by opening negotiations with all the other Sicilian Greeks,—especially Messênê, convenient both as harbor for their fleet and as base of their military operations,—to prevail upon them to coöperate against Syracuse and Selinus. With the same view, he recommended establishing relations with the Sikels of the interior, in order to detach such of them as were subjects of Syracuse, as well as to insure supplies of provisions. As soon as it had been thus ascertained what extent of foreign aid might be looked for, he would open direct attack forthwith against Syracuse and Selinus; unless, indeed, the former should consent to reëstablish Leontini, and the latter to come to terms with Egesta.[283]

Lamachus, delivering his opinion last, dissented from both his colleagues. He advised, that they should proceed at once, without any delay, to attack Syracuse, and fight their battle under its walls. The Syracusans, he urged, were now in terror and only half-prepared for defence. Many of their citizens, and much property, would be found still lingering throughout the neighboring lands, not yet removed within the walls, and might thus be seized for the subsistence of their army;[284] while the deserted town and harbor of Megara, very near to Syracuse both by land and by sea, might be occupied by the fleet as a naval station. The imposing and intimidating effect of the armament, not less than its real efficiency, was now at the maximum, immediately after its arrival. If advantage were taken of this first impression to strike an instant blow at their principal enemy, the Syracusans would be found destitute of the courage, not less than of the means, to resist: but the longer such attack was delayed, the more this first impression of dismay would be effaced, giving place to a reactionary sentiment of indifference and even contempt, when the much-dreaded armament was seen to accomplish little or nothing. As for the other Sicilian cities, nothing would contribute so much to determine their immediate adhesion, as successful operations against Syracuse.[285]

But Lamachus found no favor with either of the other two, and being thus compelled to choose between the plans of Alkibiadês and Nikias, gave his support to that of the former, which was the mean term of the three. There can be no doubt—as far as it is becoming to pronounce respecting that which never reached execution—that the plan of Lamachus was far the best and most judicious; at first sight, indeed, the most daring, but intrinsically the safest, easiest, and speediest, that could be suggested. For undoubtedly the siege and capture of Syracuse, was the one enterprise indispensable towards the promotion of Athenian views in Sicily. The sooner that was commenced, the more easily it would be accomplished: and its difficulties were in many ways aggravated, in no way abated, by those preliminary precautions upon which Alkibiadês insisted. Anything like delay tended fearfully to impair the efficiency, real as well as reputed, of an ancient aggressive armament, and to animate as well as to strengthen those who stood on the defensive, a point on which we shall find painful evidence presently. The advice of Lamachus, alike soldier-like and far-sighted, would probably have been approved and executed either by Brasidas or by Demosthenês; while the dilatory policy still advocated by Alkibiadês, even after the suggestion of Lamachus had been started, tends to show that if he was superior in military energy to one of his colleagues, he was not less inferior to the other. Indeed, when we find him talking of besieging Syracuse, unless the Syracusans would consent to the reëstablishment of Leontini, it seems probable that he had not yet made up his mind peremptorily to besiege the city at all; a fact completely at variance with those unbounded hopes of conquest which he is reported as having conceived even at Athens. It is possible that he may have thought it impolitic to contradict too abruptly the tendencies of Nikias, who, anxious as he was chiefly to find some pretext for carrying back his troops unharmed, might account the proposition of Lamachus too desperate even to be discussed. Unfortunately, the latter, though the ablest soldier of the three, was a poor man, of no political position, and little influence among the hoplites. Had he possessed, along with his own straightforward military energy, the wealth and family ascendency of either of his colleagues, the achievements as well as the fate of this splendid armament would have been entirely altered, and the Athenians would have entered Syracuse not as prisoners but as conquerors.

Alkibiadês, as soon as his plan had become adopted by means of the approval of Lamachus, sailed across the strait in his own trireme from Rhegium to Messênê. Though admitted personally into the city, and allowed to address the public assembly, he could not induce them to conclude any alliance, or to admit the armament to anything beyond a market of provisions without the walls. He accordingly returned back to Rhegium, from whence he and one of his colleagues immediately departed with sixty triremes for Naxos. The Naxians cordially received the armament, which then steered southward along the coast of Sicily to Katana. In the latter place the leading men and the general sentiment were at this time favorable to Syracuse, so that the Athenians, finding admittance refused, were compelled to sail farther southward and take their night-station at the mouth of the river Terias. On the ensuing day they made sail with their ships in single column immediately in front of Syracuse itself, while an advanced squadron of ten triremes were even despatched into the Great Harbor, south of the town, for the purpose of surveying on this side the city with its docks and fortifications, and for the farther purpose of proclaiming from shipboard by the voice of the herald: “The Leontines now in Syracuse are hereby invited to come forth without apprehension and join their friends and benefactors, the Athenians.” After this empty display, they returned back to Katana.[286]

We may remark that this proceeding was completely at variance with the judicious recommendation of Lamachus. It tended to familiarize the Syracusans with the sight of the armament piece-meal, without any instant action, and thus to abate in their minds the terror-striking impression of its first arrival.

At Katana, Alkibiadês personally was admitted into the town, and allowed to open his case before the public assembly, as he had been at Messênê. Accident alone enabled him to carry his point, for the general opinion was averse to his propositions. While most of the citizens were in the assembly listening to his discourse, some Athenian soldiers without, observing a postern-gate carelessly guarded, broke it open and showed themselves in the market-place. The town was thus in the power of the Athenians, so that the leading men who were friends of Syracuse thought themselves lucky to escape in safety, while the general assembly came to a resolution accepting the alliance proposed by Alkibiadês.[287] The whole Athenian armament was now conducted from Rhegium to Katana, which was established as head-quarters. Intimation was farther received from a party at Kamarina, that the city might be induced to join them, if the armament showed itself: accordingly, the whole armament proceeded thither, and took moorings off the shore, while a herald was sent up to the city. But the Kamarinæans declined to admit the army, and declared that they would abide by the existing treaty; which bound them to receive at any time one single ship, but no more, unless they themselves should ask for it. The Athenians were therefore obliged to return to Katana. Passing by Syracuse both going and returning, they ascertained the falsehood of a report that the Syracusans were putting a naval force afloat; moreover, they landed near the city and ravaged some of the neighboring lands. The Syracusan cavalry and light troops soon appeared, and a skirmish with trifling loss ensued, before the invaders retired to their ships,[288] the first blood shed in this important struggle, and again at variance with the advice of Lamachus.

Serious news awaited them on their return to Katana. They found the public ceremonial trireme, called the Salaminian, just arrived from Athens, the bearer of a formal resolution of the assembly, requiring Alkibiadês to come home and stand his trial for various alleged matters of irreligion combined with treasonable purposes. A few other citizens specified by name were commanded to come along with him under the same charge; but the trierarch of the Salaminian was especially directed to serve him only with the summons, without any guard or coercion, so that he might return home in his own trireme.[289]

This summons, pregnant with momentous results both to Athens and to her enemies, arose out of the mutilation of the Hermæ, described a few pages back, and the inquiries instituted into the authorship of that deed, since the departure of the armament. The extensive and anxious sympathies connected with so large a body of departing citizens, combined with the solemnity of the scene itself, had for the moment suspended the alarm caused by that sacrilege; but it speedily revived, and the people could not rest without finding out by whom the deed had been done. Considerable rewards, one thousand and even ten thousand drachms, were proclaimed to informers; of whom others soon appeared, in addition to the slave Andromachus, before mentioned. A metic named Teukrus had fled from Athens, immediately after the event, to Megara, from whence he sent intimation to the senate at Athens that he had himself been a party concerned in the recent sacrilege concerning the mysteries, as well as cognizant of the mutilation of the Hermæ, and that, if impunity were guaranteed to him, he would come back and give full information. A vote of the senate was immediately passed to invite him. He denounced by name eleven persons as having been concerned, jointly with himself, in the mock-celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, and eighteen different persons, himself not being one, as the violators of the Hermæ. A woman named Agaristê, daughter of Alkmæonidês,—these names bespeak her great rank and family in the city,—deposed farther that Alkibiadês, Axiochus, and Adeimantus, had gone through a parody of the mysteries in a similar manner, in the house of Charmidês. And lastly Lydus, slave of a citizen named Phereklês, stated that the like scene had been enacted in the house of his master in the deme Thêmakus, giving the names of the parties present, one of whom—though asleep, and unconscious of what was passing—he stated to be Leogoras, the father of Andokidês.[290] Of the parties named in these different depositions, the greater number seem to have fled from the city at once; but all who remained were put into prison to stand future trial.[291] Those informers received the promised rewards, after some debate as to the parties entitled to receive the reward; for Pythonikus, the citizen who had produced the slave Andromachus, pretended to the first claim, while Androkles, one of the senators, contended that the senate collectively ought to receive[292] the money; a strange pretension, which we do not know how he justified. At last, however, at the time of the Panathenaic festival, Andromachus the slave received the first reward of ten thousand drachms; Teukrus the metic, the second reward of one thousand drachms.

A large number of citizens, many of them of the first consideration in the city, were thus either lying in prison or had fled into exile. But the alarm, the agony, and the suspicion, in the public mind, went on increasing rather than diminishing. The information hitherto received had been all partial, and, with the exception of Agaristê, all the informants had been either slaves or metics, not citizens; while Teukrus, the only one among them who had stated anything respecting the mutilation of the Hermæ, did not profess to be a party concerned, or to know all those who were.[293] The people had heard only a succession of disclosures, all attesting a frequency of irreligious acts, calculated to insult and banish the local gods who protected their country and constitution; all indicating that there were many powerful citizens bent on prosecuting such designs, interpreted as treasonable, yet none communicating any full or satisfactory idea of the Hermokopid plot, of the real conspirators, or of their farther purposes. The enemy was among themselves, yet they knew not where to lay hands upon him. Amidst the gloomy terrors, political blended with religious, which distracted their minds, all the ancient stories of the last and worst oppressions of the Peisistratid despots, ninety-five years before, became again revived, and some new despots, they knew not who, seemed on the point of occupying the acropolis. To detect the real conspirators, was the only way of procuring respite from this melancholy paroxysm, for which purpose the people were willing to welcome questionable witnesses, and to imprison on suspicion citizens of the best character, until the truth could be ascertained.[294]

The public distraction was aggravated by Peisander and Chariklês, who acted as commissioners of investigation, furious and unprincipled politicians,[295] at that time professing exaggerated attachment to the democratical constitution, though we shall find both of them hereafter among the most unscrupulous agents in its subversion. These men loudly proclaimed that the facts disclosed indicated the band of Hermokopid conspirators to be numerous, with an ulterior design of speedily putting down the democracy; and they insisted on pressing their investigations until full discovery should be attained. And the sentiment of the people, collectively taken, responded to this stimulus; though individually, every man was so afraid of becoming himself the next victim arrested, that when the herald convoked the senate for the purpose of receiving informations, the crowd in the market-place straightway dispersed.

It was amidst such eager thirst for discovery, that a new informer appeared, Diokleidês, who professed to communicate some material facts connected with the mutilation of the Hermæ, affirming that the authors of it were three hundred in number. He recounted that, on the night on which that incident occurred, he started from Athens to go to the mines of Laureion; wherein he had a slave working on hire, on whose account he was to receive pay. It was full moon, and the night was so bright that he began his journey mistaking it for daybreak.[296] On reaching the propylæum of the temple of Dionysus, he saw a body of men about three hundred in number descending from the Odeon towards the public theatre. Being alarmed at this unexpected sight, he concealed himself behind a pillar, from whence he had leisure to contemplate this body of men, who stood for some time conversing together, in groups of fifteen or twenty each, and then dispersed: the moon was so bright that he could discern the faces of most of them. As soon as they had dispersed, he pursued his walk to Laureion, from whence he returned next day, and learned to his surprise that during the night the Hermæ had been mutilated; also, that commissioners of inquiry had been named, and the reward of ten thousand drachms proclaimed for information. Impressed at once with the belief that the nocturnal crowd whom he had seen were authors of the deed, he happened soon afterwards to see one of them, Euphêmus, sitting in the workshop of a brazier, and took him aside to the neighboring temple of Hephæstus, where he mentioned in confidence that he had seen the party at work and could denounce them, but that he preferred being paid for silence, instead of giving information and incurring private enmities. Euphêmus thanked him for the warning, desiring him to come next day to the house of Leogoras and his son Andokidês, where he would see them as well as the other parties concerned. Andokidês and the rest offered to him, under solemn covenant, the sum of two talents, or twelve thousand drachms, thus overbidding the reward of ten thousand drachms proclaimed by the senate to any truth-telling informer, with admission to a partnership in the benefits of their conspiracy, supposing that it should succeed. Upon his reply that he would consider the proposition, they desired him to meet them at the house of Kallias son of Têleklês, brother-in-law of Andokidês: which meeting accordingly took place, and a solemn bargain was concluded in the acropolis. Andokidês and his friends engaged to pay the two talents to Diokleidês at the beginning of the ensuing month, as the price of his silence. But since this engagement was never performed, Diokleidês came with his information to the senate.[297]

Such—according to the report of Andokidês—was the story of this informer, which he concluded by designating forty-two individuals, out of the three hundred whom he had seen. The first names whom he specified were those of Mantitheus and Aphepsion, two senators actually sitting among his audience. Next came the remaining forty, among whom were Andokidês and many of his nearest relatives, his father Leogoras, his first or second cousins and brother-in-law, Charmidês, Taureas, Nisæus, Kalias son of Alkmæon, Phrynichus, Eukratês (brother of Nikias the commander in Sicily), and Kritias. But as there were a still greater number of names—assuming the total of three hundred to be correct—which Diokleidês was unable to specify, the commissioner Peisander proposed that Mantitheus and Aphepsion should be at once seized and tortured, in order to force them to disclose their accomplices; the psephism passed in the archonship of Skamandrius, whereby it was unlawful to apply the torture to any free Athenian, being first abrogated. Illegal, not less than cruel, as this proposition was, the senate at first received it with favor. But Mantitheus and Aphepsion, casting themselves as suppliants upon the altar in the senate-house, pleaded so strenuously for their rights as citizens, to be allowed to put in bail and stand trial before the dikastery, that this was at last granted.[298] No sooner had they provided their sureties, than they broke their covenant, mounted their horses, and deserted to the enemy, without any regard to their sureties, who were exposed by law to the same trial and the same penalties as would have overtaken the offenders themselves. This sudden flight, together with the news that a Bœotian force was assembled on the borders of Attica, exasperated still farther the frantic terror of the public mind. The senate at once took quiet measures for seizing and imprisoning all the remaining forty whose names had been denounced; while by concert with the strategi, all the citizens were put under arms; those who dwelt in the city, mustering in the market-place; those in and near the long walls, in the Theseium; those in Peiræus, in the square called the Market-place of Hippodamus. Even the horsemen of the city were convoked by sound of trumpet in the sacred precinct of the Anakeion. The senate itself remained all night in the acropolis, except the prytanes, or fifty senators of the presiding tribe, who passed the night in the public building called the Tholus. Every man in Athens felt the terrible sense of an internal conspiracy on the point of breaking out, perhaps along with an invasion of the foreigner, prevented only by the timely disclosure of Diokleidês, who was hailed as the saviour of the city, and carried in procession to dinner at the prytaneium.[299]

Miserable as the condition of the city was generally, yet more miserable was that of the prisoners confined; and worse, in every way, was still to be looked for, since the Athenians would know neither peace nor patience until they could reach, by some means or other, the names of the undisclosed conspirators. The female relatives and children of Andokidês, and his companions, were by permission along with them in the prison,[300] aggravating by their tears and wailings the affliction of the scene, when Charmidês, one of the parties confined, addressed himself to Andokidês, as his cousin and friend, imploring him to make a voluntary disclosure of all that he knew, in order to preserve the lives of so many innocent persons, his immediate kinsmen, as well as to rescue the city out of a feverish alarm not to be endured. “You know (he said) all that passed about the mutilation of the Hermæ, and your silence will now bring destruction not only upon yourself, but also upon your father and upon all of us; while if you inform, whether you have been an actor in the scene or not, you will obtain impunity for yourself and us, and at the same time soothe the terrors of the city.” Such instances on the part of Charmidês,[301] aided by the supplications of the other prisoners present, overcame the reluctance of Andokidês to become informer, and he next day made his disclosures to the senate. “Euphilêtus (he said) was the chief author of the mutilation of the Hermæ. He proposed the deed at a convivial party where I was present, but I denounced it in the strongest manner and refused all compliance. Presently, I broke my collar-bone, and injured my head, by a fall from a young horse, so badly as to be confined to my bed; when Euphilêtus took the opportunity of my absence to assure the rest of the company falsely that I had consented, and that I had agreed to cut the Hermes near my paternal house, which the tribe Ægeïs have dedicated. Accordingly, they executed the project, while I was incapable of moving, without my knowledge: they presumed that I would undertake the mutilation of this particular Hermes, and you see that this is the only one in all Athens which has escaped injury. When the conspirators ascertained that I had not been a party, Euphilêtus and Melêtus threatened me with a terrible revenge unless I observed silence: to which I replied that it was not I, but their own crime, which had brought them into danger.”

Having recounted this tale, in substance, to the senate, Andokidês tendered his slaves, both male and female, to be tortured, in order that they might confirm his story that he was in his bed and unable to leave it, on the night when the Hermæ were mutilated. It appears that the torture was actually applied (according to the custom so cruelly frequent at Athens in the case of slaves), and that the senators thus became satisfied of the truth of what Andokidês affirmed. He delivered in twenty-two names of citizens as having been the mutilators of the Hermæ: eighteen of these names, including Euphilêtus and Melêtus, had already been specified in the information of Teukrus; the remaining four, were Panætius, Diakritus, Lysistratus, and Chæredêmus; all of whom fled, the instant their names were mentioned, without waiting the chance of being seized. As soon as the senate heard the story of Andokidês, they proceeded to question Diokleidês over again; who confessed that he had given a false deposition, and begged for mercy, mentioning Alkibiadês the Phegusian—a relative of the commander in Sicily—and Amiantus, as having suborned him to the crime. Both of them fled immediately on this revelation; but Diokleidês was detained, sent before the dikastery for trial, and put to death.[302]

The foregoing is the story which Andokidês, in the oration De Mysteriis, delivered between fifteen and twenty years afterwards, represented himself to have communicated to the senate at this perilous crisis. But it probably is not the story which he really did tell, certainly not that which his enemies represented him as having told: least of all does it communicate the whole truth, or afford any satisfaction to such anxiety and alarm as are described to have been prevalent at the time. Nor does it accord with the brief information of Thucydidês, who tells us that Andokidês impeached himself, along with others, as participant in the mutilation.[303] Among the accomplices against whom he informed, his enemies affirmed that his own nearest relatives were included, though this latter statement is denied by himself. We may be sure, therefore, that the tale which Andokidês really told was something very different from what now stands in his oration. But what it really was we cannot make out; nor should we gain much even if it could be made out, since even at the time, neither Thucydidês nor other intelligent critics could determine how far it was true. The mutilation of the Hermæ remained to them always an unexplained mystery; though they accounted Andokidês the principal organizer.[304]

That which is at once most important and most incontestable, is the effect produced by the revelations of Andokidês, true or false, on the public mind at Athens. He was a young man of rank and wealth in the city, belonging to the sacred family of the Kerykes,—said to trace his pedigree to the hero Odysseus,—and invested on a previous occasion with an important naval command; whereas the preceding informers had been metics and slaves. Moreover, he was making confession of his own guilt. Hence the people received his communications with implicit confidence. They were delighted to have got to the bottom of the terrible mystery: and the public mind subsided from its furious terrors into comparative tranquillity. The citizens again began to think themselves in safety and to resume their habitual confidence in each other, while the hoplites everywhere on guard were allowed to return to their homes.[305] All the prisoners in custody on suspicion, except those against whom Andokidês informed were forthwith released: those who had fled out of apprehension, were allowed to return; while those whom he named as guilty, were tried, convicted, and put to death. Such of them as had already fled, were condemned to death in their absence, and a reward offered for their heads.[306] And though discerning men were not satisfied with the evidence upon which these sentences were pronounced, yet the general public fully believed themselves to have punished the real offenders, and were thus inexpressibly relieved from the depressing sense of unexpiated insult to the gods, as well as of danger to their political constitution from the withdrawal of divine protection.[307] Andokidês himself was pardoned, and was for the time an object, apparently, even of public gratitude, so that his father Leogoras who had been among the parties imprisoned, ventured to indict a senator named Speusippus for illegal proceedings towards him, and obtained an almost unanimous verdict from the dikastery.[308] But the character of a statue-breaker and an informer could never be otherwise than odious at Athens. Andokidês was either banished by the indirect effect of a general disqualifying decree; or at least found that he had made so many enemies, and incurred so much obloquy, by his conduct in this affair, as to make it necessary for him to quit the city. He remained in banishment for many years, and seems never to have got clear of the hatred which his conduct in this nefarious proceeding so well merited.[309]

But the comfort arising out of these disclosures respecting the Hermæ, though genuine and inestimable at the moment, was soon again disturbed. There still remained the various alleged profanations of the Eleusinian mysteries, which had not yet been investigated or brought to atonement; and these were the more sure to be pressed home, and worked with a factitious exaggeration of pious zeal, since the enemies of Alkibiadês were bent upon turning them to his ruin. Among all the ceremonies of Attic religion, there was none more profoundly or universally reverenced than the mysteries of Eleusis, originally enjoined by the goddess Dêmêtêr herself, in her visit to that place, to Eumolpus and the other Eleusinian patriarch, and transmitted as a precious hereditary privilege in their families.[310] Celebrated annually in the month of August or September, under the special care of the basileus, or second archon, these mysteries were attended by vast crowds from Athens as well as from other parts of Greece, presenting to the eye a solemn and imposing spectacle, and striking the imagination still more powerfully by the special initiation which they conferred, under pledge of secrecy, upon pious and predisposed communicants. Even the divulgation in words to the uninitiated, of that which was exhibited to the eye and ear of the assembly in the interior of the Eleusinian temple, was accounted highly criminal: much more the actual mimicry of these ceremonies for the amusement of a convivial party. Moreover, the individuals who held the great sacred offices at Eleusis,—the hierophant, the daduch (torch-bearer), and the keryx, or herald,—which were transmitted by inheritance in the Eumolpidæ and other great families of antiquity and importance, were personally insulted by such proceedings, and vindicated their own dignity at the same time that they invoked punishment on the offenders in the name of Dêmêtêr and Persephonê. The most appalling legends were current among the Athenian public, and repeated on proper occasions even by the hierophant himself, respecting the divine judgments which always overtook such impious men.[311]

When we recollect how highly the Eleusinian mysteries were venerated by Greeks not born in Athens and even by foreigners, we shall not wonder at the violent indignation excited in the Athenian mind by persons who profaned or divulged them; especially at a moment when their religious sensibilities had been so keenly wounded, and so tardily and recently healed, in reference to the Hermæ.[312] It was about this same time[313] that a prosecution was instituted against the Melian philosopher Diagoras for irreligious doctrines. Having left Athens before trial, he was found guilty in his absence, and a reward was offered for his life.

Probably the privileged sacred families, connected with the mysteries, were foremost in calling for expiation from the state to the majesty of the two offended goddesses, and for punishment on the delinquents.[314] And the enemies of Alkibiadês, personal as well as political, found the opportunity favorable for reviving that charge against him which they had artfully suffered to drop before his departure to Sicily. The matter of fact alleged against him—the mock-celebration of these holy ceremonies—was not only in itself probable, but proved by reasonably good testimony against him and some of his intimate companions. Moreover, the overbearing insolence of demeanor habitual with Alkibiadês, so glaringly at variance with the equal restraints of democracy, enabled his enemies to impute to him not only irreligious acts, but anti-constitutional purposes; an association of ideas which was at this moment the more easily accredited, since his divulgation and parody of the mysteries did not stand alone, but was interpreted in conjunction with the recent mutilation of the Hermæ—as a manifestation of the same anti-patriotic and irreligious feeling, if not part and parcel of the same treasonable scheme. And the alarm on this subject was now renewed by the appearance of a Lacedæmonian army at the isthmus, professing to contemplate some enterprise in conjunction with the Bœotians, a purpose not easy to understand, and presenting every appearance of being a cloak for hostile designs against Athens. So fully was this believed among the Athenians, that they took arms, and remained under arms one whole night in the sacred precinct of the Theseium. No enemy indeed appeared, either without or within; but the conspiracy had only been prevented from breaking out, so they imagined, by the recent inquiries and detection. Moreover, the party in Argos connected with Alkibiadês were just at this time suspected of a plot for the subversion of their own democracy, which still farther aggravated the presumptions against him, while it induced the Athenians to give up to the Argeian democratical government the oligarchical hostages which had been taken from that town a few months before,[315] in order that it might put these hostages to death, whenever it thought fit.

Such incidents materially aided the enemies of Alkibiadês in their unremitting efforts to procure his recall and condemnation. Among them were men very different in station and temper: Thessalus son of Kimon, a man of the highest lineage and of hereditary oligarchical politics, as well as Androklês, a leading demagogue or popular orator. It was the former who preferred against him in the senate the memorable impeachment, which, fortunately for our information, is recorded verbatim.

“Thessalus son of Kimon, of the deme Lakiadæ, hath impeached Alkibiadês son of Kleinias, of the deme Skambônidæ, as guilty of crime in regard to the two goddesses Dêmêtêr and Persephonê, in mimicking the mysteries, and exhibiting them to his companions in his own house, wearing the costume of the hierophant: applying to himself the name of hierophant; to Polytion, that of daduch; to Theodôrus that of herald, and addressing his remaining companions as mysts and epopts; all contrary to the sacred customs and canons, of old established by the Eumolpidæ, the Kerykes, and the Eleusinian priests.”[316]

Similar impeachments being at the same time presented against other citizens now serving in Sicily along with Alkibiadês, the accusers moved that he and the rest might be sent for to come home and take their trial. We may observe that the indictment against him is quite distinct and special, making no allusion to any supposed treasonable or anti-constitutional projects: probably, however, these suspicions were pressed by his enemies in their preliminary speeches, for the purpose of inducing the Athenians to remove him from the command of the army forthwith, and send for him home. For such a step it was indispensable that a strong case should be made out: but the public was at length thoroughly brought round, and the Salaminian trireme was despatched to Sicily to fetch him. Great care however was taken, in sending this summons, to avoid all appearance of prejudgment, or harshness, or menace. The trierarch was forbidden to seize his person, and had instructions to invite him simply to accompany the Salaminian home in his own trireme: so as to avoid the hazard of offending the Argeian and Mantineian allies serving in Sicily, or the army itself.[317]

It was on the return of the Athenian army from their unsuccessful attempt at Kamarina, to their previous quarters at Katana, that they found the Salaminian trireme newly arrived from Athens with this grave requisition against the general. We may be sure that Alkibiadês received private intimation from his friends at Athens, by the same trireme, communicating to him the temper of the people, so that his resolution was speedily taken. Professing to obey, he departed in his own trireme on the voyage homeward, along with the other persons accused, the Salaminian trireme being in company; but as soon as they arrived at Thurii, in coasting along Italy, he and his companions quitted the vessel and disappeared. After a fruitless search on the part of the Salaminian trierarch, the two triremes were obliged to return to Athens without him. Both Alkibiadês and the rest of the accused—one of whom[318] was his own cousin and namesake—were tried, condemned to death on non-appearance, and their property confiscated; while the Eumolpidæ and the other Eleusinian sacred families pronounced him to be accursed by the gods, for his desecration of the mysteries,[319] and recorded the condemnation on a plate of lead.

Probably his disappearance and exile were acceptable to his enemies at Athens: at any rate, they thus made sure of getting rid of him; while had he come back, his condemnation to death, though probable, could not be considered as certain. In considering the conduct of the Athenians towards Alkibiadês, we have to remark, that the people were guilty of no act of injustice. He had committed—at least there was fair reason for believing that he had committed—an act criminal in the estimation of every Greek; the divulgation and profanation of the mysteries. This act—alleged against him in the indictment very distinctly, divested of all supposed ulterior purpose, treasonable or otherwise—was legally punishable at Athens, and was universally accounted guilty in public estimation, as an offence at once against the religious sentiment of the people and against the public safety, by offending the two goddesses, Dêmêtêr and Persephonê, and driving them to withdraw their favor and protection. The same demand for legal punishment would have been supposed to exist in a Christian Catholic country, down to a very recent period of history, if instead of the Eleusinian mysteries we suppose the sacrament of the mass to have been the ceremony ridiculed; though such a proceeding would involve no breach of obligation to secrecy. Nor ought we to judge what would have been the measure of penalty formerly awarded to a person convicted of such an offence, by consulting the tendency of penal legislation during the last sixty years. Even down to the last century it would have been visited with something sharper than the draught of hemlock, which is the worst that could possibly have befallen Alkibiadês at Athens, as we may see by the condemnation and execution of the Chevalier de la Barre at Abbeville, in 1766. The uniform tendency of Christian legislation,[320] down to a recent period, leaves no room for reproaching the Athenians with excessive cruelty in their penal visitation of offences against the religious sentiment. On the contrary, the Athenians are distinguished for comparative mildness and tolerance, as we shall find various opportunities for remarking.

