Kitap 6
The Athenians being about to commence the attack, Nicias advanced along the line, and addressed the following exhortation to them, both in their several nations, and collectively:
What need is there, soldiers, that we should have recourse to long exhortation, We are all engaged in one common cause, and the sight of each other should mutually encourage us. —Arnold. As οἳ πάρεσμεν seems to refer to the whole force, and not to the general only who was addressing them, χρήσθαι must be taken in a sense sufficiently wide to include both the speaks and his hearers who are come here for the same struggle? For our force itself seems to me more capable of supplying confidence, than well-spoken words with a weak army.
For where we have in the field Argives, Mantineans, Athenians, and the prime of the islanders, on what grounds ought we not, with allies so brave and numerous, to entertain every one a strong hope of victory? especially as we are opposed to men who are defending themselves in a promiscuous crowd, and not chosen troops, as we are; and moreover, against Siceliots, who despise us indeed, but will not receive our attack, because they have less skill in arms than boldness. Let this thought too be entertained by each of you;
that we are far from our own land, and with no friendly country near us, but such as yourselves win by fighting. And so I offer to you an admonition, the very reverse of the exhortation which our enemies are, I well know, addressing to each other. For they are urging, that the battle will be for their country; but I, that it will be fought in what is not our country, but where you must conquer, or not easily get away: for their cavalry will press upon us in great numbers.
Remembering then your own high character, make a spirited attack on your opponents, and regard your present necessity and difficulties as more formidable than the enemy.
Nicias delivered this address, and immediately led on his troops. As for the Syracusans, they were not expecting to engage at present, and some of them, as their city was close at hand, had actually gone away to it; and these, although they went to the aid of their comrades in haste, and at a full run, were too late [to take their proper place in the ranks,] but posted themselves as each one came up to the main body. For in truth they were not deficient in zeal, or in daring, neither in this battle, nor in the others; but though not inferior in courage, so far as their military science served, yet in consequence of that failing them they reluctantly abandoned their resolution also. Although therefore, as I have said, they did not imagine that the Athenians would be the first to make an attack, and although they were compelled to defend themselves on a short warning, they took up their arms, and immediately advanced to meet them.
And in the first place the stone-throwers, and slingers, and archers on each side began skirmishing, and successively routed each other, as light troops might be expected to do. Then there were priests bringing forward the usual victims for sacrifice, and trumpeters stirring on the heavy-armed to the charge.
And so they advanced; the Syracusans, to fight for their country, and their own personal safety at present, and freedom in future;— the Athenians, on the side of their opponents, to fight for another people's land, that they might win it as their own; and to avoid weakening their own by defeat;—the Argives and the independent allies, to join them in securing the objects they had come for, and by means of victory to look again on the country that was already theirs;—while the subject allies showed a ready zeal, most of all, for their immediate safety, which was hopeless unless they conquered; then, as a secondary consideration, for the chance of serving on easier terms, in consequence of having assisted to reduce a fresh country under the Athenian dominion.
When they had come to close combat, they withstood each other's attacks for a long time. And there happened to come on at once both thunder, and lightning, and heavy rain: so that to those who were fighting for the first time, and had had very little acquaintance with war, even this helped to increase their fear; while to the more experienced party these occurrences appeared to be produced simply by the season of the year, but the fact of their opponents not being defeated caused far greater alarm.
But when the Argives had first driven in the left wing of the Syracusans, and after them the Athenians had repulsed those opposed to them, the rest of the Syracusan army was now also broken and put to flight.
The Athenians did not pursue them to any great distance, (for the Syracusan horse, which was numerous and unbroken, kept them in check, and by charging their heavy infantry, wherever they saw any pursuing in advance of the rest, drove them back again.) However they followed them in a body as far as was safe, and then returned again, and erected a trophy.
The Syracusans, on the other hand, having collected themselves again on the Helorine road, and put themselves in as good order as present circumstances would permit, sent, notwithstanding their defeat, a garrison to the Olympieum, fearing that the Athenians might take some of the treasures that were there; while the rest of them returned into the city.
The Athenians, however, did not go to the temple, but after carrying their own dead together, and laying them on a funeral pile, passed the night on the ground. The next day they restored to the Syracusans their dead, under a truce. (there had fallen, of them and their allies, about two hundred and sixty,) and collected the bones of their own, (about fifty of themselves and their allies having been killed,) and with the spoils of the enemy sailed back to Catana.
For it was winter, and they thought it impossible at present to carry on war before Syracuse, till they had sent for cavalry from Athens, and also raised some from their allies in the country, to avoid being utterly defeated by the enemy's horse. They wished too, at the same time, to collect money in the island, and to get a supply from Athens; as also to win over some of the cities to their cause, which they hoped would more readily listen to them after the battle; and to provide themselves with corn and every thing else they might require, with a view to attacking Syracuse in the spring.
