Book 7

GYLIPPUS and Pythen, after refitting their ships, sailed along the coast from Tarentum to Locri Epizephyrii. And now, on receiving more correct information, namely, that Syracuse was not yet entirely invested, but that it was still possible for a party coming with troops to enter it on the side of Epipole, they deliberated whether they should keep Sicily on their right hand, and so run the risk of sailing into it; or whether, keeping it on the left hand, they should first sail to Himera, and take with them both the people there, and any other forces that they might prevail on to join them, and so proceed by land.

They determined, then, to sail for Himera, especially as the four Athenian ships had not yet arrived at Rhegium, which Nicias, on hearing of their being at Locri, notwithstanding his contempt for them, had sent out. Having anticipated therefore this guard-squadron, they crossed over the strait, and after touching at Rhegium and Messana, arrived at Himera.

While they were there, they persuaded the Himeraeans to join them in the war, and both themselves to accompany them, and to furnish arms for such of the seamen from their ships as had none, (for they had drawn up their ships on shore at Himera.) They also sent and desired the Selinuntines to meet them at a certain place with all their forces.

That people promised to send them a force of no inconsiderable amount, as did the Geloans also, and some of the. Sicels, who were ready to join them with much greater forwardness, both in consequence of the recent death of Archonidas, who, being king over some of the Sicels in that part, and a man of considerable influence, was a friend of the Athenians, and because Gylippus was thought to have come from Lacedaemon in a spirited manner.

Thus Gylippus took with him those of his own seamen and Epibatae who were provided with arms, about seven hundred in number, the Himeraean heavy and light troops, together mustering about a thousand, with a hundred horse, some light-armed and horse of the Selinuntines, a few Geloans, and a thousand Sicels in all, and so advanced against Syracuse.

The Corinthians, meanwhile, were coming to their assistance from Leucas with their other ships as quickly as they could, and Gongylus, one of the Corinthian commanders, who had put to sea last of all with a single vessel, arrived first at Syracuse, though but a little before Gylippus. Finding them on the point of holding an assembly to consult on bringing the war to a conclusion, he prevented their doing so, and reassured:

them by saying that there were other ships still sailing up, and Gylippus, son of Cleandridas, sent by the Lacedaemonians in command of them. Upon this the Syracusans were reassured, and immediately went out in full force for the purpose of meeting Gylippus;

for by this time they perceived him actually near at hand. He, having taken on his passage Jetae, a fortress of the Sicels, and having formed his men for battle, arrived at Epipolae; after mounting which, on the side by Euryelus, where the Athenians also had ascended at first, he advanced in company with the Syracusans against the Athenian lines.

He happened to have come at so critical a time, that a double wall of seven or eight stades length had already been completed by the Athenians, extending to the great harbour, except for a short distance near the sea, which they were still building. For the rest of their lines, to Trogilus on the other sea, stones had already been laid for the greater part of the distance, and some points were left half finished, while others were entirely completed. To such extreme danger had Syracuse been reduced.

The Athenians, though thrown into consternation at first by the sudden attack made upon them by Gylippus and the Syracusans, quickly drew up for battle. Gylippus halted near them, and sent on a herald to tell them, that if they chose to depart from Sicily within five days, taking what belonged to them, he was ready to make a truce to that effect.

They, however, paid no attention to him, and sent him back again without giving any answer. After this, they made their preparations against each other.

And Gylippus, seeing the Syracusans in disorder and not easily falling into line, drew off his forces more into the open ground; while Nicias did not lead the Athenians against them, but remained still near his own wall. When Gylippus found that they were not advancing, he withdrew his army to what is called the citadel of Temenites, and there they stationed themselves for the night.

The next day he took the greater part of his forces, and drew them up near the walls of the Athenians, to prevent their going to the relief of any other quarter, while he sent a detachment to the fort of Labdalum, and took it, and put to the sword all the men he found in it; the place not being within sight of the Athenians.

On the same day, too, a trireme of the Athenians, moored off the harbour, was taken by the Syracusans.

After this, the Syracusans and their allies, commencing at the city, began to build upwards along Epipolae a single wall in a cross direction, that the Athenians, if they could not stop their progress, might no longer be able to invest them.

The Athenians had by this time gone up to the heights, after completing their wall down to the sea; and there being one weak part in the Athenian wall, Gylippus took his forces by night and made an attack upon it. When the Athenians were aware of his approach, (for they happened to be bivouacking outside,) they advanced to meet him;

on observing which, he led back the troops on his side as quickly as he could. The Athenians having then raised it higher, themselves kept guard at this point, and now disposed the other allies along the rest of the works as they were severally to man them.

Nicias determined also to fortify what is called Plemyrium, a headland opposite the city, which runs out beyond the great harbour, and narrows its mouth. If this were fortified, he thought that the introduction of provisions would be more easily effected; as they would carry on their blockade from a less distance, near the port occupied by the Syracusans, and would not, as now, put out against them from the bottom of the great harbour, in case of their stirring at all with their fleet. And he now paid more attention to the maritime operations of the war, seeing that their affairs by land were more hopeless since the arrival of Gylippus.

Having, therefore, crossed over with a body of troops and his ships, he completed the building of three forts; in which were deposited the greater part of the stores; the larger boats and the fast-sailing ships being now also moored there. And in consequence of this, it was chiefly at that title that the wasting of the crews first began.

For as they had but a scanty supply of water, and that not close at hand; and, moreover, as the sailors from time to time went out to gather firewood, they were cut off by the Syracusan horse, which had the command of the country. For a third part of their cavalry had been posted by the Syracusans in the small town in the Olympieum, with an eye to the troops on Plemyrium, to prevent their marching out to commit ravages.

Meanwhile Nicias learned that the rest of the Corinthian ships also were sailing to the island, and sent twenty vessels to watch for them, with orders to be on the look-out for them about Locri, Rhegium, and the approaches to Sicily.

Gylippus, on the other hand, was at once building the wall across Epipolae—making use of the stones which the Athenians before had thrown down along the line for their own use—and leading out continually the Syracusans and their allies, and drawing them up before the works; while the Athenians formed their line against them.

When Gylippus thought it a favourable opportunity, he commenced the attack; and, having closed in battle, they fought in the space between the works, where the cavalry of the Syracusans was of no use.

When the Syracusans and their allies had thus been defeated, and had taken up their dead under truce, and after the Athenians had erected a trophy, Gylippus called his army together, and said, that the fault was not theirs, but his own; for he had deprived them of the benefit of their cavalry and dart-men by his arrangements for the battle, which he had made too far within the works: wherefore he would now lead them again to the charge.

And he begged them to make up their minds to this view of the case-that they would not have the worse as regarded forces, and that with respect to resolution, it would be intolerable if they should not determine, Pelopolnnesians and Dorians as they were, to get the better of Ionians, and islanders, and a mixed rabble of men, and to drive them out of their country.

After this, when a favourable opportunity presented itself; he led them a second time against the enemy. Now Nicias and the Athenians thought, that even if the Syracusane should not wish to commence an engagement, it was necessary for themselves not to permit their wall to be carried past their own: for by this time the enemy's work had all but passed the termination of the Athenian lines; and if it went on any further, it was at once all the same to them, whether they were continually fighting and victorious, or did not fight at all;

and therefore they advanced to meet the Syracusans. Gylippus led his heavy-armed further beyond the fortifications of the two parties than before, and so engaged them, posting his cavalry and dart-men on the flank of the Athenians, in the open space where the works connected with both walls terminated.