Now in reviewing the conduct of the Athenians towards Alkibiadês, we must consider, that this violation of the mysteries, of which he was indicted in good legal form, was an action for which he really deserved punishment, if any one deserved it. Even his enemies did not fabricate this charge, or impute it to him falsely; though they were guilty of insidious and unprincipled manœuvres to exasperate the public mind against him. Their machinations begin with the mutilation of the Hermæ; an act of new and unparalleled wickedness, to which historians of Greece seldom do justice. It was not, like the violations of the mysteries, a piece of indecent pastime committed within four walls, and never intended to become known. It was an outrage essentially public, planned and executed by conspirators for the deliberate purpose of lacerating the religious mind of Athens, and turning the prevalent terror and distraction to political profit. Thus much is certain; though we cannot be sure who the conspirators were, nor what was their exact or special purpose. That the destruction of Alkibiadês was one of the direct purposes of the conspirators, is highly probable. But his enemies, even if they were not among the original authors, at least took upon themselves half the guilt of the proceeding, by making it the basis of treacherous machinations against his person. How their scheme, which was originally contrived to destroy him before the expedition departed, at first failed, was then artfully dropped, and at length effectually revived, after a long train of calumny against the absent general, has been already recounted. It is among the darkest chapters of Athenian political history, indicating, on the part of the people, strong religious excitability, without any injustice towards Alkibiadês; but indicating, on the part of his enemies, as well as of the Hermokopids generally, a depth of wicked contrivance rarely paralleled in political warfare. It is to these men, not to the people, that Alkibiadês owes his expulsion, aided indeed by the effect of his own previous character. In regard to the Hermæ, the Athenians condemned to death—after and by consequence of the deposition of Andokidês—a small number of men who may perhaps have been innocent victims, but whom they sincerely believed to be guilty; and whose death not only tranquillized comparatively the public mind, but served as the only means of rescue to a far larger number of prisoners confined on suspicion. In regard to Alkibiadês, they came to no collective resolution, except that of recalling him to take his trial, a resolution implying no wrong in those who voted for it, whatever may be the guilt of those who proposed and prepared it by perfidious means.[321]

In order to appreciate the desperate hatred with which the exile Alkibiadês afterwards revenged himself on his countrymen, it has been necessary to explain to what extent he had just ground of complaint against them. On being informed that they had condemned him to death in his absence, he is said to have exclaimed: “I shall show them that I am alive.” He fully redeemed his word.[322]

The recall and consequent banishment of Alkibiadês was mischievous to Athens in several ways. It transferred to the enemy’s camp an angry exile, to make known her weak points, and to rouse the sluggishness of Sparta. It offended a portion of the Sicilian armament, most of all probably the Argeians and Mantineians, and slackened their zeal in the cause.[323] And what was worst of all, it left the armament altogether under the paralyzing command of Nikias. For Lamachus, though still equal in nominal authority, and now invested with the command of one-half instead of one-third of the army, appears to have had no real influence except in the field.

Nikias now proceeded to execute that scheme which he had first suggested, to sail round from Katana to Selinus and Egesta, with the view of investigating the quarrel between the two as well as the financial means of the latter. Passing through the strait and along the north coast of the island, he first touched at Himera, where admittance was refused to him; he next captured a Sikanian maritime town named Hykkara, together with many prisoners; among them the celebrated courtezan Laïs, then a very young girl.[324] Having handed over this place to the Egestæans, Nikias went in person to inspect their city and condition; but could obtain no more money than the thirty talents which had been before announced on the second visit of the commissioners. He then restored the prisoners from Hykkara to their Sikanian countrymen, receiving a ransom of one hundred and twenty talents,[325] and conducted the Athenian land-force across the centre of the island, through the territory of the friendly Sikels to Katana; making an attack in his way upon the hostile Sikel town of Hybla, in which he was repulsed. At Katana he was rejoined by his naval force.

It was now seemingly about the middle of October, and three months had elapsed since the arrival of the Athenian armament at Rhegium; during which period they had achieved nothing except the acquisition of Naxus and Katana as allies—unless we are to reckon the insignificant capture of Hykkara. But Naxus and Katana, as Chalkidic cities, had been counted upon beforehand even by Nikias; together with Rhegium, which had been found reluctant, to his great disappointment. What is still worse, in reference to the character of the general, not only nothing serious had been achieved, but nothing serious had been attempted. The precious moment pointed out by Lamachus for action, when the terrific menace of the recent untried armament was at its maximum, and preparation as well as confidence was wanting at Syracuse, had been irreparably wasted. Every day the preparations of the Syracusans improved and their fears diminished; the invader, whom they had looked upon as so formidable, turned out both hesitating and timorous,[326] and when he had disappeared out of their sight to Hykkara and Egesta, still more when he assailed in vain the insignificant Sikel post of Hybla, their minds underwent a reaction from dismay to extreme confidence. The mass of Syracusan citizens, now reinforced by allies from Selinus and other cities, called upon their generals to lead to the attack of the Athenian position at Katana, since the Athenians did not dare to approach Syracuse; while Syracusan horsemen even went so far as to insult the Athenians in their camp, riding up to ask if they were come to settle as peaceable citizens in the island, instead of restoring the Leontines. Such unexpected humiliation, acting probably on the feelings of the soldiers, at length shamed Nikias out of his inaction, and compelled him to strike a blow for the maintenance of his own reputation. He devised a stratagem for approaching Syracuse in such a manner as to elude the opposition of the Syracusan cavalry, informing himself as to the ground near the city, through some exiles serving along with him.[327]

He despatched to Syracuse a Katanæan citizen, in his heart attached to Athens, yet apparently neutral and on good terms with the other side, as bearer of a pretended message and proposition from the friends of Syracuse at Katana. Many of the Athenian soldiers, so the message ran, were in the habit of passing the night within the walls, apart from their camp and arms. It would be easy for the Syracusans by a vigorous attack at daybreak, to surprise them thus unprepared and dispersed; while the philo-Syracusan party at Katana promised to aid, by closing the gates, assailing the Athenians within, and setting fire to the ships. A numerous body of Katanæans, they added, were eager to coöperate in the plan now proposed.

This communication, reaching the Syracusan generals at a moment when they were themselves elate and disposed to an aggressive movement, found such incautious credence, that they sent back the messenger to Katana with cordial assent and agreement for a precise day. Accordingly, a day or two before, the entire Syracusan force was marched out towards Katana, and encamped for the night on the river Symæthus, in the Leontine territory, within about eight miles of Katana. But Nikias, with whom the whole proceeding originated, choosing this same day to put on shipboard his army, together with his Sikel allies present, sailed by night southward along the coast, rounding the island of Ortygia, into the Great Harbor of Syracuse. Arrived thither by break of day, he disembarked his troops unopposed south of the mouth of the Anâpus, in the interior of the Great Harbor, near the hamlet which stretched towards the temple of Zeus Olympius. Having broken down the neighboring bridge, where the Helôrine road crossed the Anâpus, he took up a position protected by various embarrassing obstacles,—houses, walls, trees, and standing water, besides the steep ground of the Olympieion itself on his left wing; so that he could choose his own time for fighting, and was out of the attack of the Syracusan horse. For the protection of his ships on the shore, he provided a palisade work by cutting down the neighboring trees; and even took precautions for his rear by throwing up a hasty fence of wood and stones touching the shore at the inner bay called Daskon. He had full leisure for such defensive works, since the enemy within the walls made no attempt to disturb him, while the Syracusan horse only discovered his manœuvre on arriving before the lines at Katana; and though they lost no time in returning, the march back was a long one.[328] Such was the confidence of the Syracusans, however, that even after so long a march, they offered battle forthwith; but as Nikias did not quit his position, they retreated, to take up their night-station on the other side of the Helôrine road, probably a road bordered on each side by walls.

On the next morning, Nikias marched out of his position and formed his troops in order of battle, in two divisions, each eight deep. His front division was intended to attack; his rear division—in hollow square, with the baggage in the middle—was held in reserve near the camp, to lend aid where aid might be wanted; cavalry there was none. The Syracusan hoplites, seemingly far more numerous than his, presented the levy in mass of the city, without any selection; they were ranged in the deeper order of sixteen, alongside of their Selinuntine allies. On the right wing were posted their horsemen, the best part of their force, not less than twelve hundred in number; together with two hundred horsemen from Gela, twenty from Kamarina, about fifty bowmen, and a company of darters. The hoplites, though full of courage, had little training; and their array, never precisely kept, was on this occasion farther disturbed by the immediate vicinity of the city. Some had gone in to see their families; others, hurrying out to join, found the battle already begun, and took rank wherever they could.[329]

Thucydidês, in describing this battle, gives us, according to his practice, a statement of the motives and feelings which animated the combatants on both sides, and which furnished a theme for the brief harangue of Nikias. This appears surprising to one accustomed to modern warfare, where the soldier is under the influence simply of professional honor and disgrace, without any thought of the cause for which he is fighting. In ancient times, such a motive was only one among many others, which, according to the circumstances of the case, contributed to elevate or depress the soldier’s mind at the eve of action. Nikias adverted to the recognized military preëminence of chosen Argeians, Mantineians, and Athenians, as compared to the Syracusan levy in mass, who were full of belief in their own superiority,—this is a striking confession of the deplorable change which had been wrought by his own delay,—but who would come short in actual conflict, from want of discipline.[330] Moreover, he reminded them that they were far away from home, and that defeat would render them victims, one and all, of the Syracusan cavalry. He little thought, nor did his prophets forewarn him, that such a calamity, serious as it would have been, was even desirable for Athens, since it would have saved her from the far more overwhelming disasters which will be found to sadden the coming chapters of this history.

While the customary sacrifices were being performed, the slingers and bowmen on both sides became engaged in skirmishing. But presently the trumpets sounded, and Nikias ordered his first division of hoplites to charge at once rapidly, before the Syracusans expected it. Judging from his previous backwardness, they never imagined that he would be the first to give orders for charging; nor was it until they saw the Athenian line actually advancing towards them that they lifted their own arms from the ground and came forward to give the meeting. The shock was bravely encountered on both sides, and for some time the battle continued hand to hand with undecided result. There happened to supervene a violent storm of rain, with thunder and lightning, which alarmed the Syracusans, who construed it as an unfavorable augury, while to the more practised Athenian hoplites, it seemed a mere phenomenon of the season,[331] so that they still farther astonished the Syracusans by the unabated confidence with which they continued the fight. At length the Syracusan army was broken, dispersed, and fled; first, before the Argeians on the right, next, before the Athenians in the centre. The victors pursued as far as was safe and practicable, without disordering their ranks: for the Syracusan cavalry, which had not yet been engaged, checked all who pressed forward, and enabled their own infantry to retire in safety behind the Helôrine road.[332]

So little were the Syracusans dispirited with this defeat, that they did not retire within their city until they had sent an adequate detachment to guard the neighboring temple and sacred precinct of the Olympian Zeus, wherein there was much deposited wealth, which they feared that the Athenians might seize. Nikias, however, without approaching the sacred ground, contented himself with occupying the field of battle, burnt his own dead, and stripped the arms from the dead of the enemy. The Syracusans and their allies lost two hundred and fifty men, the Athenians fifty.[333]

On the morrow, having granted to the Syracusans their dead bodies for burial, and collected the ashes of his own dead, Nikias reëmbarked his troops, put to sea, and sailed back to his former station at Katana. He conceived it impossible, without cavalry and a farther stock of money, to maintain his position near Syracuse or to prosecute immediate operations of siege or blockade. And as the winter was now approaching, he determined to take up winter quarters at Katana; though considering the mild winter at Syracuse, and the danger of marsh fever near the Great Harbor in summer, the change of season might well be regarded as a questionable gain. But he proposed to employ the interval in sending to Athens for cavalry and money, as well as in procuring the like reinforcements from his Sicilian allies, whose numbers he calculated now on increasing by the accession of new cities after his recent victory, and to get together magazines of every kind for beginning the siege of Syracuse in the spring. Despatching a trireme to Athens with these requisitions, he sailed with his forces to Messênê, within which there was a favorable party who gave hopes of opening the gates to him. Such a correspondence had already been commenced before the departure of Alkibiadês: but it was the first act of revenge which the departing general took on his country, to betray the proceedings to the philo-Syracusan party in Messênê. Accordingly, these latter, watching their opportunity, rose in arms before the arrival of Nikias, put to death their chief antagonists, and held the town by force against the Athenians; who after a fruitless delay of thirteen days, with scanty supplies and under stormy weather, were forced to return to Naxos, where they established a palisaded camp and station, and went into winter quarters.[334]

The recent stratagem of Nikias, followed by the movement into the harbor of Syracuse, and the battle, had been ably planned and executed. It served to show the courage and discipline of the army, as well as to keep up the spirits of the soldiers themselves, and to obviate those feelings of disappointment which the previous inefficiency of the armament tended to arouse. But as to other results, the victory was barren; we may even say, positively mischievous, since it imparted a momentary stimulus which served as an excuse to Nikias for the three months of total inaction which followed, and since it neither weakened nor humiliated the Syracusans, but gave them a salutary lesson which they turned to account while Nikias was in his winter quarters. His apathy during these first eight months after the arrival of the expedition at Rhegium (from July 415 B.C. to March 414 B.C.), was the most deplorable of all calamities to his army, his country, and himself. Abundant proofs of this will be seen in the coming events: at present, we have only to turn back to his own predictions and recommendations. All the difficulties and dangers to be surmounted in Sicily had been foreseen by himself and impressed upon the Athenians: in the first instance, as grounds against undertaking the expedition; but the Athenians, though unfortunately not allowing them to avail in that capacity, fully admitted their reality, and authorized him to demand whatever force was necessary to overcome them.[335] He had thus been allowed to bring with him a force calculated upon his own ideas, together with supplies and implements for besieging; yet when arrived, he seems only anxious to avoid exposing that force in any serious enterprise, and to find an excuse for conducting it back to Athens. That Syracuse was the grand enemy, and that the capital point of the enterprise was the siege of that city, was a truth familiar to himself as well as every man at Athens:[336] upon the formidable cavalry of the Syracusans, Nikias had himself insisted, in the preliminary debates. Yet, after four months of mere trifling, and pretence of action so as to evade dealing with the real difficulty, the existence of this cavalry is made an excuse for a farther postponement of four months until reinforcements can be obtained from Athens. To all the intrinsic dangers of the case, predicted by Nikias himself with proper discernment, was thus superadded the aggravated danger of his own factitious delay; frittering away the first impression of his armament, giving the Syracusans leisure to enlarge their fortifications, and allowing the Peloponnesians time to interfere against Attica as well as to succor Sicily. It was the unhappy weakness of this commander to shrink from decisive resolutions of every kind, and at any rate to postpone them until the necessity became imminent: the consequence of which was,—to use an expression of the Corinthian envoy before the Peloponnesian war in censuring the dilatory policy of Sparta,—that never acting, yet always seeming about to act, he found his enemy in double force instead of single, at the moment of actual conflict.[337]

Great, indeed, must have been the disappointment of the Athenians, when, after having sent forth in the month of June, an expedition of unparalleled efficiency, they receive in the month of November a despatch to acquaint them that the general has accomplished little except one indecisive victory; and that he has not even attempted anything serious, nor can do so unless they send him farther cavalry and money. Yet the only answer which they made was, to grant and provide for this demand without any public expression of discontent or disappointment against him.[338] And this is the more to be noted, since the removal of Alkibiadês afforded an inviting and even valuable opportunity for proposing to send out a fresh colleague in his room. If there were no complaints raised against Nikias at Athens, so neither are we informed of any such, even among his own soldiers in Sicily, though their disappointment must have been yet greater than that of their countrymen at home, considering the expectations with which they had come out. We may remember that the delay of a few days at Eion, under perfectly justifiable circumstances, and while awaiting the arrival of reinforcements actually sent for, raised the loudest murmurs against Kleon in his expedition against Amphipolis, from the hoplites in his own army.[339] The contrast is instructive, and will appear yet more instructive as we advance forward.

Meanwhile the Syracusans were profiting by the lesson of their recent defeat. In the next public assembly which ensued, Hermokratês addressed them in the mingled tone of encouragement and admonition. He praised their bravery, while he deprecated their want of tactics and discipline. Considering the great superiority of the enemy in this last respect, he regarded the recent battle as giving good promise for the future; and he appealed with satisfaction to the precautions taken by Nikias in fortifying his camp, as well as to his speedy retreat after the battle. He pressed them to diminish the excessive number of fifteen generals, whom they had hitherto been accustomed to nominate to the command; to reduce the number to three, conferring upon them at the same time fuller powers than had been before enjoyed, and swearing a solemn oath to leave them unfettered in the exercise of such powers; lastly, to enjoin upon these generals the most strenuous efforts, during the coming winter, for training and arming the whole population. Accordingly Hermokratês himself, with Herakleidês and Sikanus, were named to the command. Ambassadors were sent both to Sparta and to Corinth, for the purpose of entreating assistance in Sicily, as well as of prevailing on the Peloponnesians to recommence a direct attack against Attica;[340] so as at least to prevent the Athenians from sending farther reinforcements to Nikias, and perhaps even to bring about the recall of his army.

But by far the most important measure which marked the nomination of the new generals, was, the enlargement of the line of fortifications at Syracuse. They constructed a new wall, inclosing an additional space and covering both their inner and their outer city to the westward, reaching from the outer sea to the Great Harbor, across the whole space fronting the rising slope of the hill of Epipolæ, and stretching far enough westward to inclose the sacred precinct of Apollo Temenites. This was intended as a precaution, in order that if Nikias, resuming operations in the spring, should beat them in the field and confine them to their walls, he might, nevertheless, be prevented from carrying a wall of circumvallation from sea to sea without covering a great additional extent of ground.[341] Besides this, the Syracusans fitted up and garrisoned the deserted town of Megara, on the coast to the north of Syracuse; they established a regular fortification and garrison in the Olympieion or temple of Zeus Olympius, which they had already garrisoned after the recent battle with Nikias; and they planted stakes in the sea to obstruct the convenient landing-places. All these precautions were useful to them; and we may even say that the new outlying fortification, inclosing the Temenites, proved their salvation in the coming siege, by so lengthening the circumvallation necessary for the Athenians to construct, that Gylippus had time to arrive before it was finished. But there was one farther precaution which the Syracusans omitted at this moment, when it was open to them without any hindrance, to occupy and fortify the Euryâlus, or the summit of the hill of Epipolæ. Had they done this now, probably the Athenians could never have made progress with their lines of circumvallation: but they did not think of it until too late, as we shall presently see.

Nevertheless it is important to remark, in reference to the general scheme of Athenian operations in Sicily, that if Nikias had adopted the plan originally recommended by Lamachus, or if he had begun his permanent besieging operations against Syracuse in the summer or autumn of 415 B.C., instead of postponing them, as he actually did, to the spring of 414 B.C., he would have found none of these additional defences to contend against, and the line of circumvallation necessary for his purpose would have been shorter and easier. Besides these permanent and irreparable disadvantages, his winter’s inaction at Naxos drew upon him the farther insult, that the Syracusans marched to his former quarters at Katana and burned the tents which they found standing, ravaging at the same time the neighboring fields.[342]

Kamarina maintained an equivocal policy which made both parties hope to gain it; and in the course of this winter the Athenian envoy Euphêmus with others was sent thither to propose a renewal of that alliance, between the city and Athens, which had been concluded ten years before. Hermokratês the Syracusan went to counteract his object; and both of them, according to Grecian custom, were admitted to address the public assembly.

Hermokratês began by denouncing the views, designs, and past history of Athens. He did not, he said, fear her power, provided the Sicilian cities were united and true to each other: even against Syracuse alone, the hasty retreat of the Athenians after the recent battle had shown how little they confided in their own strength. What he did fear, was, the delusive promises and insinuations of Athens, tending to disunite the island, and to paralyze all joint resistance. Every one knew that her purpose in this expedition was to subjugate all Sicily,—that Leontini and Egesta served merely as convenient pretences to put forward,—and that she could have no sincere sympathy for Chalkidians in Sicily, when she herself held in slavery the Chalkidians in Eubœa. It was, in truth, nothing else but an extension of the same scheme of rapacious ambition, whereby she had reduced her Ionian allies and kinsmen to their present wretched slavery, now threatened against Sicily. The Sicilians could not too speedily show her that they were no Ionians, made to be transferred from one master to another, but autonomous Dorians from the centre of autonomy, Peloponnesus. It would be madness to forfeit this honorable position through jealousy or lukewarmness among themselves. Let not the Kamarinæans imagine that Athens was striking her blow at Syracuse alone: they were themselves next neighbors of Syracuse, and would be the first victims if she were conquered. They might wish, from apprehension or envy, to see the superior power of Syracuse humbled, but this could not happen without endangering their own existence. They ought to do for her what they would have asked her to do if the Athenians had invaded Kamarina, instead of lending merely nominal aid, as they had hitherto done. Their former alliance with Athens was for purposes of mutual defence, not binding them to aid her in schemes of pure aggression. To hold aloof, give fair words to both parties, and leave Syracuse to fight the battle of Sicily single-handed, was as unjust as it was dishonorable. If she came off victor in the struggle, she would take care that the Kamarinæans should be no gainers by such a policy. The state of affairs was so plain, that he (Hermokratês) could not pretend to enlighten them: but he solemnly appealed to their sentiments of common blood and lineage. The Dorians of Syracuse were assailed by their eternal enemies the Ionians, and ought not to be now betrayed by their own brother Dorians of Kamarina.[343]

Euphêmus, in reply, explained the proceedings of Athens in reference to her empire, and vindicated her against the charges of Hermokratês. Though addressing a Dorian assembly, he did not fear to take his start from the position laid down by Hermokratês, that Ionians were the natural enemies of Dorians. Under this feeling Athens, as an Ionian city, had looked about to strengthen herself against the supremacy of her powerful Dorian neighbors in Peloponnesus. Finding herself after the repulse of the Persian king at the head of those Ionians and other Greeks who had just revolted from him, she had made use of her position as well as of her superior navy to shake off the illegitimate ascendency of Sparta. Her empire was justified by regard for her own safety against Sparta, as well as by the immense superiority of her maritime efforts in the rescue of Greece from the Persians. Even in reference to her allies, she had good ground for reducing them to subjection, because they had made themselves the instruments and auxiliaries of the Persian king in his attempt to conquer her. Prudential views for assured safety to herself had thus led her to the acquisition of her present empire, and the same views now brought her to Sicily. He was prepared to show that the interests of Kamarina were in full accordance with those of Athens. The main purpose of Athens in Sicily was to prevent her Sicilian enemies from sending aid to her Peloponnesian enemies, to accomplish which, powerful Sicilian allies were indispensable to her. To enfeeble or subjugate her Sicilian allies would be folly: if she did this, they would not serve her purpose of keeping the Syracusans employed in their own island. Hence her desire to reëstablish the expatriated Leontines, powerful and free, though she retained the Chalkidians in Eubœa as subjects. Near home, she wanted nothing but subjects, disarmed and tribute-paying, while in Sicily, she required independent and efficient allies; so that the double conduct, which Hermokratês reproached as inconsistent, proceeded from one and the same root of public prudence. Pursuant to that motive, Athens dealt differently with her different allies, according to the circumstances of each. Thus, she respected the autonomy of Chios and Methymna, and maintained equal relations with other islanders near Peloponnesus; and such were the relations which she now wished to establish in Sicily.

No: it was Syracuse, not Athens, whom the Kamarinæans and other Sicilians had really ground to fear. Syracuse was aiming at the acquisition of imperial sway over the island; and that which she had already done towards the Leontines showed what she was prepared to do when the time came, against Kamarina and others. It was under this apprehension that the Kamarinæans had formerly invited Athens into Sicily: it would be alike unjust and impolitic were they now to repudiate her aid, for she could accomplish nothing without them; if they did so on the present occasion, they would repent it hereafter when exposed to the hostility of a constant encroaching neighbor, and when Athenian auxiliaries could not again be had. He repelled the imputations which Hermokratês had cast upon Athens, but the Kamarinæans were not sitting as judges or censors upon her merits. It was for them to consider whether that meddlesome disposition, with which Athens was reproached, was not highly beneficial as the terror of oppressors, and the shield of weaker states, throughout Greece. He now tendered it to the Kamarinæans as their only security against Syracuse; calling upon them, instead of living in perpetual fear of her aggression, to seize the present opportunity of attacking her on an equal footing, jointly with Athens.[344]

In these two remarkable speeches, we find Hermokratês renewing substantially the same line of counsel as he had taken up ten years before at the congress of Gela, to settle all Sicilian differences at home, and above all things to keep out the intervention of Athens; who if she once got footing in Sicily, would never rest until she reduced all the cities successively. This was the natural point of view for a Syracusan politician; but by no means equally natural, nor equally conclusive, for an inhabitant of one of the secondary Sicilian cities, especially of the conterminous Kamarina. And the oration of Euphêmus is an able pleading to demonstrate that the Kamarinæans had far more to fear from Syracuse than from Athens. His arguments to this point are at least highly plausible, if not convincing: but he seems to lay himself open to attack from the opposite quarter. If Athens cannot hope to gain any subjects in Sicily, what motive has she for interfering? This Euphêmus meets by contending that if she does not interfere, the Syracusans and their allies will come across and render assistance to the enemies of Athens in Peloponnesus. It is manifest, however, that under the actual circumstances of the time, Athens could have no real fears of this nature, and that her real motives for meddling in Sicily were those of hope and encroachment, not of self-defence. But it shows how little likely such hopes were to be realized, and therefore how ill-advised the whole plan of interference in Sicily was,—that the Athenian envoy could say to the Kamarinæans, in the same strain as Nikias had spoken at Athens when combating the wisdom of the expedition: “Such is the distance of Sicily from Athens, and such the difficulty of guarding cities of great force and ample territory combined, that if we wished to hold you Sicilians as subjects, we should be unable to do it: we can only retain you as free and powerful allies.”[345] What Nikias said at Athens to dissuade his countrymen from the enterprise, under sincere conviction, Euphêmus repeated at Kamarina for the purpose of conciliating that city; probably, without believing it himself, yet the anticipation was not on that account the less true and reasonable.

The Kamarinæans felt the force of both speeches, from Hermokratês and Euphêmus. Their inclinations carried them towards the Athenians, yet not without a certain misgiving in case Athens should prove completely successful. Towards the Syracusans, on the contrary, they entertained nothing but unqualified apprehension, and jealousy of very ancient date; and even now their great fear was, of probable suffering, if the Syracusans succeeded against Athens without their coöperation. In this dilemma, they thought it safest to give an evasive answer, of friendly sentiment towards both parties, but refusal of aid to either; hoping thus to avoid an inexpiable breach, whichever way the ultimate success might turn.[346]

For a city comparatively weak and situated like Kamarina, such was perhaps the least hazardous policy. In December, 415 B.C., no human being could venture to predict how the struggle between Nikias and the Syracusans in the coming year would turn out; nor were the Kamarinæans prompted by any hearty feeling to take the extreme chances with either party. Matters had borne a different aspect, indeed, in the preceding month of July 415 B.C., when the Athenians first arrived. Had the vigorous policy urged by Lamachus been then followed up, the Athenians would always have appeared likely to succeed, if, indeed, they had not already become conquerors of Syracuse; so that waverers like the Kamarinæans would have remained attached to them from policy. The best way to obtain allies, Lamachus had contended, was, to be prompt and decisive in action, and to strike at the capital point at once, while the intimidating effect of their arrival was fresh. Of the value of his advice, an emphatic illustration is afforded by the conduct of Kamarina.[347]

Throughout the rest of the winter, Nikias did little or nothing. He merely despatched envoys for the purpose of conciliating the Sikels in the interior, where the autonomous Sikels, who dwelt in the central regions of the island, for the most part declared in his favor,—especially the powerful Sikel prince Archônidês,—sending provisions and even money to the camp at Naxos. Against some refractory tribes, Nikias sent detachments for purposes of compulsion; while the Syracusans on their part did the like to counteract him. Such Sikel tribes as had become dependents of Syracuse, stood aloof from the struggle. As the spring approached, Nikias transferred his position from Naxos to Katana, reëstablishing that camp which the Syracusans had destroyed.[348]

He farther sent a trireme to Carthage, to invite coöperation from that city; and a second to the Tyrrhenian maritime cities on the southern coast of Italy, some of whom had proffered to him their services, as ancient enemies of Syracuse, and now realized their promises. From Carthage nothing was obtained; why, we do not know; for we shall find the Carthaginians, six years hence, invading Sicily with prodigious forces; and if they entertained any such intentions, it would seem that the presence of Nikias in Sicily must have presented the most convenient moment for executing them. To the Sikels, Egestæans, and all the other allies of Athens, Nikias sent orders for bricks, iron bars, clamps, and everything suitable for the wall of circumvallation, which was to be commenced with the first burst of spring.

While such preparations were going on in Sicily, debates of portentous promise took place at Sparta. Immediately after the battle near the Olympieion, and the retreat of Nikias into winter quarters, the Syracusans had despatched envoys to Peloponnesus to solicit reinforcements. Here, again, we are compelled to notice the lamentable consequences arising out of the inaction of Nikias. Had he commenced the siege of Syracuse on his first arrival, it may be doubted whether any such envoys would have been sent to Peloponnesus at all; at any rate, they would not have arrived in time to produce decisive effects.[349] After exerting what influence they could upon the Italian Greeks in their voyage, the Syracusan envoys reached Corinth, where they found the warmest reception and obtained promises of speedy succor. The Corinthians furnished envoys of their own to accompany them to Sparta, and to back their request for Lacedæmonian aid.

They found at the congress at Sparta another advocate upon whom they could not reasonably have counted, Alkibiadês. That exile had crossed over from Thurii to the Eleian port of Kyllênê in Peloponnesus in a merchant-vessel,[350] and now appeared at Sparta on special invitation and safe-conduct from the Lacedæmonians; of whom he was at first vehemently afraid, in consequence of having raised against them that Peloponnesian combination which had given them so much trouble before the battle of Mantineia. He now appeared, too, burning with hostility against his country, and eager to inflict upon her all the mischief in his power. Having been the chief evil genius to plunge her, mainly for selfish ends of his own, into this ill-starred venture, he was now about to do his best to turn it into her irreparable ruin. His fiery stimulus, and unmeasured exaggerations, supplied what was wanting in Corinthian and Syracusan eloquence, and inflamed the tardy good-will of the Spartan ephors into comparative decision and activity.[351] His harangue in the Spartan congress is given to us by Thucydidês, who may possibly have heard it, as he was then himself in exile. Like the earlier speech which he puts into the mouth of Alkibiadês at Athens, it is characteristic in a high degree; and interesting in another point of view as the latest composed speech of any length which we find in his history. I give here the substance, without professing to translate the words.

