Book 4
THE following summer, about the time of the corn's coming into ear, ten Syracusan ships and an equal number of Locrians sailed and occupied Messana in Sicily, at the invitation of the inhabitants; and so Messana revolted from the Athenians.
This was chiefly done, by the Syracusans, because they saw that the place afforded an approach to Sicily, and were afraid that the Athenians might hereafter make it their head-quarters and proceed against them with a larger force; by the Locrians, for hatred of the people of Rhegium, and with a wish to reduce them by hostilities on both sides.
At the same time too the Locrians had invaded the territory of Rhegium with all their forces, to prevent their going to the rescue of Messana, and also at the instigation of some exiles from Rhegium who were with them. For that town had been for a long time torn by faction, and it was impossible at the present time to resist the Locrians; for which reason they were the more determined to attack them.
After devastating the country, the Locrians retired with their land-forces, but their ships remained to guard Messana; and others that were being manned were to go to that station, and carry on the war from it.
About the same period of the spring, before the corn was ripe, the Peloponnesians and their allies made an incursion into Attica, under the conduct of Agis son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians; and pitching their camp in the country, proceeded to lay it waste.
But the Athenians despatched the forty ships to Sicily, as they had been preparing to do, and the remaining generals, Eurymedon and Sophocles; for Pythodorus, the third of them, had already arrived in Sicily before them.
These they also ordered to attend, as they sailed by the island, to those of the Corcyraeans who were in the city, and who were being plundered by the exiles on the mountain; sixty ships having likewise sailed from the Peloponnese to assist those on the mountain, and with an idea, that as there was a great famine in the city, they should easily possess themselves of the government.
Demosthenes, who had continued in a private capacity since his return from Acarnania, was, at his own request, authorized by them to use that fleet, if he wished, for service about the Peloponnese.
When, on their voyage, they were off Laconia, and heard that the Peloponnesian ships were already at Corcyra, Eurymedon and Sophocles were for hastening thither, but Demosthenes desired them to touch first at Pylus, and after doing what was necessary, then to proceed on their voyage. While they were making objections, a storm happened to come on, and carried the fleet to Pylus.
So Demosthenes immediately begged them to fortify the place, (for this, he said, was his object in sailing with them,) and showed them that there was great abundance of timber and stone, and that the post was a strong one, and unoccupied, both itself and a considerable distance of the country round. For Pylus is about four hundred stades from Sparta, and is situated in what was once the Messenian territory, being called by the Lacedaemonians Coryphasium. But the commanders said that there were many unoccupied promontories in the Peloponnese, if he wished to put the state to expense by occupying them.
He, however, considered that this was a more advantageous post than any other, inasmuch as there was a harbour close by, and the Messenians, who in early times were connected with the place, and spoke the same dialect with the Lacedaemonians, would do them very great injury by their excursions from it, and at the same time be trusty guardians of the place.
When he could not convince either the generals or the soldiers, having subsequently communicated his views to the subordinate officers also, he remained quiet from stress of weather; till the soldiers themselves, in their want of occupation, were seized with a desire to set to and fortify the post.
Accordingly they took the work in land, and proceeded with it, though they had no iron tools, but carried stones just as they picked them up, and put them together, as they severally might happen to fit; while the mortar, wherever it was necessary to use any, for want of hods they carried on their back, stooping down in such a way that it might best he on, and clasping their hands behind them, to prevent its falling off.
Indeed in every way they made haste to anticipate the Lacedaemonians, by completing the most assailable points of tie work before they came to the rescue; for the greater part of the position was strong by nature, and had no need of fortifications.
Now the Lacedaemonians happened to be celebrating a festival; and, moreover, when they heard it, they made light of it, thinking that when they took the field, either the enemy would not wait their attack, or they should easily take the place by storm. To a certain extent also the fact of their army being still before Athens delayed them.
So the Athenians, after fortifying in six days the side towards the interior, and what most required it, left Demosthenes there with five ships to protect the place, while with the main body of the fleet they hastened on their voyage to Corcyra and Sicily.