During the battle, the cavalry charged 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 defeated by the Syracusans, and driven within their lines.

The following night they had time to build up to the Athenian works, and to pass them; so that now they could no longer be stopped by the enemy, while they deprived them, even if victorious, of all chance of investing the city in future.

After this, the remaining twelve vessels of the Corinthians, Ambraciots, and Leucadians, having eluded the observation of the Athenian guard-force, sailed into harbour, under the command of Erasinides, a Corinthian, and joined the Syracusans in completing the remainder of their works up to the cross wall.

And now Gylippus went away into the rest of Sicily for forces, intending to raise them both for sea and land service; and at the same time to bring over any of the cities that was either not hearty in the cause, or had hitherto stood entirely aloof from the war.

Other ambassadors of the Syracusans and Corinthians were also sent to Lacedaemon and Corinth, in order that a fresh force might be sent over to them, in whatever way might answer best, whether in merchantmen, or boats, or any how else; since the Athenians too were sending for reinforcements.

Moreover, the Syracusans proceeded to man and practise a fleet, for the purpose of making an attempt in that way also, and were in other respects much more full of confidence.

Nicias observing this, and seeing that the enemy's strength and their own difficulties were every day increasing, sent, on his side also, to Athens; having, indeed, on many other occasions sent messengers at the time of their several operations, but doing so then especially, because he thought that they were in a perilous condition, and that unless those at home recalled them as quickly as possible, or sent out no small reinforcement, there was no hope of preservation for them.

Fearing, however, that those who were sent by him, either through incapacity for speaking, or through being deficient in sense, or from a wish to say something to please the multitude, should not report the real facts of the case, he wrote a letter, thinking that by this means, more than any other, the Athenians would learn his own sentiments, without their being at all obscured by the messenger, and so would deliberate on the true state of the case.

Accordingly, those whom he sent departed with the letter and all that they were to say; while he himself attended to the affairs of the armament, being engaged now in precautionary measures, rather than in perils voluntarily incurred.

At the close of the same summer, Evetion, an Athenian general, having in concert with Perdiccas marched against Amphipolis with a numerous body of Thracians, did not take the city, but after bringing round some triremes into the Strymon, blockaded it from the river, making his approaches from Himeraeum. And thus the summer ended.

The following winter, the messengers of Nicias arrived at Athens, where they stated by word of mouth what had been told them, answered whatever further question any one asked, and delivered the letter; which the secretary of state came forward and read to the Athenians, being to the following purport:

"With our former operations, Athenians, you have been made acquainted by many other letters; but at present, it is especially seasonable that you should deliberate with a knowledge of the position we are in.

When, then, we had in many engagements defeated the Syracusans, against whom we were sent, and had built the walls in which we are now lying, Gylippus, the Lacedaemonian, came with an army from the Peloponnese and some of the cities in Sicily. And though in the first battle he was beaten by us, in the one fought the next day we were driven from the field by numerous cavalry and dart-men, and retired within our walls.

At present, therefore, we have ceased working at our line of circumvallation, in consequence of the enemy's numbers, and are lying still; (for we should not, indeed, be able to avail ourselves of all our force, since the guarding of our lines has exhausted a considerable part of our heavy-armed;) while they, on the other hand, have carried past us a single wall, so that it is no longer possible to invest them, unless one should assault this counter-work with a large force, and take it.

And the consequence is, that we who are thought to be besieging others, are rather being besieged ourselves, as far as operations by land are concerned; for we cannot even go out far into the country because of their horse.

"They have also sent ambassadors to the Peloponnese for fresh troops, and Gylippus is gone to the cities in Sicily, to persuade some of them which are at present neutral to join in the war, and to bring from others, if he can, an additional land force, as well as naval armament.

For they intend, as I hear, at the same time to attempt our walls with their army, and to attack us by sea with their fleet.

And let none of you think it strange that I say by sea also. For although, (as the enemy also are aware,) our fleet was at first in fine condition, as regards both the soundness of the ships and the completeness of their crews, yet now both the ships are leaky, from having already been at sea so long a time, and the crews have been wasted;

it being impossible to haul up and careen the vessels, because those of the enemy, being more than equal in number, are continually causing expectation of their sailing against us.

For they are seen practising, and it rests with them to make the attack [when they please]; and they have greater facility of careening their ships, since they are not engaged in blockading others.

"We, on the other hand, could scarcely enjoy this advantage, though with a great superabundance of ships, and though we were not compelled, as at present, to keep guard with all of them. For if we relax our watching even in a slight degree, we shall have no provisions; since even now we find difficulty in bringing them in past their city.

On this account our crews have been wasted and are still wasting; as some of our seamen, in consequence of their fetching wood, of foraging, and of distant watering, are cut off by their cavalry; while our servants, since we have been reduced to an equal footing, desert from us, and those of the foreigners who went on board as pressed men straightway depart to the several cities; while those, again, who were at first elated by the high pay, and supposed that they were going to make money, rather than to fight, since they have unexpectedly seen both the fleet and every thing else on the side of the enemy offering resistance to us, either leave us on finding some excuse for going over to the enemy, or in whatever way they severally can, ( and Sicily is a large country;) while in some instances, by engaging in traffic themselves, after persuading the captains to take Hyccarian slaves on board in their stead, they have destroyed the perfection of our navy.

"For you, to whom I am writing, know that the flower of a crew is limited in number, and that there are but few seamen who will get a ship under weigh, or keep the rowing in time.

But the most distressing of all these things is, that I, their general, have no power to put a stop to these abuses, (for your tempers are difficult to command,) and that we have no means of recruiting our ships' crews, (which the enemy can do from many quarters,) but both what is kept, and what is expended, must be taken from what we brought with us. For the cities which are at present in alliance with us, namely, Naxos and Catana, are powerless.

If, indeed, one additional advantage be still gained by the enemy, I mean, that the places in Italy which supply us with food, seeing the condition we are in, and in case of your not reinforcing us, go over to the enemy, the war will be brought to a conclusion by them without a single battle, through our being starved out.

I might, it is true, have had more agreeable things than these to write to you, but none more useful, if it is necessary for you to deliberate with a clear knowledge of affairs here. And besides, knowing as I do your temper, that you wish, indeed, to receive the most pleasing statements, but find fault afterwards, should any thing in consequence of them turn out different to what you expected, I thought it safer to lay the truth before you.

And now be assured of this, that for the business on which we first came here, neither your troops nor your generals have become inadequate: but since the whole of Sicily is being united together, and a fresh force is expected by them from the Peloponnese, you must now deliberate with a conviction that your troops are not a match even for their present enemies, but that you must either recall these, or send in addition to them another armament not less numerous, both military and naval, and no small sum of money, as well as some one to succeed me, since I am unable to remain at my post in consequence of a nephritic disease.

And I think that I may claim some consideration at your hands; for when I was in health, I did you much service during the periods of my command. But whatever you mean to do, do it at the very commencement of spring, and without any delay; since the enemy will in a short time provide themselves with the succours from Sicily, and though not so quickly with those from the Peloponnese, yet if you do not pay attention to them, in some respects they will elude your observation, as before, and in others will anticipate you.