“First, I must address you, Lacedæmonians, respecting the prejudices current against me personally, before I can hope to find a fair hearing on public matters. You know it was I, who renewed my public connection with Sparta, after my ancestors before me had quarrelled with you and renounced it. Moreover, I assiduously cultivated your favor on all points, especially by attentions to your prisoners at Athens: but while I was showing all this zeal towards you, you took the opportunity of the peace which you made with Athens to employ my enemies as your agents, thus strengthening their hands, and dishonoring me. It was this conduct of yours which drove me to unite with the Argeians and Mantineians; nor ought you to be angry with me for mischief which you thus drew upon yourselves. Probably some of you hate me too, without any good reason, as a forward partisan of democracy. My family were always opposed to the Peisistratid despots; and as all opposition to a reigning dynasty takes the name of The People, so from that time forward we continued to act as leaders of the people.[352] Moreover, our established constitution was a democracy, so that I had no choice but to obey, though I did my best to maintain a moderate line of political conduct in the midst of the reigning license. It was not my family, but others, who in former times as well as now, led the people into the worst courses, those same men who sent me into exile. I always acted as leader, not of a party, but of the entire city; thinking it right to uphold that constitution in which Athens had enjoyed her grandeur and freedom, and which I found already existing.[353] For as to democracy, all we Athenians of common sense well knew its real character. Personally, I have better reason than any one else to rail against it, if one could say anything new about such confessed folly; but I did not think it safe to change the government, while you were standing by as enemies.

“So much as to myself personally: I shall now talk to you about the business of the meeting, and tell you something more than you yet know. Our purpose in sailing from Athens, was, first to conquer the Sicilian Greeks; next, the Italian Greeks; afterwards, to make an attempt on the Carthaginian empire and on Carthage herself. If all or most of this succeeded, we were then to attack Peloponnesus. We intended to bring to this enterprise the entire power of the Sicilian and Italian Greeks, besides large numbers of Iberian and other warlike barbaric mercenaries, together with many new triremes built from the abundant forests of Italy, and large supplies both of treasure and provision. We could thus blockade Peloponnesus all round with our fleet, and at the same time assail it with our land-force; and we calculated, by taking some towns by storm and occupying others as permanent fortified positions, that we should easily conquer the whole peninsula, and then become undisputed masters of Greece. You thus hear the whole scheme of our expedition from the man who knows it best; and you may depend on it that the remaining generals will execute all this, if they can. Nothing but your intervention can hinder them. If, indeed, the Sicilian Greeks were all united, they might hold out; but the Syracusans standing alone cannot, beaten as they already have been in a general action, and blocked up as they are by sea. If Syracuse falls into the hands of the Athenians, all Sicily and all Italy will share the same fate; and the danger which I have described will be soon upon you.

“It is not therefore simply for the safety of Sicily,—it is for the safety of Peloponnesus,—that I now urge you to send across, forthwith, a fleet with an army of hoplites as rowers; and what I consider still more important than an army, a Spartan general to take the supreme command. Moreover, you must also carry on declared and vigorous war against Athens here, that the Syracusans may be encouraged to hold out, and that Athens may be in no condition to send additional reinforcements thither. You must farther fortify and permanently garrison Dekeleia in Attica:[354] that is the contingency which the Athenians have always been most afraid of, and which therefore you may know to be your best policy. You will thus get into your own hands the live and dead stock of Attica, interrupt the working of the silver mines at Laureion, deprive the Athenians of their profits from judicial fines as well as of their landed revenue, and dispose the subject-allies to withhold their tribute.

“None of you ought to think the worse of me because I make this vigorous onset upon my country in conjunction with her enemies, I who once passed for a patriot.[355] Nor ought you to mistrust my assurances, as coming from the reckless passion of an exile. The worst enemies of Athens are not those who make open war like you, but those who drive her best friends into hostility. I loved my country,[356] while I was secure as a citizen; I love her no more, now that I am wronged. In fact, I do not conceive myself to be assailing a country still mine; I am rather trying to win back a country now lost to me. The real patriot is not he, who, having unjustly lost his country, acquiesces in patience, but he whose ardor makes him try every means to regain her.

“Employ me without fear, Lacedæmonians, in any service of danger or suffering; the more harm I did you formerly as an enemy, the more good I can now do you as a friend. But above all, do not shrink back from instant operations both in Sicily and in Attica, upon which so much depends. You will thus put down the power of Athens, present as well as future; you will dwell yourselves in safety; and you will become the leaders of undivided Hellas, by free consent and without force.”[357]

Enormous consequences turned upon this speech, no less masterly in reference to the purpose and the audience, than infamous as an indication of the character of the speaker. If its contents became known at Athens, as they probably did, the enemies of Alkibiadês would be supplied with a justification of their most violent political attacks. That imputation which they had taken so much pains to fasten upon him, citing in proof of it alike his profligate expenditure, overbearing insolence, and derision of the religious ceremonies of the state,[358]—that he detested the democracy in his heart, submitted to it only from necessity, and was watching for the first safe opportunity of subverting it,—appears here in his own language as matter of avowal and boast. The sentence of condemnation against him would now be unanimously approved, even by those who at the time had deprecated it; and the people would be more firmly persuaded than before of the reality of the association between irreligious manifestations and treasonable designs. Doubtless the inferences so drawn from the speech would be unsound, because it represented, not the actual past sentiments of Alkibiadês, but those to which he now found it convenient to lay claim. As far as so very selfish a politician could be said to have any preference, democracy was, in some respects, more convenient to him than oligarchy. Though offensive to his taste, it held out larger prospects to his love of show, his adventurous ambition, and his rapacity for foreign plunder; while under an oligarchy, the jealous restraints and repulses imposed on him by a few equals, would be perhaps more galling to his temper than those arising from the whole people.[359] He takes credit in his speech for moderation, as opposed to the standing license of democracy. But this is a pretence absurd even to extravagance, and which Athenians of all parties would have listened to with astonishment. Such license as that of Alkibiadês had never been seen at Athens; and it was the adventurous instincts of the democracy towards foreign conquest, combined with their imperfect apprehension of the limits and conditions under which alone their empire could be permanently maintained, which he stimulated up to the highest point, and then made use of for his own power and profit. As against himself, he had reason for accusing his political enemies of unworthy manœuvres, and even of gross political wickedness, if they were authors or accomplices—as seems probable of some—in the mutilation of the Hermæ. But most certainly, their public advice to the commonwealth was far less mischievous than his. And if we are to strike the balance of personal political merit between Alkibiadês and his enemies, we must take into the comparison his fraud upon the simplicity of the Lacedæmonian envoys, recounted in the last chapter but one of this History.

If, then, that portion of the speech of Alkibiadês, wherein he touches upon Athenian politics and his own past conduct, is not to be taken as historical evidence, just as little can we trust the following portion in which he professes to describe the real purposes of Athens in her Sicilian expedition. That any such vast designs as those which he announces were ever really contemplated even by himself and his immediate friends, is very improbable; that they were contemplated by the Athenian public, by the armament, or by Nikias, is utterly incredible. The tardiness and timid movements of the armament—during the first eight months after arriving at Rhegium—recommended by Nikias, partially admitted even by Alkibiadês, opposed only by the unavailing wisdom of Lamachus, and not strongly censured when known at Athens, conspire to prove that their minds were not at first fully made up even to the siege of Syracuse; that they counted on alliances and money in Sicily which they did not find; and that those who sailed from Athens with large hopes of brilliant and easy conquest were soon taught to see the reality with different eyes. If Alkibiadês had himself conceived at Athens the designs which he professed to reveal in his speech at Sparta, there can be no doubt that he would have espoused the scheme of Lamachus, or rather would have originated it himself. We find him, indeed, in his speech delivered at Athens before the determination to sail, holding out hopes that by means of conquests in Sicily, Athens might become mistress of all Greece. But this is there put as an alternative and as a favorable possibility, is noticed only in one place, without expansion or amplification, and shows that the speaker did not reckon upon finding any such expectations prevalent among his hearers. Alkibiadês could not have ventured to promise, in his discourse at Athens, the results which he afterwards talked of at Sparta as having been actually contemplated,—Sicily, Italy, Carthage, Iberian mercenaries, etc., all ending in a blockading fleet large enough to gird round Peloponnesus.[360] Had he put forth such promises, the charge of juvenile folly which Nikias urged against him would probably have been believed by every one. His speech at Sparta, though it has passed with some as a fragment of true Grecian history, is in truth little better than a gigantic romance dressed up to alarm his audience.[361]

Intended for this purpose, it was eminently suitable and effective. The Lacedæmonians had already been partly moved by the representations from Corinth and Syracuse, and were even prepared to send envoys to the latter place with encouragement to hold out against Athens. But the Peace of Nikias and the alliance succeeding it, still subsisted between Athens and Sparta. It had indeed been partially and indirectly violated in many ways, but both the contracting parties still considered it as subsisting, nor would either of them yet consent to break their oaths openly and avowedly. For this reason—as well as from the distance of Sicily, great even in the estimation of the more nautical Athenians—the ephors could not yet make up their minds to despatch thither any positive aid. It was exactly in this point of hesitation between the will and the deed that the energetic and vindictive exile from Athens found them. His flaming picture of the danger impending,—brought home to their own doors, and appearing to proceed from the best informed of all witnesses,—overcame their reluctance at once; while he at the same time pointed out the precise steps whereby their interference would be rendered of most avail. The transfer of Alkibiadês to Sparta thus reverses the superiority of force between the two contending chiefs of Greece: “Momentumque fuit mutatus Curio rerum.”[362] He had not yet shown his power of doing his country good, as we shall find him hereafter engaged, during the later years of the war: his first achievements were but too successful in doing her harm.

The Lacedæmonians forthwith resolved to send an auxiliary force to Syracuse. But as this could not be done before the spring, they nominated Gylippus commander, directing him to proceed thither without delay, and to take counsel with the Corinthians for operations as speedily as the case admitted.[363] We do not know that Gylippus had as yet given any positive evidence of that consummate skill and activity which we shall presently be called upon to describe. He was probably chosen on account of his superior acquaintance with the circumstances of the Italian and Sicilian Greeks; since his father Kleandridas, after having been banished from Sparta fourteen years before the Peloponnesian war for taking Athenian bribes, had been domiciliated as a citizen at Thurii.[364] Gylippus desired the Corinthians to send immediately two triremes for him to Asinê, in the Messenian gulf, and to prepare as many others as their docks could furnish.

CHAPTER LIX. FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIEGE OF SYRACUSE BY NIKIAS, DOWN TO THE SECOND ATHENIAN EXPEDITION UNDER DEMOSTHENES, AND THE RESUMPTION OF THE GENERAL WAR.

CHAPTER LX. FROM THE RESUMPTION OF DIRECT HOSTILITIES BETWEEN ATHENS AND SPARTA, DOWN TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ATHENIAN ARMAMENT IN SICILY.

The Syracusan war now no longer stands apart, as an event by itself, but becomes absorbed in the general war rekindling throughout Greece. Never was any winter so actively and extensively employed in military preparations, as the winter of 414-413 B.C., the months immediately preceding that which Thucydidês terms the nineteenth spring of the Peloponnesian war, but which other historians call the beginning of the Dekeleian war.[415] While Eurymedon went with his ten triremes to Syracuse, even in midwinter, Demosthenês exerted himself all the winter to get together the second armament for early spring. Twenty other Athenian triremes were farther sent round Peloponnesus to the station of Naupaktus, to prevent any Corinthian reinforcements from sailing out of the Corinthian gulf. Against these latter, the Corinthians on their side prepared twenty-five fresh triremes, to serve as a convoy to the transports carrying their hoplites.[416] In Corinth, Sikyôn, and Bœotia, as well as at Lacedæmon, levies of hoplites were going on for the armament to Syracuse, at the same time that everything was getting ready for the occupation of Dekeleia. Lastly, Gylippus was engaged with not less activity in stirring up all Sicily to take a more decisive part in the coming year’s struggle.

From Cape Tænarus in Laconia, at the earliest moment of spring, embarked a force of six hundred Lacedæmonian hoplites—Helots and Neodamodes—under the Spartan Ekkritus, and three hundred Bœotian hoplites under the Thebans Xenon and Nikon, with the Thespian Hegesandrus. They were directed to cross the sea southward to Kyrênê in Libya, and from thence to make their way along the African coast to Sicily. At the same time a body of seven hundred hoplites under Alexarchus, partly Corinthians, partly hired Arcadians, partly Sikyonians, under constraint from their powerful neighbors,[417] departed from the northwest of Peloponnesus and the mouth of the Corinthian gulf for Sicily, the Corinthian triremes watching them until they were past the Athenian squadron at Naupaktus.

These were proceedings of importance: but the most important of all was the reinvasion of Attica at the same time by the great force of the Peloponnesian alliance, under the Spartan king Agis son of Archidamus. Twelve years had elapsed since Attica last felt the hand of the destroyer, a little before the siege of Sphakteria. The plain in the neighborhood of Athens was now first laid waste, after which the invaders proceeded to their special purpose of erecting a fortified post for occupation at Dekeleia. The work, apportioned among the allies present, who had come prepared with the means of executing it, was completed during the present summer, and a garrison was established there composed of contingents relieving each other at intervals, under the command of king Agis himself. Dekeleia was situated on an outlying eminence belonging to the range called Parnês, about fourteen miles to the north of Athens, near the termination of the plain of Athens, and commanding an extensive view of that plain as well as of the plain of Eleusis. The hill on which it stood, if not the fort itself, was visible even from the walls of Athens. It was admirably situated both as a central point for excursions over Attica, and for communication with Bœotia; while the road from Athens to Orôpus, the main communication with Eubœa, passed through the gorge immediately under it.[418]

We read with amazement, and the contemporary world saw with yet greater amazement, that while this important work was actually going on, and while the whole Peloponnesian confederacy was renewing its pressure with redoubled force upon Athens, at that very moment,[419] the Athenians sent out, not only a fleet of thirty triremes under Chariklês to annoy the coasts of Peloponnesus, but also the great armament which they had resolved upon under Demosthenês, to push offensive operations against Syracuse. The force under the latter general consisted of sixty Athenian and five Chian triremes; of twelve hundred Athenian hoplites of the best class, chosen from the citizen muster-roll; with a considerable number of hoplites besides, from the subject-allies and elsewhere. There had been also engaged on hire fifteen hundred peltasts from Thrace, of the tribe called Dii; but these men did not arrive in time, so that Demosthenês set sail without them.[420] Chariklês having gone forward to take aboard a body of allies from Argos, the two fleets joined at Ægina, inflicted some devastations on the coasts of Laconia, and established a strong post on the island of Kythêra to encourage desertion among the Helots. From hence Chariklês returned with the Argeians, while Demosthenês conducted his armament round Peloponnesus to Korkyra.[421] On the Eleian coast, he destroyed a transport carrying hoplites to Syracuse, though the men escaped ashore: from thence he proceeded to Zakynthus and Kephallenia, from whence he engaged some additional hoplites, and to Anaktorium, in order to procure darters and slingers from Akarnania. It was here that he was met by Eurymedon with his ten triremes, who had gone forward to Syracuse in the winter with the pecuniary remittance urgently required, and was now returning to act as colleague of Demosthenês in the command.[422] The news brought by Eurymedon from Sicily was in every way discouraging. Yet the two admirals were under the necessity of sparing ten triremes from their fleet to reinforce Konon at Naupaktus, who was not strong enough alone to contend against the Corinthian fleet which watched him from the opposite coast. To make good this diminution, Eurymedon went forward to Korkyra, with the view of obtaining from the Korkyræans fifteen fresh triremes and a contingent of hoplites, while Demosthenês was getting together the Akarnanian darters and slingers.[423]

Eurymedon not only brought back word of the distressed condition of the Athenians in the harbor of Syracuse, but had also learned, during his way back, their heavy additional loss by the capture of the fort at Plemmyrium. Gylippus returned to Syracuse early in the spring, nearly about the time when Agis invaded Attica and when Demosthenês quitted Peiræus. He returned with fresh reinforcements from the interior, and with redoubled ardor for decisive operations against Nikias before aid could arrive from Athens. It was his first care, in conjunction with Hermokratês, to inspire the Syracusans with courage for fighting the Athenians on shipboard. Such was the acknowledged superiority of the latter at sea, that this was a task of some difficulty, calling for all the eloquence and ascendency of the two leaders: “The Athenians (said Hermokratês to his countrymen) have not been always eminent at sea as they now are: they were once landsmen like you, and more than you, they were only forced on shipboard by the Persian invasion. The only way to deal with bold men like them, is to show a front bolder still. They have often by their audacity daunted enemies of greater real force than themselves, and they must now be taught that others can play the same game with them. Go right at them before they expect it; and you will gain more by thus surprising and intimidating them, than you will suffer by their superior science.” Such lessons, addressed to men already in the tide of success, were presently efficacious, and a naval attack was resolved.[424]

The town of Syracuse had two ports, one on each side of the island of Ortygia. The lesser port—as it was called afterwards, the Portus Lakkius—lay northward of Ortygia, between that island and the low ground or Nekropolis near the outer city: the other lay on the opposite side of the isthmus of Ortygia within the Great Harbor. Both of them, it appears, were protected against attack from without, by piles and stakes planted in the bottom in front of them. But the lesser port was the more secure of the two, and the principal docks of the Syracusans were situated within it; the Syracusan fleet, eighty triremes strong, being distributed between them. The entire Athenian fleet was stationed under the fort of Plemmyrium, immediately opposite to the southern point of Ortygia.

Gylippus laid his plan with great ability, so as to take the Athenians completely by surprise. Having trained and prepared the naval force as thoroughly as he could, he marched out his land-force secretly by night, over Epipolæ and round by the right bank of the Anapus, to the neighborhood of the fort of Plemmyrium. With the first dawn of morning, the Syracusan fleet sailed out, at one and the same signal, from both the ports; forty-five triremes out of the lesser port, thirty-five out of the other. Both squadrons tried to round the southern point of Ortygia, so as to unite and to attack the enemy at Plemmyrium in concert. The Athenians, though unprepared and confused, hastened to man sixty ships; with twenty-five of which, they met the thirty-five Syracusans sailing forth from the Great Harbor, while with the other thirty-five they encountered the forty-five from the lesser port, immediately outside of the mouth of the Great Harbor. In the former of these two actions the Syracusans were at first victors; in the second also, the Syracusans from the outside forced their way into the mouth of the Great Harbor, and joined their comrades. But being little accustomed to naval warfare, they presently fell into complete confusion, partly in consequence of their unexpected success: so that the Athenians, recovering from the first shock, attacked them anew and completely defeated them; sinking or disabling eleven ships, of three of which the crews were made prisoners, the rest being mostly slain.[425] Three Athenian triremes were destroyed also.

But this victory, itself not easily won, was more than counterbalanced by the irreparable loss of Plemmyrium. During the first excitement at the Athenian naval station, when the ships were in course of being manned to meet the unexpected onset from both ports at once, the garrison of Plemmyrium went to the water’s edge to watch and encourage their countrymen, leaving their own walls thinly guarded, and little suspecting the presence of their enemy on the land side. This was just what Gylippus had anticipated. He attacked the forts at daybreak, taking the garrison completely by surprise, and captured them after a feeble resistance; first the greatest and most important fort, next the two smaller. The garrison sought safety as they could, on board the transports and vessels of burden at the station, and rowed across the Great Harbor to the land-camp of Nikias on the other side. Those who fled from the greater fort, which was the first taken, ran some risk from the Syracusan triremes, which were at that moment victorious at sea. But by the time that the two lesser forts were taken, the Athenian fleet had regained its superiority, so that there was no danger of similar pursuit in the crossing of the Great Harbor.

This well-concerted surprise was no less productive to the captors than fatal as a blow to the Athenians. Not only were many men slain, and many made prisoners, in the assault, but there were vast stores of every kind, and even a large stock of money found within the fort; partly belonging to the military chest, partly the property of the trierarchs and of private merchants, who had deposited it there as in the place of greatest security. The sails of not less than forty triremes were also found there, and three triremes which had been dragged up ashore. Gylippus caused one of the three forts to be pulled down, and carefully garrisoned the other two.[426]

Great as the positive loss was here to the Athenians at a time when their situation could ill bear it, the collateral damage and peril growing out of the capture of Plemmyrium was yet more serious, besides the alarm and discouragement which it spread among the army. The Syracusans were now masters of the mouth of the harbor on both sides, so that not a single storeship could enter without a convoy and a battle. What was of not less detriment, the Athenian fleet was now forced to take station under the fortified lines of its own land-force, and was thus cramped up on a small space in the innermost portion of the Great Harbor, between the city-wall and the river Anapus; the Syracusans being masters everywhere else, with full communication between their posts all round, hemming in the Athenian position both by sea and by land.

To the Syracusans, on the contrary, the result of the recent battle proved every way encouraging; not merely from the valuable acquisition of Plemmyrium, but even from the sea-fight itself, which had indeed turned out to be a defeat, but which promised at first to be a victory, had they not thrown away the chance by their own disorder. It removed all superstitious fear of Athenian nautical superiority; while their position was so much improved by having acquired the command of the mouth of the harbor, that they began even to assume the aggressive at sea. They detached a squadron of twelve triremes to the coast of Italy, for the purpose of intercepting some merchant vessels coming with a supply of money to the Athenians. So little fear was there of an enemy at sea, that these vessels seem to have been coming without convoy, and were for the most part destroyed by the Syracusans, together with a stock of ship-timber which the Athenians had collected near Kaulonia. In touching at Lokri, on their return, they took aboard a company of Thespian hoplites who had made their way thither in a transport. They were also fortunate enough to escape the squadron of twenty triremes which Nikias detached to lie in wait for them near Megara, with the loss of one ship, however, including her crew.[427]

One of this Syracusan squadron had gone forward from Italy with envoys to Peloponnesus, to communicate the favorable news of the capture of Plemmyrium, and to accelerate as much as possible, the operations against Attica, in order that no reinforcements might be sent from thence. At the same time, other envoys went from Syracuse—not merely Syracusans, but also Corinthians and Lacedæmonians—to visit the cities in the interior of Sicily. They made known everywhere the prodigious improvement in Syracusan affairs arising from the gain of Plemmyrium, as well as the insignificant character of the recent naval defeat. They strenuously pleaded for farther aid to Syracuse without delay, since there were now the best hopes of being able to crush the Athenians in the harbor completely, before the reinforcements about to be despatched could reach them.[428]

While these envoys were absent on their mission, the Great Harbor was the scene of much desultory conflict, though not of any comprehensive single battle. Since the loss of Plemmyrium, the Athenian naval station was in the northwest interior corner of that harbor, adjoining the fortified lines occupied by their land-army. It was inclosed and protected by a row of posts or stakes stuck in the bottom and standing out of the water.[429] The Syracusans on their side had also planted a stockade in front of the interior port of Ortygia, to defend their ships, their ship-houses, and their docks within. As the two stations were not far apart, each party watched for opportunities of occasional attack or annoyance by missile weapons to the other; and daily skirmishes of this sort took place, in which on the whole the Athenians seem to have had the advantage. They even formed the plan of breaking through the outworks of the Syracusan dockyard, and burning the ships within. They brought up a ship of the largest size, with wooden towers and side defences, against the line of posts fronting the dockyard, and tried to force the entrance, either by means of divers, who sawed them through at the bottom, or by boat-crews, who fastened ropes round them and thus unfixed or plucked them out. All this was done under cover of the great vessel with its towers manned by light-armed, who exchanged showers of missiles with the Syracusan bowmen on the top of the ship-houses, and prevented the latter from coming near enough to interrupt the operation. The Athenians contrived thus to remove many of the posts planted, even the most dangerous among them, those which did not reach to the surface of the water, and which therefore a ship approaching could not see. But they gained little by it, since the Syracusans were able to plant others in their room. On the whole, no serious damage was done, either to the dockyard or to the ships within. And the state of affairs in the Great Harbor stood substantially unaltered, during all the time that the envoys were absent on their Sicilian tour, probably three weeks or a month.[430]

These envoys had found themselves almost everywhere well received. The prospects of Syracuse were now so triumphant, and those of Nikias with his present force so utterly hopeless, that the waverers thought it time to declare themselves; and all the Greek cities in Sicily, except Agrigentum, which still remained neutral (and of course except Naxos and Katana), resolved on aiding the winning cause. From Kamarina came five hundred hoplites, four hundred darters, and three hundred bowmen; from Gela, five triremes, four hundred darters, and two hundred horsemen. Besides these, an additional force from the other cities was collected, to march to Syracuse in a body across the interior of the island, under the conduct of the envoys themselves. But this part of the scheme was frustrated by Nikias, who was rendered more vigilant by the present desperate condition of his affairs, than he had been in reference to the cross march of Gylippus. At his instance, the Sikel tribes Kentoripes and Halikyæi, allies of Athens, were prevailed upon to attack the approaching enemy. They planned a skilful ambuscade, set upon them unawares, and dispersed them with the loss of eight hundred men. All the envoys were also slain, except the Corinthian, who conducted the remaining force, about fifteen hundred in number, to Syracuse.[431]

This reverse—which seems to have happened about the time when Demosthenês with his armament were at Korkyra, on the way to Syracuse—so greatly dismayed and mortified the Syracusans, that Gylippus thought it advisable to postpone awhile the attack which he intended to have made immediately on the reinforcement arriving.[432] The delay of these few days proved nothing less than the salvation of the Athenian army.

It was not until Demosthenês was approaching Rhegium within two or three days’ sail of Syracuse, that the attack was determined on without farther delay. Preparation in every way had been made for it long before, especially for the most effective employment of the naval force. The captains and ship-masters of Syracuse and Corinth had now become fully aware of the superiority of Athenian nautical manœuvre, and of the causes upon which that superiority depended. The Athenian trireme was of a build comparatively light, fit for rapid motion through the water, and for easy change of direction: its prow was narrow, armed with a sharp projecting beak at the end, but hollow and thin, not calculated to force its way through very strong resistance. It was never intended to meet, in direct impact and collision, the prow of an enemy: such a proceeding passed among the able seamen of Athens for gross awkwardness. In advancing against an enemy’s vessel, they evaded the direct shock, steered so as to pass by it, then, by the excellence and exactness of their rowing, turned swiftly round, altered their direction and came back before the enemy could alter his: or perhaps rowed rapidly round him, or backed their ship stern foremost, until the opportunity was found for driving the beak of their ship against some weak part of his, against the midships, the quarter, the stern, or the oarblades without. In such manœuvres the Athenians were unrivalled: but none such could be performed unless there were ample sea-room, which rendered their present naval station the most disadvantageous that could be imagined. They were cooped up in the inmost part of a harbor of small dimensions, close on the station of their enemies, and with all the shore, except their own lines, in possession of those enemies: so that they could not pull round from want of space, nor could they back water, because they durst not come near shore. In this contracted area, the only mode of fighting possible was by straightforward collision, prow against prow; a process which not only shut out all their superior manœuvring, but was unsuited to the build of their triremes. On the other hand, the Syracusans, under the advice of the able Corinthian steersman Aristo, altered the construction of their triremes to meet the special exigency of the case, disregarding all idea of what had been generally looked upon as good nautical manœuvring.[433] Instead of the long, thin, hollow, and sharp, advancing beak, striking the enemy considerably above the water-level, and therefore doing less damage, they shortened the prow, but made it excessively heavy and solid, and lowered the elevation of the projecting beak: so that it became not so much calculated to pierce, as to break in and crush by main force all the opposing part of the enemy’s ship, not far above the water. What were called the epôtids, “ear-caps,” or nozzles, projecting forwards to the right and left of the beak, were made peculiarly thick, and sustained by under-beams let in to the hull of the ship. In the Attic build, the beak stood forward very prominent, and the epôtids on each side of it were kept back, serving the same purpose as what are called catheads, in modern ships, to which the anchors are suspended: but in the Corinthian build, the beak projected less, and the epôtids more, so that they served to strike the enemy: instead of having one single beak, the Corinthian ship might be said to have three nozzles.[434] The Syracusans relied on the narrowness of the space, for shutting out the Athenian evolutions, and bringing the contest to nothing more than a straightforward collision; in which the weaker vessel would be broken and stove in at the prow, and thus rendered unmanageable.

