Kitap 7
Yet there were two galleys, which upon a jollity after victory approached them, but both were lost, of which one with her men and all was taken.
The Syracusians, after they had sunk seven galleys of the Athenians and torn many more, and of the men had taken some alive and killed others, retired, and for both the battles erected trophies, and had already an assured hope of being far superior by sea, and also made account to subdue the army by land. And they prepared to assault them again in both kinds.
In the meantime Demosthenes and Eurymedon arrived with the Athenian supply, being about seventy-three galleys, and men of arms, of their own and of their confederates, about five thousand, besides darters, as well barbarians as Greeks, not a few, and slingers and archers, and all other provision sufficient.
For the present it not a little daunted the Syracusians and their confederates to see no end of their danger, and that, notwithstanding the fortifying in Deceleia, another army should come now equal and like unto their former, and that their power should be so great in every kind. And on the other side, it was a kind of strengthening after weakness to the Athenian army that was there before.
Demosthenes, when he saw how things stood, and thinking it unfit to loiter and fall into Nicias' case-for Nicias, who was formidable at his first coming, when he set not presently upon Syracuse but wintered at Catana, both grew into contempt and was prevented also by the coming of Gylippus thither with an army out of Peloponnesus; the which, if Nicias had gone against Syracuse at first, had never been so much as sent for; for supposing themselves to have been strong enough alone, they had at once both found themselves too weak and the city been enclosed with a wall; whereby, though they had sent for it, it could not have helped them as it didDemosthenes, I say, considering this, and that he also even at the present and the same day was most terrible to the enemy, intended with all speed to make use of this present terribleness of the army.
And having observed that the cross wall of the Syracusians, wherewith they hindered the Athenians from enclosing the city, was but single, and that if they could be masters of the ascent to Epipolae and again of the camp there, the same might easily be taken (for none would have stood against them), hasted to put it to trial, and thought it his shortest way to the dispatching of the war.
For either he should have success, he thought, and so win Syracuse, or he would lead away the army and no longer without purpose consume both the Athenians there with him and the whole state.
The Athenians therefore went out and first wasted the territory of the Syracusians about the river Anapus, and were the stronger, as at first, both by sea and land. For the Syracusians durst neither way go out against them, but only with their horsemen and darters from Olympieium.
After this, Demosthenes thought good to try the wall which the Athenians had built to enclose the city withal with engines. But seeing the engines were burnt by the defendants fighting from the wall, and that having assaulted it in divers parts with the rest of his army he was notwithstanding put back, he resolved to spend the time no longer, but having gotten the consent of Nicias and the rest in commission thereunto, to put in execution his design for Epipolae, as was before intended.
By day it was thought impossible not to be discovered, either in their approach or in their ascent. Having therefore first commanded to take five days' provision of victual, and all the masons and workmen, as also store of casting weapons, and whatsoever they might need, if they overcame, for fortification, he and Eurymedon and Menander, with the whole army, marched about midnight to Epipolae, leaving Nicias in the camp.
Being come to Epipolae at Euryelus, where also the army went up before, they were not only not discovered by the Syracusians that kept the watch, but ascending took a certain fortification of the Syracusians there and killed part of them that kept it.
But the greatest number, escaping, ran presently to the camps, of which there were in Epipolae three walled about without the city, one of Syracusians, one of other Sicilians, and one of confederates, and carried the news of their coming in, and told it to those six hundred Syracusians that kept this part of Epipolae at the first, who presently went forth to meet them.
But Demosthenes and the Athenians lighting on them, though they fought valiantly, put them to flight, and presently marched on, making use of the present heat of the army to finish what he came for before it were too late; and others [going on] in their first course took the cross-wall of the Syracusians, they flying that kept it, and were throwing down the battlements thereof.
The Syracusians and their confederates, and Gylippus and those with him, came out to meet them from their camps; but because the attempt was unexpected and in the night, they charged the Athenians timorously, and were even at first forced to retire.
But as the Athenians advanced more out of order, [chiefly] as having already gotten the victory, but desiring also quickly to pass through all that remained yet unfoughten with, lest through their remissness in following they might again rally themselves, the Boeotians withstood them first, and charging, forced them to turn their backs.
And here the Athenians were mightily in disorder and perplexed, so that it hath been very hard to be informed of any side in what manner each thing passed. For if in the day time, when things are better seen, yet they that are present cannot tell how all things go, save only what every man with much ado seeth near unto himself, how then in a battle by night (the only one that happened between great armies in all this war) can a man know anything for certain?
For though the moon shined bright, yet they saw one another no otherwise than as by the moonlight was likely, so as to see a body, but not be sure whether it were a friend or not.
And the men of arms on both sides, being not a few in number, had but little ground to turn in. Of the Athenians, some were already overcome, others went on in their first way. Also a great part of the rest of the army was already part gotten up and part ascending, and knew not which way to march. For after the Athenians once turned their backs, all before them was in confusion;
and it was hard to distinguish of anything for the noise. For the Syracusians and their confederates prevailing encouraged each other and received the assailants with exceeding great shouts (for they had no other means in the night to express themselves); and the Athenians sought each other and took for enemies all before them, though friends and of the number of those that fled, and by often asking the word, there being no other means of distinction, all asking at once they both made a great deal of stir amongst themselves and revealed the word to the enemy. But they did not in like manner know the word of the Syracusians, because these, being victorious and undistracted, knew one another better;
so that when they lighted on any number of the enemy, though they themselves were more, yet the enemy escaped as knowing the watchword; but they, when they could not answer, were slain.