Such was the purport of Nicias's letter. The Athenians, after hearing it, did not allow him to resign his command, but till the arrival of others who were elected as his colleagues, they joined with him two of those who were there on the spot, Menander and Euthydemus, that he might not in his illness bear the labour alone; while at the same time they voted to send fresh forces, both naval and military, composed of Athenians on the muster-roll, and of their allies.

They also elected as his colleagues, Demosthenes son of Alcisthenes, and Eurymedon son of Thucles; the latter of whom they despatched to Sicily immediately, about the winter solstice, with ten ships, a hundred and twenty talents of silver, and orders to tell the troops there that succours would come to them, and that attention would be paid to their interests.

Demosthenes, in the mean time, stayed behind, and made preparations for the expedition, intending to start as soon as it was spring; while he sent the allies word to levy troops, and got ready at home money, ships, and heavy-armed.

The Athenians also sent twenty ships to cruise round the Peloponnese, and to keep guard that none might cross over from Corinth and the Peloponnese to Sicily.

For the Corinthians, after the ambassadors came to them, and brought a more favourable report of affairs in Sicily, thinking that they had not been unseasonable in sending their former squadron, were now much more encouraged, and prepared, on their part, to despatch heavy-armed troops for Sicily in vessels of burden, as the Lacedaemonians did likewise from the rest of the Peloponnese.

The Corinthians manned also five and twenty triremes, to try the result of a battle with the squadron keeping watch at Naupactus, and that the Athenians there might be less able to prevent their transports from putting out, having to keep an eye upon the Corinthian line of triremes drawn up against them.

The Lacedaemonians prepared, too, for their invasion of Attica, both in accordance with their own previous resolution, and at the instigation of the Syracusans and Corinthians, since they had heard of the reinforcements about to be sent from Athens to Sicily; that they might be stopped by an incursion being made into the country. Alcibiades also kept urgently advising them to fortify Decelea, and not to let the war rest.

But most of all had they gained confidence, because they thought that the Athenians, being engaged in a two-fold war with both themselves and the Siceliots, would be more easily subdued; and also because they considered them to have first broken the truce. For in the former course of hostilities they thought the guilt lay more on their own side, both because the Thebans had entered Plataea during a time of truce; and because, when it had been specified in the former treaty, that none should take up arms against others, if they were willing to submit to a judicial decision, they themselves had not listened to the Athenians when appealing to such a decision. On which account they considered that they were justly unsuccessful, and made both their misfortune at Pylus, and whatever other might have befallen them, a subject of serious reflection.

But when the Athenians had set out from Argos with those thirty ships, and ravaged a part of Epidaurus, Prasiae, and some other places, at the same time that they were also spreading devastation from Pylus; and when they refused to intrust the matter to arbitration, though the Lacedaemonians. as often as differences had arisen concerning any of the debatable points in the treaty, appealed to a judicial decision; then, indeed, the Lacedaemonians thought that the violation of the law, which in the former instance had been committed by themselves, had now, again, come in the same way to attach to the Athenians, and they were, therefore, eager for hostilities.

Accordingly, during this winter they sent round to their allies orders for iron, and were getting all the tools ready for building their fort. At the same time they were themselves raising supplies, and compelling the rest of the Peloponnesians to do so, with a view to despatching in the merchantmen succours to those in Sicily. And so the winter ended, and the eighteenth year of this war, of which Thucydides wrote the history.

The following spring, at its very commencement, the Lacedaemonians and their allies made a very early incursion into Attica, under the command of Agis son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. In the first place, then, they ravaged the parts of the country about the plain, and then proceeded to fortify Decelea, dividing the work amongst the contingents of the different states.

The place is distant from the city of Athens about a hundred and twenty stades, and about the same, or not much more, from Boeotia. Now the fortress was raised for the annoyance of the plain and the richest parts of the country, being visible as far as Athens.

Thus, then, the Peloponnesians in Attica, and their allies, were engaged with their building. Those in the Peloponnese, about the same time, were sending off their heavy-armed troops to Sicily in the merchantmen, the Lacedaemonians having picked for the purpose the best of the Helots and Neodamodes, amounting both together to seven hundred, with Eccritus, a Spartan, in command of them, and the Boeotians, three hundred heavy-armed, under the command of Xeno and Nico. Thebans, and Hegesander, a Thespian.

These started amongst the first from Taenarus, in Laconia, and put out into the open sea. Not long after them, the Corinthians despatched five hundred heavy-armed, some from Corinth itself, and some hired from Arcadia besides, having appointed Alexarchus, a Corinthian, to the command of them. The Sicyonians also sent off, at the same time with the Corinthians, two hundred heavy-armed under the command of Sargeus, a Sicyonian.

In the mean time the five and twenty ships of the Corinthians, which had been manned in the winter, were stationed in opposition to the twenty Athenian vessels at Naupactus, till they had got these heavy-armed on board the merchantmen out to sea: for which purpose, indeed, they had been originally manned, that the Athenians might not attend to the merchantmen so much as to the triremes.

Meanwhile the Athenians, at the time of the fortifica tion of Decelea, and at the very commencement of the spring, sent thirty ships to cruise round the Peloponnese, under the command of Charicles son of Apollodorus, who was ordered to go to Argos also, and call for a contingent of their heavy-armed to go on board, according to the terms of their alliance.

Demosthenes, too, they despatched to Sicily, as they had intended, with sixty Athenian ships, and five Chian, twelve hundred Athenian heavy-armed from the muster-roll, and as many islanders as they could possibly raise from the several places; while they also supplied themselves from the other subject allies with whatever they could get in any quarter that would be of service for the war. Moreover, he was instructed, as he sailed round, to join Charicles first in his military measures on the coast of Laconia.

So Demosthenes, after sailing to aegina, waited for any part of the armament that might have been left behind, as well as for Charicles to fetch the Argive troops.

In Sicily, about the same period of this spring, Gylippus came to Syracuse, bringing from the cities which he had persuaded to join him as large a number of troops as he respectively could.

And now, having called the Syracusans together, he said that they ought to man as many ships as possible, and try the experiment of a sea-fight; for that he hoped to produce thereby a result worth the risk, towards the issue of the war.

Hermocrates, too, most earnestly joined him in trying to persuade them, in order that they might not rant courage for attacking the Athenians by sea; observing, that that people had no more than themselves enjoyed an hereditary and perpetual experience at sea, but had become a naval power after being, even more than the Syracusans, an inland one; and only because they were compelled to do so by the Medes. And to men of a daring character, like the Athenians, those who were daring in opposition to them would appear most formidable: for the terror with which that people paralysed their enemies, not, in some cases, by being superior to them in power, but by attacking them with confidence, they, too, would in the same way strike into their opponents.

And he was well assured, he said, that the Syracusans, by unexpectedly daring to offer resistance to the navy of the Athenians, would in a greater degree gain advantage from the surprise of the enemy on that account, than the Athenians by their skill would harm the unskilful Syracusans.

He urged them therefore to proceed to the trial with their fleet, and not to shrink from it.

Accordingly the Syracusans, at the persuasion of Gylippus, Hermocrates, and whoever else joined them, resolved on the sea-fight, and proceeded to man their ships.