They, then, with these intentions sailed off to Naxos and Catana, for the winter. The Syracusans, on the other hand, after burying their dead, held an assembly.
And now came forward to them Hermocrates son of Hermon, a man at once second to none in general intelligence, and who had proved himself able in war through his experience, and a person of signal bravery. He encouraged them, and told them not to submit in consequence of what had happened;
for it was not their spirit that was vanquished, but their want of discipline that had been so injurious. They had not, however, been so much inferior to their enemies as might have been expected; especially since they had been matched against the first of the Greeks— Or, as Bloomfield renders it, raw-hands. See his note. Poppo reads χειροτέχνας and renders the passage, Quod cum iis qui primi Graecorum peritia (rei militaris) essent, idiotae, propemodum dixerim operrii, pugnassent. mere amateurs, so to speak, against regular workmen.
They had also been much hurt by the great number of their generals and the multiplicity of orders, (for their generals were fifteen in number,) and also by the tumultuous insubordination of the troops in general. But should only a few men of experience be elected generals, and prepare their heavy-armed force for service during that winter, by furnishing with arms those who did not possess any, in order that they might be as numerous as possible, and by compelling them to attend to their training also; they would, he said, in all probability have the advantage over their enemies; since courage they already possessed, and discipline for the execution of their measures would thus have been acquired. For both these things would improve; their discipline being practised in the midst of dangers; and their courage growing more confident than ever from being accompanied by the assurance of science.
They ought, then, to elect their generals both few in number and invested with absolute authority; taking to them the oath, 'that assuredly they would allow them to command as they might think best.' For so what ouht to be kept secret would be more effectually concealed; and every thing else would be prepared in due order and without listening to any excuses.
The Syracusans, after hearing his speech, voted every thing as he advised; and elected Hermocrates himself as general, with Heraclides son of Lysimachus, and Sicanus son of Execestes, these three.
They also despatched envoys to Corinth and Lacedaemonians; that an allied force might join them, and that they might persuade the Lacedaemonians, for their benefit, to carry on the war with the Athenians more decidedly, by open measures; that either they might be compelled to return from Sicily, or might less easily send fresh succours to their army now there.
As for the Athenian forces at Catana, they sailed immediately to Messana, in expectation of its being betrayed to them. But the intrigues that were being carried on did not come to any thing. For Alcibiades, when he was now summoned home, and had left his command, knowing that he would be outlawed, gave information of the intended movement, to which he was privy, to the friends of the Syracusans in Messana; and they had both previously put to death the men implicated in it, and at that time such as were on the same side, breaking out into sedition, and taking up arms, prevailed so far as to prevent their admitting the Athenians.
When they, therefore, after staying ten days, were suffering from the severe weather, had no provisions, and found none of their plans succeed, they retired to Naxos, and having made a palisade round their encampment, took up their winter quarters there. They also sent a trireme to Athens for both money and cavalry, to join them in the spring.
The Syracusans, on their part, both built in the course of the winter a wall to their city, along the whole quarter looking towards Epipolae, including the Temenites. to prevent their being circumvallated so easily as they would with a less circuit, in case of their being defeated; and also fortified Megara as an out-post, and another in the Olympieum. They fixed palisades, too, along the edge of the sea, at all points where there were facilities for landing.
And as they knew that the Athenians were wintering at Naxos, they marched in full force to Catana, and both ravaged part of their land, and after burning the tents and encampment of the Athenians, returned home.
Hearing, moreover, that the Athenians were sending an embassy to Camarina, on the strength of that alliance concluded under Laches, to try if by any means they might win them over to their side, the Syracusans also sent a counter-embassy. For they had suspicions of the Camarinaeans, both that they had not sent heartily what they sent to join in the first battle; and that for the future they would not wish to assist them any more, since they saw that the Athenians had been successful in the engagement, but would be persuaded to join the invaders on the strength of their former friendship.
On the arrival therefore at Camarina of Hermocrates and some others from Syracuse, and of Euphemus and others from the Athenians, an assembly of the Camarinaeans having been convened, Hermocrates, wishing to prejudice them beforehand against the Athenians, addressed them as follows:
"It was not, Camarinaeans, from any fear of your being terrified at the present forces of the Athenians that we came on this embassy, but rather from apprehension that the words which would be spoken by them before you heard any thing from us might prevail upon you.
For they are come to Sicily on the pretext, indeed, which you hear, but with the purpose which we all suspect; and, in my opinion, they are wishing, not to restore the Leontines to their home, but to eject us from ours. For surely it is not consistent that they should depopulate the cities in Greece, but re-settle those in Sicily; and that they should care for the Leontines, who are Chalcidians, because of their connexion with them, but keep in slavery the Chalcidians in Euboea, from whom these are a colony.