Having completed these arrangements, their land-force was marched out under Gylippus to threaten one side of the Athenian lines, while the cavalry and the garrison of the Olympieion marched up to the other side. The Athenians were putting themselves in position to defend their walls from what seemed to be a land attack, when they saw the Syracusan fleet, eighty triremes strong, sailing out from its dock prepared for action: upon which they too, though at first confused by this unexpected appearance, put their crews on shipboard, and went out of their palisaded station, seventy-five triremes in number, to meet the enemy. The whole day passed off, however, in desultory and indecisive skirmish, with trifling advantage to the Syracusans, who disabled one or two Athenian ships, yet merely tried to invite the Athenians to attack, without choosing themselves to force on a close and general action.[435]

It was competent to the Athenians to avoid altogether a naval action, at least until the necessity arose for escorting fresh supplies into the harbor, by keeping within their station; and as Demosthenês was now at hand, prudence counselled this reserve. Nikias himself, too, is said to have deprecated immediate fighting, but to have been outvoted by his two newly-appointed colleagues Menander and Euthydemus, who were anxious to show what they could do without Demosthenês, and took their stand upon Athenian maritime honor, which peremptorily forbade them to shrink from the battle when offered.[436]

Though on the next day the Syracusans made no movement, yet Nikias foreseeing that they would speedily recommence, and noway encouraged by the equal manifestations of the preceding day, caused every trierarch to repair what damage his ship had sustained, and even took the precaution of farther securing his naval station by mooring merchant-vessels just alongside of the openings in the palisade, about two hundred feet apart. The prows of these vessels were provided with dolphins, or beams lifted up on high and armed at the end with massive heads of iron, which could be so let fall as to crush any ship entering:[437] any Athenian trireme which might be hard-pressed, would thus be enabled to get through this opening where no enemy could follow, and choose her own time for sailing out again. Before night these arrangements were completed, and at the earliest dawn of next day, the Syracusans reappeared, with the same demonstrations both of land force and naval force as before. The Athenian fleet having gone forth to meet them, several hours were spent in the like indecisive and partial skirmishes, until at length the Syracusan fleet sailed back to the city again without bringing on any general or close combat. The Athenians, construing this retirement of the enemy as evidence of backwardness and unwillingness to fight,[438] and supposing the day’s duty at an end, retired on their side within their own station, disembarked, and separated to get their dinners at leisure, having tasted no food that day.

But ere they had been long ashore, they were astonished to see the Syracusan fleet sailing back to renew the attack, in full battle order. This was a manœuvre suggested by the Corinthian Aristo, the ablest steersman in the fleet; at whose instance, the Syracusan admirals had sent back an urgent request to the city authorities, that an abundant stock of provisions might for that day be brought down to the sea-shore, and sale be rendered compulsory; so that no time should be lost, when the fleet returned thither, in taking a hasty meal without dispersion of the crews. Accordingly the fleet, after a short but sufficient interval allowed for refreshment thus close at hand, was brought back unexpectedly to the enemy’s station. Confounded at the sight, the Athenian crews forced themselves again on board, most of them yet without refreshment, and in the midst of murmurs and disorder.[439] On sailing out of their station, the indecisive skirmishing again commenced, and continued for some time, until at length the Athenian captains became so impatient of prolonged and exhausting fatigue, that they resolved to begin of themselves, and make the action close as well as general. Accordingly, the word of command was given, and they rowed forward to make the attack, which was cheerfully received by the Syracusans. By receiving the attack instead of making it, the latter were better enabled to insure a straightforward collision of prow against prow, excluding all circuit, backing, or evolutions, on the part of the enemy: at any rate, their steersmen contrived to realize this plan, and to crush, stave in, or damage, the forepart of many of the Athenian triremes, simply by superior weight of material and solidity on their own side. The Syracusan darters on the deck, moreover, as soon as the combat became close, were both numerous and destructive; while their little boats rowed immediately under the sides of the Athenian triremes, broke the blades of their oars, and shot darts in through the oar-holes, against the rowers within. At length the Athenians, after sustaining the combat bravely for some time, found themselves at such disadvantage, that they were compelled to give way and to seek shelter within their own station. The armed merchant-vessels which Nikias had planted before the openings in the palisade were now found of great use in checking the pursuing Syracusans; two of whose triremes, in the excitement of victory, pushed forward too near to them and were disabled by the heavy implements on board, one of them being captured with all her crew. The general victory of the Syracusans, however, was complete: seven Athenian triremes were sunk or disabled, many others were seriously damaged, and numbers of seamen either slain or made prisoners.[440]

Overjoyed with the result of this battle, which seems to have been no less skilfully planned than bravely executed, the Syracusans now felt confident of their superiority by sea as well as on land, and contemplated nothing less than the complete destruction of their enemies in the harbor. The generals were already concerting measures for renewed attack both by land and by sea, and a week or two more would probably have seen the ruin of this once triumphant besieging armament, now full of nothing but discouragement. The mere stoppage of supplies, in fact, as the Syracusans were masters of the mouth of the harbor, would be sure to starve it out in no long time, if they maintained their superiority at sea. All their calculations were suspended, however, and the hopes of the Athenians for the time revived, by the entry of Demosthenês and Eurymedon with the second armament into the Great Harbor; which seems to have taken place on the very day, or on the second day, after the recent battle.[441] So important were the consequences which turned upon that postponement of the Syracusan attack, occasioned by the recent defeat of their reinforcing army from the interior. So little did either party think, at that moment, that it would have been a mitigation of calamity to Athens, if Demosthenês had not arrived in time; if the ruin of the first armament had been actually consummated before the coming of the second!

Demosthenês, after obtaining the required reinforcements at Korkyra, had crossed the Ionian sea to the islands called Chœrades on the coast of Iapygia; where he took aboard a band of one hundred and fifty Messapian darters, through the friendly aid of the native prince Artas, with whom an ancient alliance was renewed. Passing on farther to Metapontum, already in alliance with Athens, he was there reinforced with two triremes and three hundred darters, with which addition he sailed on to Thurii. Here he found himself cordially welcomed; for the philo-Athenian party was in full ascendency, having recently got the better in a vehement dissension, and passed a sentence of banishment against their opponents.[442] They not only took a formal resolution to acknowledge the same friends and the same enemies as the Athenians, but equipped a regiment of seven hundred hoplites and three hundred darters to accompany Demosthenês, who remained there long enough to pass his troops in review and verify the completeness of each division. After having held this review on the banks of the river Sybaris, he marched his troops by land through the Thurian territory to the banks of the river Hylias which divided it from Kroton. He was here met by Krotoniate envoys, who forbade the access to their territory: upon which he marched down the river to the sea-shore, got on shipboard, and pursued his voyage southward along the coast of Italy, touching at the various towns, all except the hostile Lokri.[443]

His entry into the harbor of Syracuse,[444] accomplished in the most ostentatious trim, with decorations and musical accompaniments, was no less imposing from the magnitude of his force than critical in respect to opportunity. Taking Athenians, allies, and mercenary forces, together, he conducted seventy-three triremes, five thousand hoplites, and a large number of light troops of every description,—archers, slingers, darters, etc., with other requisites for effective operation. At the sight of such an armament, not inferior to the first which had arrived under Nikias, the Syracusans lost for a moment the confidence of their recent triumph, and were struck with dismay as well as wonder.[445] That Athens could be rash enough to spare such an armament, at a moment when the full burst of Peloponnesian hostility was reopening upon her, and when Dekeleia was in course of being fortified, was a fact out of all reasonable probability, and not to be credited unless actually seen. And probably the Syracusans, though they knew that Demosthenês was on his way, had no idea beforehand of the magnitude of his armament.

On the other hand, the hearts of the discomfited and beleaguered Athenians again revived as they welcomed their new comrades. They saw themselves again masters by land as well as by sea; and they displayed their renewed superiority by marching out of their lines forthwith and ravaging the lands near the Anapus; the Syracusans not venturing to engage in a general action, and merely watching the movement with some cavalry from the Olympieion.

But Demosthenês was not imposed upon by this delusive show of power, so soon as he had made himself master of the full state of affairs, and had compared his own means with those of the enemy. He found the army of Nikias not merely worn down with long-continued toil, and disheartened by previous defeat, but also weakened in a terrible degree by the marsh fever general towards the close of summer, in the low ground where they were encamped.[446]

He saw that the Syracusans were strong in multiplied allies, extended fortifications, a leader of great ability, and general belief that theirs was the winning cause. Moreover, he felt deeply the position of Athens at home, and her need of all her citizens against enemies within sight of her own walls. But above all, he came penetrated with the deplorable effects which had resulted from the mistake of Nikias, in wasting irreparably so much precious time, and frittering away the first terror-striking impression of his splendid armament. All these considerations determined Demosthenês to act, without a moment’s delay and while the impression produced by his arrival was yet unimpaired, and to aim one great and decisive blow, such as might, if successful, make the conquest of Syracuse again probable. If this should fail, he resolved to abandon the whole enterprise, and return home with his armament forthwith.[447]

By means of the Athenian lines, he had possession of the southernmost portion of the slope of Epipolæ. But all along that slope from east to west, immediately in front or to the north of his position, stretched the counter-wall built by the Syracusans; beginning at the city wall on the lowest ground, and reaching up first in a northwesterly, next in a westerly direction, until it joined the fort on the upper ground near the cliff, where the road from Euryalus down to Syracuse passed. The Syracusans, as defenders, were on the north side of this counter-wall; he and the Athenians on the south side. It was a complete bar to his progress, nor could he stir a step without making himself master of it: towards which end there were only two possible means,—either to storm it in front, or to turn it from its western extremity by marching round up to the Euryalus. He began by trying the first method; but the wall was abundantly manned and vigorously defended; his battering machines were all burnt or disqualified, and every attempt which he made was completely repulsed.[448] There then remained only the second method, to turn the wall, ascending by circuitous roads to the heights of Euryalus behind it, and then attacking the fort in which it terminated.

But the march necessary for this purpose, first, up the valley of the Anapus, visible from the Syracusan posts above; next, ascending to the Euryalus by a narrow and winding path, was so difficult, that even Demosthenês, naturally sanguine, despaired of being able to force his way up in the daylight, against an enemy seeing the attack. He was therefore constrained to attempt a night-surprise, for which, Nikias and his other colleagues consenting, he accordingly made preparations on the largest and most effective scale. He took the command himself, along with Menander and Eurymedon (Nikias being left to command within the lines),[449] conducting hoplites and light troops, together with masons and carpenters, and all other matters necessary for establishing a fortified post; lastly, giving orders that every man should carry with him provisions for five days.

Fortune so far favored him, that not only all these preliminary arrangements, but even his march itself, was accomplished without any suspicion of the enemy. At the beginning of a moonlight night, he quitted the lines, moved along the low ground on the left bank of the Anapus and parallel to that river for a considerable distance, then following various roads to the right, arrived at the Euryalus, or highest pitch of Epipolæ, where he found himself in the same track by which the Athenians in coming from Katana a year and a half before—and Gylippus in coming from the interior of the island about ten months before—had passed, in order to get to the slope of Epipolæ above Syracuse. He reached, without being discovered, the extreme Syracusan fort on the high ground, assailed it completely by surprise, and captured it after a feeble resistance. Some of the garrison within it were slain; but the greater part escaped, and ran to give the alarm to the three fortified camps of Syracusans and allies, which were placed one below another behind the long continuous wall,[450] on the declivity of Epipolæ, as well as to a chosen regiment of six hundred Syracusan hoplites under Hermokratês,[451] who formed a night-watch, or bivouac. This regiment hastened up to the rescue, but Demosthenês and the Athenian vanguard charging impetuously forward, drove them back in disorder upon the fortified positions in their rear. Even Gylippus and the Syracusan troops advancing upwards out of these positions, were at first carried back by the same retreating movement.

So far the enterprise of Demosthenês had been successful beyond all reasonable hope. He was master not only of the outer fort of the Syracusan position, but also of the extremity of their counter-wall which rested upon that fort; the counter-wall was no longer defensible, now that he had got on the north or Syracusan side of it, so that the men on the parapet, where it joined the fort, made no resistance, and fled. Some of the Athenians even began to tear down the parapets, and demolish this part of the counter-wall, an operation of extreme importance, since it would have opened to Demosthenês a communication with the southern side of the counter-wall, leading directly towards the Athenian lines on Epipolæ. At any rate, his plan of turning the counter-wall was already carried, if he could only have maintained himself in his actual position, even without advancing farther, and if he could have demolished two or three hundred yards of the upper extremity of the wall now in his power. Whether it would have been possible for him to maintain himself without farther advance, until day broke, and thus avoid the unknown perils of a night-battle, we cannot say. But both he and his men, too much flushed with success to think of halting, hastened forward to complete their victory, and to prevent the disordered Syracusans from again recovering a firm array. Unfortunately, however, their ardor of pursuit—as it constantly happened with Grecian hoplites—disturbed the regularity of their own ranks, so that they were not in condition to stand the shock of the Bœotian hoplites, just emerged from their position, and marching up in steady and excellent order to the scene of action. The Bœotians charged them, and after a short resistance, broke them completely, forcing them to take flight. The fugitives of the van were thus driven back upon their own comrades advancing from behind, still under the impression of success, ignorant of what had passed in front, and themselves urged on by the fresh troops closing up in their rear.

In this manner the whole army presently became one scene of clamor and confusion wherein there was neither command nor obedience, nor could any one discern what was passing. The light of the moon rendered objects and figures generally visible, without being sufficient to discriminate friend from foe. The beaten Athenians, thrown back upon their comrades, were in many cases mistaken for enemies, and slain. The Syracusans and Bœotians, shouting aloud and pursuing their advantage, became intermingled with the foremost Athenians, and both armies thus grouped into knots which only distinguished each other by mutual demand of the watchword. This test also soon failed, since each party got acquainted with the watchword of the other, especially that of the Athenians, among whom the confusion was the greatest, became well known to the Syracusans, who kept together in larger parties. Above all, the effect of the pæan or war-shout on both sides was remarkable. The Dorians in the Athenian army—from Argos, Korkyra, and other places—raised a pæan not distinguishable from that of the Syracusans; accordingly, their shout struck terror into the Athenians themselves, who fancied that they had enemies in their own rear and centre. Such disorder and panic presently ended in a general flight. The Athenians hurried back by the same roads which they had ascended; but these roads were found too narrow for terrified fugitives, and many of them threw away their arms in order to scramble or jump down the cliffs, in which most of them perished. Even of those who safely effected their descent into the plain below, many—especially the new-comers belonging to the armament of Demosthenês—lost their way through ignorance, and were cut off the next day by the Syracusan horse. With terrible loss of numbers, and broken spirit, the Athenians at length found shelter within their own lines. Their loss of arms was even greater than that of men, from the throwing away of shields by those soldiers who leaped the cliff.[452]

The overjoyed Syracusans erected two trophies, one upon the road to Epipolæ, the other upon the exact and critical spot where the Bœotians had first withstood and first repelled the enemy. By this unexpected and overwhelming victory, their feelings were restored to the same pitch of confidence which had animated them before the arrival of Demosthenês. Again now masters of the field, they again indulged the hope of storming the Athenian lines and destroying the armament; to which end, however, it was thought necessary to obtain additional reinforcements, and Gylippus went in person with this commission to the various cities of Sicily, while Sikanus with fifteen triremes was despatched to Agrigentum, then understood to be wavering, and in a political crisis.[453]

During this absence of Gylippus, the Athenian generals were left to mourn the recent reverse, and to discuss the exigencies of their untoward position. The whole armament was now full of discouragement and weariness; impatient to escape from a scene where fever daily thinned their numbers, and where they seemed destined to nothing but dishonor. Such painful evidences of increasing disorganization only made Demosthenês more strenuous in enforcing the resolution which he had taken before the attack on Epipolæ. He had done his best to strike one decisive blow; the chances of war had turned out against him, and inflicted a humiliating defeat; he now therefore insisted on relinquishing the whole enterprise and returning home forthwith. The season was yet favorable for the voyage (it seems to have been the beginning of August), while the triremes recently brought, as yet unused, rendered them masters at sea for the present. It was idle, he added, to waste more time and money in staying to carry on war against Syracuse, which they could not now hope to subdue, especially when Athens had so much need of them all at home, against the garrison of Dekeleia.[454]

This proposition, though espoused and seconded by Eurymedon, was peremptorily opposed by Nikias; who contended, first, that their present distress and the unpromising chances for the future, though he admitted the full reality of both, ought not nevertheless to be publicly proclaimed. A formal resolution to retire, passed in the presence of so many persons, would inevitably become known to the enemy, and therefore could never be executed with silence and secrecy,[455] as such a resolution ought to be. But farthermore, he (Nikias) took a decided objection to the resolution itself. He would never consent to carry back the armament, without specific authority from home to do so. Sure he was, that the Athenian people would never tolerate such a proceeding. When submitted to the public assembly at home, the conduct of the generals would be judged, not by persons who had been at Syracuse and cognizant of the actual facts, but by hearers who would learn all that they knew from the artful speeches of criminative orators. Even the citizens actually serving, though now loud in cries of suffering, and impatient to get home, would alter their tone when they were safe in the public assembly; and would turn round to denounce their generals as having been bribed to bring away the army. Speaking his own personal feelings, he knew too well the tempers of his countrymen to expose himself to the danger of thus perishing under a charge alike unmerited and disgraceful. Sooner would he incur any extremity of risk from the enemy.[456] It must be recollected too, he added, that if their affairs were now bad, those of Syracuse were as bad, and even worse. For more than a year, the war had been imposing upon the Syracusans a ruinous cost, in subsistence for foreign allies as well as in keeping up outlying posts; so that they had already spent two thousand talents, besides heavy debts contracted and not paid. They could not continue in this course longer; yet the suspension of their payments would at once alienate their allies, and leave them helpless. The cost of the war—to which Demosthenês had alluded as a reason for returning home—could be much better borne by Athens; while a little farther pressure would utterly break down the Syracusans. He (Nikias) therefore advised to remain where they were and continue the siege;[457] the more so, as their fleet had now become unquestionably the superior.

Both Demosthenês and Eurymedon protested in the strongest language against the proposition of Nikias. Especially they treated the plan of remaining in the Great Harbor as fraught with ruin, and insisted, at the very least, on quitting this position without a moment’s delay. Even admitting, for argument, the scruples of Nikias against abandoning the Syracusan war without formal authority from home, they still urged an immediate transfer of their camp from the Great Harbor to Thapsus or Katana. At either of these stations they could prosecute operations against Syracuse, with all the advantage of a wider range of country for supplies, a healthier spot, and above all, of an open sea, which was absolutely indispensable to the naval tactics of Athenians; escaping from that narrow basin which condemned them to inferiority even on their own proper element. At all events to remove, and remove forthwith, out of the Great Harbor, such was the pressing requisition of Demosthenês and Eurymedon.[458]

But even to the modified motion of transferring the actual position to Thapsus or Katana, Nikias refused to consent. He insisted on remaining as they were; and it appears that Menander and Euthydemus[459]—colleagues named by the assembly at home, before the departure of the second armament—must have voted under the influence of his authority; whereby the majority became on his side. Nothing less than being in a minority, probably, would have induced Demosthenês and Eurymedon to submit, on a point of such transcendent importance.

It was thus that the Athenian armament remained without quitting the harbor, yet apparently quite inactive, during a period which cannot have been less than between three weeks and a month, until Gylippus returned to Syracuse with fresh reinforcements. Throughout the army, hope of success appears to have vanished, while anxiety for return had become general. The opinions of Demosthenês and Eurymedon were doubtless well known, and orders for retreat were expected, but never came. Nikias obstinately refused to give them, during the whole of this fatal interval; which plunged the army into the abyss of ruin, instead of mere failure in their aggressive enterprise.

So unaccountable did such obstinacy appear, that many persons gave Nikias credit for knowing more than he chose to reveal. Even Thucydidês thinks that he was misled by that party in Syracuse with whom he had always kept up a secret correspondence, seemingly apart from his colleagues, and who still urged him, by special messages, not to go away; assuring him that Syracuse could not possibly go on longer. Without fully trusting these intimations, he could not bring himself to act against them; and he therefore hung back from day to day, and refused to pronounce the decisive word.[460]

Nothing throughout the whole career of Nikias is so inexplicable as his guilty fatuity—for we can call it by no lighter name, seeing that it involved all the brave men around him in one common ruin with himself—at the present critical juncture. How can we suppose him to have really believed that the Syracusans, now in the flood-tide of success, and when Gylippus was gone forth to procure additional forces, would break down and be unable to carry on the war? Childish as such credulity seems, we are nevertheless compelled to admit it as real, to such an extent as to counterbalance all the pressing motives for departure, motives enforced by discerning colleagues as well as by the complaints of the army, and brought home to his own observation by the experience of the late naval defeat. At any rate, it served as an excuse for that fatal weakness of his character which made him incapable of taking resolutions founded on prospective calculations, and chained him to his actual position until he was driven to act by imminent necessity.

But we discern on the present occasion another motive, which counts for much in dictating his hesitation. The other generals think with satisfaction of going back to their country and rescuing the force which yet remained, even under circumstances of disappointment and failure. Not so Nikias: he knows too well the reception which he had deserved, and which might possibly be in store for him. Avowedly, indeed, he anticipates reproach from the Athenians against the generals, but only unmerited reproach, on the special ground of bringing away the army without orders from home; adding some harsh criticisms upon the injustice of the popular judgment and the perfidy of his own soldiers. But in the first place, we may remark, that Demosthenês and Eurymedon, though as much responsible as he was for this decision, had no such fear of popular injustice; or, if they had, saw clearly that the obligation of braving it was here imperative. And in the next place, no man ever had so little reason to complain of the popular judgment as Nikias. The mistakes of the people in regard to him had always been those of indulgence, over-esteem, and over-constancy. But Nikias foresaw too well that he would have more to answer for at Athens than the simple fact of sanctioning retreat under existing circumstances. He could not but remember the pride and sanguine hopes under which he had originally conducted the expedition out of Peiræus, contrasted with the miserable sequel and ignominious close, even if the account had been now closed, without worse. He could not but be conscious, more or less, how much of all this was owing to his own misjudgment; and under such impressions, the idea of meeting the free criticisms and scrutiny of his fellow-citizens—even putting aside the chance of judicial trial—must have been insupportably humiliating. To Nikias,—a perfectly brave man, and suffering withal under an incurable disease,—life at Athens had neither charm nor honor left. Hence, as much as from any other reason, he was induced to withhold the order for departure; clinging to the hope that some unforeseen boon of fortune might yet turn up, and yielding to the idlest delusions from correspondents in the interior of Syracuse.[461]

Nearly a month after the night-battle on Epipolæ,[462] Gylippus and Sikanus both returned to Syracuse. The latter had been unsuccessful at Agrigentum, where the philo-Syracusan party had been sent into banishment before his arrival; but Gylippus brought with him a considerable force of Sicilian Greeks, together with those Peloponnesian hoplites who had started from Cape Tænarus in the early spring, and who had made their way from Kyrênê first along the coast of Africa, and then across to Selinus. Such increase of strength immediately determined the Syracusans to resume the aggressive both by land and by sea. In the Athenians, as they saw the new allies marching in over Epipolæ, it produced a deeper despondency, combined with bitter regret that they had not adopted the proposition of departing immediately after the battle of Epipolæ, when Demosthenês first proposed it. The late interval of lingering hopeless inaction with continued sickness, had farther weakened their strength, and Demosthenês now again pressed the resolution for immediate departure. Whatever fancies Nikias may have indulged about Syracusan embarrassments, were dissipated by the arrival of Gylippus; nor did he venture to persist in his former peremptory opposition, though even now he seems to have assented against his own conviction.[463] He however insisted, with good reason, that no formal or public vote should be taken on the occasion, but that the order should be circulated through the camp, as privately as possible, to be ready for departure at a given signal. Intimation was sent to Katana that the armament was on the point of coming away, with orders to forward no farther supplies.[464]

This plan was proceeding successfully: the ships were made ready, much of the property of the army had already been conveyed aboard without awakening the suspicion of the enemy, the signal would have been hoisted on the ensuing morning, and within a few hours this fated armament would have found itself clear of the harbor, with comparatively small loss,[465] when the gods themselves—I speak in the language and feelings of the Athenian camp—interfered to forbid its departure. On the very night before, the 27th August, 413 B.C., which was full moon, the moon was eclipsed. Such a portent, impressive to the Athenians at all times, was doubly so under their present despondency, and many of them construed it as a divine prohibition against departure until a certain time should have elapsed, with expiatory ceremonies to take off the effect. They made known their wish for postponement to Nikias and his colleagues; but their interference was superfluous, for Nikias himself was more deeply affected than any one else. He consulted the prophets, who declared that the army ought not to decamp until thrice nine days, a full circle of the moon, should have passed over.[466] And Nikias took upon himself to announce, that until after the interval indicated by them, he would not permit even any discussion or proposition on the subject.

The decision of the prophets, which Nikias thus made his own, was a sentence of death to the Athenian army, yet it went along with the general feeling, and was obeyed without hesitation. Even Demosthenês, though if he had commanded alone, he might have tried to overrule it, found himself compelled to yield. Yet according to Philochorus, himself a professional diviner, skilful in construing the religious meaning of events, it was a decision decidedly wrong; that is, wrong according to the canonical principles of divination. To men planning escape, or any other operation requiring silence and secrecy, an eclipse of the moon, as hiding light and producing darkness, was, he affirmed, an encouraging sign, and ought to have made the Athenians even more willing and forward in quitting the harbor. We are told, too, that Nikias had recently lost by death Stilbidês, the ablest prophet in his service, and that he was thus forced to have recourse to prophets of inferior ability.[467] His piety left no means untried of appeasing the gods, by prayer, sacrifice, and expiatory ceremonies, continued until the necessity of actual conflict arrived.[468]

The impediment thus finally and irreparably intercepting the Athenian departure, was the direct, though unintended, consequence of the delay previously caused by Nikias. We cannot doubt, however, that, when the eclipse first happened, he regarded it as a sign confirmatory of the opinion which he had himself before delivered, and that he congratulated himself upon having so long resisted the proposition for going away. Let us add, that all those Athenians who were predisposed to look upon eclipses as signs from heaven of calamity about to come, would find themselves strengthened in that belief by the unparalleled woes even now impending over this unhappy army.

What interpretation the Syracusans, confident and victorious, put on the eclipse, we are not told. But they knew well how to interpret the fact, which speedily came to their knowledge, that the Athenians had fully resolved to make a furtive escape, and had only been prevented by the eclipse. Such a resolution, amounting to an unequivocal confession of helplessness, emboldened the Syracusans yet farther, to crush them as they were in the harbor, and never to permit them to occupy even any other post in Sicily. Accordingly, Gylippus caused his triremes to be manned and practised for several days: he then drew out his land-force, and made a demonstration of no great significance against the Athenian lines. On the morrow, he brought out all his forces, both land and naval; with the former of which he beset the Athenian lines, while the fleet, seventy-six triremes in number, was directed to sail up to the Athenian naval station. The Athenian fleet, eighty-six triremes strong, sailed out to meet it, and a close, general, and desperate action took place. The fortune of Athens had fled. The Syracusans first beat the centre division of the Athenians; next, the right division under Eurymedon, who in attempting an evolution to outflank the enemy’s left, forgot those narrow limits of the harbor which were at every turn the ruin of the Athenian mariner, neared the land too much, and was pinned up against it, in the recess of Daskon, by the vigorous attack of the Syracusans. He was here slain, and his division destroyed: successively, the entire Athenian fleet was beaten and driven ashore.

Few of the defeated ships could get into their own station. Most of them were forced ashore or grounded on points without those limits; upon which Gylippus marched down his land-force to the water’s edge, in order to prevent the retreat of the crews as well as to assist the Syracusan seamen in hauling off the ships as prizes. His march, however, was so hurried and disorderly, that the Tyrrhenian troops, on guard at the flank of the Athenian station, sallied out against them as they approached, beat the foremost of them, and drove them away from the shore into the marsh called Lysimeleia. More Syracusan troops came to their aid; but the Athenians also, anxious above all things for the protection of their ships, came forth in greater numbers; and a general battle ensued in which the latter were victorious. Though they did not inflict much loss upon the enemy, yet they saved most of their own triremes which had been driven ashore, together with the crews, and carried them into the naval station. Except for this success on land, the entire Athenian fleet would have been destroyed: as it was, the defeat was still complete, and eighteen triremes were lost, all their crews being slain. This was probably the division of Eurymedon, which having been driven ashore in the recess of Daskon, was too far off from the Athenian station to receive any land assistance. As the Athenians were hauling in their disabled triremes, the Syracusans made a last effort to destroy them by means of a fireship, for which the wind happened to be favorable. But the Athenians found means to prevent her approach, and to extinguish the flames.[469]

Here was a complete victory gained over Athens on her own element, gained with inferior numbers, gained even over the fresh and yet formidable fleet recently brought by Demosthenês. It told but too plainly on which side the superiority now lay, how well the Syracusans had organized their naval strength for the specialties of their own harbor, how ruinous had been the folly of Nikias in retaining his excellent seamen imprisoned within that petty and unwholesome lake, where land and water alike did the work of their enemies. It not only disheartened the Athenians, but belied all their past experience, and utterly confounded them. Sickness of the whole enterprise, and repentance for having undertaken it, now became uppermost in their minds: yet it is remarkable that we hear of no complaints against Nikias separately.[470] But repentance came too late. The Syracusans, fully alive to the importance of their victory, sailed round the harbor in triumph as again their own,[471] and already looked on the enemy within it as their prisoners. They determined to close up and guard the mouth of it, from Plemmyrium to Ortygia, so as to leave no farther liberty of exit.

Nor were they insensible how vastly the scope of the contest was now widened, and the value of the stake before them enhanced. It was not merely to rescue their own city from siege, nor even to repel and destroy the besieging army, that they were now contending. It was to extinguish the entire power of Athens, and liberate the half of Greece from dependence; for Athens could never be expected to survive so terrific a loss as that of the entire double armament before Syracuse.[472] The Syracusans exulted in the thought that this great achievement would be theirs, that their city was the field, and their navy the chief instrument of victory: a lasting source of glory to them, not merely in the eyes of contemporaries, but even in those of posterity. Their pride swelled when they reflected on the Pan-Hellenic importance which the siege of Syracuse had now acquired, and when they counted up the number and variety of Greek warriors who were now fighting, on one side or the other, between Euryalus and Plemmyrium. With the exception of the great struggle between Athens and the Peloponnesian confederacy, never before had combatants so many and so miscellaneous been engaged under the same banners. Greeks, continental and insular, Ionic, Doric, and Æolic, autonomous and dependent, volunteers and mercenaries, from Miletus and Chios in the east to Selinus in the west, were all here to be found; and not merely Greeks, but also the barbaric Sikels, Egestæans, Tyrrhenians, and Iapygians. If the Lacædemonians, Corinthians, and Bœotians were fighting on the side of Syracuse, the Argeians and Mantineians, not to mention the great insular cities, stood in arms against her. The jumble of kinship among the combatants on both sides, as well as the cross action of different local antipathies, is put in lively antithesis by Thucydidês.[473] But amidst so vast an assembled number, of which they were the chiefs, the paymasters, and the centre of combination, the Syracusans might well feel a sense of personal aggrandizement, and a consciousness of the great blow which they were about to strike, sufficient to exalt them for the time above the level even of their great Dorian chiefs in Peloponnesus.