When Gylippus had prepared the fleet for action, he took the whole army under cover of the night, and himself intended to assault by land the forts on Plemyrium, while at the same time, according to agreement, thirty-five of the Syracusan triremes sailed to the attack from the great harbour, and forty-five sailed round from the lesser, where their arsenal was situated; wishing to effect a junction with those within, and at the same time to sail against Plemyrium, in order that the enemy might be disconcerted by an attack on both sides.

The Athenians, on the other hand, having with all speed manned sixty ships to oppose them, with five and twenty of them engaged the five and thirty of the Syracusans that were in the great harbour, and with the remainder went to meet those that were sailing round from the arsenal. Thus they immediately entered into action before the mouth of the great harbour, and for a long time resisted each other, the one side wishing to force an entrance, the other being anxious to prevent them.

In the mean time Gylippus, when the Athenians in Plemyrium had gone down to the sea, and were paying attention to the naval engagement, surprised them by suddenly at daybreak assaulting the forts, of which he took the largest first, and then the other two; their garrisons not having awaited his attack, when they saw the largest easily carried.

From the first that was taken the men escaped with difficulty to their camp, as many of them as took refuge in their boats and merchantmen; for as the Syracusans were getting the better in the engagement with their ships in the great harbour, the fugitives were chased by one trireme, and that a fast sailer; but when the other two forts were taken, at that time the Syracusans, in their turn, were now being beaten, and so those who were flying out of the forts sailed along shore with greater ease.

For the Syracusan ships that were fighting before the mouth of the harbour, having forced their way through those of the Athenians, sailed in without any order, and being entangled with one another, transferred the victory to the Athenians; who routed both these, and those by which they were at first being defeated in the harbour.

They also sank eleven of the Syracusan ships, killing most of the men on board of them, excepting those whom they took prisoners from three vessels; while on their own side three ships were lost. After hauling up the wrecks of the Syracusans, and erecting a trophy on the small island in front of Plemyrium, they withdrew to their own encampment.

But although the Syracusans had thus fared with regard to the sea-fight, they were still in possession of the three forts on Plemyrium, and erected three trophies for them. One of the two forts last taken they razed, but the other two they repaired, and held with garrisons.

In the capture of the forts many men were killed, and many made prisoners, and a large amount of property in all was taken: for inasmuch as the Athenians used them as a magazine, there was in them much property and corn belonging to merchants, and much also belonging to trierarchs, since there were taken in them, besides other things, masts for forty triremes, with the rest of their equipments, and also three triremes which had been drawn up on shore.

Indeed, what most and principally ruined the army of the Athenians was the taking of Plemyrium; since even the entrance into the harbour was no longer secure for carrying in provisions; (for the Syracusans, blockading them at that point with their vessels, prevented it, and their getting them in was now always effected by battle;) and in other respects it struck consternation and dismay into their forces.

After this, the Syracusans sent out twelve ships, with Agatharchus, a Syracusan, on board of them as commander One of these went to the Peloponnese, carrying ambassadors, both to tell of their own affairs, "of the hopes they were fill of, and to excite them to the still more vigorous prosecution of the war in those parts. The other eleven ships sailed to Italy, hearing that some vessels laden with treasure were on their way to the Athenians.

Having fallen in with these vessels, they destroyed most of their contents, and burnt a quantity of timber in the Caulonian territory, which had been got ready for the Athenians.

After this they came to Locri, and while lying at anchor there, one of the merchantmen from the Peloponnese put in to shore, carrying a heavy-armed band of Thespians. Having taken these on board their ships, the Syracusans coasted on homewards.

The Athenians, with their twenty vessels at Megara, being on the look-out for them, took one ship with its crew; the rest they could not overtake, but they escaped from them to Syracuse.

There was also some skirmishing in the harbour about the piles which the Syracusans had driven in the sea in front of the old docks, in order that their ships might he at anchor within them, and the Athenians might not sail against them, and injure them by their charge. For the Athenians having brought up to them a ship of ten thousand talents burden, carrying wooden towers and screens, from their boats fastened ropes round the piles, and raised them with windlasses, and tore them up, or, diving down, sawed them in two.

The Syracusans plied their missiles on them from the docks, and the men on the ship of burden discharged theirs in return; and at last the Athenians removed the greater part of the piles. But the most dangerous part of the stockade was that out of sight:

for there were some of the piles which they drove that did not rise above the surface of the sea, so that it was dangerous to approach, lest any one, through not seeing them beforehand, might strike his ship on them, as on a sunken rock. But even in the case of these divers went down and sawed them off for a reward; but the Syracusans made, notwithstanding, a fresh stockade.

Many other also were the contrivances which they employed against one another, as was natural with the armaments lying near, and opposed to, each other; and they were engaged in skirmishes, and attempts of every kind.

The Syracusans also sent to the cities embassies composed of Corinthians, Ambraciots, and Lacedaemonians, with tidings of the capture of Plemyriunm, and to state, with regard to the sea-fight, that it was not so much by the power of the enemy as by their own confusion that they had been beaten; while, in other respects, they were to inform them that they were in good hope, and to call upon them to come to their aid, both with ships and troops; as the Athenians also were expected with a fresh force, and if they could but destroy their present armament before it came, there would be an end to the war. The parties in Sicily, then, were thus engaged.

Demosthenes, on the other hand, when the armament had been collected by him with which he was to sail to Sicily to the aid of the force there, having put to sea from Aegina and sailed to the Peloponnese, joined Charicles and the thirty ships of the Athenians.

After receiving the heavy-armed troops of the Argives on board their ships, they sailed to Laconia, and in the first place ravaged a part of Epidaurus Limera. Then, landing on the coast of Laconia opposite Cythera, where stands the temple of Apollo, they fortified a certain place in the form of an isthmus, in order that the Lacedaemonian helots might desert to them there, and at the same time foraging parties might make incursions from it, as from Pylus.

And now, immediately after assisting to occupy this spot, Demosthenes sailed on for Corcyra, that he might take up some of the allies there also, and proceed as quickly as possible on his voyage to Sicily. Charicles, on the other hand, waited until he had entirely fortified the place; when, having left a garrison there, he, too, afterwards returned home with his thirty ships, and the Argives at the same time.

There came also to Athens this same summer, to serve as targeteers, a body of Thracians who carry swords, of the tribe of the Dii, thirteen hundred in number, who were to have sailed to Sicily with Demosthenes;

but as they had come too late, the Athenians determined to send them back again to Thrace, the country they had come from, as it seemed too expensive to keep them for the war carried on from Decelea. since each of them received a drachma a day.

For since Decelea had been first fortified by the whole Peloponnesian army during this summer, and afterwards was occupied for the annoyance of the country by garrisons coming from the states at successive periods, it greatly injured the Athenians, and was amongst the principal things that ruined their interests, both by the destruction of property and the loss of men.

For previously the invasions were but of brief duration, and did not prevent their enjoying their territory at other times; but then, when the enemy were continually stationed there for their annoyance, and sometimes attacked them with a more numerous force, while at other times the regular garrison of necessity made incursions on the land, and forayed it, Agis the Lacedaemonian king being also present, (who made no by work of the war,) the Athenians suffered severely in consequence;

for they were deprived of their whole country, and more than twenty thousand slaves had deserted, a great part of them being artisans; and all their sheep and beasts of burden were lost. Their horses also, as the cavalry were daily on the move, making excursions to Decelea and keeping guard in the country, were either lamed by being worked on rocky ground, and that continually, or were disabled by wounds.

