Kitap 7
Gylippus and Pythen, after refitting their ships, sailed from Tarentum along the coast to Epizephyrian Locri; and receiving now more positive information that Syracuse was not yet completely invested, but that it was still possible to come with an army and enter it by way of Epipolae, they deliberated whether they should risk sailing into the harbour, keeping Sicily on the right, or, keeping it on the left, should first sail to Himera and then, after having added to their forces the Himeraeans themselves and such others as they might persuade, should proceed overland.
They decided to sail to Himera, especially since the four Athenian ships—which Nicias did after allNicias had paid little attention to the first reports of the approach of Gylippus, thinking that he was on a privateering mission rather than on one of war (6.104.3). despatch when he learned that the enemy's ships were at Locri—had not yet arrived at Rhegium. They succeeded in crossing the strait before the arrival of this watch-squadron, and after touching at Rhegium and Messene, arrived at Himera.
While there they persuaded the Himeraeans to help them in the war, not only by going on the expedition themselves, but also by furnishing arms for such of the crews of their ships as had none (for their ships they had beached at Himera), and also sent a request to the Selinuntians to meet them at a certain place with all their forces.
A small body of troops was also promised them by the Geloans and some of the Sicels, who were now ready to join them with far greater alacrity, both because of the recent death of Archonidas, who, being king of certain Sicel tribes of that region and a man of influence, had been a friend of the Athenians, and also because Gylippus had apparently come from Lacedaemon full of zeal.
So Gylippus, taking of his own seamen and of the marines those that were equipped with arms, about seven hundred, of Himeraean hoplites and light-armed troops together one thousand and one hundred cavalry, of the Selinuntians some light-armed troops and cavalry, a few Geloans, and of the Sicels about one thousand in all, advanced against Syracuse.
Meanwhile the Corinthians had put to sea from Leucas with the rest of their ships and were bringing aid as fast as they could; indeed, Gongylus, one of the Corinthian commanders, though he had set out last with a single ship, was the first to arrive at Syracuse, being a little ahead of Gylippus. Finding the Syracusans on the point of holding an assembly to discuss the abandonment of the war, he prevented the meeting and encouraged them, saying that not only were still other ships about to arrive, but also Gylippus son of Cleandridas, who had been sent by the Lacedaemonians to assume the command.
The Syracusans were encouraged, and at once went out with their whole army to meet Gylippus;
for they were informed that he was already near. He, after taking on his way the Sicel fort of Ietae and marshalling his men in readiness for battle, reached Epipolae; and ascending it by way of Euryelus, where the Athenians also had made their ascent at first,cf. 6.97.2. he formed a junction with the Syracusans and advanced against the wall of the Athenians.
And he happened to have come at the critical moment when the double wallcf. 6.103.1. of seven or eight stadia in extent had already been completed by the Athenians down to the Great Harbour, except for a short stretch next to the sea, where they were still building. As for the rest of the encircling line, stones had already been dumped along the greater part of the stretch which ran to Trogilus and the outer sea, and it was left so, some parts half finished, other parts quite finished. So close had Syracuse come to destruction.
The Athenians were at first thrown into a tumult by the sudden attack of Gylippus and the Syracusans, but drew up to meet them. But Gylippus halted near them under arms and sent forward a herald to say that if they were willing to quit Sicily within five days, taking what belonged to them, he was ready to make a truce.
They, however, treated the messenger with contempt and sent him back without any answer. After this they prepared for battle against one another.
But Gylippus, seeing that the Syracusans were in a state of confusion and could not readily get into line, led his troops back into the more open ground. And Nicias did not lead the Athenians against him, but kept quiet near his own wall. When Gylippus saw that they were not coming up, he led his army off the field to the height called Temenites, and they bivouacked there.
But on the next day he led out the main body of his army and stationed it opposite the walls of the Athenians, in order to prevent their sending reinforcements to any other point; then, sending a detachment against the fort at Labdalum, he captured it and put to death all whom he took in it; for the place (it should be explained) was not within sight of the Athenians.
On the same day, too, an Athenian trireme that was keeping watch at the mouth of the Great Harbour was captured by the Syracusans.
After this the Syracusans and their allies proceeded to build a single wall running upwards from the city across Epipolae at an angle with the Athenian wall, in order that the Athenians, if they could not prevent its completion, might no longer be able to wall them off.
By this time the Athenians had finished their wall next to the sea and had come up to the high ground; and Gylippus, since a certain part of the Athenian wall was weak, took his army by night and advanced against this.
But the Athenians, who happened to be bivouacking outside the walls, perceived this movement and advanced against him; and he, on observing this, quickly led his men back again. The Athenians accordingly built this part of the wall higher and kept guard there themselves;
but their allies they now disposed along the rest of the wall, at the points where they were each to keep guard. Nicias determined also to fortify the place called Plemmyrium, a headland opposite the city, which juts out in front of the Great Harbour and makes its entrance narrow. If this were fortified, it seemed to him that the bringing in of supplies would be an easier matter; for the Athenians could keep watch upon the harbour of the Syracusans at nearer range, and would not, as now, be obliged to put out against the enemy from the inner bay of the Great Harbour, should they show any activity with their fleet. And in general from now on he gave his attention more to naval warfare, seeing that matters on land were less hopeful for themselves, now that Gylippus had come.
