Kitap 7
He begged them therefore to send him some ships, as his own eighteen were not competent to fight the enemy's five and twenty. Accordingly Demosthenes and Eurymedon sent with Conon the ten best sailers of all they had, to join those at Naupactus. They themselves at the same time made preparations for the muster of their forces, Eurymedon sailing to Corcyra, urging them to man fifteen ships, and enlisting heavy-armed troops, (for he now shared. the command with Demosthenes, and had turned back again, in consequence of his election,) and Demosthenes raising slingers and dart-men from the parts about Acarnania.
As for the ambassadors who had gone at the time mentioned-after the taking of Plemyrium-from Syracuse to the cities, they had prevailed on them to join their side, and had raised and were just about to lead off the force, when Nicias, receiving early intelligence of it, sent to those of the Sicels who held the passes, and were in alliance with the Athenians, namely, the Centotripes, Alicyaeans, and some others, to beg them not to give free passage to the enemy, but to unite together and prevent their marching through their country, since there was no other by which they would attempt to do so, as the Acragantines would not grant them a passage through theirs.
When therefore the Siceliots were even on their march, the Sicels, in compliance with the request of the Athenians, laid an ambuscade for them in three different places, and falling upon them while off their guard and without any notice, killed about eight hundred of them, with all the ambassadors except one, namely, the Corinthian, who led to Syracuse those that had escaped, to the number of fifteen hundred.
About that same time the Camarinaeans also came to their help with five hundred heavy-armed, three hundred dartmen, and three hundred bow-men. The Geloans, too, sent a squadron of five ships, four hundred dart-men, and two hundred horse.
For by this time pretty nearly the whole of Sicily—excepting the Acragantines, who were neutral—the rest, I say, who before had waited to see the result of events, now united with the Syracusans, and assisted them against the Athenians.
The Syracusans, then, after the disaster in the Sicel country had befallen them, ceased for the present from attacking the Athenians. Demosthenes and Eurymedon, on the other hand, their forces being now ready both from Corcyra and the continent, crossed the Ionian gulf with all their army to the Iapygian foreland. Starting thence, they touched at the Choerades islands, lying off Iapygia, and took on board their ships some Iapygian dart-men, one hundred and fifty in number, of the Messapian tribe;
and after renewing an old friendship with Artas, who also had provided them with the dart-men, being one of their chieftains, they arrived at Metapontum in Italy. After persuading the Metapontines to send with them, on the strength of their alliance, three hundred dart-men and two triremes, with this addition to their armament they coasted along to Thuria.
There they found the opponents of the Athenians recently expelled in consequence of a sedition.
And as they wished to muster there the whole army, in case any part had been left behind, and to review it, as well as to persuade the Thurians to join them as zealously as possible in the expedition, and to have considering their present position, the same foes and friends as the Athenians, they waited awhile in Thuria, and were prosecuting these designs.
About the same time, the Peloponnesians in the five and twenty ships, who, to secure the passage of the merchantmen to Sicily, were anchored over against the fleet at Naupactus, having made their preparations for a sea-fight, and having manned some additional ships, so that they were now but little inferior to the Athenian force, stationed themselves off Erineus in Achae, in the territory of Rhypa.
And the place in which they were stationed being in the form of a crescent, their land forces which had come to their assistance from the Corinthians, and from their allies on the spot, were ranged on the projecting headlands on both sides; while the ships occupied the intervening space, blocking up the entrance. The commander of the fleet was Polyanthes, a Corinthian.
The Athenians sailed out against them from Naupactus with three and thirty ships, under the command of Diphilus.
The Corinthians at first remained stationary, but afterwards, having raised their signal for battle, when there appeared to be a favourable opportunity, they advanced upon the Athenians, and engaged them. For a long time they resisted each other;
at length three ships on the side of the Corinthians were destroyed, while on that of the Athenians none was absolutely sunk, but some seven were disabled, being struck prow to prow, and having their foreships stove in by the Corinthian vessels, which were provided with stronger τὰς ἐπωτίδας.] The word is known only in its technical sense, as signifying two beams, projecting from a ship's head, on each side of her beak, from which the anchors were suspended, something like what are called in our ships the ' cat-heads.' —Arnold. I have borrowed from Dobree the word by which I have rendered ἐπωτίδας. cheeks than usual for this very purpose.