The conveyance also of provisions from Euboea, which was before effected more quickly by land from Oropus, through Decelea, was now carried on with great expense by sea, round Sunium. Indeed the city required every thing alike to be imported; and instead of being a city, it was reduced to a garrison.

For the Athenians were harassed by keeping guard on the fortifications, in succession by day, and all of them (excepting the cavalry) by night—some being on duty where the arms were piled, and others on the walls—both summer and winter alike. But what pressed hardest on them was, that they were engaged in two wars at once, and had arrived at such a pitch of obstinate animosity as no one would have believed, if he had heard it before it actually occurred.

For that even when besieged by the Peloponnesians from the fortress in their country, they should not even then have withdrawn from Sicily, but have proceeded, in their turn, to besiege Syracuse in the same manner, a city not less than Athens, considered by itself; and that they should have exhibited to the Greeks so unexpected a display of power and daring, that whereas, in the beginning of the war, some of them thought they might hold out one year, some two, some even three, but no one longer, if the Peloponnesians should invade their country, they now, in the seventeenth year after the first invasion, went to Sicily, when distressed by hostilities in every way, and entered upon another war besides, not less important than that which they already had with the Peloponnese,

[who, I say, would have believed this before it actually took place?] It was owing to these things, then, to the great injury which Decelea inflicted on them, and the other great expenses which befell them, that they were reduced to straits for want of money;

and it was at this time that they imposed on their subjects the tax of the twentieth on all sea-borne commodities, instead of the tribute, thinking that thus a larger amount of money would be raised by them. For their expenses were not on the same scale as before, but much greater; inasmuch as the war also was greater, while their revenues were being destroyed.

These Thracians, then, who came too late for Demosthenes, as they did not, in consequence of their present want of money, wish to incur expense, they immediately sent back, having commissioned Diitrephes to convey them, and instructed him at the same time to inflict by their means whatever harm he could on the enemy during the voyage along shore, (for they were to pass through the Euripus.)

Accordingly he landed them at Tanagra, and carried off some plunder in a hurried manner; and then in the evening sailed across the Euripus from Chalcis in Euboea, and landing them in Boeotia, led them against Mycalessus.

During the night he bivouacked unobserved near the temple of Mercury, distant from Mycalessus about sixteen stades, and at day-break assaulted the town, which was not a large one, and took it; having fallen on the inhabitants whilst off their guard, and not expecting that any one would ever march up the country so far from the sea to attack them; their wall, too, being weak, and in some parts even fallen down, while in other parts it was built but low; and the gates, moreover, being open through their feeling of security.

The Thracians, then, having burst into Mycalessus, plundered both private houses and temples, and butchered the inhabitants, sparing neither old age nor youth, but killing one after another all they met with, both children and women, nay, further, even cattle and beasts of burden, and whatever other living things they saw. For the Thracian race, like the most blood-thirsty of the barbarians, is most so when secure from resistance. And thus on that occasion there was no little confusion in other respects, and every form of butchery was exhibited.

And, in particular, they attacked a boys' school, the largest there was in the place, (which the children had just entered,) and cut them all to pieces. And this disaster, which fell on the whole town, was inferior to none in extent, while it was more unexpected and shocking than any other.

When the Thebans were aware of it, they marched to the rescue; and having overtaken the Thracians when they had not at present advanced any great distance, they both recovered their plundered property, and having struck them with panic pursued them down to the sea, where their boats which conveyed them were lying at anchor.

And they slew the greatest part of them during their embarkation, as they could not swim, and as those on board the boats, on seeing what was going on ashore, moored them out of bow-shot. For in the rest of the retreat the Thracians advanced in no contemptible manner to meet the Theban horse, which first fell upon them; and closing their ranks, according to their native tactics, defended themselves against them; and thus only a few were killed in that part of the affair. Some portion of them also were surprised in the city, through their eagerness in plundering, and perished. Altogether, there fell of the Thracians two hundred and fifty out of thirteen hundred;

while of the Thebans and the rest who joined in attacking them they slew about twenty, horse and foot together, and amongst the Thebans, Scirphondas, one of the Boeotarchs. On the side of the Mycalessians a considerable part of the population was cut off. With regard, then, to Mycalessus, which experienced, considering its extent, a calamity not less lamentable than any which happened in the war, such were the things which occurred there.

Now Demosthenes being at that time on his voyage for Corcyra, after he had built the fortifications on the side of Laconia, fell in with a merchant vessel anchored at Phea in the Elean territory, in which the Corinthian heavy-armed were to cross over to Sicily;

and he destroyed the ship itself, but the men escaped from it, and having subsequently got another, proceeded on their voyage. After this, having come to Zacynthus and Cephallenia, he took on board a body of heavy-armed, sent for some of the Messenians from Naupactus, and then crossed over to the opposite coast of Acarnania, on the continent, to Alyzia and Anactorium, which the Athenians had in their own hands.

While he was in these parts, he was met by Eurymedon returning from Sicily; who had been sent out with treasure at the time that has been mentioned, during the winter, and told him, amongst other tidings, that he had heard, when already on his voyage, that Plemyrium had been taken by the Syracusans.

Conon, too, who was in command at Naupactus, came to them, with information that the five and twenty Corinthian ships stationed opposite to the Athenian squadron did not give up hostilities, but were prepared for an engagement.

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 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 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 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 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 dolphins attached to them, stopped their progress.

Two, however, elated by their victory, came up close to them, and were destroyed, one of them being captured with its crew.

After the Syracusans had sunk seven Athenian ships and disabled many more, having taken some of the men prisoners and killed others, they retired, and erected trophies for both the engagements; entertaining now a confident hope that by sea they were very decidedly superior, and thinking that they should conquer the enemy's land forces also. Accordingly they began to prepare for making another attack in both ways.

At this time Demosthenes and Eurymedon arrived with the succours from Athens, consisting of above seventy-three ships (including the foreign ones) and about five thousand heavy-armed of their own and the allies, with dart-men, both Grecian and barbarian, not a few, slingers, bow-men, and the rest of the armament on a large scale.

No slight consternation was produced at the moment amongst the Syracusans and their allies, at the thought that they were to have no final deliverance from their dangers, seeing that there was newly come, none the less for the fortification of Decelea, an armament equal, or nearly so, to the first, and that the power of the Athenians appeared great on all sides; while in the former Athenian forces fresh confidence (considering their late misfortunes) had now sprung up. Demosthenes, on the other hand, seeing how matters stood, thought that it was not possible for him to waste the time, and 'so to experience the fate which Nicias had done.

For although that general spread terror on his first arrival, he was despised, through not immediately attacking Syracuse, but spending the winter at Catana, and Gylippus anticipated his success by arriving with forces from the Peloponnese, which the Syracusans would never have sent for at all if he had immediately attacked them; for while fancying themselves a match for him, they would at once have discovered their inferiority, and have been invested; so that, even if they had stat for them, they would not then have dune them the same service. Reviewing these things, then, and thinking that he himself too was decidedly most formidable to the adversary at the present time, even the very first day, Demosthenes wished, as quickly as possible, to avail himself to the utmost of the present dismay of their forces.