Accordingly, taking over his ships and some troops he built three forts, in which most of the stores were deposited; and the large boats and the ships of war were now moored there.
And it was especially in consequence of this that the condition of the crews then first began to decline. For their water supply was scanty and not near at hand, and at the same time, whenever the sailors went out to fetch firewood they suffered heavily at the hands of the Syracusan horsemen, who overran the country. For the Syracusans had posted a third part of their cavalry at the hamlet near the Olympieum on account of the troops at Plemmyrium, that these might not go out and commit depredations.
Meanwhile Nicias, learning that the rest of the Corinthian ships were sailing up, sent twenty vessels to watch for them, with orders to waylay them in the neighbourhood of Locri, Rhegium, or the approach to Sicily.
Gylippus, on the other hand, continued to build the wall across Epipolae, using the stones which the Athenians had previously dumped along the line for their own use, and at the same time he continually led out the Syracusans and their allies and drew them up before the wall; and the Athenians would always draw up to meet them.
But when it seemed to Gylippus that the right moment had come, he commenced the onset; and coming to close quarters they fought between the walls, where the cavalry of the Syracusans was of no use.
And when the Syracusans and their allies had been defeated and had taken up their dead under a truce, and the Athenians had set up a trophy, Gylippus called his troops together and said that the mistake was not theirs but his own, for by arranging his line of battle too much between the walls he had deprived them of the benefit of their cavalry and javelin-men. He would therefore now lead them on again, and he urged them to make up their minds to this—that in point of men and equipment they would not be inferior;
and as for their spirit, it was not to be endured if they, being Peloponnesians and Dorians, confronting Ionians and islanders and a mixed rabble, were not going to make it a point of honour to conquer them and drive them out of the country.
After this, when there was a favourable opportunity, he led them on again. Now Nicias and the Athenians thought that, even if the Syracusans were unwilling to begin fighting, they themselves could not possibly look idly on while the wall was being built past their own—for already the enemy's wall had all but passed the end of the Athenians' wall, and if it once got by, from then on it would be all one to them whether they fought and conquered in every battle or did not fight at all— accordingly they advanced against the Syracusans.
And Gylippus, leading forth his hoplites more outside the walls than before, closed with the enemy, having his cavalry and javelin-men posted on the flank of the Athenians, in the open space where the work on both walls ended.
And in the battle his cavalry attacked the left wing of the Athenians, which was opposed to them, and routed it; and in consequence of this the rest of the army also was beaten by the Syracusans and driven headlong within the fortifications.
And the following night they succeeded in building their wall beyond the works of the Athenians and in getting past, so that they themselves were no longer hampered by them, and had altogether deprived the Athenians, even if they should be victorious, of the possibility of ever investing them.
After this the remaining twelve ships of the Corinthians, Ambraciots, and Leucadians,cf. 7.2.7; 7.4.7; also 6.104.1. which were under the command of Erasinides, a Corinthian, sailed into the harbour, eluding the watch kept by the Athenians, and helped the Syracusans to build the rest of their cross-wall.
And Gylippus went into the other districts of Sicily to collect reinforcements for both his army and his navy, and at the same time to win over any of the cities that were either not zealously supporting the war or still held altogether aloof from it.
And another set of envoys representing the Syracusans and the Corinthians were despatched to Lacedaemon and Corinth, in order that further troops might be sent across the sea in whatever way might be available—in merchant-ships, small craft, or in any other way whatever—in view of the fact that the Athenians also were sending home for fresh troops.
Moreover, the Syracusans were manning a fleet and practising with a view to trying their hand at sea also; and in general they were much encouraged.
Nicias, perceiving this and seeing the enemy's strength and his own perplexities increasing day by day, on his part also sent word to Athens on many occasions, giving detailed reports of what was happening, and especially now, because he thought that they were in a critical situation and that there was no hope of safety unless the Athenians, with all possible speed, should either recall them or send out reinforcements in no small numbers.
But fearing that his messengers might not report the actual facts, either through inability to speak or from lapse of memory,Or, reading γνώμης “from want of intelligence.” or because they wanted to please the crowd, wrote a letter, thinking that in this way the Athenians would best learn his own view, obscured in no way by any fault on the part of the messenger, and could thus deliberate about the true situation.
So the messengers whom he sent departed, bearing the letter and the verbal reports which they were to deliver; but as regards the camp, the object of his care was now rather to keep on the defensive than to run voluntary risks.
At the end of the same summer Euetion, an Athenian general, made in concert with Perdiccas an expedition against Amphipolis with a large force of Thracians, and though he failed to take the city, brought some triremes round into the Strymon and blockaded it from the river, using Himeraeum as his base. So the summer ended.
The following winter the messengers of Nicias, on reaching Athens, gave the messages which they had been ordered to give by word of mouth, answering any questions that were asked, and delivered the letter. And the clerk of the city came before the Athenians and read them the letter, which ran as follows:
"What has been done before this, Athenians, you have been informed in many earlier letters; but now it is more than ever the time for you to learn in what condition we are and then to take counsel.
When in most of our battles we had beaten the Syracusans, against whom we were sent, and had built the fortifications in which we now are, there came Gylippus, a Lacedaemonian, with an army collected from the Peloponnesus and from some of the cities in Sicily. In the first battle he was defeated by us, but on the next day, under pressure from their numerous cavalry and javelin-men, we drew back within our walls.