When the Peloponnesians in Attica heard of the occupation of Pylus, they returned home with all speed; for the Lacedaemonians and Agis their king thought that the affair of Pylus closely affected them; and, besides, having made their incursion early in the season, and while the corn was still green, they were in want of provisions for most of their troops; while stormy weather, coming on with greater violence than was usual at that season, distressed the army.
So that for many reasons it happened that they returned quicker than usual, and that this was the shortest incursion they had made; for they remained in Attica but fifteen days.
At this same period, Simonides, an Athenian commander, having got together a few Athenians from the guard-stations, and a large body of the allies in that neighbourhood, took possession of Eion in Thrace, a colony from Mende, and hostile [to Athens], which was betrayed to him. But the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans having immediately come to its rescue, he was beaten out of it, and lost many of his soldiers.
On the return of the Peloponnesians from Attica, the Spartans themselves and the nearest of the Perioeci immediately went to the rescue of Pylus; but the other Lacedaemonians were more slow in marching against it, as they had but just reached home from a different expedition.
They despatched orders also through the rest of the Peloponnese to bring up their reinforcements to Pylus as quickly as possible and sent for their sixty ships at Corcyra. These having been hauled over the isthmus of Leucas, and having so escaped the observation of the Athenian fleet at Zacynthus, reached Pylus; the land-forces also having by that time arrived.
While the Peloponnesians were yet sailing up, Demosthenes anticipated them by secretly sending two ships with a message to Eurymedon and the Athenians on board the fleet at Zacynthus to join him, as the place was in danger.
So the ships sailed with all speed, according to the orders of Demosthenes; while the Lacedaemonians prepared to assault the place both by land and sea, hoping easily to take a building completed in haste, and with only a few men in it.
At the same time, expecting the arrival of the Athenian fleet from Zacynthus to its relief, they intended, in case of their not having taken it before, to bar also the entrances into the harbour, that the Athenians might not be able to come to anchor in it.
For the island that is called Sphacteria both secures the harbour, by stretching in a line with it, and close off it, and narrows its entrances; on one side, near the Athenian fortifications and Pylus, leaving a passage for two ships; on the other, towards the rest of the mainland, for eight or nine. It was all woody and pathless from its desert condition, and in extent about fifteen stades. The entrances then they intended to bar with a close line of vessels, with their heads looking outwards;
while fearing this island, lest the enemy should carry on their operations against them from it, they conveyed over some heavy-armed troops into it, and posted others along the mainland.
For so they thought that both the island would be unfavourable to the Athenians, and the mainland also, as it did not afford any landing-place; for the shores of Pylus itself outside the inlet, looking towards the open sea, would present no ground from which they might proceed to the aid of their countrymen; and so they should storm the place, in all probability, without the risk of a sea-fight, as there were no provisions in it, and it had been occupied after short preparation.
Having adopted these resolutions, accordingly they conveyed over the heavy-armed into the island, drafting them by lot from all the On these divisions of the Lacedaemonian army see Arnold's note, V. 68. 3. lochi There had also been some others sent over before in turns; but these last who went, and who were left there, were four hundred and twenty in number, with their attendant Helots; their commander being Epitadas son of Molobrus.
Demosthenes, seeing the Lacedaemonians about to attack him both by sea and land at once, made his own preparations also; and having drawn up under the fortifications the triremes he had remaining from those that had been left him, he enclosed them in a stockade, and armed the crews taken out of them with shields of an inferior kind, and in most cases made of osiers. For it was not possible in so lonely a place to provide themselves with arms; but even these they had got from a thirty-oared privateer and skiff belonging to some Messenians, who happened to have come to them. Of these Messenians there were also about forty heavy-armed, whose services he used with the rest.