It was their first operation, occupying three days, to close up the mouth of the Great Harbor, which was nearly one mile broad, with vessels of every description, triremes, traders, boats, etc., anchored in an oblique direction, and chained together.[474] They at the same time prepared their naval force with redoubled zeal for the desperate struggle which they knew to be coming. They then awaited the efforts of the Athenians, who watched their proceedings with sadness and anxiety.

Nikias and his colleagues called together the principal officers to deliberate what was to be done. As they had few provisions remaining, and had counter-ordered their farther supplies, some instant and desperate effort was indispensable; and the only point in debate was, whether they should burn their fleet and retire by land, or make a fresh maritime exertion to break out of the harbor. Such had been the impression left by the recent sea-fight, that many in the camp leaned to the former scheme.[475] But the generals resolved upon first trying the latter, and exhausted all their combinations to give to it the greatest possible effect. They now evacuated the upper portion of their lines, both on the higher ground of Epipolæ, and even on the lower ground, such portion as was nearest to the southern cliff; confining themselves to a limited fortified space close to the shore, just adequate for their sick, their wounded, and their stores; in order to spare the necessity for a large garrison to defend them, and thus leave nearly their whole force disposable for sea-service. They then made ready every trireme in the station, which could be rendered ever so imperfectly seaworthy, constraining every fit man to serve aboard them, without distinction of age, rank, or country. The triremes were manned with double crews of soldiers, hoplites as well as bowmen and darters, the latter mostly Akarnanians; while the hoplites, stationed at the prow with orders to board the enemy as quickly as possible, were furnished with grappling-irons to detain the enemy’s ship immediately after the moment of collision, in order that it might not be withdrawn and the collision repeated, with all its injurious effects arising from the strength and massiveness of the Syracusan epôtids. The best consultation was held with the steersmen as to arrangement and manœuvres of every trireme, nor was any precaution omitted which the scanty means at hand allowed. In the well-known impossibility of obtaining new provisions, every man was anxious to hurry on the struggle.[476] But Nikias, as he mustered them on the shore immediately before going aboard, saw but too plainly that it was the mere stress of desperation which impelled them; that the elasticity, the disciplined confidence, the maritime pride, habitual to the Athenians on shipboard, was extinct, or dimly and faintly burning.

He did his best to revive them, by exhortations unusually emphatic and impressive. “Recollect (he said) that you too, not less than the Syracusans, are now fighting for your own safety and for your country; for it is only by victory in the coming struggle that any of you can ever hope to see his country again. Yield not to despair like raw recruits after a first defeat; you, Athenians and allies, familiar with the unexpected revolutions of war, will hope now for the fair turn of fortune, and fight with a spirit worthy of the great force which you see here around you. We generals have now made effective provision against our two great disadvantages, the narrow circuit of the harbor, and the thickness of the enemy’s prows.[477] Sad as the necessity is, we have thrown aside all our Athenian skill and tactics, and have prepared to fight under the conditions forced upon us by the enemy, a land-battle on shipboard.[478] It will be for you to conquer in this last desperate struggle, where there is no friendly shore to receive you if you give way. You, hoplites on the deck, as soon as you have the enemy’s trireme in contact, keep him fast, and relax not until you have swept away his hoplites and mastered his deck. You, seamen and rowers, must yet keep up your courage, in spite of this sad failure in our means, and subversion of our tactics. You are better defended on deck above, and you have more triremes to help you, than in the recent defeat. Such of you, as are not Athenian citizens, I entreat to recollect the valuable privileges which you have hitherto enjoyed from serving in the navy of Athens. Though not really citizens, you have been reputed and treated as such; you have acquired our dialect, you have copied our habits, and have thus enjoyed the admiration, the imposing station, and the security, arising from our great empire.[479] Partaking as you do freely in the benefits of that empire, do not now betray it to these Sicilians and Corinthians whom you have so often beaten. For such of you as are Athenians, I again remind you that Athens has neither fresh triremes, nor fresh hoplites, to replace those now here. Unless you are now victorious, her enemies near home will find her defenceless; and our countrymen there will become slaves to Sparta, as you will to Syracuse. Recollect, every man of you, that you now going aboard here are the all of Athens,—her hoplites, her ships, her entire remaining city, and her splendid name.[480] Bear up then and conquer, every man with his best mettle, in this one last struggle, for Athens as well as yourselves, and on an occasion which will never return.”

If, in translating the despatch written home ten months before by Nikias to the people of Athens, we were compelled to remark, that the greater part of it was the bitterest condemnation of his own previous policy as commander, so we are here carried back, when we find him striving to palliate the ruinous effects of that confined space of water which paralyzed the Athenian seamen, to his own obstinate improvidence in forbidding the egress of the fleet when insisted on by Demosthenês. His hearers probably were too much absorbed with the terrible present, to revert to irremediable mistakes of the past. Immediately on the conclusion of his touching address, the order was given to go aboard, and the seamen took their places. But when the triremes were fully manned, and the trierarchs, after superintending the embarkation, were themselves about to enter and push off, the agony of Nikias was too great to be repressed. Feeling more keenly than any man the intensity of this last death-struggle, and the serious, but inevitable, shortcomings of the armament in its present condition, he still thought that he had not said enough for the occasion. He now renewed his appeal personally to the trierarchs, all of them citizens of rank and wealth at Athens. They were all familiarly known to him, and he addressed himself to every man separately by his own name, his father’s name, and his tribe, adjuring him by the deepest and most solemn motives which could touch the human feelings. Some he reminded of their own previous glories, others of the achievements of illustrious ancestors, imploring them not to dishonor or betray these precious titles: to all alike he recalled the charm of their beloved country, with its full political freedom and its unconstrained license of individual agency to every man: to all alike he appealed in the names of their wives, their children, and their paternal gods. He cared not for being suspected of trenching upon the common places of rhetoric: he caught at every topic which could touch the inmost affections, awaken the inbred patriotism, and rekindle the abated courage of the officers, whom he was sending forth to this desperate venture. He at length constrained himself to leave off, still fancying in his anxiety that he ought to say more, and proceeded to marshal the land-force for the defence of the lines, as well as along the shore, where they might render as much service and as much encouragement as possible to the combatants on shipboard.[481]

Very different was the spirit prevalent, and very opposite the burning words uttered, on the seaboard of the Syracusan station, as the leaders were mustering their men immediately before embarkation. They had been apprized of the grappling-irons now about to be employed by the Athenians, and had guarded against them in part by stretching hides along their bows, so that the “iron hand” might slip off without acquiring any hold. The preparatory movements even within the Athenian station being perfectly visible, Gylippus sent the fleet out with the usual prefatory harangue. He complimented them on the great achievements which they had already performed in breaking down the naval power of Athens, so long held irresistible.[482] He reminded them that the sally of their enemies was only a last effort of despair, seeking nothing but escape, undertaken without confidence in themselves, and under the necessity of throwing aside all their own tactics in order to copy feebly those of the Syracusans.[483] He called upon them to recollect the destructive purposes which the invaders had brought with them against Syracuse, to inflict with resentful hand the finishing stroke upon this half-ruined armament, and to taste the delight of satiating a legitimate revenge.[484]

The Syracusan fleet—seventy-six triremes strong, as in the last battle—was the first to put off from shore; Pythen with the Corinthians in the centre, Sikanus and Agatharchus on the wings. A certain proportion of them were placed near the mouth of the harbor, in order to guard the barrier; while the rest were distributed around the harbor in order to attack the Athenians from different sides as soon as they should approach. Moreover, the surface of the harbor swarmed with the light craft of the Syracusans, in many of which embarked youthful volunteers, sons of the best families in the city;[485] boats of no mean service during the battle, saving or destroying the seamen cast overboard from disabled ships, as well as annoying the fighting Athenian triremes. The day was one sacred to Hêraklês at Syracuse; and the prophets announced that the god would insure victory to the Syracusans, provided they stood on the defensive, and did not begin the attack.[486] Moreover, the entire shore round the harbor, except the Athenian station and its immediate neighborhood, was crowded with Syracusan soldiers and spectators; while the walls of Ortygia, immediately overhanging the water, were lined with the feebler population of the city, the old men, women, and children. From the Athenian station presently came forth one hundred and ten triremes, under Demosthenês, Menander, and Euthydêmus, with the customary pæan, its tone probably partaking of the general sadness of the camp. They steered across direct to the mouth of the harbor, beholding on all sides the armed enemies ranged along the shore, as well as the unarmed multitudes who were imprecating the vengeance of the gods upon their heads; while for them there was no sympathy, except among the fellow-sufferers within their own lines. Inside of this narrow basin, rather more than five English miles in circuit, one hundred and ninety-four ships of war, each manned with more than two hundred men, were about to join battle, in the presence of countless masses around, all with palpitating hearts, and near enough both to see and hear; the most picturesque battle—if we could abstract our minds from its terrible interest —probably in history, without smoke or other impediments to vision, and in the clear atmosphere of Sicily, a serious and magnified realization of those naumachiæ which the Roman emperors used to exhibit with gladiators on the Italian lakes, for the recreation of the people.

The Athenian fleet made directly for that portion of the barrier where a narrow opening—perhaps closed by a movable chain—had been left for merchant-vessels. Their first impetuous attack broke through the Syracusan squadron defending it, and they were already attempting to sever its connecting bonds, when the enemy from all sides crowded in upon them and forced them to desist. Presently the battle became general, and the combatants were distributed in various parts of the harbor. On both sides a fierce and desperate courage was displayed, even greater than had been shown on any of the former occasions. At the first onset, the skill and tactics of the steersmen shone conspicuous, well seconded by zeal on the part of the rowers and by their ready obedience to the voice of the keleustês. As the vessels neared, the bowmen, slingers, and throwers on the deck, hurled clouds of missiles against the enemy; next, was heard the loud crash of the two impinging metallic fronts, resounding all along the shore.[487] When the vessels were thus once in contact, they were rarely allowed to separate: a strenuous hand-fight then commenced by the hoplites in each, trying respectively to board and master their enemy’s deck. It was not always, however, that each trireme had its own single and special enemy: sometimes one ship had two or three enemies to contend with at once, sometimes she fell aboard of one unsought, and became entangled. After a certain time, the fight still obstinately continuing, all sort of battle order became lost; the skill of the steersman was of little avail, and the voice of the keleustês was drowned amidst the universal din and mingled cries from victors as well as vanquished. On both sides emulous exhortations were poured forth, together with reproach and sarcasm addressed to any ship which appeared flinching from the contest; though factitious stimulus of this sort was indeed but little needed.

Such was the heroic courage on both sides, that for a long time victory was altogether doubtful, and the whole harbor was a scene of partial encounters, wherein sometimes Syracusans, sometimes Athenians, prevailed. According as success thus fluctuated, so followed the cheers or wailings of the spectators ashore. At one and the same time, every variety of human emotion might be witnessed; according as attention was turned towards a victorious or a defeated ship. It was among the spectators in the Athenian station above all, whose entire life and liberty were staked in the combat, that this emotion might be seen exaggerated into agony, and overpassing the excitement even of the combatants themselves.[488] Those among them who looked towards a portion of the harbor where their friends seemed winning, were full of joy and thanksgiving to the gods: such of their neighbors who contemplated an Athenian ship in difficulty, gave vent to their feelings in shrieks and lamentation; while a third group, with their eyes fixed on some portion of the combat still disputed, were plunged in all the agitations of doubt, manifested even in the tremulous swing of their bodies, as hope or fear alternately predominated. During all the time that the combat remained undecided, the Athenians ashore were distracted by all these manifold varieties of intense sympathy. But at length the moment came, after a long-protracted struggle, when victory began to declare in favor of the Syracusans, who, perceiving that their enemies were slackening, redoubled their shouts as well as their efforts, and pushed them all back towards the land. All the Athenian triremes, abandoning farther resistance, were thrust ashore like shipwrecked vessels in or near their own station; a few being even captured before they could arrive there. The diverse manifestations of sympathy among the Athenians in the station itself were now exchanged for one unanimous shriek of agony and despair. The boldest of them rushed to rescue the ships and their crews from pursuit, others to man their walls in case of attack from land: many were even paralyzed at the sight, and absorbed with the thoughts of their own irretrievable ruin. Their souls were doubtless still farther subdued by the wild and enthusiastic joy which burst forth in maddening shouts from the hostile crowds around the harbor, in response to their own victorious comrades on shipboard.

Such was the close of this awful, heart-stirring, and decisive combat. The modern historian strives in vain to convey the impression of it which appears in the condensed and burning phrases of Thucydidês. We find in his description of battles generally, and of this battle beyond all others, a depth and abundance of human emotion which has now passed out of military proceedings. The Greeks who fight, like the Greeks who look on, are not soldiers withdrawn from the community, and specialized as well as hardened by long professional training, but citizens with all the passions, instincts, sympathies, joys, and sorrows of domestic as well as political life. Moreover, the non-military population in ancient times had an interest of the most intense kind in the result of the struggle; which made the difference to them, if not of life and death, at least of the extremity of happiness and misery. Hence the strong light and shade, the Homeric exhibition of undisguised impulse, the tragic detail of personal motive and suffering, which pervades this and other military descriptions of Thucydidês. When we read the few but most vehement words which he employs to depict the Athenian camp under this fearful trial, we must recollect that these were not only men whose all was at stake, but that they were moreover citizens full of impressibility, sensitive and demonstrative Greeks; and, indeed, the most sensitive and demonstrative of all Greeks. To repress all manifestations of strong emotion was not considered in ancient times essential to the dignity of the human character.

Amidst all the deep pathos, however, which the great historian has imparted to the final battle at Syracuse, he has not explained the causes upon which its ultimate issue turned. Considering that the Athenians were superior to their enemies in number, as one hundred and ten to seventy-six triremes, that they fought with courage not less heroic, and that the action was on their own element, we might have anticipated for them, if not a victory, at least a drawn battle, with equal loss on both sides. But we may observe, 1. The number of one hundred and ten triremes was formed by including some hardly seaworthy.[489] 2. The crews were composed partly of men not used to sea-service; and the Akarnanian darters, especially, were for this reason unhandy with their missiles.[490] 3. Though the water had been hitherto the element favorable to Athens, yet her superiority in this respect was declining, and her enemies approaching nearer to her, even in the open sea. But the narrow dimensions of the harbor would have nullified her superiority at all times, and placed her even at great disadvantage,—without the means of twisting and turning her triremes so as to strike only at a vulnerable point of the enemy,—compared with the thick, heavy, straightforward butting of the Syracusans; like a nimble pugilist of light weight contending, in a very confined ring, against superior weight and muscle.[491] For the mere land-fight on shipboard, Athenians had not only no advantage, but had on the contrary the odds against them. 4. The Syracusans enjoyed great advantage from having nearly the whole harbor lined round with their soldiers and friends; not simply from the force of encouraging sympathy, no mean auxiliary, but because any of their triremes, if compelled to fall back before an Athenian, found protection on the shore, and could return to the fight at leisure; while an Athenian in the same predicament had no escape. 5. The numerous light craft of the Syracusans doubtless rendered great service in this battle, as they had done in the preceding, though Thucydidês does not again mention them. 6. Lastly, both in the Athenian and Syracusan characters, the pressure of necessity was less potent as a stimulus to action, than hopeful confidence and elation, with the idea of a flood-tide yet mounting. In the character of some other races, the Jews for instance, the comparative force of these motives appears to be the other way.

About sixty Athenian triremes, little more than half of the fleet which came forth, were saved as the wreck from this terrible conflict. The Syracusans on their part had suffered severely; only fifty triremes remaining out of seventy-six. The triumph with which, nevertheless, on returning to the city, they erected their trophy, and the exultation which reigned among the vast crowds encircling the harbor, was beyond all measure or precedent. Its clamorous manifestations were doubtless but too well heard in the neighboring camp of the Athenians, and increased, if anything could increase, the soul-subduing extremity of distress which paralyzed the vanquished. So utterly did the pressure of suffering, anticipated as well as actual, benumb their minds and extinguish their most sacred associations, that no man among them, not even the ultra-religious Nikias, thought of picking up the floating bodies or asking for a truce to bury the dead. This obligation, usually so serious and imperative upon the survivors after a battle, now passed unheeded amidst the sorrow, terror, and despair, of the living man for himself.

Such despair, however, was not shared by the generals, to their honor be it spoken. On the afternoon of this terrible defeat, Demosthenês proposed to Nikias that at daybreak the ensuing morning they should man all the remaining ships—even now more in number than the Syracusan—and make a fresh attempt to break out of the harbor. To this Nikias agreed, and both proceeded to try their influence in getting the resolution executed. But so irreparably was the spirit of the seamen broken, that nothing could prevail upon them to go again on shipboard: they would hear of nothing but attempting to escape by land.[492] Preparations were therefore made for commencing their march in the darkness of that very night. The roads were still open, and, had they so marched, a portion of them, at least, might even yet have been saved.[493] But there occurred one more mistake, one farther postponement, which cut off the last hopes of this gallant and fated remnant.

The Syracusan Hermokratês, fully anticipating that the Athenians would decamp that very night, was eager to prevent their retreat, because of the mischief which they might do if established in any other part of Sicily. He pressed Gylippus and the military authorities to send out forthwith, and block up the principal roads, passes, and fords, by which the fugitives would get off. Though sensible of the wisdom of his advice, the generals thought it wholly unexecutable. Such was the universal and unbounded joy which now pervaded the city, in consequence of the recent victory, still farther magnified by the circumstance that the day was sacred to Hêraklês,—so wild the jollity, the feasting, the intoxication, the congratulations, amidst men rewarding themselves after their recent effort and triumph, and amidst the necessary care for the wounded,—that an order to arm and march out would have been as little listened to as the order to go on shipboard was by the desponding Athenians. Perceiving that he could get nothing done until the next morning, Hermokratês resorted to a stratagem in order to delay the departure of the Athenians for that night. At the moment when darkness was beginning, he sent down some confidential friends on horseback to the Athenian wall. These men, riding up near enough to make themselves heard, and calling for the sentries, addressed them as messengers from the private correspondents of Nikias in Syracuse, who had sent to warn him, they affirmed, not to decamp during the night, inasmuch as the Syracusans had already beset and occupied the roads; but to begin his march quietly the next morning after adequate preparation.[494]

This fraud—the same as the Athenians had themselves practised two years before,[495] in order to tempt the Syracusans to march out against Katana—was perfectly successful: the sincerity of the information was believed, and the advice adopted. Had Demosthenês been in command alone, we may doubt whether he would have been so easily duped; for granting the accuracy of the fact asserted, it was not the less obvious that the difficulties, instead of being diminished, would be increased tenfold on the following day. We have seen, however, on more than one previous occasion, how fatally Nikias was misled by his treacherous advices from the philo-Athenians at Syracuse. An excuse for inaction was always congenial to his character; and the present recommendation, moreover, fell in but too happily with the temper of the army, now benumbed with depression and terror, like those unfortunate soldiers, in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks, who were yielding to the lethargy of extreme cold on the snows of Armenia, and whom Xenophon vainly tried to arouse.[496] Having remained over that night, the generals determined also to stay the next day,—in order that the army might carry away with them as much of their baggage as possible,—sending forward a messenger to the Sikels in the interior to request that they would meet the army, and bring with them a supply of provisions.[497] Gylippus and Hermokratês had thus ample time, on the following day, to send out forces and occupy all the positions convenient for obstructing the Athenian march. They at the same time towed into Syracuse as prizes all the Athenian triremes which had been driven ashore in the recent battle, and which now lay like worthless hulks, unguarded and unheeded,[498] seemingly even those within the station itself.

It was on the next day but one after the maritime defeat that Nikias and Demosthenês put their army in motion to attempt retreat. The camp had long been a scene of sickness and death from the prevalence of marsh fever; but since the recent battle the number of wounded men, and the unburied bodies of the slain, had rendered it yet more pitiable. Forty thousand miserable men—so prodigious was the total, including all ranks and functions—now set forth to quit it, on a march of which few could hope to see the end; like the pouring forth of the population of a large city starved out by blockade. Many had little or no provisions to carry, so low had the stock become reduced; but of those who had, every man carried his own, even the horsemen and hoplites, now for the first time either already left without slaves, by desertion, or knowing that no slave could now be trusted. But neither such melancholy equality of suffering, nor the number of sufferers, counted for much in the way of alleviation. A downcast stupor and sense of abasement possessed every man; the more intolerable, when they recollected the exit of the armament from Peiræus two years before, with prayers, and solemn pæans, and all the splendid dreams of conquest, set against the humiliation of the closing scene now before them, without a single trireme left out of two prodigious fleets.

But it was not until the army had actually begun its march that the full measure of wretchedness was felt and manifested. It was then that the necessity first became proclaimed, which no one probably spoke out beforehand, of leaving behind not merely the unburied bodies, but also the sick and the wounded. The scenes of woe which marked this hour passed endurance or description. The departing soldier sorrowed and shuddered with the sentiment of an unperformed duty, as he turned from the unburied bodies of the slain; but far more terrible was the trial, when he had to tear himself from the living sufferers, who implored their comrades, with wailings of agony and distraction, not to abandon them. Appealing to all the claims of pious friendship, they clung round their knees, and even crawled along the line of march until their strength failed. The silent dejection of the previous day was now exchanged for universal tears and groans, and clamorous outbursts of sorrow, amidst which the army could not without the utmost difficulty be disengaged and put in motion.

After such heart-rending scenes, it might seem that their cup of bitterness was exhausted; but worse was yet in store, and the terrors of the future dictated a struggle against all the miseries of past and present. The generals did their best to keep up some sense of order as well as courage; and Nikias, particularly, in this closing hour of his career, displayed a degree of energy and heroism which he had never before seemed to possess. Though himself among the greatest personal sufferers of all, from his incurable complaint, he was seen everywhere in the ranks marshalling the troops, heartening up their dejection, and addressing them with a voice louder, more strenuous, and more commanding than was his wont.

“Keep up your hope still, Athenians (he said), even as we are now: others have been saved out of circumstances worse than ours. Be not too much humiliated, either with your defeats or with your present unmerited hardships. I too, having no advantage over any of you in strength,—nay, you see the condition to which I have been brought by my disease,—and accustomed even to superior splendor and good fortune in private as well as public life, I too am plunged in the same peril with the humblest soldier among you. Nevertheless, my conduct has been constantly pious towards the gods as well as just and blameless towards men; in recompense for which, my hope for the future is yet sanguine, at the same time that our actual misfortunes do not appall me in proportion to their intrinsic magnitude.[499] Perhaps, indeed, they may from this time forward abate; for our enemies have had their full swing of good fortune, and if, at the moment of our starting, we were under the jealous wrath of any of the gods, we have already undergone chastisement amply sufficient. Other people before us have invaded foreign lands, and after having done what was competent to human power, have suffered what was within the limit of human endurance. We too may reasonably hope henceforward to have the offended god dealing with us more mildly, for we are now objects fitter for his compassion than for his jealousy.[500] Look, moreover, at your own ranks, hoplites so numerous and so excellent: let that guard you against excessive despair, and recollect that, wherever you may sit down, you are yourselves at once a city; nor is there any other city in Sicily that can either repulse your attack or expel you if you choose to stay. Be careful yourselves to keep your march firm and orderly, every man of you with this conviction, that whatever spot he may be forced to fight in, that spot is his country and his fortress, and must be kept by victorious effort. As our provisions are very scanty, we shall hasten on night and day alike; and so soon as you reach any friendly village of the Sikels, who still remain constant to us from hatred to Syracuse, then consider yourselves in security. We have sent forward to apprize them, and intreat them to meet us with supplies. Once more, soldiers, recollect that to act like brave men is now a matter of necessity to you, and that if you falter, there is no refuge for you anywhere. Whereas if you now get clear of your enemies, such of you as are not Athenians will again enjoy the sight of home, while such of you as are Athenians will live to renovate the great power of our city, fallen though it now be. It is men that make a city; not walls, nor ships without men.”[501]

The efforts of both commanders were in full harmony with these strenuous words. The army was distributed into two divisions; the hoplites marching in a hollow oblong, with the baggage and unarmed in the interior. The front division was commanded by Nikias, the rear by Demosthenês. Directing their course towards the Sikel territory, in the interior of the island, they first marched along the left bank of the Anapus until they came to the ford of that river, which they found guarded by a Syracusan detachment. They forced the passage, however, without much resistance, and accomplished on that day a march of about five miles, under the delay arising from the harassing of the enemy’s cavalry and light troops. Encamping for that night on an eminence, they recommenced their march with the earliest dawn, and halted, after about two miles and a half, in a deserted village on a plain. They were in hopes of finding some provisions in the houses, and were even under the necessity of carrying along with them some water from this spot; there being none to be found farther on. As their intended line of march had now become evident, the Syracusans profited by this halt to get on before them, and to occupy in force a position on the road, called the Akræan cliff. Here the road, ascending a high hill, formed a sort of ravine bordered on each side by steep cliffs. The Syracusans erected a wall or barricade across the whole breadth of the road, and occupied the high ground on each side. But even to reach this pass was beyond the competence of the Athenians; so impracticable was it to get over the ground in the face of overwhelming attacks from the enemy’s cavalry and light troops. They were compelled, after a short march, to retreat to their camp of the night before.[502]

Every hour added to the distress of their position; for their food was all but exhausted, nor could any man straggle from the main body without encountering certain destruction from the cavalry. Accordingly, on the next morning, they tried one more desperate effort to get over the hilly ground into the interior. Starting very early, they arrived at the foot of the hill called the Akræan cliff, where they found the barricades placed across the road, with deep files of Syracusan hoplites behind them, and crowds of light troops lining the cliffs on each border. They made the most strenuous and obstinate efforts to force this inexpugnable position, but all their struggles were vain, while they suffered miserably from the missiles of the troops above. Amidst all the discouragement of this repulse, they were yet farther disheartened by storms of thunder and lightning, which occurred during the time, and which they construed as portents significant of their impending ruin.[503]

This fact strikingly illustrates both the change which the last two years had wrought in the contending parties, and the degree to which such religious interpretations of phenomena depended for their efficacy on predisposing temper, gloomy or cheerful. In the first battle between Nikias and the Syracusans, near the Great Harbor, some months before the siege was begun, a similar thunder-storm had taken place: on that occasion the Athenian soldiers had continued the battle unmoved, treating it as a natural event belonging to the season, and such indifference on their part had still farther imposed upon the alarmed Syracusans.[504] Now, both the self-confidence and the religious impression had changed sides.

Exhausted by their fruitless efforts, the Athenians fell back a short space to repose, when Gylippus tried to surround them by sending a detachment to block up the narrow road in their rear. This, however, they prevented, effecting their retreat into the open plain, where they passed the night, and on the ensuing day attempted once more the hopeless march over the Akræan cliff. But they were not allowed even to advance so far as the pass and the barricade. They were so assailed and harassed by the cavalry and darters, in flank and rear, that, in spite of heroic effort and endurance, they could not accomplish a progress of so much as one single mile. Extenuated by fatigue, half-starved, and with numbers of wounded men, they were compelled to spend a third miserable night in the same fatal plain.

As soon as the Syracusans had retired for the night to their camp, Nikias and Demosthenês took counsel. They saw plainly that the route which they had originally projected, over the Akræan cliff into the Sikel regions of the interior and from thence to Katana, had become impracticable, and that their unhappy troops would be still less in condition to force it on the morrow than they had been on the day preceding. Accordingly, they resolved to make off during the night, leaving numerous fires burning to mislead the enemy; but completely to alter the direction, and to turn down towards the southern coast on which lay Kamarina and Gela. Their guides informed them that if they could cross the river Kakyparis, which fell into the sea south of Syracuse, on the southeastern coast of Sicily, or a river still farther on, called the Erineus,—they might march up the right bank of either into the regions of the interior. Accordingly, they broke up in the night, amidst confusion and alarm; in spite of which, the front division of the army under Nikias got into full march, and made considerable advance. By daybreak this division reached the southeastern coast of the island not far south of Syracuse, and fell into the track of the Helôrine road, which they pursued until they arrived at the Kakyparis. Even here, however, they found a Syracusan detachment beforehand with them, raising a redoubt, and blocking up the ford; nor could Nikias pass it without forcing his way through them. He marched straightforward to the Erineus, which he crossed on the same day, and encamped his troops on some high ground on the other side.[505]

Except at the ford of the Kakyparis, his march had been all day unobstructed by the enemy; and he thought it wiser to push hid troops as fast as possible, in order to arrive at some place both of safety and subsistence, without concerning himself about the rear division under Demosthenês. That division, the larger half of the army, started both later and in great disorder. Unaccountable panics and darkness made them part company or miss their way, so that Demosthenês, with all his efforts to keep them together, made little progress, and fell much behind Nikias. He was overtaken by the Syracusans during the forenoon, seemingly before he reached the Kakyparis,[506] and at a moment when the foremost division was nearly six miles ahead, between the Kakyparis and the Erineus.

