Book 7
Whereupon giving over our walling up of the city for the multitude of our enemies, we now sit still. Nor can we indeed have the use of our whole army, because some part of the men of arms are employed to defend our walls. And they have built a single wall up to us, so that now we have no more means to enclose it, except one should come with a great army and win that cross wall of theirs by assault.
And so it is that we who seemed to besiege others are besieged ourselves for so much as concerneth the land; for we cannot go far abroad by reason of their cavalry.
"They have also sent ambassadors for another army into Peloponnesus; and Gylippus is gone amongst the cities of Sicily, both to solicit such to join with him in the war as have not yet stirred, and of others to get, if he can, both more land soldiers and more munition for their navy.
For they intend, as I have been informed, both to assault our wall by land with their army and to make trial what they are able to do with their navy by sea.
For though our fleet (which they also have heard) were vigorous at first, both for soundness of the galleys and entireness of the men, yet our galleys are now soaked with lying so long in the water and our men consumed.
For we want the means to haul a-land our galleys and trim them, because the galleys of the enemy, as good as ours and more in number, do keep us in a continual expectation of assault, which they manifestly endeavour.
And seeing it is in their own choice to attempt or not, they have therefore liberty to dry their galleys at their pleasure; for they lie not, as we, in attendance upon others.
"Nay, we could hardly do it, though we had many galleys spare, and were not constrained, as now, to keep watch upon them with our whole number. For should we abate though but a little of our observance, we should want provision; which, as we are, being to pass so near their city, is brought in with difficulty.
And hence it is that our mariners both formerly have been and are now wasted. For our mariners, fetching wood and water and foraging far off, are intercepted by the horsemen; and our slaves, now we are on equal terms, run over to the enemy. As for strangers, some of them having come aboard by constraint, return presently to their cities; and others having been levied at first with great wages, thinking they came to enrich themselves rather than to fight, now they see the enemy make so strong resistance, both otherwise beyond their expectation and especially with their navy, partly take pretext to be gone that they may serve the enemy, and partly, Sicily being large, shift themselves away every one as he can. Some there are also, who having bought here Hyccarian slaves, have gotten the captains of galleys to accept of them in the room of themselves, and thereby destroyed the purity of our naval strength.
"To you I write, who know how small a time any fleet continueth in the height of vigour, and how few of the mariners are skilful both how to hasten the course of a galley and how to contain the oar.
But of all, my greatest trouble is this: that being general, I can neither make them do better (for your natures are hard to be governed) nor get mariners in any other place (which the enemy can do from many places), and must of necessity have them from whence we brought both those we have and those we have lost. For our now confederate cities, Naxos and Catana, are not able to supply us.
Had the enemy but that one thing more, that the towns of Italy that now send us provision, seeing what estate we are now in and you not helping us, would turn to them, the war were at an end and we expugned without another stroke.
"I could have written to you other things more pleasing than these, but not more profitable, seeing it is necessary for you to know certainly the affairs here when you go to council upon them. Withal, because I know your natures to be such as though you love to hear the best, yet afterwards when things fall not out accordingly you will call in question them that write it, I thought best to write the truth for my own safety's sake.
And now think thus: that though we have carried ourselves, both captains and soldiers, in that for which we came at first hither, unblameably, yet since all Sicily is united against us and another army expected out of Peloponnesus, you must resolve (for those we have here are not enough for the enemy's present forces) either to send for these away, or to send hither another army, both of land and sea soldiers, no less than the former, and money not a little; and also a general to succeed me, who am able no longer to stay here, being troubled with the stone [in the kidneys].
I must crave your pardon. I have done you many good services in the conducts of your armies when I had my health. What you will do, do in the very beginning of spring, and delay it not. For the enemy will soon have furnished himself of his Sicilian aids; and though those from Peloponnesus will be later, yet if you look not to it, they will get hither partly unseen, as before, and partly by preventing you with speed.
These were the contents of the letter of Nicias. The Athenians, when they had heard it read, though they released not Nicias of his charge, yet for the present, till such time as others chosen to be in commission might arrive, they joined with him two of those that were already in the army, Menander and Euthydemon, to the end that he might not sustain the whole burthen alone in his sickness.
They concluded likewise to send another army, as well for the sea as the land, both of Athenians enrolled and of their confederates. And for fellow-generals with Nicias, they elected Demosthenes, the son of Alcisthenes, and Eurymedon, the son of Thucles. Eurymedon they sent away presently for Sicily, about the time of the winter solstice, with ten galleys and twenty talents of silver, to tell them there that aid was coming and that there was care taken of them.
But Demosthenes, staying, made preparation for the voyage to set out early the next spring; and sent unto the confederates, appointing what forces they should provide, and to furnish himself amongst them with money and galleys and men of arms.
The Athenians sent also twenty galleys about Peloponnesus, to watch that none should go over into Sicily from Corinth or Peloponnesus.
For the Corinthians, after the ambassadors were come to them and had brought news of the amendment of the affairs in Sicily, thought it was well that they had sent thither those other galleys before; but now they were encouraged a great deal more, and prepared men of arms to be transported into Sicily in ships;
and the Lacedaemonians did the like for the rest of Peloponnesus. The Corinthians manned fiveand-twenty galleys to present battle to the fleet that kept watch at Naupactus, that the ships with the men of arms, whilst the Athenians attended these galleys so embattled against them, might pass by unhindered.
The Lacedaemonians, as they intended before, and being also instigated to it by the Syracusians and Corinthians, upon advertisement now of the Athenians' new supply for Sicily, prepared likewise to invade Attica, thereby to divert them. And Alcibiades also importunately urged the fortifying of Deceleia, and by no means to war remissly.
