Book 6
As the Athenians were on the point of beginning the attack, Nicias went along the line and exhorted them, nation by nation as well as all together, in the following manner:
“What need is there, soldiers, of long exhortation, when we are all here for one and the same contest? Our array of itself seems to me more calculated to inspire confidence than well chosen words with a weak army.
For where are Argives and Mantineans and Athenians and the best of the islanders, why should not everyone, in company with allies so brave and so numerous, have great hope of victory, especially against men that meet us in a mob and are not picked men as we ourselves are, and against Siceliots, moreover, who scorn us, indeed, but do not stand their ground against us, because the skill they have is not equal to their daring.
This, too, must be fixed in the mind of everyone, that we are far from our own land and not near to any friendly country, unless you shall win such by your own swords. And my admonition is the opposite of the exhortation which, I am sure, the enemy is addressing to his troops; for they urge that the contest will be for fatherland, but I remind you that it will be, not in our fatherland, but where you either must win victory or may not easily get away; for their cavalry will be upon us in great numbers.
Be mindful, therefore, of your own reputation, and attack the enemy with spirit and with the thought that our present necessity and the straits in which we stand are more to be feared than our foes.”
After such an exhortation Nicias straightway led on his army; but the Syracusans were not expecting to fight at just that moment, and some of them, as the city was near them, had even gone home; and these, though they came running to the lines as fast as they could, were late, and had to fall in wherever each one happened to reach the main body. For they were not lacking in zeal nor in daring either in this battle or in those which followed; nay, in bravery they were not inferior to their enemies, so far as they had experience, but through their lack of experience in spite of themselves they failed to do justice to their good intentions. Nevertheless, though they did not expect the Athenians to be the first to attack, and though they were forced to defend themselves in haste, they took up their arms at once and went against them.
And at first the stone-throwers and slingers and bowmen skirmished, driving each other back, first one side and then the other, as light-armed troops would be likely to do. Afterwards the soothsayers brought forward the customary sacrifices and trumpeters stirred the hoplites to the charge.
So they advanced—the Syracusans, to fight for fatherland and every man for his own present safety and future freedom; on the other side the Athenians, to fight for an alien land in order to win it for their own and to save their own land from the disaster of defeat; the Argives and those of the allies that were independent, to help the Athenians in securing the objects for which they had come, and having won victory to see again their own fatherland; the subject-allies, above all zealous for their own immediate safety, for which there was no hope unless they conquered, then also with the secondary motive that having helped the Athenians to overthrow another power they might find the terms of their own subjection milder.
When they had come to close combat, they held out for a long time against one another; and there chanced to occur at the same time some claps of thunder and flashes of lightning and much rain, so that this too contributed to the fear of those who were fighting for the first time and were but little conversant with war, whereas to those who were more experiencedie. the Athenians. the storm seemed of course to be due merely to the season of the year, but the fact that their antagonists were not overcome caused them far greater alarm.
When, however, the Argives had first driven back the left wing of the Syracusans, and after them the Athenians had repulsed their own opponents, then the rest also of the Syracusan line began to break and was reduced to flight.
But the Athenians did not pursue far; for the Syracusan cavalry, being numerous and undefeated, held them in check, and falling upon their hoplites, if they saw any ahead in pursuit, drove them back. They only followed up in a body as far as it was safe, and then drew back and set up a trophy.
The Syracusans, on the other hand, collecting on the Elorine road and drawing up as well as possible under the circumstances, in spite of their defeat sent some of their own men to the Olympieium as a guard, fearing that the Athenians might disturb some of the treasures which were there; and the rest withdrew to the city.
The Athenians, however, did not go to the temple, but collecting their own dead and placing them on a pyre they passed the night where they were. But on the next day they gave back under truce the Syracusan dead, of whom and of their allies about two hundred and sixty were slain; then gathering up the bones of their own dead—of themselves and their allies about fifty—and taking with them the spoils of the enemy, they sailed back to Catana.
For it was winter, and it seemed as yet impossible to carry on the war from this base until they should send to Athens for horsemen, besides collecting them from their allies in Sicily, that they might not be altogether at the mercy of the enemy's cavalry. And they wanted at the same time to collect money from the island itself, and to have a supply come from Athens; also to bring over some of the cities, which they hoped would be more ready to listen to them since the battle; and to prepare other things, both food and whatever was needed, with a view to attacking Syracuse the next spring.
With this purpose they sailed away to Naxos and Catana to spend the winter. The Syracusans, on the other hand, after burying their own dead, called an assembly.