But the method is the same, by which they both gained possession of those places, and are attempting to do so with these. For after they had been appointed leaders, by the free choice both of the Ionians and of all who were of Athenian origin, for the purpose of talking vengeance on the Mede; by charging some of them with failure in military service, others with mutual hostilities, and others on any specious plea which they severally had to urge, they reduced them to subjection.
And so they did not withstand the Mede for the sake of liberty—neither these men for that of the Greeks, nor the Greeks for their own—but the former did it to enslave the Greeks to themselves, instead of to the Mede; the latter, to get a new master, one not more unwise, but more wise for evil.
"But, open as the Athenian state is to accusation, we are not come at the present time to prove before those who know this already, in how many respects it is committing injustice; but much rather to censure ourselves, because, with the warnings given us by the Greeks in those quarters, how they were enslaved through not assisting one another, and with the same sophisms being now practised on ourselves— their re-instatements of their Leontine kinsmen, and succours to their Segestan allies—we will not unite together, and show them that the people here are no Ionians, or Hellespontines and islanders, who are always passing to a new master, either the Mede or some one else, and still kept in slavery, but free Dorians from the independent Peloponnese now living in Sicily.
Or do we wait till we have separately been subdued, city by city? knowing, as we do, that in this way only are we vincible; and seeing them having recourse to this method, so as to set some of us at variance by words; to set others at war through hope of finding allies; and to injure others by saying something flattering to them, as they severally can And do we then think, that if our distant fellow countryman is destroyed before us, the danger will not come to each of ourselves also, but that he who suffers before us keeps his misfortune to himself?
"If, again, the thought has presented itself to any one, that although the Syracusans are hostile to the Athenians, he himself is not; and if he consider it a hardship to incur dangers for our country, let him reflect that it is not for ours especially, but in like manner for his own also that he will fight in ours; and that he will do it with proportionately greater safety, inasmuch as he will not enter on the struggle after we have been first ruined, but with us for allies, and not left by himself. And let him consider that the wish of the Athenians is, not to chastise our enmity, but, making us their excuse, to i. e. so to reduce the power of every state in the island, that none shall have any alternative but to remain the faithful allies of Athens. —Arnold. secure no less his own friendship.
If, moreover, any one envies us, or is afraid of us, (for to both these feelings are more powerful states exposed,) and for this reason wishes Syracuse to be brought down, that we may be taught moderation, but yet for his own safety's sake would have it escape destruction, he indulges a wish beyond the limit of human power. For it is not Possible for the same to be man to be alike the arbiter of his own desire and of fortune.
And should he fail in views, then, ὀλοφυρθείς.] or, as Pontus and Poppo take it, lamented. while lamenting his own misfortunes, he might, perhaps, some time or other, wish again to envy our advantages. But that will be impossible if he abandon us, and will not take his part in the same perils; which are incurred, not for names, but for realities; for though nominally he would preserve our power, he would really secure his own safety.
And it was reasonable that you especially, Camarinaeans, who live on our borders, and are the next to incur the danger, should have provided for this, and not have joined us remissly, as you are now doing; but rather that you should yourselves have come to us; and what you would have entreated, while calling us to your aid, if the Athenians had first come against Camarina, that ought you now, on the same principle, to have come and urged on us as an exhortation, that we should on no point submit. But neither have ye, hitherto, nor the rest, bestirred yourselves for these objects.
"But through cowardice, perhaps, you will study what is just, both towards us and towards the invaders, and allege that there is an alliance between you and the Athenians. Yes, but you did not conclude that to the injury of your friends, but in case any of your enemies might attack you; and to assist the Athenians, surely, when they were wronged by others, and not when they were themselves wronging their neighbours, as they are now.
For not even do the Rhegians, although of Chalcidian extraction, consent to join in the reinstatement of the Chalcidian Leontines. And it is a strange thing if they, suspecting the real meaning of this fine pretence, are wise without any reason to offer for their conduct, while you, with a εὐλόγῳ προφάσει.] εὔλογος is so constantly used to signify what really is reasonable, in opposition to εὐπρεπής what only appears to be so, that I cannot agree with Arnold and Poppo, who give a different sense to it in this passage; the former rendering it with a seeming reasonable pretext; the latter, utentes probabili (seu speciosâ) excusatione (quâ vestram rationem tueamini). reasonable plea to urge, choose to assist your natural enemies, and, in concert with your bitterest foes, to ruin men who are still more your natural connexions. Nay, that is not just;
but rather, to assist us, and not to be afraid of their armament. For it is not formidable, if we all take our stand together; but only if, on the contrary, we are separated from each other, which they are so anxious to effect: since even when they came against us alone, and were victorious in battle, they did not achieve what they wished, but quickly went away again.