Book 6
Not long after, there came unto them from Egesta three hundred horsemen, and from the Siculi, namely the Naxians and some others, about one hundred; and the Athenians had of their own two hundred and fifty for which they had horses, part from the Egestaeans and Catanaeans, and part they bought. So that they had together in the whole, six hundred and fifty horsemen.
Having put a guard into Labdalum, the Athenians went down to Syca and raised there a wall in circle very quickly, so that they struck a terror into the Syracusians with the celerity of the work. Who, therefore, coming forth, intended to have given them battle and no longer to have neglected the matter.
But when the armies were one set against the other, the Syracusian generals, perceiving their own to be in disarray and not easily to be embattled, led them again into the city, save only a certain part of their horsemen; which staying, kept the Athenians from carrying of stone and straggling far abroad from their camp.
But the Athenians with one squadron of men of arms, together with their whole number of horse, charged the horsemen of the Syracusians and put them to flight, of whom they slew a part, and erected a trophy for this battle of horse.
The next day the Athenians fell to work upon their wall to the north side of their circular wall, some building and some fetching stone and timber, which they still laid down toward the place called Trogilus, in the way by which the wall should come with the shortest compass from the great haven to the other sea.
The Syracusians, by the persuasion of their generals, and principally of Hermocrates, intended not to hazard battle with their whole power against the Athenians any more, but thought fit rather, in the way where the Athenians were to bring their wall, to raise a counterwall; which, if they could but do before the wall of the Athenians came on, it would exclude their further building; and if the Athenians should set upon them as they were doing it, they might send part of the army to defend it, and pre-occupy the accesses to it with a pallisado;
and if they would come with their whole army to hinder them, then must they also be forced to let their own work stand still. Therefore they came out, and beginning at their own city, drew a cross-wall beneath the circular fortifications of the Athenians, and set wooden turrets upon it, made of the olive trees which they felled in the ground belonging to the temple.
The Athenian navy was not yet come about into the great haven from Thapsus, but the Syracusians were masters of the places near the sea; and the Athenians brought their provision to the army from Thapsus by land.
The Syracusians, when they thought both their pallisado and wall sufficient, and considering that the Athenians came not to impeach them in the work, as they that feared to divide their army and to be thereby the more easy to be fought withal, and that also hasted to make an end of their own wall wherewith to encompass the city, left one squadron for a guard of their works and retired with the rest into the city. And the Athenians cut off the pipes of their conduits, by which their water to drink was conveyed under ground into the town. And having observed also that about noon the Syracusians kept within their tents, and that some of them were also gone into the city, and that such as were remaining at the pallisado kept but negligent watch, they commanded three hundred chosen men of arms, and certain other picked out and armed from amongst the unarmed, to run suddenly to that counterwall of the Syracusians. The rest of the army, divided in two, went one part with one of the generals to stop the succour which might be sent from the city, and the other with the other general to the pallsado next to the gate of the [counter-wall].
The three hundred assaulted and took the pallisado, the guard whereof, forsaking it, fled within the wall into the temple ground; and with them entered also their pursuers; but after they were in were beaten out again by the Syracusians and some slain, both of the Argives and Athenians, but not many.
Then the whole army went back together and pulled down the wall and plucked up the pallisado, the pales whereof they carried with them to their camp and erected a trophy.
The next day, the Athenians, beginning at their circular wall, built onwards to that crag over the marshes, which on that part of Epipolae looketh to the great haven, and by which the way to the haven, for their wall to come through the plain and marsh, was the shortest.
As this was doing, the Syracusians came out again and made another pallisado, beginning at the city, through the middle of the marsh, and a ditch at the side of it, to exclude the Athenians from bringing their wall to the sea.
But the Athenians, when they had finished their work as far as to the crag, assaulted the pallisado and trench of the Syracusians again. And having commanded their galleys to be brought about from Thapsus into the great haven of Syracuse, about break of day went straight down into the plain, and passing through the marsh, where the ground was clay and firmest, [and partly] upon boards and planks, won both the trench and pallisado, all but a small part, betimes in the morning, and the rest not long after.
And here also they fought, and the victory fell to the Athenians; the Syracusians, those of the right wing, fled to the city, and they of the left, to the river. The three hundred chosen Athenians, desiring to cut off their passage, marched at high speed towards the bridge.
But the Syracusians, fearing to be prevented (for most of the horsemen were in this number), set upon these three hundred, and putting them to flight, drave them upon the right wing of the Athenians, and following, affrighted also the foremost guard of the wing.