And there came before them Hermocrates son of Hermon,cf. 4.58.; 6.33. a man who was in general second to none in point of intelligence, and had shown himself in this war both competent by reason of experience and conspicuous for courage. He encouraged them and protested against their giving way because of what had happened:
their spirit, he told them, was not defeated; it was their lack of discipline that had done mischief. They had not, however, been so much inferior as might have been expected, especially as they had been pitted against troops who were the foremost among the Hellenes in experience, mere tiros so to speak against skilled craftsmen.
Much mischief had also been caused by the large number of the generals and the division of command—for they had fifteen generals—and the disorder and anarchy among the troops. If only a few men of experience should be chosen as generals, and during this winter they should get the hoplite-force ready, providing arms for those who had none, in order that the number might be as large as possible, and enforcing the general training, in all likelihood, he said, they would get the better of the enemy, if to courage, which they had already, discipline were added when it came to action. For both these things would improve of themselves; their discipline would be practised in the midst of dangers, and their courage, in proportion as their confidence in their skill increased, would prove more self-reliant than ever.
The generals, then, whom they should elect ought to be few in number and clothed with full powers and they should give them their oath that they would in very truth allow them to command according to their judgment; for in this way whatever ought to be kept secret would be better concealed, and their preparations in general would be made in an orderly way and without evasions.
The Syracusans, when they had heard him, voted everything as he advised, and chose three generals, Hermocrates himself, Heracleides son of Lysimachus, and Sieanus son of Execestus.
They also sent envoys to Corinth and Lacedaemon to induce an allied force to join them, and to persuade the Lacedaemonians to prosecute the war with the Athenians openly in their behalf and more persistently, in order that they might either draw them away from Sicily, or else to some extent prevent their sending reinforcements to their army in Sicily.
The Athenian army at Catana, directly after its return,cf. 6.72.1. sailed to Messene, in the hope that it would be betrayed to them. But the negotiations were not successful. For as soon as Alcibiades left his command under summons from home, knowing that he would be an exile, he gave information of the plot, of which he was cognizant, to the friends of the Syracusans at Messene; these had previously put the conspirators to death, and at this time, when the Athenians arrived, those who were of this faction, being already in revolt and under arms, were strong enough to prevent their admission.
So the Athenians stayed there about thirteen days, and as they were vexed by storms and without provisions and were making no progress at all, they retired to Naxos, and constructing dock-yards and building stockades round their camp, went into winterquarters there. They also sent a trireme to Athens for money and cavalry, that these might be on hand at the opening of spring.
During this winter the Syracusans also proceeded to build a wall next to the city, along the entire extent that faces Epipolae, taking in the Temenites precinct,The temple of Apollo Temenites and the suburb which had grown up about it, the later Neapolis. in order that, in case of a possible reverse, they might riot be so easily shut in as if the circuit of the town were smaller; and they also put a garrison at Megara and another at the Olympieium, and fixed palisades on the sea-shore at all points where landings were possible.
And knowing that the Athenians were wintering at Naxos, they went out with all their forces against Catana and ravaged some of its territory, then having set fire to the tents and the camp of the Athenians they returned home.
Moreover, on learning that the Athenians had, in accordance with an alliance concluded with the Camarinaeans in the time of Laches,427 B.C.; cf. 3.86.2. sent envoys to these, in the hope that they might win them to their side, they themselves sent a counter-embassy; for they had suspicions that the Camarinaeans had not been zealous in sending such help as they had sent for the first battle, and might not wish to aid them in future, seeing that the Athenians had fared well in the fight, but might rather be induced, on the plea of their former friendship, to go over to the Athenians.
Accordingly, when Hermocrates and others had arrived at Camarina from Syracuse, and from the Athenians Euphemus and the rest, an assembly of the Camarinaeans was held and Hermocrates, wishing to prejudice them against the Athenians, spoke as follows:
"We have come on this embassy, men of Camarina, not because we feared that you will be dismayed by the presence of the Athenian force, but rather through fear of the words that are going to be said on their part, lest these persuade you before you hear anything from us.
For they are come to Sicily on the pretext that you hear, but with the design that we all suspect; and to me they seem to wish, not to resettle the Leontines, but rather to unsettle us. For surely it is not reasonable to suppose that, while desolating the cities in their own country, they are resettling the cities of Sicily, and that they care for the Leontines, on the score of kinship, as being Chalcidians, while holding in slavery the Chalcidians in Euboea, of whom these are colonists.