And seeing that the counter-wall of the Syracusans, by which they had prevented the Athenians from circumvallating them, was but a single one, and that if any one had carried the ascent to Epipolae, and then the camp on it, the work might easily be taken, (for no one at all would so much as wait his attack,) he was in a hurry to make the attempt.

And this he thought was his shortest way of bringing the war to a conclusion; for he would either gain possession of Syracuse by succeeding in his design, or lead back the armament, and not exhaust for no purpose both the Athenians who joined the expedition and the whole state.

In the first place, then, the Athenians went out and ravaged a part of the Syracusan territory, about the Anapus, and were superior in force, as they had originally been, both by land and by sea: (for in neither way did the Syracusans come out against them, except with their cavalry and dart-men from the Olympieum.)

Afterwards, Demosthenes resolved first to make an attempt on the counter-work with engines. But when the engines, after he had brought them up, were burnt by the enemy who were making a defence from the wall, and they were beaten back when charging at many points with the rest of his forces, he determined to delay no longer; but having gained the assent of Nicias and the rest of his colleagues, according to the plan he had formed, he proceeded to the attempt on Epipolae.

Now, in the day-time it seemed to be impossible for them to approach and make the ascent unobserved. But having issued orders for five days' provisions, and taken all the stone-masons and carpenters, with all the other apparatus besides, both arrows and every thing else that was necessary for them, should they succeed, to have while they were building, he himself, with Eurymedon and Menander, took the whole force, after the first watch of the night, and advanced against Epipolae, Nicias being left behind in the lines.

When they had come up to the hill on the side of Euryelus, the same way that the former army also had in the first instance made the ascent, they escaped the observation of the Syracusan guard, and having gone to the fort of the Syracusans which was there, they took it, and put part of the garrison to the sword.

But the greater part fled immediately to the camps, (of which there were three on Epipolae, in outworks, one composed of the Syracusans, one of the other Siceliots, and one of their allies,) and informed them of the attack, and told it to the six hundred Syracusans who had formed the original guard at this part of Epipolae.

They immediately went against them; and Demosthenes and the Athenians falling in with them, routed them, though they made a spirited resistance. They then immediately pressed on, that they might not be retarded in their present eagerness for accomplishing the objects they had come for: while others of them proceeded, as their first measure, to take the counter-wall of the Syracusans, and pull down its battlements.

The Syracusans and their allies, as well as Gylippus and his division, went to the rescue from the outworks; and as they had had this daring attack made on them in the night, they engaged the Athenians in some dismay, and were at first compelled to retreat.

But when the Athenians were now advancing in greater confusion, as having gained the victory, and were anxious to pass as quickly as possible through the whole force of the enemy which had not yet been engaged, that they might not rally again through their relaxing in the attack; the Boeotians were the first to oppose them, and both broke them by their charge, and put them to flight.

Now the Athenians were by this time in much disorder and perplexity; but on this subject it was not easy for me to ascertain from either side, in what way each event occurred. For in the day-time the parties engaged have, indeed, a clearer knowledge, though not a perfect one even then, for each man barely knows what happens in his own part of the field. But in a night engagement, (and this was the only one which occurred between great armies during this war,) how could any one have a distinct knowledge of any thing?

For though there was a bright moon, they only saw one another (as was natural they should by moonlight) so as to discern the form of the body before them, but to mistrust their knowledge of its being that of a friend. And there were no few heavy-armed on each side moving in a narrow space.

Thus on the side of the Athenians some were even now being defeated, and others coming up unconquered for their first attack. A large part, too, of the rest of their forces had only just ascended, and others were still ascending; so that they did not know on what point to advance. For in consequence of the rout which had taken place, every thing in front was now in confusion, and it was difficult to distinguish orders through the uproar.

For the Syracusans and their allies, on gaining the advantage, were cheering each other with no little shouting, (it being impossible during the night to express themselves in any other way,) and at the same time were receiving the charge of their assailants: and the Athenians were in search of one another, and thought that whoever met them was a foe, even though he might be a friend, belonging to those who were now flying back. And by their frequently asking for the watchword, because they could not by any other means distinguish them, they both caused great confusion on their own side by all asking at once, and made it known to the enemy;

while theirs, on the other hand, they did not so easily discover, because, as they were victorious and not dispersed, they were better recognised by each other. So that if they fell in with any of the enemy with the advantage of numbers en their own side, the Syracusans escaped from them, inasmuch as they knew the Athenian watchword;

but if they themselves [in such a case] did not answer, they were put to the sword. But what especially and in the greatest degree hurt them, was the singing of their hymns; for as it was very similar on each side, it occasioned perplexity. For the Argives, the Corcyraeans, and all of the Dorian race that were with the Athenians, struck terror into them whenever they raised their paean;

and so did the enemy likewise. Thus having at last, when once they were thrown into disorder, come into collision with each other in different parts of the army, friends with friends, and countrymen with countrymen, they were not only full of fear, but even closed in battle with each other, and were with difficulty parted.

And now, as they were being pursued, the greater part threw themselves down the cliffs, and perished; as the way down again from Epipolae was narrow. And when those who escaped from the heights had reached the plain, though many of them, especially such as belonged to the former armament, through their greater acquaintance with the localities escaped safely to the camp, some of those who had lately arrived lost their way, and wandered about the country; and these, when it was day, the Syracusan horse intercepted, and put to the sword.

The next day the Syracusans erected two trophies, one on Epipolae, where the enemy's approaches had been made, and the other on the spot where the Boeotians first withstood them; while the Athenians recovered their dead under truce.

No few were killed, both of themselves and their allies, though still more arms were taken than in proportion to the number of the dead: for of those who were compelled to leap down the cliffs unencumbered by their shields, though some perished, yet others escaped with their lives.

After this, the Syracusans being again, as before, restored to confidence on the strength of such unexpected good fortune, despatched Sicanus with fifteen ships to Acragas, which was torn by factions, to induce the city to join them, if he could: while Gylippus again went by land to the other parts of Sicily to bring more forces, being in hope of even taking the Athenian lines by storm, since the affair on Epipolae had turned out as it did.

The Athenian commanders, in the mean time, consulted on the disaster which had befallen them, and on the want of vigour which at present on all accounts prevailed in their camp; seeing that they were both unsuccessful in their attempts, and that the soldiers were annoyed by their stay in the country.

For they were suffering with sickness from two different causes, both because this was the season of the year at which men are most liable to disease, and at the same time, too, because the position in which they were encamped was marshy and unfavourable; while they were also distressed because every thing else appeared hopeless to them. Demosthenes then, was of opinion that they ought not to stay any longer;

but, according to the plan with which he had hazarded the attack on Epipolae, since that had failed, he gave his vote for departing, and not wasting the time, while the sea might yet be crossed, and while, as regarded forces, they might command the superiority with the squadron that had lately joined them, at any rate.

He said, too, that it would be more beneficial to the state to carry on the war against those who were building fortresses for their annoyance in their own country, than against the Syracusans, whom it was no longer easy to subdue: nor, again, was it right for them to waste large sums of money to no purpose by continuing the siege. Such, then, was the view entertained by Demosthenes.