When the Syracusans discovered at dawn that their enemy had made off in the night, their first impulse was to accuse Gylippus of treachery in having permitted the escape. Such ungrateful surmises, however, were soon dissipated, and the cavalry set forth in rapid pursuit, until they overtook the rear division, which they immediately began to attack and impede. The advance of Demosthenês had been tardy before, and his division disorganized: but he was now compelled to turn and defend himself against an indefatigable enemy, who presently got before him and thus stopped him altogether. Their numerous light troops and cavalry assailed him on all sides and without intermission; employing nothing but missiles, however, and taking care to avoid any close encounter. While this unfortunate division were exerting their best efforts both to defend themselves, and if possible to get forward, they found themselves inclosed in a walled olive-ground, through the middle of which the road passed; a farm bearing the name, and probably once the property, of Polyzêlus, brother of the despot Gelon.[507] Entangled and huddled up in this inclosure, from whence exit at the farther end in the face of an enemy was found impossible, they were now overwhelmed with hostile missiles from the walls on all sides.[508] Though unable to get at the enemy, and deprived even of the resources of an active despair, they endured incessant harassing for the greater part of the day, without refreshment or repose, and with the number of their wounded continually increasing; until at length the remaining spirit of the unhappy sufferers was thoroughly broken. Perceiving their condition, Gylippus sent to them a herald with a proclamation; inviting all the islanders among them to come forth from the rest, and promising them freedom if they did so. The inhabitants of some cities, yet not many,—a fact much to their honor,—availed themselves of this offer and surrendered. Presently, however, a larger negotiation was opened, which ended by the entire division capitulating upon terms, and giving up their arms. Gylippus and the Syracusans engaged that the lives of all should be spared; that is, that none should be put to death either by violence, or by intolerable bonds, or by starvation. Having all been disarmed, they were forthwith conveyed away as prisoners to Syracuse, six thousand in number. It is a remarkable proof of the easy and opulent circumstances of many among these gallant sufferers, when we are told that the money which they had about them, even at this last moment of pressure, was sufficient to fill the concavities of four shields.[509] Disdaining either to surrender or to make any stipulation for himself personally, Demosthenês was on the point of killing himself with his own sword the moment that the capitulation was concluded; but his intention was prevented, and he was carried off a disarmed prisoner by the Syracusans.[510]

On the next day, Gylippus and the victorious Syracusans overtook Nikias on the right bank of the Erineus, apprized him of the capitulation of Demosthenês, and summoned him to capitulate also. He demanded leave to send a horseman for the purpose of verifying the statement; and on the return of the horseman, he made a proposition to Gylippus, that his army should be permitted to return home, on condition of Athens reimbursing to Syracuse the whole expense of the war, and furnishing hostages until payment should be made; one citizen against each talent of silver. These conditions were rejected; but Nikias could not yet bring himself to submit to the same terms for his division as Demosthenês. Accordingly, the Syracusans recommenced their attacks, which the Athenians, in spite of hunger and fatigue, sustained as they best could until night. It was the intention of Nikias again to take advantage of the night for the purpose of getting away. But on this occasion the Syracusans were on the watch, and as soon as they heard movement in the camp, they raised the pæan, or war-shout; thus showing that they were on the lookout, and inducing the Athenians again to lay down the arms which they had taken up for departure. A detachment of three hundred Athenians, nevertheless, still persisting in marching off, apart from the rest, forced their way through the posts of the Syracusans. These men got safely away, and nothing but the want of guides prevented them from escaping altogether.[511]

During all this painful retreat, the personal resolution displayed by Nikias was exemplary; his sick and feeble frame was made to bear up, and even to hearten up stronger men, against the extremity of hardship, exhausting the last fragment of hope or even possibility. It was now the sixth day of the retreat,—six days[512] of constant privation, suffering, and endurance of attack,—yet Nikias early in the morning attempted a fresh march, in order to get to the river Asinarus, which falls into the same sea, south of the Erineus, but is a more considerable stream, flowing deeply imbedded between lofty banks. This was a last effort of despair, with little hope of final escape, even if they did reach it. Yet the march was accomplished, in spite of renewed and incessant attacks all the way, from the Syracusan cavalry; who even got to the river before the Athenians, occupying the ford, and lining the high banks near it. Here the resolution of the unhappy fugitives at length gave way; when they reached the river, their strength, their patience, their spirit, and their hopes for the future, were all extinct. Tormented with raging thirst, and compelled by the attacks of the cavalry to march in one compact mass, they rushed into the ford all at once, treading down and tumbling over each other in the universal avidity for drink. Many thus perished from being pushed down upon the points of the spears, or lost their footing among the scattered articles of baggage, and were thus borne down under water.[513] Meanwhile, the Syracusans from above poured upon the huddled mass showers of missiles, while the Peloponnesian hoplites even descended into the river, came to close quarters with them, and slew considerable numbers. So violent, nevertheless, was the thirst of the Athenians, that all other suffering was endured in order to taste relief by drinking. And even when dead and wounded were heaped in the river,—when the water was tainted and turbid with blood, as well as thick with the mud trodden up,—still, the new-comers pushed their way in and swallowed it with voracity.[514]

Wretched, helpless, and demoralized as the army now was, Nikias could think no farther of resistance. He accordingly surrendered himself to Gylippus, to be dealt with at the discretion of that general and of the Lacedæmonians,[515] earnestly imploring that the slaughter of the defenceless soldiers might be arrested. Accordingly, Gylippus gave orders that no more should be killed, but that the rest should be secured as captives. Many were slain before this order was understood; but of those who remained, almost all were made captive, very few escaping. Nay, even the detachment of three hundred, who had broken out in the night, having seemingly not known whither to go, were captured, and brought in by troops sent forth for the purpose.[516] The triumph of the Syracusans was in every way complete, they hung the trees on the banks of the Asinarus with Athenian panoplies as trophy, and carried back their prisoners in joyous procession to the city.

The number of prisoners thus made, is not positively specified by Thucydidês, as in the case of the division of Demosthenês, which had capitulated and laid down their arms in a mass within the walls of the olive-ground. Of the captives from the division of Nikias, the larger proportion were seized by private individuals, and fraudulently secreted for their own profit; the number obtained for the state being comparatively small, seemingly not more than one thousand.[517] The various Sicilian towns became soon full of these prisoners, sold as slaves for private account.

Not less than forty thousand persons in the aggregate had started from the Athenian camp to commence the retreat, six days before. Of these probably many, either wounded or otherwise incompetent even when the march began, soon found themselves unable to keep up, and were left behind to perish. Each of the six days was a day of hard fighting and annoyance from an indefatigable crowd of light troops, with little, and at last seemingly nothing, to eat. The number was thus successively thinned, by wounds, privations, and straggling, so that the six thousand taken with Demosthenês, and perhaps three thousand or four thousand captured with Nikias, formed the melancholy remnant. Of the stragglers during the march, however, we are glad to learn that many contrived to escape the Syracusan cavalry and get to Katana, where also those who afterwards ran away from their slavery under private masters, found a refuge.[518] These fugitive Athenians served as auxiliaries to repel the attacks of the Syracusans upon Katana.[519]

It was in this manner, chiefly, that Athens came to receive again within her bosom a few of those ill-fated sons whom she had drafted forth in two such splendid divisions to Sicily. For of those who were carried as prisoners to Syracuse, fewer yet could ever have got home. They were placed for safe custody, along with the other prisoners, in the stone-quarries of Syracuse,—of which there were several, partly on the southern descent of the outer city towards the Nekropolis, or from the higher level to the lower level of Achradina,—partly in the suburb afterwards called Neapolis, under the southern cliff of Epipolæ. Into these quarries—deep hollows of confined space, with precipitous sides, and open at the top to the sky—the miserable prisoners were plunged, lying huddled one upon another, without the smallest protection or convenience. For subsistence, they received each day a ration of one pint of wheaten bread,—half the daily ration of a slave,—with no more than half a pint of water, so that they were not preserved from the pangs either of hunger or of thirst. Moreover, the heat of the midday sun, alternating with the chill of the autumn nights, was alike afflicting and destructive; while the wants of life having all to be performed where they were, without relief, the filth and stench presently became insupportable. Sick and wounded even at the moment of arrival, many of them speedily died; and happiest was he who died the first, leaving an unconscious corpse, which the Syracusans would not take the trouble to remove, to distress and infect the survivors. Under this condition and treatment they remained for seventy days; probably serving as a spectacle for the triumphant Syracusan population, with their wives and children, to come and look down upon, and to congratulate themselves on their own narrow escape from sufferings similar in kind at least, if not in degree. After that time the novelty of the spectacle had worn off, while the place must have become a den of abomination and a nuisance intolerable even to the citizens themselves. Accordingly, they now removed all the surviving prisoners, except the native Athenians and the few Italian or Sicilian Greeks among them. All those so removed were sold for slaves;[520] while the dead bodies were probably at the same time taken away, and the prison rendered somewhat less loathsome. What became of the remaining prisoners, we are not told; it may be presumed that those who could survive so great an extremity of suffering might after a certain time be allowed to get back to Athens on ransom. Perhaps some of them may have obtained their release; as was the case, we are told, with several of those who had been sold to private masters, by the elegance of their accomplishments and the dignity of their demeanor. The dramas of Euripidês were so peculiarly popular throughout all Sicily, that those Athenian prisoners who knew by heart considerable portions of them, won the affections of their masters. Some even of the stragglers from the army are affirmed to have procured for themselves, by the same attraction, shelter and hospitality during their flight. Euripidês, we are informed, lived to receive the thanks of several among these unhappy sufferers, after their return to Athens.[521] I cannot refrain from mentioning this story, though I fear its trustworthiness as matter of fact is much inferior to its pathos and interest.

Upon the treatment of Nikias and Demosthenês, not merely the Syracusans, but also the allies present, were consulted, and much difference of opinion was found. To keep them in confinement simply, without putting them to death, was apparently the opinion advocated by Hermokratês.[522] But Gylippus, then in full ascendency and an object of deep gratitude for his invaluable services, solicited as a reward to himself to be allowed to conduct them back as prisoners to Sparta. To achieve this would have earned for him signal honor in the eyes of his countrymen; for while Demosthenês, from his success at Pylos, was their hated enemy, Nikias had always shown himself their friend as far as an Athenian could do so. It was to him that they owed the release of their prisoners taken at Sphakteria; and he had calculated upon this obligation when he surrendered himself prisoner to Gylippus, and not to the Syracusans.

In spite of all his influence, however, Gylippus could not carry this point. First, the Corinthians both strenuously opposed him themselves, and prevailed on the other allies to do the same. They were afraid that the wealth of Nikias would always procure for him the means of escaping from imprisonment, so as to do them farther injury, and they insisted on his being put to death. Next, those Syracusans, who had been in secret correspondence with Nikias during the siege, were yet more anxious to get him put out of the way, being apprehensive that, if tortured by their political opponents, he might disclose their names and intrigues. Such various influences prevailed, and Nikias as well as Demosthenês was ordered to be put to death by a decree of the public assembly, much to the discontent of Gylippus. Hermokratês vainly opposed the resolution, but perceiving that it was certain to be carried, he sent to them a private intimation before the discussion closed; and procured for them, through one of the sentinels, the means of dying by their own hands. Their bodies were publicly exposed before the city gates to the view of the Syracusan citizens;[523] while the day on which the final capture of Nikias and his army was accomplished, came to be celebrated as an annual festival, under the title of the Asinaria, on the twenty-sixth day of the Dorian month Karneius.[524]

Such was the close of the expedition, or rather of the two expeditions, undertaken by Athens against Syracuse. Never in Grecian history had a force so large, so costly, so efficient, and so full of promise and confidence, been turned out; never in Grecian history had ruin so complete and sweeping, or victory so glorious and unexpected, been witnessed.[525] Its consequences were felt from one end of the Grecian world to the other, as will appear in the coming chapters.

The esteem and admiration felt at Athens towards Nikias had been throughout lofty and unshaken; after his death it was exchanged for disgrace. His name was omitted, while that of his colleague Demosthenês was engraved, on the funereal pillar erected to commemorate the fallen warriors. This difference Pausanias explains by saying that Nikias was conceived to have disgraced himself as a military man by his voluntary surrender, which Demosthenês had disdained.[526]

The opinion of Thucydidês deserves special notice, in the face of this judgment of his countrymen. While he says not a word about Demosthenês, beyond the fact of his execution, he adds in reference to Nikias a few words of marked sympathy and commendation. “Such, or nearly such, (he says,) were the reasons why Nikias was put to death; though he assuredly, among all Greeks of my time, least deserved to come to so extreme a pitch of ill-fortune, considering his exact performance of established duties to the divinity.”[527]

If we were judging Nikias merely as a private man, and setting his personal conduct in one scale against his personal suffering on the other, the remark of Thucydidês would be natural and intelligible. But the general of a great expedition, upon whose conduct the lives of thousands of brave men as well as the most momentous interests of his country, depend, cannot be tried by any such standard. His private merit becomes a secondary point in the case, as compared with the discharge of his responsible public duties, by which he must stand or fall.

Tried by this more appropriate standard, what are we to say of Nikias? We are compelled to say, that if his personal suffering could possibly be regarded in the light of an atonement, or set in an equation against the mischief brought by himself both on his army and his country, it would not be greater than his deserts. I shall not here repeat the separate points in his conduct which justify this view, and which have been set forth as they have occurred, in the preceding pages. Admitting fully both the good intentions of Nikias, and his personal bravery, rising even into heroism during the last few days in Sicily, it is not the less incontestable, that, first, the failure of the enterprise, next, the destruction of the armament, is to be traced distinctly to his lamentable misjudgment. Sometimes petty trifling, sometimes apathy and inaction, sometimes presumptuous neglect, sometimes obstinate blindness even to urgent and obvious necessities, one or other of these his sad mental defects, will be found operative at every step, whereby this fated armament sinks down from exuberant efficiency into the last depth of aggregate ruin and individual misery. His improvidence and incapacity stand proclaimed, not merely in the narrative of the historian, but even in his own letter to the Athenians, and in his own speeches both before the expedition and during its closing misfortunes, when contrasted with the reality of his proceedings. The man whose flagrant incompetency brought such wholesale ruin upon two fine armaments intrusted to his command, upon the Athenian maritime empire, and ultimately upon Athens herself, must appear on the tablets of history under the severest condemnation, even though his personal virtues had been loftier than those of Nikias.

And yet our great historian, after devoting two immortal books to this expedition, after setting forth emphatically both the glory of its dawn and the wretchedness of its close, with a dramatic genius parallel to the Œdipus Tyrannus of Sophoklês, when he comes to recount the melancholy end of the two commanders, has no words to spare for Demosthenês,—far the abler officer of the two, who perished by no fault of his own,—but reserves his flowers to strew on the grave of Nikias, the author of the whole calamity—“What a pity! Such a respectable and religious man!”

Thucydidês is here the more instructive, because he exactly represents the sentiment of the general Athenian public towards Nikias during his lifetime. They could not bear to condemn, to mistrust, to dismiss, or to do without, so respectable and religious a citizen. The private qualities of Nikias were not only held to entitle him to the most indulgent construction of all his public shortcomings, but also insured to him credit for political and military competence altogether disproportionate to his deserts. When we find Thucydidês, after narrating so much improvidence and mismanagement on the grand scale, still keeping attention fixed on the private morality and decorum of Nikias, as if it constituted the main feature of his character, we can understand how the Athenian people originally came both to over-estimate this unfortunate leader, and continued over-estimating him with tenacious fidelity even after glaring proof of his incapacity. Never in the political history of Athens did the people make so fatal a mistake in placing their confidence.

In reviewing the causes of popular misjudgment, historians are apt to enlarge prominently, if not exclusively, on demagogues and demagogic influences. Mankind being usually considered in the light of governable material, or as instruments for exalting, arming, and decorating their rulers, whatever renders them more difficult to handle in this capacity, ranks first in the category of vices. Nor can it be denied that this was a real and serious cause: clever criminative speakers often passed themselves off for something above their real worth; though useful and indispensable as a protection against worse, they sometimes deluded the people into measures impolitic or unjust. But, even if we grant, to the cause of misjudgment here indicated, a greater practical efficiency than history will fairly sanction, still, it is only one among others more mischievous. Never did any man at Athens, by mere force of demagogic qualities, acquire a measure of esteem at once so exaggerated and so durable, combined with so much power of injuring his fellow-citizens, as the anti-demagogic Nikias. The man who, over and above his shabby manœuvre about the expedition against Sphakteria, and his improvident sacrifice of Athenian interests in the alliance with Sparta, ended by inflicting on his country that cruel wound which destroyed so many of her citizens as well as her maritime empire, was not a leather-seller of impudent and criminative eloquence, but a man of ancient family and hereditary wealth, munificent and affable, having credit not merely for the largesses which he bestowed, but also for all the insolences, which as a rich man he might have committed, but did not commit,—free from all pecuniary corruption,—a brave man, and above all, an ultra-religious man, believed therefore to stand high in the favor of the gods, and to be fortunate. Such was the esteem which the Athenians felt for this union of good qualities purely personal and negative with eminent station, that they presumed the higher aptitudes of command,[528] and presumed them, unhappily, after proof that they did not exist,—after proof that what they had supposed to be caution was only apathy and mental weakness. No demagogic arts or eloquence would ever have created in the people so deep-seated an illusion as the imposing respectability of Nikias. Now it was against the overweening ascendency of such decorous and pious incompetence, when aided by wealth and family advantages, that the demagogic accusatory eloquence ought to have served as a natural bar and corrective. Performing the functions of a constitutional opposition, it afforded the only chance of that tutelary exposure whereby blunders and shortcomings might be arrested in time. How insufficient was the check which it provided,—even at Athens, where every one denounces it as having prevailed in devouring excess,—the history of Nikias is an ever-living testimony.

CHAPTER LXI. FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ATHENIAN ARMAMENT IN SICILY, DOWN TO THE OLIGARCHICAL CONSPIRACY OF THE FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS. — FOOTNOTES

In the preceding chapter we followed to its melancholy close the united armament of Nikias and Demosthenês, first in the harbor and lastly in the neighborhood of Syracuse, towards the end of September, 413 B.C.

The first impression which we derive from the perusal of that narrative is, sympathy for the parties directly concerned, chiefly for the number of gallant Athenians who thus miserably perished, partly also for the Syracusan victors, themselves a few months before on the verge of apparent ruin. But the distant and collateral effects of the catastrophe throughout Greece, were yet more momentous than those within the island in which it occurred.

I have already mentioned that even at the moment when Demosthenês with his powerful armament left Peiræus to go to Sicily, the hostilities of the Peloponnesian confederacy against Athens herself had been already recommenced. Not only was the Spartan king Agis ravaging Attica, but the far more important step of fortifying Dekeleia, for the abode of a permanent garrison, was in course of completion. That fortress, having been begun about the middle of March, was probably by the month of June in a situation to shelter its garrison, which consisted of contingents periodically furnished, and relieving each other alternately, from all the different states of the confederacy, under the permanent command of king Agis himself.

And now began that incessant marauding of domiciliated enemies—destined to last for nine years until the final capture of Athens—partially contemplated even at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, and recently enforced, with full comprehension of its disastrous effects, by the virulent antipathy of the exile Alkibiadês.[529] The earlier invasions of Attica had been all temporary, continuing for five or six weeks at the farthest, and leaving the country in repose for the remainder of the year. But the Athenians now underwent from henceforward the fatal experience of a hostile garrison within fifteen miles of their city; an experience peculiarly painful this summer, as well from its novelty as from the extraordinary vigor which Agis displayed in his operations. His excursions were so widely extended, that no part of Attica was secure or could be rendered productive. Not only were all the sheep and cattle destroyed, but the slaves too, especially the most valuable slaves, or artisans, began to desert to Dekeleia in great numbers; more than twenty thousand of them soon disappeared in this way. So terrible a loss of income, both to proprietors of land and to employers in the city, was farther aggravated by the increased cost and difficulty of import from Eubœa. Provisions and cattle from that island had previously come over land from Oropus, but as that road was completely stopped by the garrison of Dekeleia, they were now of necessity sent round Cape Sunium by sea; a transit more circuitous and expensive, besides being open to attack from the enemy’s privateers.[530] In the midst of such heavy privations, the demands on citizens and metics for military duty were multiplied beyond measure. The presence of the enemy at Dekeleia forced them to keep watch day and night throughout their long extent of wall, comprising both Athens and Peiræus: in the daytime the hoplites of the city relieved each other on guard, but at night, nearly all of them were either on the battlements or at the various military stations in the city. Instead of a city, in fact, Athens was reduced to the condition of something like a military post.[531] Moreover, the rich citizens of the state, who served as horsemen, shared in the general hardship; being called on for daily duty in order to restrain at least, since they could not entirely prevent, the excursions of the garrison of Dekeleia, their efficiency was, however, soon impaired by the laming of their horses on the hard and stony soil.[532]

Besides the personal efforts of the citizens, such exigencies pressed heavily on the financial resources of the state. Already the immense expense incurred in fitting out the two large armaments for Sicily, had exhausted all the accumulations laid by in the treasury during the interval since the Peace of Nikias; so that the attacks from Dekeleia, not only imposing heavy additional cost, but at the same time cutting up the means of paying, brought the finances of Athens into positive embarrassment. With the view of increasing her revenues, she altered the principle on which her subject-allies had hitherto been assessed: instead of a fixed sum of annual tribute, she now required from them payment of a duty of five per cent. on all imports and exports by sea.[533] How this new principle of assessment worked, we have unfortunately no information. To collect the duty and take precautions against evasion, an Athenian custom-house officer must have been required in each allied city. Yet it is difficult to understand how Athens could have enforced a system at once novel, extensive, vexatious, and more burdensome to the payers, when we come to see how much her hold over those payers, as well as her naval force, became enfeebled, before the close even of the actual year.[534]

Her impoverished finances also compelled her to dismiss a body of Thracian mercenaries, whose aid would have been very useful against the enemy at Dekeleia. These Thracian peltasts, thirteen hundred in number, had been hired at a drachma per day each man, to go with Demosthenês to Syracuse, but had not reached Athens in time. As soon as they came thither, the Athenians placed them under the command of Diitrephês, to conduct them back to their native country, with instructions to do damage to the Bœotians, as opportunity might occur, in his way through the Euripus. Accordingly, Diitrephês, putting them on shipboard, sailed round Sunium and northward along the eastern coast of Attica. After a short disembarkation near Tanagra, he passed on to Chalkis in Eubœa in the narrowest part of the strait, from whence he crossed in the night to the Bœotian coast opposite, and marched up some distance from the sea to the neighborhood of the Bœotian town Mykalêssus. He arrived here unseen, lay in wait near a temple of Hermês about two miles distant, and fell upon the town unexpectedly at break of day. To the Mykalessians, dwelling in the centre of Bœotia, not far from Thebes, and at a considerable distance from the sea, such an assault was not less unexpected than formidable. Their fortifications were feeble, in some parts low, in other parts even tumbling down; nor had they even taken the precaution to close their gates at night: so that the barbarians under Diitrephês, entering the town without the smallest difficulty, began at once the work of pillage and destruction. The scene which followed was something alike novel and revolting to Grecian eyes. Not only were all the houses and even the temples plundered, but the Thracians farther manifested that raging thirst for blood which seemed inherent in their race. They slew every living thing that came in their way; men, women, children, horses, cattle, etc. They burst into a school, wherein many boys had just been assembled, and massacred them all. This scene of bloodshed, committed by barbarians who had not been seen in Greece since the days of Xerxes, was recounted with horror and sympathy throughout all Grecian communities, though Mykalêssus was in itself a town of second-rate or third-rate magnitude.[535]

The succor brought from Thebes, by Mykalessian fugitives, arrived unhappily only in time to avenge, but not to save, the inhabitants. The Thracians were already retiring with the booty which they could carry away, when the bœotarch Skirphondas overtook them, both with cavalry and hoplites, after having put to death some greedy plunderers who tarried too long in the town. He compelled them to relinquish most of their booty, and pursued them to the sea-shore; not without a brave resistance from these peltasts, who had a peculiar way of fighting which disconcerted the Thebans. But when they arrived at the sea-shore, the Athenian ships did not think it safe to approach very close, so that not less than two hundred and fifty Thracians were slain before they could get aboard;[536] and the Athenian commander, Diitrephês was so severely wounded that he died shortly afterwards. The rest pursued their voyage homeward.

Meanwhile, the important station of Naupaktus and the mouth of the Corinthian gulf again became the theatre of naval encounter. It will be recollected that this was the scene of the memorable victories gained by the Athenian admiral Phormion in the second year of the Peloponnesian war,[537] wherein the nautical superiority of Athens over her enemies, as to ships, crews, and admiral, had been so transcendently manifested. In that respect matters had now considerably changed. While the navy of Athens had fallen off since the days of Phormion, that of her enemy had improved: Ariston, and other skilful Corinthian steersmen, not attempting to copy Athenian tactics, had studied the best mode of coping with them, and had modified the build of their own triremes accordingly,[538] at Corinth as well as at Syracuse. Seventeen years before, Phormion with eighteen Athenian triremes would have thought himself a full match for twenty-five Corinthian; but the Athenian admiral of this year, Konon, also a perfectly brave man, now judged so differently, that he constrained Demosthenês and Eurymedon to reinforce his eighteen triremes with ten others,—out of the best of their fleet, at a time when they had certainly none to spare,—on the ground that the Corinthian fleet opposite, of twenty-five sail, was about to assume the offensive against him.[539]

Soon afterwards Diphilus came to supersede Konon, with some fresh ships from Athens, which made the total number of triremes thirty-three. The Corinthian fleet, reinforced so as to be nearly of the same number, took up a station on the coast of Achaia opposite Naupaktus, at a spot called Erineus, in the territory of Rhypes. They ranged themselves across the mouth of a little indentation of the coast, or bay, in the shape of a crescent, with two projecting promontories as horns: each of these promontories was occupied by a friendly land-force, thus supporting the line of triremes at both flanks. This was a position which did not permit the Athenians to sail through the line, or manœuvre round it and in the rear of it. Accordingly, when the fleet of Diphilus came across from Naupaktus, it remained for some time close in front of the Corinthians, neither party venturing to attack; for the straightforward collision was destructive to the Athenian ships with their sharp, but light and feeble beaks, while it was favorable to the solid bows and thick epôtids, or ear-projections, of the Corinthian trireme. After considerable delay, the Corinthians at length began the attack on their side, yet not advancing far enough out to sea to admit of the manœuvring and evolutions of the Athenians. The battle lasted some time, terminating with no decisive advantage to either party. Three Corinthian triremes were completely disabled, though the crews of all escaped by swimming to their friends ashore: on the Athenian side, not one trireme became absolutely water-logged, but seven were so much damaged, by straightforward collision with the stronger bows of the enemy, that they became almost useless after they got back to Naupaktus. The Athenians had so far the advantage, that they maintained their station, while the Corinthians did not venture to renew the fight: moreover, both the wind and the current set towards the northern shore, so that the floating fragments and dead bodies came into possession of the Athenians. Each party thought itself entitled to erect a trophy, but the real feeling of victory lay on the side of Corinth, and that of defeat on the side of Athens. The reputed maritime superiority of the latter was felt by both parties to have sustained a diminution; and such assuredly would have been the impression of Phormion, had he been alive to witness it.[540]

This battle appears to have taken place, so far as we can make out, a short time before the arrival of Demosthenês at Syracuse, about the close of the month of May. We cannot doubt that the Athenians most anxiously expected news from that officer, with some account of victories obtained in Sicily, to console them for having sent him away at a moment when his services were so cruelly wanted at home. Perhaps they may even have indulged hopes of the near capture of Syracuse, as a means of restoring their crippled finances. Their disappointment would be all the more bitter when they came to receive, towards the end of June or beginning of July, despatches announcing the capital defeat of Demosthenês in his attempt upon Epipolæ, and the consequent extinction of all hope that Syracuse could ever be taken. After these despatches, we may perhaps doubt whether any others subsequently reached Athens. The generals would not write home during the month of indecision immediately succeeding, when Demosthenês was pressing for retreat, and Nikias resisting it. They might possibly, however, write immediately on taking their resolution to retreat, at the time when they sent to Katana to forbid farther supplies of provisions, but this was the last practicable opportunity; for closely afterwards followed their naval defeat, and the blocking up of the mouth of the Great Harbor. The mere absence of intelligence would satisfy the Athenians that their affairs in Sicily were proceeding badly; but the closing series of calamities, down to the final catastrophe, would only come to their knowledge indirectly; partly through the triumphant despatches transmitted from Syracuse to Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes, partly through individual soldiers of their own armament who escaped.

According to the tale of Plutarch, the news was first made known at Athens through a stranger, who, arriving at Peiræus, went into a barber’s shop and began to converse about it, as upon a theme which must of course be uppermost in every one’s mind.

