Book 7
So the whole navy was manned to the number of one hundred and ten galleys, upon which they had many archers and darters, both Acarnanians and other strangers, and all things else provided according to their means and purpose.
And Nicias, when almost everything was ready, perceiving the soldiers to be dejected for being so far overcome by sea, contrary to their custom, and yet in respect of the scarcity of victual desirous as soon as could be to fight, called them together and encouraged them then the first time with words to this effect:
"Soldiers, Athenians, and other our confederates, [though] the trial at hand will be common to all alike and will concern the safety and country no less of each of us than of the enemy (for if our galleys get the victory, we may every one see his native city again),
yet ought we not to be discouraged like men of no experience, who failing in their first adventures, ever after carry a fear suitable to their misfortunes.
But you Athenians here present, having had experience already of many wars, and you our confederates, that have always gone along with our armies, remember how often the event falleth out otherwise in war than one would think; and in hope that fortune will once also be of our side, prepare yourselves to fight again in such manner as shall be worthy the number you see yourselves to be.
"What we thought would be helps in the narrowness of the haven, against such a multitude of galleys as will be there and against the provision of the enemy upon their decks, whereby we were formerly annoyed, we have with the masters now considered them all, and as well as our present means will permit, made them ready.
For many archers and darters shall go aboard: and that multitude, which if we had been to fight in the main sea we would not have used, because by slugging the galleys it would take away the use of skill, will nevertheless be useful here, where we are forced to make a landfight from our galleys.
We have also devised, instead of what should have been provided for in the building of our galleys, against the thickness of the beaks of theirs, which did most hurt us, to lash their galleys unto ours with iron grapnels, whereby (if the men of arms do their part) we may keep the galleys which once come close up from falling back again.
For we are brought to a necessity now of making it a land-fight upon the water; and it will be the best for us neither to fall back ourselves nor to suffer the enemy to do so, especially when, except what our men on land shall make good, the shore is altogether hostile.
"Which you remembering, must therefore fight it out to the utmost and not suffer yourselves to be beaten back unto the shore;
but when galley to galley shall once be fallen close, never think any cause worthy to make you part unless you have first beaten off the men of arms of the enemy from their decks. And this I speak to you rather that are the men of arms than to the mariners, inasmuch as that part belongeth rather unto you that fight above;
and in you it lieth even yet to achieve the victory for the most part with the landmen. Now for the mariners, I advise, and withal beseech them, not to be too much daunted with the losses past, having now both a greater number of galleys and greater forces upon the decks. Think it a pleasure worth preserving that being taken, by your knowledge of the language and imitation of our fashions, for Athenians (though you be not so), you are not only admired for it through all Greece, but also partake of our dominion in matter of profit no less than ourselves, and for awfulness to the nations subject and protection from injury, more.
You therefore that alone participate freely of our dominion cannot with any justice betray the same. In despite therefore of the Corinthians, whom you have often vanquished, and of the Sicilians, who as long as our fleet was at the best durst never so much as stand us, repel them; and make it appear that your knowledge, even with weakness and loss, is better than the strength of another with fortune.
Again, to such of you as are Athenians, I must remember this: that you have no more such fleets in your harbours, nor such able men of arms, and that if aught happen to you but victory, your enemies here will presently be upon you at home; and those at home will be unable to defend themselves both against those that shall go hence and against the enemy that lieth there already. So one part of us shall fall into the mercy of the Syracusians, against whom you yourselves know with what intent you came hither;
and the other part, which is at home, shall fall into the hands of the Lacedaemonians. Being therefore in this one battle to fight both for yourselves and them, be therefore valiant now if ever; and bear in mind every one of you that you that go now aboard are the land forces, the sea forces, the whole estate and great name of Athens. For which, if any man excel others in skill or courage, he can never shew it more opportunely than now, when he may both help himself with it and the whole.
Nicias, having thus encouraged them, commanded presently to go aboard. Gylippus and the Syracusians might easily discern that the Athenians meant to fight by seeing their preparation. Besides, they had advertisement of their purpose to cast iron grapnels into their galleys;
and as for everything else, so also for that they had made provision. For they covered the fore-part of their galleys and also the decks for a great way, with hides, that the grapnels cast in might slip and not be able to take hold.
When all was ready, Gylippus likewise and the other commanders used unto their soldiers this hortative:
"That not only our former acts have been honourable, but that we are to fight now also for further honour, men of Syracuse and confederates, the most of you seem to know already; for else you never would so valiantly have undergone it; and if there be any man that is not so sensible of it as he ought, we will make it appear unto him better.
For whereas the Athenians came into this country with design first to enslave Sicily and then, if that succeeded, Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece, and whereas already they had the greatest dominion of any Grecians whatsoever, either present or past, you, the first that ever withstood their navy, wherewith they were everywhere masters, have in the former battles overcome them, and shall in likelihood overcome them again in this.
For men that are cut short where they thought themselves to exceed become afterwards further out of opinion with themselves than they would have been if they had never thought so; and when they come short of their hope in things they glory in, they come short also in courage of the true strength of their forces. And this is likely now to be the case of the Athenians.
"Whereas with us it falleth out that our former courage, wherewith though unexperienced we durst stand them, being now confirmed, and an opinion added of being the stronger, giveth to every one of us a double hope. And in all enterprises the greatest hope conferreth for the most part the greatest courage.
As for their imitation of our provisions, they are things we are acquainted withal, and we shall not in any kind be unprovided for them. But they, when they shall have many men of arms upon their decks, being not used to it, and many, as I may term them, land-darters, both Acarnanians and others, who would not be able to direct their darts though they should sit, how can they choose but put the galleys into danger and be all in confusion amongst themselves, moving in a fashion not their own?