But that which hurt them most was the tune of the Paean, which being in both armies the same, drave them to their wits' end. For the Argives and Corcyraeans and all other of the Doric race on the Athenians' part, when they sounded the Paean, terrified the Athenians on one side; and the enemy terrified them with the like on the other side.
Wherefore at the last, falling one upon another in divers parts of the army, friends against friends, and countrymen against countrymen, they not only terrified each other, but came to handstrokes and could hardly again be parted.
As they fled before the enemy, the way of the descent from Epipolae by which they were to go back being but strait, many of them threw themselves down from the rocks, and died so. And of the rest that gat down safely into the plain, though the greatest part, and all that were of the old army by their knowledge of the country, escaped into the camp; yet of these that came last, some lost their way, and straying in the fields, when the day came on were cut off by the Syracusian horsemen that ranged the country about.
The next day the Syracusians erected two trophies, one in Epipolae at the ascent and another where the first check was given by the Boeotians. The Athenians received their dead under truce. And many there were that died, both of themselves and of their confederates;
but the arms taken were more than for the number of the slain. For of such as were forced to quit their bucklers and leap down from the rocks, though some perished, yet some there also were that escaped.
After this, the Syracusians, having by such unlooked-for prosperity recovered their former courage, sent Sicanus with fifteen galleys to Agrigentum, being in sedition, to bring that city, if they could, to their obedience. And Gylippus went again to the Sicilian cities by land to raise yet another army, as being in hope to take the camp of the Athenians by assault, considering how the matter had gone in Epipolae.
In the meantime the Athenian generals went to council upon their late overthrow and present general weakness of the army. For they saw not only that their designs prospered not, but that the soldiers also were weary of staying.
For they were troubled with sickness, proceeding from a double cause, this being the time of the year most obnoxious to diseases, and the place where they lay moorish and noisome; and all things else appeared desperate.
Demosthenes thought fit to stay no longer, and since the execution of his design at Epipolae had failed, delivered his opinion for going out of the haven whilst the seas were open and whilst, at least with this addition of galleys, they were stronger than the army of the enemy.
For it was better, he said, for the city to make war upon those which fortify against them at home than against the Syracusians, seeing they cannot now be easily overcome; and there was no reason why they should spend much money in lying before the city. This was the opinion of Demosthenes.
Nicias, though he also thought their estate bad, yet was unwilling to have their weakness discovered, and, by decreeing of their departure openly with the votes of many, to make known the same to the enemy; for if at any time they had a mind to be gone, they should then be less able to do it secretly.
Besides, the estate of the enemy, inasmuch as he understood it better than the rest, put him into some hope that it might yet grow worse than their own, in case they pressed the siege, especially being already masters of the sea, far and near, with their present fleet. There was moreover a party for the Athenians in Syracuse that desired to betray the state into their hands, and that sent messengers unto him and suffered him not to rise and be gone.
All which he knowing, though he were in truth doubtful what opinion to be of, and did yet consider, nevertheless openly in his speech he was against the withdrawing of the army, and said that he was sure the people of Athens would take it ill if he went thence without their order; for that they were not to have such judges as should give sentence upon their own sight of things done rather than upon the report of calumniators, but such as would believe whatsoever some fine speaker should accuse them of. That many, nay most of the soldiers here, who now cry out upon their misery, will there cry out on the contrary, and say the generals have betrayed the state and come away for a bribe.
That he would not, therefore, knowing the nature of the Athenians so well, choose to be put to death unjustly and charged with a dishonourable crime by the Athenians rather than, if he must needs do one, to suffer the same at the hand of the enemy by his own adventure. And yet, he said, the state of the Syracusians was still inferior to their own.
For paying much money to strangers and laying out much more on forts [without and about the city], having also had a great navy a year already in pay, they must needs want money at last, and all these things fail them. For they have spent already two thousand talents, and are much in debt besides. And whensoever they shall give over this course and make pay no longer, their strength is gone, as being auxiliary and not constrained to follow the war as the Athenians are.
Therefore it was fit, he said, to stay close to the city and not to go away as if they were too weak in money, wherein they were much superior.
Nicias, when he spake this, assured them of it, as knowing the state of Syracuse precisely and their want of money, and that there were some that desired to betray the city to the Athenians and sent him word not to go. Withal he had now confidence in the fleet, which, as being before overcome, he had not.
As for lying where they did, Demosthenes would by no means hear of it. But if the army might not be carried away without order from the Athenians but must needs stay in Sicily, then, he said, they might go to Thapsus or Catana, from whence by their landmen they might invade and turn much of the country to them and wasting the fields of the enemies, weaken the Syracusians; and be to fight with their galleys in the main sea, and not in a narrow (which is the advantage of the enemy), but in a wide place, where the benefit of skill should be theirs, and where they should not be forced, in charging and retiring, to come up and fall off in narrow and circumscribed limits.
In sum, he said, he by no means liked to stay where they were, but with all speed, no longer delaying the matter, to arise and be gone. Eurymedon also gave the like counsel.
Nevertheless, upon the contradiction of Nicias, there grew a kind of sloth and procrastination in the business, and a suspicion withal that the asseveration of Nicias was grounded on somewhat that he knew above the rest. And thereupon the Athenians deferred their going thence and stayed upon the place.