Nay, one and the same design has guided them in acquiring their possessions over there and is now guiding them in their endeavour to acquire possessions here: after they had become leaders, by the free choice of their associates, both of the Ionians and of all those, descendants of the Ionians, who were members of the alliance that was concluded, avowedly, for revenge upon the Persians, they charged some with refusal to serve, others with warring upon one another, others with whatever specious charge they had at hand, and so reduced them to subjection.
And so, after all, it was not for ' freedom' that they withstood the Persians, neither the Athenians to win it for the Hellenes nor the Hellenes to win it for themselves, but they fought for the enslavement of the rest to themselves, and the Hellenes for a change of master, not to one more unwise, but more wickedly wise.
"But we are not come now, easy though it be to denounce the Athenian state, to declare before those who know already how many are its misdeeds; but much more to blame ourselves, because, though we have warning examples in the way that the Hellenes over there have been enslaved because they would not defend one another, and though the same sophisms are now practised upon us—restorings of Leontine kinsmen and succourings of Egestaean allies!—we are unwilling to combine together and with more spirit show them that here are not Ionians nor yet Hellespontines and islanders, who are always taking some new master, Persian or whoever it may be, and continue in a state of slavery, but Dorians, free men sprung from independent Peloponnesus, and now dwelling in Sicily.
Or are we waiting until we shall be taken one at a time, city by city, when we know that in this way only can we be conquered, and when we see them resorting to this policy, endeavouring to cause division among some of us by means of cunning words, to set others at war one with another by the hope of obtaining allies, and to ruin others in whatever way they can by saying something alluring to each? And do we think that, when a distant compatriot perishes before us, the same danger will not come also to ourselves, but rather that whoever before us meets with disaster merely incurs misfortune by himself alone?
"And if the thought has occurred to anyone that it is the Syracusans, not himself, who are enemies to the Athenians, and thinks it preposterous that he should incur danger for our country, let him reflect that it will not be chiefly for our country, but equally for his own at the same time that he will fight in our land, and with the greater safety, too, inasmuch as he will enter the contest, not when we have already been ruined, and not isolated himself, but having us as allies; and that the object of the Athenians is not to punish the enmity of the Syracusans, but having us as a pretext to make your ' friendship ' still more secure.
If, moreover, anyone is envious, or even afraid of Us—for greater states are exposed to both these passions—and for this reason wishes that the Syracusans shall be humbled, indeed, in order that we may be sobered, but shall survive for the sake of his own safety, he indulges a wish that is not within human power to attain. For it is not possible for the same person to be in like measure the controller of his own desires and of Fortune;
and if he should err in judgment, when he has to lament his own ills he may perhaps some day wish once more to become envious of our good fortune. But that will be impossible, if he abandons us and does not consent to incur the same dangers, which are not about names but about facts; for though nominally a man would be preserving our power, in fact he would be securing his own safety.
And most of all it were fitting that you, men of Camarina, who are on our borders and will incur danger next, should have foreseen these things and not be, as now, slack in your alliance, but rather should have come to us of yourselves, and just as you, in case the Athenians had come against Camarina first, would be calling upon us and begging us not to yield an inch, so should you be seen in like manner now also using the same exhortation. But neither you, so far at least, nor the rest have bestirred yourselves for this.
"But through timidity, perhaps, you will make much of the point of right as between us and the invaders, alleging that you have an alliance with the Athenians. That alliance, however, you made, not against your friends, but in the event of any of your enemies attacking you; and you were to aid the Athenians only when they were wrongedἀδικῶνται is said to be understood. For similar ellipses, cf. 2.11.34; 7.69.3. by others, and not when, as now, they are themselves wronging their neighbours.
Why, not even the Rhegians, themselves Chalcidians, are willing to help to restore the Leontines who are Chalcidians. And it is monstrous if they, suspicious of what this fine plea of right really means in practice, are unreasonably prudent,ie. discard logic and obey policy. while you, on a speciously reasonable pretext, desire to aid those who by nature are your enemies, and in concert with your bitterest foes to ruin those who by a still closer tie of nature are your kinsmen.As Dorians and Sicilians. Nay, that is not right;
but it is right to aid us and not be afraid of their armament. For if we all stand together, it is not formidable. The only danger is—and this is just what they are eager for—that we may stand opposed to each other; for not even when they came against us alone and proved superior in battle did they effect what they wished, but quickly went away.