As for the number of their galleys, it will help them nothing, if any of you fear also that, as being to fight against odds in number. For many in little room are so much the slower to do what they desire, and easiest to be annoyed by our munition. But the very truth you shall now understand by these things, whereof we suppose we have most certain intelligence.
Overwhelmed with calamities and forced by the difficulties which they are in at this present, they are grown desperate, not trusting to their forces, but willing to put themselves upon the decision of fortune, as well as they may, that so they may either go out by force or else make their retreat afterward by land, as men whose estates cannot change into the worse.
Against such confusion, therefore, and against the fortune of our greatest enemies now betraying itself into our hands, let us fight with anger, and with an opinion not only that it is most lawful to fulfil our hearts' desire upon those our enemies that justified their coming hither as a righting of themselves against an assailant, but also that to be revenged on an enemy is both most natural and, as is most commonly said, the sweetest thing in the world.
And that they are our enemies, and our greatest enemies, you all well enough know, seeing them come hither into our dominion to bring us into servitude. Wherein if they had sped, they had put the men to the greatest tortures, the women and children to the greatest dishonesty, and the whole city to the most ignominious name in the world.
In regard whereof, it is not fit that any of you should be so tender as to think it gain if they go away without putting you to further danger; for so they mean to do, though they get the victory; but effecting (as it is likely we shall) what we intend, both to be revenged of these and to deliver unto all Sicily their liberty, which they enjoyed before but now is more assured. Honourable is that combat and rare are those hazards wherein the failing bringeth little loss and the success a great deal of profit.
When Gylippus and the commanders of the Syracusians had in this manner encouraged their soldiers, they presently put their men on board, perceiving the Athenians to do the same.
Nicias, perplexed with this present estate, and seeing how great and how near the danger was, being now on the point to put forth from the harbour, and doubting, as in great battles it falleth out that somewhat in every kind was still wanting, and that he had not yet sufficiently spoken his mind, called unto him again all the captains of galleys and spake unto them every one by their fathers, their tribes, and their proper names, and entreated every one of them that had reputation in any kind not to betray the same, and those whose ancestors were eminent not to deface their hereditary virtues, remembering them of their country's liberty and the uncontrolled power of all men to live as they pleased; and saying whatsoever else in such a pinch men are accustomed, not out of their store, to utter things stale, and in all occasions the same, touching their wives, children, and patrial gods, but such things as being thought by them available in the present discouragement, they use to cry into their ears.
And when he thought he had admonished them, not enough, but as much as the time would permit him, he went his way and drew out those forces that were to serve on land on the seaside and embattled them so as they might take up the greatest length of ground they were able, thereby so much the more to confirm the courage of them that were aboard.
And Demosthenes, Menander, and Eudemus (for those of the Athenian commanders went aboard), putting forth of the harbour, went immediately to the lock of the haven and to the passage that was left open with intention to force their way out.
But the Syracusians and their confederates, being out already with the same number of galleys they had before, disposed part of them to the guard of the open passage and the rest in circle about the haven, to the end they might fall upon the Athenians from all parts at once, and that their land forces might withal be near to aid them wheresoever the galleys touched. In the Syracusian navy commanded Sicanus and Agatharchus, each of them over a wing; and Pythen, with the Corinthians, had the middle battle.
After the Athenians were come to the lock of the haven, at the first charge they overcame the galleys placed there to guard it, and endeavoured to break open the bars thereof. But when afterwards the Syracusians and confederates came upon them from every side, they fought not at the lock only but also in the haven itself; and the battle was sharp, and such as there had never before been the like.
For the courage wherewith the mariners on both sides brought up their galleys to any part they were bidden was very great, and great was the plotting and counterplotting and contention one against another of the masters; also the soldiers, when the galleys boarded each other, did their utmost to excel each other in all points of skill that could be used upon the decks; and every man, in the place assigned him, put himself forth to appear the foremost.
But many galleys falling close together in a narrow compass (for they were the most galleys that in any battle they had used, and fought in the least room, being little fewer on the one side and the other than two hundred), they ran against each other but seldom, because there was no means of retiring nor of passing by, but made assaults upon each other oftener, as galley with galley, either flying or pursuing, chanced to fall foul.
And as long as a galley was making up, they that stood on the decks used their darts and arrows and stones in abundance; but being once come close, the soldiers at hand-strokes attempted to board each other.
And in many places it so fell out, through want of room, that they which ran upon a galley on one side were run upon themselves on the other; and that two galleys, or sometimes more, were forced to lie aboard of one; and that the masters were at once to have a care, not in one place only but in many together, how to defend on the one side and how to offend on the other; and the great noise of many galleys fallen foul of one another both amazed them and took away their hearing of what their directors directed.
For they directed thick and loud on both sides, not only as art required but out of their present eagerness; the Athenians crying out to theirs to force the passage, and now if ever valiantly to lay hold upon their safe return to their country; and the Syracusians and their confederates to theirs, how honourable a thing to every one of them it would be to hinder their escape and by this victory to improve every man the honour of his own country.
Moreover, the commanders of either side, where they saw any man without necessity to row a-stem, would call unto the captain of the galley by his name and ask him, the Athenians, whether he retired because he thought the most hostile land to be more their friend than the sea, which they had so long been masters of; the Syracusians theirs, whether when they knew that the Athenians desired earnestly by any means to fly, they would nevertheless fly from the flyers.