The astonished barber, hearing for the first time such fearful tidings, ran up to Athens to communicate it to the archons as well as to the public in the market-place. The public assembly being forthwith convoked, he was brought before it, and called upon to produce his authority, which he was unable to do, as the stranger had disappeared. He was consequently treated as a fabricator of uncertified rumors for the disturbance of the public tranquillity, and even put to the torture.[541] How much of this improbable tale may be true, we cannot determine; but we may easily believe that neutrals, passing from Corinth or Megara to Peiræus, were the earliest communicants of the misfortunes of Nikias and Demosthenês in Sicily during the months of July and August. Presently came individual soldiers of the armament, who had got away from the defeat and found a passage home; so that the bad news was but too fully confirmed. But the Athenians were long before they could bring themselves to believe, even upon the testimony of these fugitives, how entire had been the destruction of their two splendid armaments, without even a feeble remnant left to console them.[542]

As soon as the full extent of their loss was at length forced upon their convictions, the city presented a scene of the deepest affliction, dismay, and terror. Over and above the extent of private mourning, from the loss of friends and relatives, which overspread nearly the whole city, there prevailed utter despair as to the public safety. Not merely was the empire of Athens apparently lost, but Athens herself seemed utterly defenceless. Her treasury was empty, her docks nearly destitute of triremes, the flower of her hoplites as well as of her seamen had perished in Sicily without leaving their like behind, and her maritime reputation was irretrievably damaged; while her enemies, on the contrary, animated by feelings of exuberant confidence and triumph, were farther strengthened by the accession of their new Sicilian allies. In these melancholy months—October, November, 413 B.C.—the Athenians expected nothing less than a vigorous attack, both by land and sea, from the Peloponnesian and Sicilian forces united, with the aid of their own revolted allies, an attack which they knew themselves to be in no condition to repel.[543]

Amidst so gloomy a prospect, without one ray of hope to cheer them on any side, it was but poor satisfaction to vent their displeasure on the chief speakers who had recommended their recent disastrous expedition, or on those prophets and reporters of oracles who had promised them the divine blessing upon it.[544] After this first burst both of grief and anger, however, they began gradually to look their actual situation in the face; and the more energetic speakers would doubtless administer the salutary lesson of reminding them how much had been achieved by their forefathers, sixty-seven years before, when the approach of Xerxes threatened them with dangers not less overwhelming. Under the peril of the moment, the energy of despair revived in their bosoms; they resolved to get together, as speedily as they could, both ships and money,—to keep watch over their allies, especially Eubœa,—and to defend themselves to the last. A Board of ten elderly men, under the title of Probûli, was named to review the expenditure, to suggest all practicable economies, and propose for the future such measures as occasion might seem to require. The propositions of these probûli were for the most part adopted, with a degree of unanimity and promptitude rarely seen in an Athenian assembly, springing out of that pressure and alarm of the moment which silenced all criticism.[545] Among other economies, the Athenians abridged the costly splendor of their choric and liturgic ceremonies at home, and brought back the recent garrison which they had established on the Laconian coast; they at the same time collected timber, commenced the construction of new ships, and fortified Cape Sunium, in order to protect their numerous transport ships in the passage from Eubœa to Peiræus.[546]

While Athens was thus struggling to make head against her misfortunes, all the rest of Greece was full of excitement and aggressive scheming against her. So vast an event as the destruction of this great armament had never happened since the expedition of Xerxes against Greece. It not only roused the most distant cities of the Grecian world, but also the Persian satraps and the court of Susa. It stimulated the enemies of Athens to redoubled activity; it emboldened her subject-allies to revolt; it pushed the neutral states, who all feared what she would have done if successful against Syracuse, now to declare war against her, and put the finishing stroke to her power as well as to her ambition. All of them, enemies, subjects, and neutrals, alike believed that the doom of Athens was sealed, and that the coming spring would see her captured. Earlier than the ensuing spring, the Lacedæmonians did not feel disposed to act; but they sent round their instructions to the allies for operations both by land and sea to be then commenced; all these allies being prepared to do their best, in hopes that this effort would be the last required from them, and the most richly rewarded. A fleet of one hundred triremes was directed to be prepared against the spring; fifty of these being imposed in equal proportion on the Lacedæmonians themselves and the Bœotians; fifteen on Corinth; fifteen on the Phocians and Lokrians; ten on the Arcadians, with Pellênê and Sikyon; ten on Megara, Trœzen, Epidaurus, and Hermionê. It seems to have been considered that these ships might be built and launched during the interval between September and March.[547] The same large hopes, which had worked upon men’s minds at the beginning of the war, were now again rife in the bosoms of the Peloponnesians;[548] the rather as that powerful force from Sicily, which they had then been disappointed in obtaining, might now be anticipated with tolerable assurance as really forthcoming.[549]

From the smaller allies, contributions in money were exacted for the intended fleet by Agis, who moved about during this autumn with a portion of the garrison of Dekeleia. In the course of his circuit, he visited the town of Herakleia, near the Maliac gulf, and levied large contributions on the neighboring Œtæans, in reprisal for the plunder which they had taken from that town, as well as from the Phthiot Achæans and other subjects of the Thessalians, though the latter vainly entered their protest against his proceedings.[550]

It was during the march of Agis through Bœotia that the inhabitants of Eubœa—probably of Chalkis and Eretria—applied to him, entreating his aid to enable them to revolt from Athens; which he readily promised, sending for Alkamenês at the head of three hundred Neodamode hoplites from Sparta, to be despatched across to the island as harmost. Having a force permanently at his disposal, with full liberty of military action, the Spartan king at Dekeleia was more influential even than the authorities at home, so that the disaffected allies of Athens addressed themselves in preference to him. It was not long before envoys from Lesbos visited him for this purpose. So powerfully was their claim enforced by the Bœotians (their kinsmen of the Æolic race), who engaged to furnish ten triremes for their aid, provided Agis would send ten others, that he was induced to postpone his promise to the Eubœans, and to direct Alkamenês as harmost to Lesbos instead of Eubœa,[551] without at all consulting the authorities at Sparta.

The threatened revolt of Lesbos and Eubœa, especially the latter, was a vital blow to the empire of Athens. But this was not the worst. At the same time that these two islands were negotiating with Agis, envoys from Chios, the first and most powerful of all Athenian allies, had gone to Sparta for the same purpose. The government of Chios,—an oligarchy, but distinguished for its prudent management and caution in avoiding risks,—considering Athens to be now on the verge of ruin, even in the estimation of the Athenians themselves, thought itself safe, together with the opposite city of Erythræ, in taking measures for achieving independence.[552]

Besides these three great allies, whose example in revolting was sure to be followed by others, Athens was now on the point of being assailed by other enemies yet more unexpected, the two Persian satraps of the Asiatic seaboard, Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus. No sooner was the Athenian catastrophe in Sicily known at the court of Susa, than the Great King claimed from these two satraps the tribute due from the Asiatic Greeks on the coast; for which they had always stood enrolled in the tribute records, though it had never been actually levied since the complete establishment of the Athenian empire. The only way to realize this tribute, for which the satraps were thus made debtors, was to detach the towns from Athens, and break up her empire;[553] for which purpose Tissaphernes sent an envoy to Sparta, in conjunction with those of the Chians and Erythræans. He invited the Lacedæmonians to conclude an alliance with the Great King, for joint operations against the Athenian empire in Asia; promising to furnish pay and maintenance for any forces which they might send, at the rate of one drachma per day for each man of the ship’s crews.[554] He farther hoped by means of this aid to reduce Amorgês the revolted son of the late satrap Pissuthnês, who was established in the strong maritime town of Iasus, with a Grecian mercenary force and a considerable treasure, and was in alliance with Athens. The Great King had sent down a peremptory mandate, that Amorgês should be either brought prisoner to Susa or slain.

At the same moment, though without any concert, there arrived at Sparta Kalligeitus and Timagoras, two Grecian exiles in the service of Pharnabazus, bringing propositions of a similar character from that satrap, whose government[555] comprehended the coast lands north of Æolis, from the Euxine and Propontis, to the northeast corner of the Elæatic gulf. Eager to have the assistance of a Lacedæmonian fleet in order to detach the Hellespontine Greeks from Athens, and realize the tribute required by the court of Susa, Pharnabazus was at the same time desirous of forestalling Tissaphernes as the medium of alliance between Sparta and the Great King. The two missions having thus arrived simultaneously at Sparta, a strong competition arose between them, one striving to attract the projected expedition to Chios, the other to the Hellespont:[556] for which latter purpose, Kalligeitus had brought twenty-five talents, which he tendered as a first payment in part.

From all quarters, new enemies were thus springing up against Athens in the hour of her distress, and the Lacedæmonians had only to choose which they would prefer; a choice in which they were much guided by the exile Alkibiadês. It so happened that his family friend Endius was at this moment one of the board of ephors; while his personal enemy king Agis, with whose wife Timæa he carried on an intrigue,[557] was absent in command at Dekeleia. Knowing well the great power and importance of Chios, Alkibiadês strenuously exhorted the Spartan authorities to devote their first attention to that island. A periœkus named Phrynis, being sent thither to examine whether the resources alleged by the envoys were really forthcoming, brought back a satisfactory report, that the Chian fleet was not less than sixty triremes strong: upon which the Lacedæmonians concluded an alliance with Chios and Erythræ, engaging to send a fleet of forty sail to their aid. Ten of these triremes, now ready in the Lacedæmonian ports—probably at Gythium—were directed immediately to sail to Chios, under the admiral Melanchridas. It seems to have been now midwinter; but Alkibiadês, and still more the Chian envoys, insisted on the necessity of prompt action, for fear that the Athenians should detect the intrigue. However, an earthquake just then intervening, was construed by the Spartans as an index of divine displeasure, so that they would not persist in sending either the same commander or the same ships. Chalkideus was named to supersede Melanchridas, while five new ships were directed to be equipped, so as to be ready to sail in the early spring along with the larger fleet from Corinth.[558]

As soon as spring arrived, three Spartan commissioners were sent to Corinth—in compliance with the pressing instances of the Chian envoys—to transport across the isthmus from the Corinthian to the Saronic gulf, the thirty-nine triremes now in the Corinthian port of Lechæum. It was at first proposed to send off all, at one and the same time, to Chios, even those which Agis had been equipping for the assistance of Lesbos; although Kalligeitus declined any concern with Chios, and refused to contribute for this purpose any of the money which he had brought. A general synod of deputies from the allies was held at Corinth, wherein it was determined, with the concurrence of Agis, to despatch the fleet first to Chios, under Chalkideus; next, to Lesbos, under Alkamenês; lastly, to the Hellespont, under Klearchus. But it was judged expedient to divide the fleet, and bring across twenty-one triremes out of the thirty-nine, so as to distract the attention of Athens, and divide her means of resistance. So low was the estimate formed of these means, that the Lacedæmonians did not scruple to despatch their expedition openly from the Saronic gulf, where the Athenians would have full knowledge both of its numbers and of its movements.[559]

Hardly had the twenty-one triremes, however, been brought across to Kenchreæ, when a fresh delay arose to obstruct their departure. The Isthmian festival, celebrated every alternate year, and kept especially holy by the Corinthians, was just approaching; nor would they consent to begin any military operations until it was concluded, though Agis tried to elude their scruples by offering to adopt the intended expedition as his own. It was during the delay which thus ensued that the Athenians were first led to conceive suspicions about Chios, whither they despatched Aristokratês, one of the generals of the year. The Chian authorities strenuously denied all projects of revolt, and being required by Aristokratês to furnish some evidence of their good faith, sent back along with him seven triremes to the aid of Athens. It was much against their own will that they were compelled thus to act; but they knew that the Chian people were in general averse to the idea of revolting from Athens, nor did they feel confidence enough to proclaim their secret designs without some manifestation of support from Peloponnesus, which had been so much delayed that they knew not when it would arrive. The Athenians, in their present state of weakness, perhaps thought it prudent to accept insufficient assurances, for fear of driving this powerful island to open revolt. But during the Isthmian festival, to which they were invited along with other Greeks, they discovered farther evidences of the plot which was going on, and resolved to keep strict watch on the motions of the fleet now assembled at Kenchreæ, suspecting that this squadron was intended to second the revolting party in Chios.[560]

Shortly after the Isthmian festival, the squadron actually started from Kenchreæ to Chios, under Alkamenês; but an equal number of Athenian ships watched them as they sailed along the shore, and tried to tempt them farther out to sea, with a view to fight them. Alkamenês, however, desirous of avoiding a battle, thought it best to return back; upon which the Athenians also returned to Peiræus, mistrusting the fidelity of the seven Chian triremes which formed part of their fleet. Reappearing presently with a larger squadron of thirty-seven triremes, they pursued Alkamenês, who had again begun his voyage along the shore southward, and attacked him near the uninhabited harbor called Peiræum, on the frontiers of Corinth and Epidaurus. They here gained a victory, captured one of his ships, and damaged or disabled most of the remainder. Alkamenês himself was slain, and the ships were run ashore, where on the morrow the Peloponnesian land-force arrived in sufficient numbers to defend them. So inconvenient, however, was their station on this desert spot, that they at first determined to burn the vessels and depart. Nor was it without difficulty that they were induced, partly by the instances of king Agis, to guard the ships until an opportunity could be found for eluding the blockading Athenian fleet; a part of which still kept watch off the shore, while the rest were stationed at a neighboring islet.[561]

The Spartan ephors had directed Alkamenês, at the moment of his departure from Kenchræa, to despatch a messenger to Sparta, in order that the five triremes under Chalkideus and Alkibiadês might leave Laconia at the same moment. And these latter appear to have been actually under way, when a second messenger brought the news of the defeat and death of Alkamenês at Peiræum. Besides the discouragement arising from such a check at the outset of their plans against Ionia, the ephors thought it impossible to begin operations with so small a squadron as five triremes, so that the departure of Chalkideus was for the present countermanded. This resolution, perfectly natural to adopt, was only reversed at the strenuous instance of the Athenian exile Alkibiadês, who urged them to permit Chalkideus and himself to start forthwith. Small as the squadron was, yet as it would reach Chios before the defeat at Peiræum became public, it might be passed off as the precursor of the main fleet; while he (Alkibiadês) pledged himself to procure the revolt of Chios and the other Ionic cities, through his personal connection with the leading men, who would repose confidence in his assurances of the helplessness of Athens, as well as of the thorough determination of Sparta to stand by them. To these arguments, Alkibiadês added an appeal to the personal vanity of Endius; whom he instigated to assume for himself the glory of liberating Ionia as well as of first commencing the Persian alliance, instead of leaving this enterprise to king Agis.[562]

By these arguments—assisted doubtless by his personal influence, since his advice respecting Gylippus and respecting Dekeleia had turned out so successful—Alkibiadês obtained the consent of the Spartan ephors, and sailed along with Chalkideus in the five triremes to Chios. Nothing less than his energy and ascendency could have extorted from men both dull and backward, a determination apparently so rash, yet, in spite of such appearance, admirably conceived, and of the highest importance. Had the Chians waited for the fleet now blocked up at Peiræum, their revolt would at least have been long delayed, and perhaps might not have occurred at all: the accomplishment of that revolt by the little squadron of Alkibiadês was the proximate cause of all the Spartan successes in Ionia, and was ultimately the means even of disengaging the fleet at Peiræum, by distracting the attention of Athens. So well did this unprincipled exile, while playing the game of Sparta, know where to inflict the dangerous wounds upon his country!

There was, indeed, little danger in crossing the Ægean to Ionia, with ever so small a squadron; for Athens in her present destitute condition had no fleet there, and although Strombichidês was detached with eight triremes from the blockading fleet off Peiræum, to pursue Chalkideus and Alkibiadês as soon as their departure was known, he was far behind them, and soon returned without success. To keep their voyage secret, they detained the boats and vessels which they met, and did not liberate them, until they reached Korykus in Asia Minor, the mountainous land southward of Erythræ. They were here visited by their leading partisans from Chios, who urged them to sail thither at once before their arrival could be proclaimed. Accordingly, they reached the town of Chios—on the eastern coast of the island, immediately opposite to Erythræ on the continent—to the astonishment and dismay of every one, except the oligarchical plotters who had invited them. By the contrivance of these latter, the council was found just assembling, so that Alkibiadês was admitted without delay, and invited to state his case. Suppressing all mention of the defeat at Peiræum, he represented his squadron as the foremost of a large Lacedæmonian fleet actually at sea and approaching, and affirmed Athens to be now helpless by sea as well as by land, incapable of maintaining any farther hold upon her allies. Under these impressions, and while the population were yet under their first impulse of surprise and alarm, the oligarchical council took the resolution of revolting. The example was followed by Erythræ, and soon afterwards by Klazomenæ, determined by three triremes from Chios. The Klazomenians had hitherto dwelt upon an islet close to the continent; on which latter, however, a portion of their town, called Polichnê, was situated, which they now resolved, in anticipation of attack from Athens, to fortify as their main residence. Both the Chians and Erythræans also actively employed themselves in fortifying their towns and preparing for war.[563]

In reviewing this account of the revolt of Chios, we find occasion to repeat remarks already suggested by previous revolts of other allies of Athens,—Lesbos, Akanthus, Torônê, Mendê, Amphipolis, etc. Contrary to what is commonly intimated by historians, we may observe first, that Athens did not systematically interfere to impose her own democratical government upon her allies; next, that the empire of Athens, though upheld mainly by an established belief in her superior force, was nevertheless by no means odious, nor the proposition of revolting from her acceptable to the general population of her allies. She had at this moment no force in Ionia; and the oligarchical government of Chios, wishing to revolt, was only prevented from openly declaring its intention by the reluctance of its own population, a reluctance which it overcame partly by surprise arising from the sudden arrival of Alkibiadês and Chalkideus, partly by the fallacious assurance of a still greater Peloponnesian force approaching.[564] Nor would the Chian oligarchy themselves have determined to revolt, had they not been persuaded that such was now the safer course, inasmuch as Athens was now ruined, and her power to protect, not less than her power to oppress, at an end.[565] The envoys of Tissaphernês had accompanied those of Chios to Sparta, so that the Chian government saw plainly that the misfortunes of Athens had only the effect of reviving the aggressions and pretensions of their former foreign master, against whom Athens had protected them for the last fifty years. We may well doubt, therefore, whether this prudent government looked upon the change as on the whole advantageous. But they had no motive to stand by Athens in her misfortunes, and good policy seemed now to advise a timely union with Sparta as the preponderant force. The sentiment entertained towards Athens by her allies, as I have before observed, was more negative than positive. It was favorable rather than otherwise, in the minds of the general population, to whom she caused little actual hardship or oppression; but averse, to a certain extent, in the minds of their leading men, since she wounded their dignity, and offended that love of town autonomy which was instinctive in the Grecian political mind.

The revolt of Chios, speedily proclaimed, filled every man at Athens with dismay. It was the most fearful symptom, as well as the heaviest aggravation, of their fallen condition; especially as there was every reason to apprehend that the example of this first and greatest among the allies would be soon followed by the rest. The Athenians had no fleet or force even to attempt its reconquest: but they now felt the full importance of that reserve of one thousand talents, which Perikles had set aside in the first year of the war against the special emergency of a hostile fleet approaching Peiræus. The penalty of death had been decreed against any one who should propose to devote this fund to any other purpose; and, in spite of severe financial pressure, it had remained untouched for twenty years. Now, however, though the special contingency foreseen had not yet arisen, matters were come to such an extremity, that the only chance of saving the remaining empire was by the appropriation of this money. An unanimous vote was accordingly passed to abrogate the penal enactment, or standing order, against proposing any other mode of appropriation; after which the resolution was taken to devote this money to present necessities.[566]

By means of this new fund, they were enabled to find pay and equipment for all the triremes ready or nearly ready in their harbor, and thus to spare a portion from their blockading fleet off Peiræum; out of which Strombichidês with his squadron of eight triremes was despatched immediately to Ionia; followed, after a short interval, by Thrasyklês, with twelve others. At the same time, the seven Chian triremes which also formed part of this fleet, were cleared of their crews; among whom such as were slaves were liberated, while the freemen were put in custody. Besides fitting out an equal number of fresh ships to keep up the numbers of the blockading fleet, the Athenians worked with the utmost ardor to get ready thirty additional triremes. The extreme exigency of the situation, since Chios had revolted, was felt by every one: yet with all their efforts, the force which they were enabled to send was at first lamentably inadequate. Strombichidês, arriving at Samos, and finding Chios, Erythræ, and Klazomenæ already in revolt, reinforced his little squadron with one Samian trireme, and sailed to Teos,—on the continent, at the southern coast of that isthmus, of which Klazomenæ is on the northern,—in hopes of preserving that place. But he had not been long there when Chalkideus arrived from Chios with twenty-three triremes, all or mostly Chian; while the forces of Erythræ and Klazomenæ approached by land. Strombichidês was obliged to make a hasty flight back to Samos, vainly pursued by the Chian fleet. Upon this evidence of Athenian weakness, and the superiority of the enemy, the Teians admitted into their town the land-force without; by the help of which, they now demolished the wall formerly built by Athens to protect the city against attack from the interior. Some of the troops of Tissaphernês lending their aid in the demolition, the town was laid altogether open to the satrap; who, moreover, came himself shortly afterwards to complete the work.[567]

Having themselves revolted from Athens, the Chian government were prompted by considerations of their own safety to instigate revolt in all other Athenian dependencies; and Alkibiadês now took advantage of their forwardness in the cause to make an attempt on Milêtus. He was eager to acquire this important city, the first among all the continental allies of Athens, by his own resources and those of Chios, before the fleet could arrive from Peiræum; in order that the glory of the exploit might be insured to Endius, and not to Agis. Accordingly, he and Chalkideus left Chios with a fleet of twenty-five triremes, twenty of them Chian, together with the five which they themselves had brought from Laconia: these last five had been remanned with Chian crews, the Peloponnesian crews having been armed as hoplites and left as garrison in the island. Conducting his voyage as secretly as possible, he was fortunate enough to pass unobserved by the Athenian station at Samos, where Strombichidês had just been reinforced by Thrasyklês with the twelve fresh triremes from the blockading fleet at Peiræum. Arriving at Milêtus, where he possessed established connections among the leading men, and had already laid his train, as at Chios, for revolt, Alkibiadês prevailed on them to break with Athens forthwith: so that when Strombichidês and Thrasyklês, who came in pursuit the moment they learned his movements, approached, they found the port shut against them, and were forced to take up a station on the neighboring island of Ladê. So anxious were the Chians for the success of Alkibiadês in this enterprise, that they advanced with ten fresh triremes along the Asiatic coast as far as Anæa, opposite to Samos, in order to hear the result and to render aid if required. A message from Chalkideus apprized them that he was master of Milêtus, and that Amorgês, the Persian ally of Athens at Iasus, was on his way at the head of an army; upon which they returned to Chios, but were unexpectedly seen in the way—off the temple of Zeus, between Lebedos and Kolophon—and pursued, by sixteen fresh ships just arrived from Athens, under the command of Diomedon. Of the ten Chian triremes, one found refuge at Ephesus, and five at Teos: the remaining four were obliged to run ashore and became prizes, though the crews all escaped. In spite of this check, however, the Chians came out again with fresh ships and some land-forces, as soon as the Athenian fleet had gone back to Samos, and procured the revolt both of Lebedos and Eræ from Athens.[568]

It was at Milêtus, immediately after the revolt, that the first treaty was concluded between Tissaphernês, on behalf of himself and the Great King, and Chalkideus, for Sparta and her allies. Probably the aid of Tissaphernês was considered necessary to maintain the town, when the Athenian fleet was watching it so closely on the neighboring island: at least it is difficult to explain otherwise an agreement so eminently dishonorable as well as disadvantageous to the Greeks:—

“The Lacedæmonians and their allies have concluded alliance with the Great King and Tissaphernês, on the following conditions: The king shall possess whatever territories and cities he himself had, or his predecessors had before him. The king, and the Lacedæmonians with their allies, shall jointly hinder the Athenians from deriving either money or other advantages from all those cities which have hitherto furnished to them any such. They shall jointly carry on war against the Athenians, and shall not renounce the war against them, except by joint consent. Whoever shall revolt from the king, shall be treated as an enemy by the Lacedæmonians and their allies; whoever shall revolt from the Lacedæmonians, shall in like manner be treated as an enemy by the king.”[569]

As a first step to the execution of this treaty, Milêtus was handed over to Tissaphernês, who immediately caused a citadel to be erected and placed a garrison within it.[570] If fully carried out, indeed, the terms of the treaty would have made the Great King master not only of all the Asiatic Greeks and all the islanders in the Ægean, but also of all Thessaly and Bœotia, and the full ground which had once been covered by Xerxes.[571] Besides this monstrous stipulation, the treaty farther bound the Lacedæmonians to aid the king in keeping enslaved any Greeks who might be under his dominion. Nor did it, on the other hand, secure to them any pecuniary aid from him for the payment of their armament, which was their great motive for courting his alliance. We shall find the Lacedæmonian authorities themselves hereafter refusing to ratify the treaty, on the ground of its exorbitant concessions. But it stands as a melancholy evidence of the new source of mischief now opening upon the Asiatic and insular Greeks, the moment that the empire of Athens was broken up, the revived pretensions of their ancient lord and master; whom nothing had hitherto kept in check, for the last fifty years, except Athens, first as representative and executive agent, next as successor and mistress, of the confederacy of Delos. We thus see against what evils Athens had hitherto protected them: we shall presently see, what is partially disclosed in this very treaty, the manner in which Sparta realized her promise of conferring autonomy on each separate Grecian state.

The great stress of the war had now been transferred to Ionia and the Asiatic side of the Ægean sea. The enemies of Athens had anticipated that her entire empire in that quarter would fall an easy prey: yet in spite of two such serious defections as Chios and Milêtus, she showed an unexpected energy in keeping hold of the remainder. Her great and capital station, from the present time to the end of the war, was Samos; and a revolution which now happened, insuring the fidelity of that island to her alliance, was a condition indispensable to her power of maintaining the struggle in Ionia.

We have heard nothing about Samos throughout the whole war, since its reconquest by the Athenians after the revolt of 440 B.C.: but we now find it under the government of an oligarchy called the Geômori, the proprietors of land, as at Syracuse before the rule of Gelon. It cannot be doubted that these geômori were disposed to follow the example of the Chian oligarchy, and revolt from Athens, while the people at Samos, as at Chios, were averse to such a change. Under this state of circumstances, the Chian oligarchy had themselves conspired with Sparta, to trick and constrain their Demos by surprise into revolt, through the aid of five Peloponnesian ships. The like would have happened at Samos, had the people remained quiet. But they profited by the recent warning, forestalled the designs of their oligarchy, and rose in insurrection, with the help of three Athenian triremes which then chanced to be in the port. The oligarchy were completely defeated, but not without a violent and bloody struggle; two hundred of them being slain, and four hundred banished. This revolution secured—and probably nothing less than a democratical revolution could have secured, under the existing state of Hellenic affairs—the adherence of Samos to the Athenians; who immediately recognized the new democracy, and granted to it the privilege of an equal and autonomous ally. The Samian people confiscated and divided among themselves the property of such of the geômori as were slain or banished:[572] the remainder were deprived of all political privileges, and were even forbidden to intermarry with any of the families of the remaining citizens.[573] We may fairly suspect that this latter prohibition is only the retaliation of a similar exclusion which the oligarchy, when in power, had enforced to maintain the purity of their own blood. What they had enacted as a privilege was now thrown back upon them as an insult.

On the other hand, the Athenian blockading fleet was surprised and defeated, with the loss of four triremes, by the Peloponnesian fleet at Peiræum, which was thus enabled to get to Kenchreæ, and to refit in order that it might be sent to Ionia. The sixteen Peloponnesian ships which had fought at Syracuse had already come back to Lechæum, in spite of the obstructions thrown in their way by the Athenian squadron under Hippoklês at Naupaktus.[574] The Lacedæmonian admiral Astyochus was sent to Kenchreæ to take the command and proceed to Ionia as admiral-in-chief: but it was some time before he could depart for Chios, whither he arrived with only four triremes, followed by six more afterwards.[575]

Before he reached that island, however, the Chians, zealous in the new part which they had taken up, and interested for their own safety in multiplying defections from Athens, had themselves undertaken the prosecution of the plans concerted by Agis and the Lacedæmonians at Corinth. They originated an expedition of their own, with thirteen triremes under a Lacedæmonian periœkus named Deiniadas, to procure the revolt of Lesbos; with the view, if successful, of proceeding afterwards to do the same among the Hellespontine dependencies of Athens. A land force under the Spartan Eualas, partly Peloponnesian, partly Asiatic, marched along the coast of the mainland northward towards Kymê, to coöperate in both these objects. Lesbos was at this time divided into at least five separate city governments; Methymna at the north of the island, Mitylênê towards the south-east, Antissa, Eresus, and Pyrrha on the west. Whether these governments were oligarchical or democratical we do not know, but the Athenian kleruchs who had been sent to Mitylênê after its revolt sixteen years before, must have long ago disappeared.[576] The Chian fleet first went to Methymna and procured the revolt of that place, where four triremes were left in guard, while the remaining nine sailed forward to Mitylênê, and succeeded in obtaining that important town also.[577]

Their proceedings, however, were not unwatched by the Athenian fleet at Samos. Unable to recover possession of Teos, Diomedon had been obliged to content himself with procuring neutrality from that town, and admission for the vessels of Athens as well as of her enemies: he had, moreover, failed in an attack upon Eræ.[578] But he had since been strengthened partly by the democratical revolution at Samos, partly by the arrival of Leon with ten additional triremes from Athens: so that these two commanders were now enabled to sail, with twenty-five triremes, to the relief of Lesbos. Reaching Mitylênê—the largest town in that island—very shortly after its revolt, they sailed straight into the harbor when no one expected them, seized the nine Chian ships with little resistance, and after a successful battle on shore, regained possession of the city. The Lacedæmonian admiral Astyochus—who had only been three days arrived at Chios from Kenchreæ with his four triremes—saw the Athenian fleet pass through the channel between Chios and the mainland, on its way to Lesbos; and immediately on the same evening followed it to that island, to lend what aid he could, with one Chian trireme added to his own four, and some hoplites aboard. He sailed first to Pyrrha, and on the next day to Eresus, on the west side of the island, where he first learned the recapture of Mitylênê by the Athenians. He was here also joined by three out of the four Chian triremes which had been left to defend that place, and which had been driven away, with the loss of one of their number, by a portion of the Athenian fleet pushing on thither from Mitylênê. Astyochus prevailed on Eresus to revolt from Athens, and having armed the population, sent them by land together with his own hoplites under Eteonikus to Methymna, in hopes of preserving that place, whither he also proceeded with his fleet along the coast. But in spite of all his endeavors, Methymna as well as Eresus and all Lesbos was recovered by the Athenians, while he himself was obliged to return with his forces to Chios. The land troops which had marched along the mainland, with a view to farther operations at the Hellespont, were carried back to Chios and to their respective homes.[579]

The recovery of Lesbos, which the Athenians now placed in a better posture of defence, was of great importance in itself, and arrested for the moment all operations against them at the Hellespont. Their fleet from Lesbos was first employed in the recovery of Klazomenæ, which they again carried back to its original islet near the shore; the new town on the mainland, called Polichna, though in course of being built, being not yet sufficiently fortified to defend itself. The leading anti-Athenians in the town made their escape, and went farther up the country to Daphnûs. Animated by such additional success—as well as by a victory which the Athenians, who were blockading Milêtus, gained over Chalkideus, wherein that officer was slain—Leon and Diomedon thought themselves in a condition to begin aggressive measures against Chios, now their most active enemy in Ionia. Their fleet of twenty-five sail was well equipped with epibatæ; who, though under ordinary circumstances they were thêtes armed at the public cost, yet in the present stress of affairs were impressed from the superior hoplites in the city muster-roll.[580] They occupied the little islets called Œnussæ, near Chios on the northeast, as well as the forts of Sidussa and Pteleus in the territory of Erythræ; from which positions they began a series of harassing operations against Chios itself. Disembarking on the island at Kardamylê and Bolissus, they not only ravaged the neighborhood, but inflicted upon the Chian forces a bloody defeat. After two farther defeats, at Phanæ and at Leukonium, the Chians no longer dared to quit their fortifications; so that the invaders were left to ravage at pleasure the whole territory, being at the same time masters of the sea around, and blocking up the port.