Nicias, however, though he too considered their circumstances to be bad, yet did not wish to display their weak. ness by words, nor that they should become a laughing-stock to their enemies by voting for the retreat openly, and in conjunction with many; for so they would far less elude their observation in executing it, whenever they might wish.

To a certain extent also the affairs of the enemy, judging from what he, more than others, knew of them, still afforded some hope that they would be worse than their own, should they persist in carrying on the siege; for so they would exhaust them by want of funds; especially, too, as they had now, with their present fleet, a more extensive command of the sea. A party in Syracuse also, which wished to surrender the city to the Athenians, was sending messengers to him, and urging him not to raise the siege. Knowing these things, then, he was in fact waiting because he was still inclined both ways, and wished to see his course more clearly;

but in the speech openly made by him on that occasion he said, that he refused to withdraw the forces; for he well knew that the Athenians would not put up with such a step on the part of the generals—their returning, he meant, without a vote from themselves to authorize it. Besides, those who would vote in their case, would not give their verdict from seeing the facts, as they themselves had done, instead of hearing them from the invectives of others; but whatever calumnies any clever speaker threw upon them, by those would they be persuaded. Many too, nay, even the greater part of the soldiers present on the spot, who were now clamouring about their perilous condition, would, he said, on arriving there, raise the very contrary clamour, namely, that their generals had utterly betrayed them for money, when they returned.

For himself, then, he did not wish (knowing as he did the Athenian character and temper) to die under a dishonourable charge and by an unjust sentence at the hands of the Athenians, rather than run the risk, in his own individual case, of meeting his fate at the hands of the enemy, if it must be so. As for the affairs of the Syracusans, however, he knew that they were in a still worse condition than their own.

For supporting mercenaries as they had to do with their funds, and at the same time spending them on guard-posts, and maintaining, moreover, a large navy, as they had now done for more than a year, they were in some respects ill provided, and in others would be still more at a loss, as they had already expended two hundred talents, and still owed many more; and should they lose any part whatever of their present forces through not giving them supplies, their cause would be ruined, as it was supported by voluntary aid, rather than by compulsory exertions, like theirs.

He maintained, therefore, that they must continue to carry on the siege, and not go away defeated in point of money, wherein they were decidedly superior.

Such were the views which Nicias was positive in stating, from having gained an accurate acquaintance with the state of affairs in Syracuse, and their want of money; and because there were some who were desirous that the state should fall into the hands of the Athenians, and were sending messages to him not to abandon the siege; and at the same time, because he was influenced by confidence in his fleet, at any rate more than before.

Demosthenes, however, would not at all listen to the proposal for continuing the siege; but if it were necessary for them not to withdraw the forces without a decree from the Athenians, but to remain in the country, he said that they should either remove to Thapsus and do so, or to Catana, where they could overrun with their troops a large part of the country, and support themselves by ravaging their enemies' property, and so might injure them; while at the same time with their fleet they would fight their battles on the open deep, and not in a confined space, which was more in favour of the enemy, but rather with spacious sea-room, where their skill would be of service to them, and they would have an opportunity of retreating and advancing in no narrow and circumscribed space, both on putting out and coming to land.

In a word, he did not, he said, at all approve of remaining in their present position, but of removing immediately without delay. Eurymedon also supported him in this view.

But as Nicias objected to it, a degree of diffidence and hesitation was produced in them, and a suspicion also that Nicias might be so positive from knowing something more than he expressed. The Athenians, then, in this way lingered on, and remained where they were.

In the mean time, Gylippus and Sicanus had come to Syracuse; and though Sicanus had failed in winning Acragas, (for while he was still at Gela, the party friendly to the Syracusans had been driven out;) yet Gylippus came with fresh troops raised from the rest of Sicily, and with the heavy-armed which had been sent out from the Peloponnese in the spring, on board the merchantmen, and had arrived at Selinus from Libya.

For when they had been carried by a tempest to Libya, and the Cyrenaeans had given them two triremes, and pilots for their voyage, during their passage along shore they entered into alliance with the Euesperitae, who were being besieged by the Libyans, and defeated the latter people; and after coasting along thence to Neapolis, an emporium of the Carthaginians, from which the distance is shortest to Sicily, namely, a voyage of two days and a night, they crossed over there from that place, and arrived at Selinus.

Immediately on their arrival, the Syracusans prepared to attack the Athenians again on both sides, by sea and by land. When the Athenian generals, on the other hand, saw that a fresh force had joined them, and that their own circumstances at the same time were not improving, but were daily becoming worse, and most especially were depressed through the sickness of the men, they repented of not having removed before. And as even Nicias did not now oppose them in the same degree, except by begging them not openly to vote on the question, they gave orders, as secretly as they could, for all to sail out of their station, and to be ready when the signal should be given.

And when, after all was in readiness, they were on the point of sailing away, the moon was eclipsed; for it happened to be at the full. The greater part therefore of the Athenians urged the generals to stop, regarding the matter with religious scruple; and Nicias (for he was somewhat over addicted to superstition, and such feelings,) declared that he would not now so much as consider the matter, with a view to moving, until, as the soothsayers directed, he had waited thrice nine days. And so the Athenians, having been stopped on this account, remained in the country.

When the Syracusans, too, heard this, they were much more stimulated not to relax in their efforts against the Athenians, since they themselves had now confessed that they were no longer their superiors, either by sea or by land, (for they would not else have meditated sailing away;) and at the same time, because they did not wish them to go and settle in any other part of Sicily, and so to be more difficult to make war upon;

but were desirous of forcing them to a sea-fight there, as quickly as possible, in a position that was advantageous to themselves. They manned their ships therefore, and practised as many days as they thought sufficient. And when a favourable opportunity presented itself, on the first day they assaulted the Athenian lines; and a small division of their heavy-armed and horse having sallied forth against them through certain gateways, they intercepted some of the heavy-armed, and routed and pursued them back; and as the entrance was narrow, the Athenians lost seventy horses, and some few heavy-armed.

On that day, then, the army of the Syracusans drew off; but on the next they both sailed out with their ships, seventy-six in number, and at the same time advanced with their troops against the walls. The Athenians put out to meet them with eighty-six ships, and closed and fought with them.

Now when Eurymedon, who commanded the right wing of the Athenians, and wished to surround the ships of the enemy, had sailed out from the line too much towards the shore; the Syracusans and their allies, after first defeating the centre of the Athenians, intercepted him also in the bottom and furthest recess of the harbour, and both killed him, and destroyed the ships that were following him. After which the Syracusans closely pursued all the ships of the Athenians, and drove them ashore.

When Gylippus saw the enemy's ships defeated, and carried beyond the stockades and their own station, wishing to cut off the men that were landing from them, and that the Syracusans might more easily tow off the vessels, through the land being in possession of their friends, he ran down to meet them at the break-water with some part of his army.

The Tyrrhenians (for it was they who were keeping guard at this point) seeing them coming on in disorder, advanced towards them, and fell upon and routed their van, and drove them into what was called the marsh of Lysimelea.

Afterwards, when the force of the Syracusans and their allies had now come up in greater numbers, the Athenians also advanced against them, being afraid for their ships, and entered into action with them, and defeated and pursued them to some distance, killing a few heavy-armed. They saved also the greater part of their own ships, and brought them together alongside their station; eighteen of them, however, the Syracusans and their allies captured, and put all the men to the sword.