After fighting on equal terms, so that either party might claim the victory, (though the Athenians, nevertheless, had got possession of the wrecks, through the wind driving them out into the open sea, and the Corinthians no longer advancing against them,) they separated from each other, and there was no pursuit made, nor were any prisoners taken on either side: for the Corinthians and Peloponnesians easily effected their escape, as they were fighting near shore, and no ship on the side of the Athenians went down.
When, however, the Athenians had sailed back to Naupactus, the Corinthians immediately erected a trophy, as conquerors; because they had disabled a greater number of their enemy's ships, and considered that they were not beaten, for the very same reason that the other party considered them not to have conquered: for the Corinthians regarded themselves as having the advantage if they were not decidedly beaten, and the Athenians considered them to be worsted, because they were not decidedly conquerors.
But when the Peloponnesians had sailed off, and their troops had dispersed, the Athenians erected a trophy on their side also, as having gained the victory, in Achaea, at about twenty stades distance from Erineus, where the Corinthians were stationed. And so ended the sea-fight.
Now Demosthenes and Eurymedon, when the Thurians were prepared to join them in the expedition with seven hundred heavy-armed and three hundred dart-men, gave orders for the ships to coast along towards the Crotonian territory; while they themselves, having first reviewed all the land forces on the river Sybaris, proceeded to lead them through the Thurian country.
When they were on the banks of the river Hylias, and the Crotonians sent to them, and said that they should not choose the army to pass through their territory, they descended towards the shore, and encamped for the night by the sea, at the mouth of the Hylias, their ships also meeting them at the same point. The following day, having put their men on board, they coasted along, touching at all the cities, excepting Locri, until they came to Petra in the Rhegian territory.
The Syracusans, in the mean time, hearing of their approach, wished to make a second attempt with their fleet and other forces on shore, which they were collecting for this very object, being desirous of striking a blow before they came.
Now they had equipped the rest of their navy according as they saw, from the result of the former sea-fight, that they would obtain any advantage; and having cut down their ships' prows into a less compass, they made them firmer than usual, by fixing stout cheeks to them, and attaching The epotides were laid on the bow or stem of the vessel, and were partly within and partly without the frame of the hull, just as a ship's bowsprit is at present. For the length of six cubits, whether from the prow, as Dobree understands it, or from the inner extremity of the epotides, 'they supported these cheeks by a set of spars (ἀντηρίδας) that went from the cheeks to the ship's side, both inside and outside the ship.' —Arnold. stays from these to the ships' sides, for the length of six cubits both inside and outside the vessel; in the very same way as the Corinthians had equipped their ships ahead against the squadron at Naupactus, and then proceeded to engage it.
For the Syracusans thought that in this way they would have an advantage against the Athenian vessels, which were not in the same manner built to resist them, but were slight ahead, (because they did not charge prow to prow so much as on the side, after taking a circuit;) and, moreover, that the battle being fought in the larger harbour, against a great number of ships in no great space, would be in their favour; for that by charging stem to stem they would stave in their prows, striking as they would with solid and stout beaks against hollow and weak ones.
Nor would the Athenians in their narrow room have opportunity περίπλουν ... διέκπλουν.] These manoeuvres, as well as the ἀνάκρουσις afterwards mentioned, were different methods of giving the ship a momentum required for a second attack. See Arnold's notes on I. 49. 3, and II 89. 12. of sailing round or cutting through their line, the manoeuvres of their naval science in which they most confided; for they themselves, to the best of their power, would not allow them to cut through their line, and the want of room would prevent their making a circuit.
And what was before thought to be want of skill in masters, namely, to charge stein to stem, was the very method they would chiefly adopt; for they would have the advantage in it; as the Athenians, if forced out of the line, would have no means of backing water in any direction but towards shore, and that, too, at only a short distance from them, and for a short space, namely, just opposite their own encampment. The rest of the harbour they should themselves command;
and the enemy, if forced at any point, by crowding together into a confined space, and all to the same point, would run foul of each other, and be thrown into confusion; (the very thing, indeed, which most hurt the. Athenians in all their sea-fights, since they had not, like the Syracusans, the power of retreating over the whole harbour.) And as for making a circuit into clearer sea-room, since they themselves commanded the entrance from, and the retreat into, the open deep, they would not be able to do it; especially as Plemyrium would be hostile to them, and the mouth of the harbour was not large.