The main body, both of the unarmed and the armed, he posted at the most fortified and secure points of the place, facing the interior, with orders to repel the land-forces, should they make an assault; while lie himself, having picked from the whole force sixty heavy-armed and a few bowmen, proceeded outside the wall to the sea, where he most expected that they would attempt a landing, on ground which was difficult, indeed, and rocky, looking as it did to the open sea, but still, as their wall was weakest at that point, I have followed the usual interpretation of this sentence, though the sense cannot fairly be drawn from the words as they now stand. Either ἂν must be supplied with ἐπισπάσασθαι, or it must be changed into the future, as Dobree proposes, even allowing Göller's explanation of the following verb being put in the future: Futuro προθυμήσεσθαι usus est, quia in totâ sententià futureae rei significatio inest. Would it be possible to avoid the difficulty by taking ἐπισπάσασθαι in one of its other senses, to win or carry the wall? The general usage of Thucydides, I confess, is against this interpretation; but, on the other hand, there is in all the MSS. but one various reading of the passage, and that would not remedy the fault in the tense, if the ordinary force of the verb be retained. he thought that this would tempt them to be eager in attacking it.
For they built it of no great strength just there, expecting never to be beaten at sea themselves; and also thinking that if the enemy once forced a landing, the place then became easy to take.
At this point then he went down to the very sea, and posted his heavy-armed, to prevent a landing, if possible; while he encouraged them with these words:
Soldiers, who have shared with me this adventure, let none of you in such an emergency wish to show himself clever by calculating the whole amount of the danger that surrounds us, but rather to charge the enemy with reckless confidence, and with the probability of escaping by these means. For circumstances which are as pressing as ours by no means admit of calculation, but require the danger to be faced as quickly as possible.
But indeed I see the greater part of them favourable to us, if we will but stand our ground, and not, through being alarmed at the enemy's numbers, throw away the advantages we have. For the difficulty of landing which the place presents I consider to be in our favour:
for while we remain where we are, this assists us in the struggle; but if we retreat, we shall find that though [naturally] difficult, it will be easy when there is no one to offer resistance. And in that case we shall find the enemy the more formidable on this very account, because his retreat will not be easily effected, even though he may be driven back by us. For while on board their ships, they are most easy to repel; but when they have once landed, they are then on equal terms with us.
Nor should you be very much alarmed at their numbers; for though great, they will engage in small detachments, through the impossibility of bringing to: and it is not an army on the land, fighting on equal ground, while superior in numbers; but one on board a fleet, for which, when at sea, many lucky chances are required [to make it effective]. So that I consider their difficulties a fair equivalent for our With the use of πλῆθος in this passage, to signify inferior numbers, compare the frequent use of τοσοῦτος and τηλικοῦτος with the same indefinite meaning, applying to small quantities or numbers, as well as to great; e. g Demosth. Philipp. I. 23,τοσαύτην μὲν, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, διὰ ταῦτα, ὅτ᾽ οὐκ ἔνι νῦν ἡμῖν πορίσασθαι δύναμιν τὴν ἐκείνω παραταξομένην. Only So large a force. So also Soph. Aj. 747, and Eur. Hipp. 804. numbers;
and at the same time I call on you, Athenians as you are, and knowing from experience as you do the nature of a naval descent on the coast of others, namely, that if a man should stand his ground, and not retreat for fear of the roaring surf and the terrors of the ships sailing to shore, he would never be driven back; [I call on you, I say,] now in your own case to stand your ground, and by resisting them along the very beach to save both yourselves and the place.
When Demosthenes had thus encouraged them, they were more inspirited, and went down against them, and ranged themselves close along the sea.
The Lacedaemonians, moved from their position, and assaulted the fort at the same time both with their army by land and with their ships, of which there were forty-three; the admiral on board being Thrasymelidas son of Cratesicles, a Spartan. And he assaulted it just where Demosthenes was expecting him.
So the Athenians defended themselves on both sides, landward and seaward; while their opponents, divided into detachments of a few ships, because it was not possible for more to bring to, and relieving each other in turn, were sailing up against them with all eagerness and mutual exhortation, if by any means they might force their passage and take the place.