Lamachus, seeing this, came to aid them with a few archers from the left wing of their own and with [all] the Argives, and passing over a certain ditch, having but few with him, was deserted and slain with some six or seven more. These the Syracusians hastily snatched up and carried into a place of safety beyond the river; and when they saw the rest of the Athenian army coming towards them, they departed.
In the meantime, they that fled at first to the city, seeing how things went, took heart again, and re-embattled themselves against the same Athenians that stood ranged against them before; and withal sent a certain portion of their army against the circular fortification of the Athenians upon Epipolae, supposing to find it without defendants and so to take it.
And they took and demolished the outworks ten plethers in length; but the circle itself was defended by Nicias, who chanced to be left within it for infirmity. For he commanded his servants to set fire on all the engines and whatsoever wooden matter lay before the wall:
knowing there was no other possible means to save themselves for want of men. And it fell out accordingly, for by reason of this fire they came no nearer, but retired. For the Athenians, having by this time beaten back the enemy below, were coming up to relieve the circle; and their galleys withal (as is before mentioned) were going about from Thapsus into the great haven.
Which they above perceiving, speedily made away, they and the whole army of the Syracusians, into the city, with opinion that they could no longer hinder them, with the strength they now had, from bringing their wall through unto the sea.
After this the Athenians erected a trophy and delivered to the Syracusians their dead under truce; and they on the other side delivered to the Athenians the body of Lamachus and of the rest slain with him. And their whole army, both land and sea forces, being now together, they began to enclose the Syracusians with a double wall from Epipolae and the rocks unto the seaside.
The necessaries of the army were supplied from all parts of Italy. And many of the Siculi, who before stood aloof to observe the way of fortune, took part now with the Athenians, to whom came also three penteconteri, [long boats of fifty oars apiece,] from Hetruria;
and divers other ways their hopes were nourished. For the Syracusians also, when there came no help from Peloponnesus, made no longer account to subsist by war; but conferred, both amongst themselves and with Nicias, of composition; for Lamachus being dead, the sole command of the army was in him.
And though nothing were concluded, yet many things (as was likely with men perplexed, and now more straitly besieged than before) were propounded unto Nicias, and more amongst themselves. And the present ill success had also spread some jealousy amongst them, one of another. And they discharged the generals under whose conduct this happened, as if their harm had come either from their unluckiness or from their perfidiousness, and chose Heracleides, Eucles, and Tellias in their places.
Whilst this passed, Gylippus of Lacedaemon and the Corinthian galleys were already at Leucas, purposing with all speed to go over into Sicily. But when terrible reports came unto them from all hands, agreeing in an untruth, that Syracuse was already quite enclosed, Gylippus had hope of Sicily no longer; but desiring to assure Italy, he and Pythen, a Corinthian, with two Laconic and two Corinthian galleys, with all speed crossed the Ionic sea to Tarentum; and the Corinthians were to man ten galleys of their own, two of Leucas, and three of Ambracia, and come after. Gylippus went first from Tarentum to Thurii, as ambassador, by his father's right, who was free of the city of Tarentum;
but not winning them to his side, he put out again, and sailed along the coast of Italy. Passing by the Terinaean gulf, he was put from the shore by a wind which in that quarter bloweth strongly against the north, and driven into the main sea; and after another extreme tempest brought in again into Tarentum, where he drew up such of his galleys as had been hurt by the weather and repaired them.
Nicias, hearing that he came, contemned the small number of his galleys, as also the Thurians had before, supposing them furnished as for piracy, and appointed no watch for them yet.
About the same time of this summer, the Lacedaemonians invaded the territory of Argos, they and their confederates, and wasted a great part of their land. And the Athenians aided the Argives with thirty galleys; which most apparently broke the peace between them and the Lacedaemonians.
For before, they went out from Pylus with the Argives and Mantineans but in the nature of freebooters, and that also not into Laconia, but other parts of Peloponnesus. Nay, when the Argives have often entreated them but only to land with their arms in Laconia, and having wasted never so little of their territory to return, they would not. But now, under the conduct of Pythodorus, Laespodius, and Demaratus, they landed in the territory of Epidaurus Limera and in Prasiae, and there and in other places wasted the country, and gave unto the Lacedaemonians a most justifiable cause to fight against the Athenians.
After this, the Athenians being departed from Argos with their galleys, and the Lacedaemonians gone likewise home, the Argives invaded Phliasia, and when they had wasted part of their territory, and killed some of their men, returned.