Having adopted such contrivances to suit their own degree of knowledge and power, and at the same time feeling now more assured in consequence of their former battle, the Syracusans prepared to attack them at once by land and by sea.
Those of their land forces which were in the city Gylippus led out a little before, and brought them up to the wall of the Athenians, at that part of it which looked towards the city; while the troops from the Olympieum, both all the heavy-armed that were there, and the horse and light-armed of the Syracusans, advanced against the wall on the other side; immediately after which, the ships of the Syracusans and their allies sailed out.
The Athenians thought at first that they would make an attempt on the land side alone, but when they saw their fleet also suddenly coming against them, they were thrown into alarm; and some were making preparations on and in front of the walls to meet the attack, while others marched out against those who with all speed were coming from the Olympieum and the parts outside the city—both horse in great numbers and dart-men—and others proceeded to man the ships, and at once ran to the beach to oppose the enemy. And when they were manned, they put out against them with seventy-five vessels, those of the Syracusans being about eighty in number.
For a great part of the day they continued advancing and retiring and making attempts upon one another; and when neither party could gain any advantage worth mentioning, except that the Syracusans sank one or two of the Athenians' ships, they separated; and the troops at the same time withdrew from the walls.
The next day the Syracusans remained quiet, without showing at all what were their plans for the future. Nicias, on the other hand, seeing that the battle had been a drawn one, and expecting that they would attack them again, compelled the captains to refit their ships, whichever of them had at all suffered; and stationed merchantmen before the stockade which had been fixed in the sea in front of their ships, to serve the purpose of an enclosed harbour.
These vessels he placed at intervals of two hundred feet from each other, that if any ship were hard pressed, it might have means of retreating in safety and sailing out again at leisure. The Athenians, then, continued to make these preparations during the whole day until the night.
The day following, the Syracusans engaged the Athenians at an earlier hour, but on the same plan of attack, both by sea and by land.
And being opposed in the same manner with their ships, they again continued making attempts upon each other for a great part of the day; until Aristo son of Pyrrhicus, a Corinthian, and the most able master the Syracusans had, persuaded their naval commanders to send to those who had the direction in the city, and beg them to remove as quickly as possible the supply of things for sale, and to bring it to the sea-side; and whatever eatables any one had, to compel all to come there and sell them; that so αὐτοῖς.] According to the rule given in the note on III. 98. 1, the dative expresses the action in its relation to another party, namely, the Syracusan government. —Arnold. they might enable them to land their seamen and take their dinner immediately by the side of their ships, and, after a short interval, again the very same day to attack the Athenians, when they were not expecting it.
They, then, in compliance with this request sent a messenger, and the market was prepared: upon which the Syracusans suddenly backed water and sailed to the city, landing immediately, and taking their dinner:
while the Athenians, supposing that they had retreated to the city because they were worsted by them, went ashore at their leisure, and were engaged both with other matters and with providing their dinner, imagining that for that day at least they would not have to fight again.
But the Syracusans having suddenly manned their ships, sailed out against them a second time; while they, in much confusion, and most of them unrefreshed, went on board without any order, and with great difficulty put off to meet them.
For some time they forbore from attacking each other, and stood on their guard; but afterwards the Athenians did not choose through their own act to be worn out with fatigue by waiting there, but to attack them as quickly as possible;
and so they advanced with a cheer, and commenced the action. The Syracusans received them, and charging with their ships stem to stem, as they had determined beforehand, with their beaks equipped as they were, they stove in the Athenian vessels to a considerable extent of the foreships, while the dart-men fighting on their decks inflicted great damage on the Athenians, and still more those Syracusans who were sailing about in their small boats, falling close in upon the oars of the enemy's ships, sailing up to their sides, and thence discharging their darts upon the seamen.
At length, by fighting in this way with all their might, the Syracusans gained the victory, and the Athenians turned and fled between the merchantmen into their own station. The Syracusan ships pursued them as far as those vessels;
but then the beams that were hung from the merchantmen over the passages between them, with i. e. heavy weights made something in the form of that fish. dolphins attached to them, stopped their progress.