The Athenians now retaliated upon Chios the hardships under which Attica itself was suffering; hardships the more painfully felt, inasmuch as this was the first time that an enemy had ever been seen in the island since the repulse of Xerxês from Greece and the organization of the confederacy of Delos, more than sixty years before. The territory of Chios was highly cultivated,[581] its commerce extensive, and its wealth among the greatest in all Greece. In fact, under the Athenian empire, its prosperity had been so marked and so uninterrupted, that Thucydidês expresses his astonishment at the undeviating prudence and circumspection of the government, in spite of circumstances well calculated to tempt them into extravagance. “Except Sparta (he says),[582] Chios is the only state that I know, which maintained its sober judgment throughout a career of prosperity, and became even more watchful in regard to security, in proportion as it advanced in power.” He adds, that the step of revolting from Athens, though the Chian government now discovered it to have been an error, was at any rate a pardonable error; for it was undertaken under the impression, universal throughout Greece, and prevalent even in Athens herself after the disaster at Syracuse, that Athenian power, if not Athenian independence, was at an end, and undertaken in conjunction with allies seemingly more than sufficient to sustain it. This remarkable observation of Thucydidês doubtless includes an indirect censure upon his own city, as abusing her prosperity for purposes of unmeasured aggrandizement: a censure not undeserved in reference to the enterprise against Sicily. But it counts at the same time as a valuable testimony to the condition of the allies of Athens under the Athenian empire, and goes far in reply to the charge of practical oppression against the imperial city.

The operations now carrying on in Chios indicated such an unexpected renovation in Athenian affairs, that a party in the island began to declare in favor of reunion with Athens. The Chian government were forced to summon Astyochus, with his four Peloponnesian ships from Erythræ, to strengthen their hands, and keep down opposition, by seizing hostages from the suspected parties, as well as by other precautions. While the Chians were thus endangered at home, the Athenian interest in Ionia was still farther fortified by the arrival of a fresh armament from Athens at Samos. Phrynichus, Onomaklês, and Skironidês conducted a fleet of forty-eight triremes, some of them employed for the transportation of hoplites; of which latter there were aboard one thousand Athenians, and fifteen hundred Argeians. Five hundred of these Argeians, having come to Athens without arms, were clothed with Athenian panoplies for service. The newly-arrived armament immediately sailed from Samos to Milêtus, where it effected a disembarkation, in conjunction with those Athenians who had been before watching the place from the island of Ladê. The Milêsians marched forth to give them battle; mustering eight hundred of their own hoplites, together with the Peloponnesian seamen of the five triremes brought across by Chalkideus, and a body of troops, chiefly cavalry, yet with a few mercenary hoplites, under the satrap Tissaphernês. Alkibiadês, also, was present and engaged. The Argeians were so full of contempt for the Ionians of Milêtus who stood opposite to them, that they rushed forward to the charge with great neglect of rank or order; a presumption which they expiated by an entire defeat, with the loss of three hundred men. But the Athenians on their wing were so completely victorious over the Peloponnesians and others opposed to them, that all the army of the latter, and even the Milesians themselves on returning from their pursuit of the Argeians, were forced to shelter themselves within the walls of the town. The issue of this combat excited much astonishment, inasmuch as, on each side, Ionian hoplites were victorious over Dorian.[583]

For a moment, the Athenian army, masters of the field under the walls of Milêtus, indulged the hope of putting that city under blockade, by a wall across the isthmus which connected it with the continent. But these hopes soon vanished when they were apprized, on the very evening of the battle, that the main Peloponnesian and Sicilian fleet, fifty-five triremes in number, was actually in sight. Of these fifty-five, twenty-two were Sicilian,—twenty from Syracuse and two from Selinus,—sent at the pressing instance of Hermokratês, and under his command, for the purpose of striking the final blow at Athens; so at least it was anticipated, in the beginning of 412 B.C. The remaining thirty-three triremes being Peloponnesian, the whole fleet was placed under the temporary command of Theramenês, until he could join the admiral Astyochus. Theramenês, halting first at the island of Lerus,—off the coast, towards the southward of Milêtus,—was there first informed of the recent victory of the Athenians, so that he thought it prudent to take station for the night in the neighboring gulf of Iasus. Here he was found by Alkibiadês, who came on horseback, in all haste, from Milêtus to the Milesian town of Teichiussa on that gulf. Alkibiadês strenuously urged him to lend immediate aid to the Milêsians, so as to prevent the construction of the intended wall of blockade; representing that if that city were captured, all the hopes of the Peloponnesians in Ionia would be extinguished. Accordingly, he prepared to sail thither the next morning: but, during the night, the Athenians thought it wise to abandon their position near Milêtus and return to Samos with their wounded and their baggage. Having heard of the arrival of Theramenês with his fleet, they preferred leaving their victory unimproved, to the hazard of a general battle. Two out of the three commanders, indeed, were at first inclined to take the latter course, insisting that the maritime honor of Athens would be tarnished by retiring before the enemy. But the third, Phrynichus, opposed with so much emphasis the proposition of fighting, that he at length induced his colleagues to retire. The fleet, he said, had not come prepared for fighting a naval battle, but full of hoplites for land-operations against Milêtus: the numbers of the newly-arrived Peloponnesians were not accurately known; and a defeat at sea, under existing circumstances, would be utter ruin to Athens. Thucydidês bestows much praise on Phrynichus for the wisdom of this advice, which was forthwith acted upon. The Athenian fleet sailed back to Samos; from which place the Argeian hoplites, sulky with their recent defeat, demanded to be conveyed home.[584]

On the ensuing morning, the Peloponnesian fleet sailed from the gulf of Iasus to Milêtus, expecting to find and fight the Athenians, and leaving their masts, sails, and rigging—as was usual when going into action—at Teichiussa. Finding Milêtus already relieved of the enemy, they stayed there only one day, in order to reinforce themselves with the twenty-five triremes which Chalkideus had originally brought thither, and which had been since blocked up by the Athenian fleet at Ladê, and then sailed back to Teichiussa to pick up the tackle there deposited. Being now not far from Iasus, the residence of Amorgês, Tissaphernês persuaded them to attack it by sea, in coöperation with his forces by land. No one at Iasus was aware of the arrival of the Peloponnesian fleet: the triremes approaching were supposed to be Athenians and friends, so that the place was entered and taken by surprise;[585] though strong in situation and fortifications, and defended by a powerful band of Grecian mercenaries. The capture of Iasus, in which the Syracusans distinguished themselves, was of signal advantage, from the abundant plunder which it distributed among the army; the place being rich from ancient date, and probably containing the accumulations of the satrap Pissuthnês, father of Amorgês. It was handed over to Tissaphernês, along with all the prisoners, for each head of whom he paid down a Daric stater, or twenty Attic drachmæ, and along with Amorgês himself, who had been taken alive, and whom the satrap was thus enabled to send up to Susa. The Grecian mercenaries captured in the place were enrolled in the service of the captors, and sent by land under Pedaritus to Erythræ, in order that they might cross over from thence to Chios.[586]

The arrival of the recent reinforcements to both the opposing fleets, and the capture of Iasus, took place about the autumnal equinox or the end of September; at which period, the Peloponnesian fleet being assembled at Milêtus, Tissaphernês paid to them the wages of the crews, at the rate of one Attic drachma per head per diem, as he had promised by his envoy at Sparta. But he at the same time gave notice for the future,—partly at the instigation of Alkibiadês, of which more hereafter,—that he could not continue so high a rate of pay, unless he should receive express instructions from Susa; and that, until such instructions came, he should give only half a drachma per day. Theramenês, being only commander for the interim, until the junction with Astyochus, was indifferent to the rate at which the men were paid,—a miserable jealousy, which marks the low character of many of these Spartan officers,—but the Syracusan Hermokratês remonstrated so loudly against the reduction, that he obtained from Tissaphernês the promise of a slight increase above the half drachma, though he could not succeed in getting the entire drachma continued.[587] For the present, however, the seamen were in good spirits; not merely from having received the high rate of pay, but from the plentiful booty recently acquired at Iasus;[588] while Astyochus and the Chians were also greatly encouraged by the arrival of so large a fleet. Nevertheless, the Athenians on their side were also reinforced by thirty-five fresh triremes, which reached Samos under Strombichidês, Charminus, and Euktêmon. The Athenian fleet from Chios was now recalled to Samos, where the commanders mustered their whole naval force, with a view of redividing it for ulterior operations.

Considering that in the autumn of the preceding year, immediately after the Syracusan disaster, the navy of Athens had been no less scanty in number of ships than defective in equipment, we read with amazement, that she had now at Samos no less than one hundred and four triremes in full condition and disposable for service, besides some others specially destined for the transport of troops. Indeed, the total number which she had sent out, putting together the separate squadrons, had been one hundred and twenty-eight.[589] So energetic an effort, and so unexpected a renovation of affairs from the hopeless prostration of last year, was such as no Grecian state except Athens could have accomplished; nor even Athens herself, had she not been aided by that reserve fund, consecrated twenty years before through the long-sighted calculation of Periklês.

The Athenians resolved to employ thirty triremes in making a landing, and establishing a fortified post, in Chios; and lots being drawn among the generals, Strombichidês with two others were assigned to the command. The other seventy-four triremes, remaining masters of the sea, made descents near Milêtus, and in vain tried to provoke the Peloponnesian fleet out of that harbor. It was some time before Astyochus actually went thither to assume his new command, being engaged in operations near to Chios, which island had been left comparatively free by the recall of the Athenian fleet to the general muster at Samos. Going forth with twenty triremes,—ten Peloponnesian and ten Chian,—he made a fruitless attack upon Pteleus, the Athenian fortified post in the Erythræan territory; after which he sailed to Klazomenæ, recently retransferred from the continent to the neighboring islet. He here—in conjunction with Tamôs, the Persian general of the district—enjoined the Klazomenians again to break with Athens, to leave their islet, and to take up their residence inland at Daphnûs, where the philo-Peloponnesian party among them still remained established since the former revolt. This demand being rejected, he attacked Klazomenæ, but was repulsed, although the town was unfortified, and was presently driven off by a severe storm, from which he found shelter at Kymê and Phokæa. Some of his ships sheltered themselves during the same storm on certain islets near to and belonging to Klazomenæ; on which they remained eight days, destroying and plundering the property of the inhabitants, and then rejoined Astyochus. That admiral was now anxious to make an attempt on Lesbos, from which he received envoys promising revolt from Athens. But the Corinthians and others in his fleet were so averse to the enterprise, that he was forced to relinquish it and sail back to Chios; his fleet, before it arrived there, being again dispersed by the storms, frequent in the month of November.[590]

Meanwhile Pedaritus, despatched by land from Milêtus,—at the head of the mercenary force made prisoners at Iasus, as well as of five hundred of the Peloponnesian seamen who had originally crossed the sea with Chalkideus, and since served as hoplites,—had reached Erythræ and from thence crossed the channel to Chios. To him and to the Chians, Astyochus now proposed to undertake the expedition to Lesbos; but he experienced from them the same reluctance as from the Corinthians, a strong proof that the tone of feeling in Lesbos had been found to be decidedly philo-Athenian on the former expedition. Pedaritus even peremptorily refused to let him have the Chian triremes for any such purpose, an act of direct insubordination in a Lacedæmonian officer towards the admiral-in-chief, which Astyochus resented so strongly, that he immediately left Chios for Milêtus, carrying away with him all the Peloponnesian triremes, and telling the Chians, in terms of strong displeasure, that they might look in vain to him for aid, if they should come to need it. He halted with his fleet for the night under the headland of Korykus (in the Erythræan territory), on the north side; but while there, he received an intimation of a supposed plot to betray Erythræ by means of prisoners sent back from the Athenian station at Samos. Instead of pursuing his voyage to Milêtus, he therefore returned on the next day to Erythræ to investigate this plot, which turned out to be a stratagem of the prisoners themselves in order to obtain their liberation.[591]

The fact of his thus going back to Erythræ, instead of pursuing his voyage, proved, by accident, the salvation of his fleet. For it so happened that on that same night the Athenian fleet, under Strombichidês—thirty triremes, accompanied by some triremes carrying hoplites—had its station on the southern side of the same headland. Neither knew of the position of the other, and Astyochus, had he gone forward the next day towards Milêtus, would have fallen in with the superior numbers of his enemy. He farther escaped a terrible storm, which the Athenians encountered when they doubled the headland going northward. Descrying three Chian triremes, they gave chase, but the storm became so violent that even these Chians had great difficulty in making their own harbor, while the three foremost Athenian ships were wrecked on the neighboring shore, all the crews either perishing or becoming prisoners.[592] The rest of the Athenian fleet found shelter in the harbor of Phœnikus on the opposite mainland, under the lofty mountain called Mimas, north of Erythræ.

As soon as weather permitted, they pursued their voyage to Lesbos, from which island they commenced their operations of invading Chios and establishing in it a permanent fortified post. Having transported their land-force across from Lesbos, they occupied a strong maritime site called Delphinium, seemingly a projecting cape having a sheltered harbor on each side, not far from the city of Chios.[593] They bestowed great labor and time in fortifying this post, both on the land and the sea-side, during which process they were scarcely interrupted at all either by the Chians, or by Pedaritus and his garrison; whose inaction arose not merely from the discouragement of the previous defeats, but from the political dissension which now reigned in the city. A strong philo-Athenian party had pronounced itself; and though Tydeus its leader was seized by Pedaritus and put to death, still, his remaining partisans were so numerous, that the government was brought to an oligarchy narrower than ever, and to the extreme of jealous precaution, not knowing whom to trust. In spite of numerous messages sent to Milêtus, intreating succor, and representing the urgent peril to which this greatest among all the Ionian allies of Sparta was exposed, Astyochus adhered to his parting menaces, and refused compliance. The indignant Pedaritus sent to prefer complaint against him at Sparta as a traitor. Meanwhile the fortress at Delphinium advanced so near towards completion, that Chios began to suffer from it as much as Athens suffered from Dekeleia, with the farther misfortune of being blocked up by sea. The slaves in this wealthy island—chiefly foreigners acquired by purchase, but more numerous than in any other Grecian state except Laconia—were emboldened by the manifest superiority and assured position of the invaders to desert in crowds; and the loss arising, not merely from their flight, but from the valuable information and aid which they gave to the enemy was immense.[594] The distress of the island increased every day, nor could anything relieve it except succor from without, which Astyochus still withheld.

That officer, on reaching Milêtus, found the Peloponnesian force on the Asiatic side of the Ægean just reinforced by a squadron of twelve triremes under Dorieus; chiefly from Thurii, which had undergone a political revolution since the Athenian disaster at Syracuse, and was now decidedly in the hands of the active philo-Laconian party; the chief persons friendly to Athens having been exiled.[595] Dorieus and his squadron, crossing the Ægean in its southern latitude, had arrived safely at Knidus, which had already been conquered by Tissaphernês from Athens, and had received a Persian garrison.[596] Orders were sent from Milêtus that half of this newly-arrived squadron should remain on guard at Knidus, while the other half should cruise near the Triopian cape to intercept the trading vessels from Egypt. But the Athenians, who had also learned the arrival of Dorieus, sent a powerful squadron from Samos, which captured all these six triremes off Cape Triopium, though the crews escaped ashore. They farther made an attempt to recover Knidus, which was very nearly successful, as the town was unfortified on the sea-side. On the morrow the attack was renewed,—but additional defences had been provided during the night, while the crews of the ships captured near Triopium had come in to help,—so that the Athenians were forced to return to Samos without any farther advantage than that of ravaging the Knidian territory. Astyochus took no step to intercept them, nor did he think himself strong enough to keep the sea against the seventy-four Athenian triremes at Samos, though his fleet at Milêtus was at this moment in high condition. The rich booty acquired at Iasus was unconsumed; the Milêsians were zealous in the confederate cause; while the pay from Tissaphernês continued to be supplied with tolerable regularity, though at the reduced rate mentioned a little above.[597]

Though the Peloponnesians had yet no ground of complaint—such as they soon came to have—against the satrap for irregularity of payment, still, the powerful fleet now at Milêtus inspired the commanders with a new tone of confidence, so that they became ashamed of the stipulations of that treaty to which Chalkideus and Alkibiadês, when first landing at Milêtus with their scanty armament, had submitted. Accordingly Astyochus, shortly after his arrival at Milêtus, and even before the departure of Theramenês,—whose functions had expired when he had handed over the fleet,—insisted on a fresh treaty with Tissaphernês, which was agreed on, to the following effect:—

“Convention and alliance is concluded, on the following conditions, between the Lacedæmonians, with their allies, and king Darius, his sons, and Tissaphernês. The Lacedæmonians and their allies shall not attack or injure any territory or any city which belongs to Darius, or has belonged to his father or ancestors; nor shall they raise any tribute from any of the said cities. Neither Darius nor any of his subjects shall attack or injure the Lacedæmonians or their allies. Should the Lacedæmonians or their allies have any occasion for the king, or should the king have any occasion for the Lacedæmonians or their allies, let each meet, as much as may be, the wishes expressed by the other. Both will carry on jointly the war against Athens and her allies: neither party shall bring the war to a close, without mutual consent. The king shall pay and keep any army which he may have sent for, and which may be employed in his territory. If any of the cities parties to this convention shall attack the king’s territory, the rest engage to hinder them, and to defend the king with their best power. And if any one within the king’s territory, or within the territory subject to him,[598] shall attack the Lacedæmonians or their allies, the king shall hinder them, and lend his best defensive aid.”

Looked at with the eyes of Pan-Hellenic patriotism, this second treaty of Astyochus and Theramenês was less disgraceful than the first treaty of Chalkideus. It did not formally proclaim that all those Grecian cities which had ever belonged to the king or to his ancestors, should still be considered as his subjects, nor did it pledge the Lacedæmonians to aid the king in hindering any of them from achieving their liberty. It still admitted, however, by implication, the same undiminished extent of the king’s dominion, as it had stood when at its maximum under his predecessors; the same undefined rights of the king to meddle with Grecian affairs; the same unqualified abandonment of all the Greeks on the continent of Asia. The conclusion of this treaty was the last act performed by Theramenês, who was lost at sea shortly afterwards, on his voyage home, in a small boat, no one knew how.[599]

Astyochus, now alone in command, was still importuned by the urgent solicitations of the distressed Chians for relief, and, in spite of his reluctance, was compelled by the murmurs of his own army to lend an ear to them, when a new incident happened which gave him at least a good pretext for directing his attention southward. A Peloponnesian squadron of twenty-seven triremes under the command of Antisthenês, having started from Cape Malea about the winter tropic or close of 412 B.C., had first crossed the sea to Melos, where it dispersed ten Athenian triremes and captured three of them; then afterwards, from apprehension that these fugitive Athenians would make known its approach at Samos, had made a long circuit round by Krete, and thus ultimately reached Kaunus at the southeastern extremity of Asia Minor. This was the squadron which Kalligeitus and Timagoras had caused to be equipped, having come over for that purpose a year before as envoys from the satrap Pharnabazus. Antisthenês was instructed first to get to Milêtus and put himself in concert with the main Lacedæmonian fleet; next, to forward these triremes, or another squadron of equal force under Klearchus, to the Hellespont, for the purpose of coöperating with Pharnabazus against the Athenian dependencies in that region. Eleven Spartans, the chief of whom was Lichas, accompanied Antisthenês, to be attached to Astyochus as advisers, according to a practice not unusual with the Lacedæmonians. These men were not only directed to review the state of affairs at Milêtus, and exercise control coördinate with Astyochus, but even empowered, if they saw reason, to dismiss that admiral himself, upon whom the complaints of Pedaritus from Chios had cast suspicion; and to appoint Antisthenês in his place.[600]

No sooner had Astyochus learned at Milêtus the arrival of Antisthenês at Kaunus, than he postponed all idea of lending aid to Chios, and sailed immediately to secure his junction with the twenty-seven new triremes as well as with the new Spartan counsellors. In his voyage southward he captured the city of Kôs, unfortified and half-ruined by a recent earthquake, and then passed on to Knidus; where the inhabitants strenuously urged him to go forward at once, even without disembarking his men, in order that he might surprise an Athenian squadron of twenty triremes under Charmînus; which had been despatched from Samos, after the news received from Melos, in order to attack and repel the squadron under Antisthenês. Charmînus, having his station at Symê, was cruising near Rhodes and the Lykian coast, to watch, though he had not been able to keep back, the Peloponnesian fleet just arrived at Kaunus. In this position he was found by the far more numerous fleet of Astyochus, the approach of which he did not at all expect. But the rainy and hazy weather had so dispersed it, that Charmînus, seeing at first only a few ships apart from the rest, mistook them for the smaller squadron of new-comers. Attacking the triremes thus seen, he at first gained considerable advantage, disabling three and damaging several others. But presently the dispersed vessels of the main fleet came in sight and closed round him, so that he was forced to make the best speed in escaping, first to the island called Teutlussa, next to Halikarnassus. He did not effect his escape without the loss of six ships; while the victorious Peloponnesians, after erecting their trophy on the island of Symê, returned to Knidus, where the entire fleet, including the twenty-seven triremes newly arrived, was now united.[601] The Athenians in Samos—whose affairs were now in confusion, from causes which will be explained in the ensuing chapter—had kept no watch on the movements of the main Peloponnesian fleet at Milêtus, and seem to have been ignorant of its departure until they were apprized of the defeat of Charmînus. They then sailed down to Symê, took up the sails and rigging belonging to that squadron, which had been there deposited, and then, after an attack upon Loryma, carried back their whole fleet, probably including the remnant of the squadron of Charmînus, to Samos.[602]

Though the Peloponnesian fleet now assembled at Knidus consisted of ninety-four triremes, much superior in number to the Athenian, it did not try to provoke any general action. The time of Lichas and his brother commissioners was at first spent in negotiations with Tissaphernês, who had joined them at Knidus, and against whom they found a strong feeling of discontent prevalent in the fleet. That satrap—now acting greatly under the advice of Alkibiadês, of which also more in the coming chapter—had of late become slack in the Peloponnesian cause, and irregular in furnishing pay to their seamen, during the last weeks of their stay at Milêtus. He was at the same time full of promises, paralyzing all their operations by assurances that he was bringing up the vast fleet of Phenicia to their aid: but in reality his object was, under fair appearances, merely to prolong the contest and waste the strength of both parties. Arriving in the midst of this state of feeling, and discussing with Tissaphernês the future conduct of the war, Lichas not only expressed displeasure at his past conduct, but even protested against the two conventions concluded by Chalkideus and by Theramenês, as being, both the one and the other, a disgrace to the Hellenic name. By the express terms of the former, and by the implications of the latter, not merely all the islands of the Ægean, but even Thessaly and Bœotia, were acknowledged as subject to Persia; so that Sparta, if she sanctioned such conditions, would be merely imposing upon the Greeks a Persian sceptre, instead of general freedom, for which she professed to be struggling. Lichas, declaring that he would rather renounce all prospect of Persian pay, than submit to such conditions, proposed to negotiate for a fresh treaty upon other and better terms, a proposition which Tissaphernês rejected with so much indignation as to depart without settling anything.[603]

His desertion did not discourage the Peloponnesian counsellors. Possessing a fleet larger than they had ever before had united in Asia, together with a numerous body of allies, they calculated on being able to get money to pay their men without Persian aid; and an invitation, which they just now received from various powerful men at Rhodes, tended to strengthen such confidence. The island of Rhodes, inhabited by a Dorian population considerable in number as well as distinguished for nautical skill, was at this time divided between three separate city governments, as it had been at the epoch of the Homeric Catalogue,—Lindus, Ialysus, and Kameirus; for the city called Rhodes, formed by a coalescence of all these three, dates only from two or three years after the period which we have now reached. Invited by several of the wealthy men of the island, the Peloponnesian fleet first attacked Kameirus, the population of which, intimidated by a force of ninety-four triremes, and altogether uninformed of their approach, abandoned their city, which had no defences, and fled to the mountains.[604] All the three Rhodian towns, destitute of fortifications, were partly persuaded, partly frightened, into the step of revolting from Athens and allying themselves with the Peloponnesians. The Athenian fleet, whose commanders were just now too busy with political intrigue to keep due military watch, arrived from Samos too late to save Rhodes, and presently returned to the former island, leaving detachments at Chalkê and Kôs to harass the Peloponnesians with desultory attacks.

The Peloponnesians now levied from the Rhodians a contribution of thirty-two talents, and adopted the island as the main station for their fleet, instead of Milêtus. We can explain this change of place by their recent unfriendly discussion with Tissaphernês, and their desire to be more out of his reach.[605] But what we cannot so easily explain, is, that they remained on the island without any movement or military action, and actually hauled their triremes ashore, for the space of no less than eighty days; that is, from about the middle of January to the end of March 411 B.C. While their powerful fleet of ninety-four triremes, superior to that of Athens at Samos, was thus lying idle, their allies in Chios were known to be suffering severe and increasing distress, and repeatedly pressing for aid:[606] moreover, the promise of sending to coöperate with Pharnabazus against the Athenian dependencies on the Hellespont, remained unperformed.[607] We may impute such extreme military slackness mainly to the insidious policy of Tissaphernês, now playing a double game between Sparta and Athens. He still kept up intelligence with the Peloponnesians at Rhodes, paralyzed their energies by assurances that the Phenician fleet was actually on its way to aid them, and insured the success of these intrigues by bribes distributed personally among the generals and the trierarchs. Even Astyochus, the general-in-chief, took his share in this corrupt bargain, against which not one stood out except the Syracusan Hermokratês.[608] Such prolonged inaction of the armament, at the moment of its greatest force, was thus not simply the fruit of honest mistake, like the tardiness of Nikias in Sicily, but proceeded from the dishonesty and personal avidity of the Peloponnesian officers.

I have noticed, on more than one previous occasion, the many evidences which exist of the prevalence of personal corruption—even in its coarsest form, that of direct bribery—among the leading Greeks of all the cities, when acting individually. Of such evidences the incident here recorded is not the least remarkable. Nor ought this general fact ever to be forgotten by those who discuss the question between oligarchy and democracy, as it stood in the Grecian world. The confident pretensions put forth by the wealthy and oligarchical Greeks to superior virtue, public as well as private,—and the quiet repetition, by various writers modern and ancient, of the laudatory epithets implying such assumed virtue,—are so far from being borne out by history, that these individuals were perpetually ready as statesmen to betray their countrymen, or as generals even to betray the interests of their soldiers, for the purpose of acquiring money themselves. Of course, it is not meant that this was true of all of them; but it was true sufficiently often, to be reckoned upon as a contingency more than probable. If, speaking on the average, the leading men of a Grecian community were not above the commission of political misdeeds thus palpable, and of a nature not to be disguised even from themselves, far less would they be above the vices, always more or less mingled with self-delusion, of pride, power-seeking, party-antipathy or sympathy, love of ease, etc. And if the community were to have any chance of guarantee against such abuses, it could only be by full license of accusation against delinquents, and certainty of trial before judges identified in interest with the people themselves. Such were the securities which the Grecian democracies, especially that of Athens, tried to provide; in a manner not always wise, still less always effectual, but assuredly justified, in the amplest manner, by the urgency and prevalence of the evil. Yet in the common representations given of Athenian affairs, this evil is overlooked or evaded; the precautions taken against it are denounced as so many evidences of democratical ill-temper and injustice; and the class of men, through whose initiatory action alone such precautions were enforced, are held up to scorn as demagogues and sycophants. Had these Peloponnesian generals and trierarchs, who under the influence of bribes wasted two important months in inaction, been Athenians, there might have been some chance of their being tried and punished; though even at Athens the chance of impunity to offenders, through powerful political clubs and other sinister artifices, was much greater than it ought to have been. So little is it consistent with the truth, however often affirmed, that judicial accusation was too easy, and judicial condemnation too frequent. When the judicial precautions provided at Athens are looked at, as they ought to be, side by side with the evil, they will be found imperfect, indeed, both in the scheme and in the working, but certainly neither uncalled for nor over-severe.