But the Lacedaemonians were heartened thereunto principally because they thought the Athenians having in hand a double war, one against them and another against the Sicilians, would be the easier pulled down, and because they conceived the breach of the last peace was in themselves. For in the former war, the injury proceeded from their own side, in that the Thebans had entered Plataea in time of peace; and because also, whereas it was inserted in the former articles that arms should not be carried against such as would stand to trial of judgment, they had refused such trial when the Athenians offered it. And they thought all their misfortunes had deservedly befallen them for that cause, remembering amongst others, the calamity at Pylus.
But when the Athenians with a fleet of thirty sail had spoiled part of the territory of Epidaurus and of Prasiae and other places, and their soldiers that lay in garrison in Pylus had taken booty in the country about, and seeing that as often as there arose any controversy touching any doubtful point of the articles, the Lacedaemonians offering trial by judgment, they refused it, then indeed, the Lacedaemonians, conceiving the Athenians to be in the same fault that themselves had been in before, betook themselves earnestly to the war.
And this winter, they sent about unto their confederates to make ready iron, and all instruments of fortification. And for the aid they were to transport in ships to the Sicilians, they both made provision amongst themselves and compelled the rest of Peloponnesus to do the like. So ended this winter, and the eighteenth year of the war written by Thucydides.
The next spring, in the very beginning, earlier than ever before, the Lacedaemonians and their confederates entered with their army into Attica, under the command of Agis, the son of Archidamus, their king. And first they wasted the champagne country, and then went in hand with the wall at Deceleia, dividing the work amongst the army, according to their cities.
This Deceleia is from the city of Athens at the most but one hundred and twenty furlongs, and about as much or a little more from Boeotia. This fort they made in the plain, and in the most opportune place that could be to annoy the Athenians, and in sight of the city.
Now the Peloponnesians and their confederates in Attica went on with their fortification. They in Peloponnesus sent away their ships with the men of arms about the same time into Sicily, of which the Lacedaemonians, out of the best of their Helotes and men made newly free, sent in the whole six hundred, and Eccritus, a Spartan, for commander; and the Boeotians three hundred, under the conduct of 19enon and Nicon, Thebans, and Hegesander, a Thespian.
And these set forth first, and put to sea at Taenarus in Laconia. After them a little, the Corinthians sent away five hundred more, part from the city itself of Corinth and part mercenary Arcadians, and Alexarchus, a Corinthian, for captain. The Sicyonians also sent two hundred with them that went from Corinth, and Sargeus, a Sicyonian, for captain.
Now the twenty-five Corinthian galleys that were manned in winter lay opposite to the twenty galleys of Athens which were at Naupactus till such time as the men of arms in the ships from Peloponnesus might get away; for which purpose they were also set out at first, that the Athenians might not have their minds upon these ships so much as upon the galleys.
In the meantime also the Athenians, whilst Deceleia was fortifying, in the beginning of the spring, sent twenty galleys about Peloponnesus under the command of Charicles, the son of Apollodorus, with order when he came to Argos to take aboard the men of arms which the Argives were to send them, according to league;
and sent away Demosthenes (as they intended before) into Sicily, with threescore galleys of Athens and five of Chios, and one thousand two hundred men of arms of the roll of Athens, and as many of the islanders as they could get, provided by their subject confederates of all other necesseries for the war. But he had order to join first with Charicles and help him to make war first upon Laconia.
So Demosthenes went to Aegina and stayed there both for the remnant of his own army, if any were left behind, and for Charicles till he had taken aboard the Argives.
In Sicily, about the same time of the spring, Gylippus also returned to Syracuse, bringing with him from the cities he had dealt withal as great forces as severally he could get from them.
And having assembled the Syracusians, he told them that they ought to man as many galleys as they could and make trial of a battle by sea; and that he hoped thereby to perform somewhat to the benefit of the war which should be worthy the danger.
Hermocrates also was none of the least means of getting them to undertake the Athenians with their navy, who told them that neither the Athenians had this skill by sea hereditary or from everlasting, but were more inland men than the Syracusians, and forced to become seamen by the Medes, and that to daring men, such as the Athenians are, they are most formidable that are as daring against them; for wherewith they terrify their neighbours, which is not always the advantage of power, but boldness of enterprising, with the same shall they in like manner be terrified by their enemies.
He knew it, he said, certainly, that the Syracusians, by their unexpected daring to encounter the Athenian navy, would get more advantage in respect of the fear it would cause than the Athenians should endamage them by their odds of skill. He bade them therefore to make trial of their navy and to be afraid no longer.
The Syracusians, on these persuasions of Gylippus and Hermocrates, and others if any were, became now extremely desirous to fight by sea, and presently manned their galleys.
Gylippus, when the navy was ready, drew out his whole power of land soldiers in the beginning of night, meaning to go himself and assault the fortifications in Plemmyrium; withal the galleys of the Syracusians, by appointment, thirty-five of them came up towards it out of the great haven; and forty-five more came about out of the little haven, where also was their arsenal, with purpose to join with those within and to go together to Plemmyrium that the Athenians might be troubled on both sides.
But the Athenians having quickly manned sixty galleys to oppose them, with twenty-five of them they fought with the thirty-five of the Syracusians in the great haven, and with the rest went to meet those that came about from the little haven. And these fought presently before the mouth of the great haven and held each other to it for a long time, one side endeavouring to force, the other to defend the entrance.