Wishing also to burn the rest of them, they filled an old merchantman with faggots and pine-wood, and having thrown fire into it, and the wind blowing right on the Athenians, they let the vessel drift towards them. The Athenians, alarmed for their ships, contrived, on the other hand, means for checking and extinguishing it; and having stopped the flames and the near approach of the merchantman, they thus escaped the danger.

After this, the Syracusans erected a trophy, both for their sea-fight, and for the interception of the heavy-armed above, at the wall, where they als took the horses; while the Athenians did the same for the rout of those of the infantry whom the Tyrrhenians drove into the marsh, and for that which they themselves effected with the rest of their army.

When the victory had now been so decisive on the side of the Syracusans, even at sea, (for before this they were afraid of the ships newly come with Demosthenes,) the Athenians were in a state of utter despondency; and great was their disappointment, but far greater still their regret, for having made the expedition. For these were the only states they had hitherto attacked with institutions similar to their own, and living under a democracy like themselves;

possessing, too, ships, and horses, and greatness: and as they were not able either to introduce any change, as regarded their government, to create dissension among them, by which they might have been brought over, nor to effect that by means of their forces, (though they were far superior,) but had failed in most of their attempts, they were even before this event in perplexity; and after they were defeated even at sea, which they could never have expected, they were far more so still.

The Syracusans, on the other hand, immediately began to sail without fear along the harbour, and determined to close up its mouth, that the Athenians might not in future sail out, even if they wished it, unobserved by them.

For they were no longer attending to their own preservation merely, but also to the prevention of the enemy's escape; thinking (as was the fact) that with their present resources their own cause was decidedly the stronger; and that if they could conquer the Athenians and their allies both by land and sea, the victory would appear a glorious one for them in the eyes of the Greeks. For of the rest of the Greeks some in that case were straight way liberated, and others released from fear, (as the remaining power of the Athenians would no longer be able to bear the war that would afterwards be waged against them;) while they themselves also, being regarded as the authors of this, would be greatly admired, both by the rest of the world, and by posterity.

And the contest was indeed worth encountering, both on these grounds, and because they were winning the victory, not only over the Athenians, but over the other numerous allies also; and, again, not winning it by themselves, but also in company with those who had joined in assisting them; having taken the lead, too, with the Corinthians and Lacedaemonians, and given their own city to stand the first brunt of the danger, and paved the way, in great measure, for their naval success.

For the greatest number of nations met together at this single city, excepting the whole sum of the confederates assembled, during the war, at the city of Athens or of Lacedaemon.

For the following were the states on each side that repaired to Syracuse for the war, coming against Sicily, or in its behalf, to assist the one side in winning, and the other in keeping possession of the country; taking their stand with one another, not so much on the ground of right, or of kindred, but as they were each circumstanced with respect either to expediency or to necessity.

The Athenians themselves went willingly, as Ionians against the Dorians of Syracuse; and with them went, as their colonists, having the same language and institutions as themselves, the Lemnians, Imbrians, and Aeginetans, who then occupied Aegina; as also the Hestiaeans, who inhabited Hestiaea, in Boeotia. Of the rest, some were serving with them as subjects;

others in consequence of their alliance, although independent; and others as mercenaries. Amongst their subjects and tributaries were the Eretrians, Chalcidians, Styrians, and Carystians, of Euboea.

From the islands were the Ceans, Andrians, and Tenians: from Ionia, the Milesians, Samnians, and Chians. Of these, the Chians joined as independent allies, not being subject to tribute, but supplying ships. All these were chiefly Ionians, and descended from the Athenians, except the Carystians, who were Dryopes; and though subject, and going from necessity, still they followed at any rate as Ionians against Dorians. Besides these, there were of Aeolic race, the Methymnaeans, subject to supplying ships but not tribute; and the Tenedians and Aenians, who were tributaries. These, although Aeolians, were by compulsion fighting against Aeolians, namely, the Boeotians, their founders, who were on the Syracusan side.

But the Plataeans alone fought as Boeotians right in the face of Boeotians, as might have been expected, for the hatred they bore them. Of Rhodians and Cytherians, again, both of Doric race, the Cytherians, though colonists of the Lacedaemonians, were fighting in concert with the Athenians against the Lacedaemonians with Gylippus;

while the Rhodians, who were Argives by race, were compelled to wage war against the Syracusans, who were Dorians, and the Geloans, who were even their own colonists, serving with the Syracusans. Of the islanders around the Peloponnese, the Cephallenians and Zacynthians followed, indeed, as independent allies, but still, on account of their insular position, rather by constraint, because the Athenians commanded the sea.

The Corcyraeans, though not only Dorians but even Corinthians, followed openly against the Corinthians and Syracusans, though colonists of the one and kinsmen of the other; by compulsion, according to their specious profession, but rather with good will, for the hatred they bore the Corinthians. The Messenians, too, as they are now called, at Naupactus, and also from Pylus, which was then held by the Athenians, were taken to the war. Moreover, some few Megarean exiles, owing to their misfortune, were fighting against the Selinuntines, who were Megareans.

Of the rest the service was now more of a voluntary nature. For it was not so much on account of their alliance, as out of hatred for the Lacedaemonians, and for their own individual advantage at the moment, that the Argives followed in company of the Ionian Athenians to fight as Dorians against Dorians.

While the Mantineans, and other mercenaries from Arcadia, went as being accustomed to go against the enemies who at any time were pointed out to them; and thought, for the sake of gain, that the Arcadians, who at that time came with the Corinthians, were no less than others their foes. The Cretans and Aetolians also came for consideration of pay; and it happened in the case of the Cretans, that although they had joined the Rhodians in founding Gela, they now came, not with their colonists, but against them—not by choice, but for pay. There were also some Acarnanians who served as auxiliaries, partly from motives of interest, but mainly as being allies, through their friendship with Demosthenes, and their good-will towards the Athenians.

These, then, were within the boundary of the Ionian gulf.

Of the Italiots, on the other hand, the Thurians and Metapontines, as they had been overtaken by such necessities at that time, owing to those seasons of faction, joined in the expedition; and of the Siceliots, the Naxians and Catanians. Of barbarians, there were the Segestans, who indeed invited then to their aid, with the greater part of the Sicels; and of those out of Sicily, some of the Tyrrhenians, on account of a quarrel with the Syracusans, and some lapygian mercenaries. Such and so many were the nations that were serving with the Athenians.

To the aid of the Syracusans, on the other hand, came the Camarinaeans, who lived on their borders; the Geloans, who lived next to them;

and then (for the Acragantines were neutral) the Selinuntines, who were situated on the farther side of the island. These occupied the part of Sicily opposite to Libya, but the Himeraeans the side towards the Tyrrhenian sea, in which they are the only Greek inhabitants, and from which they were the only auxiliaries of the Syracusans.

Such then were the Grecian communities in Sicily that joined in the war, being all Dorians and independent. Of the barbarians,. there were the Sicels alone, such of them as had not gone over to the Athenians. Of the Greeks beyond the limits of Sicily, there were the Lacedaemonians, who supplied a Spartan leader, while the rest of the troops were Neodamodes and Helots; (the term Neodamode being now equivalent to free;) the Corinthians, who alone of all the allies joined with both sea and land forces; the Leucadians, also, and Ambraciots, for the sake of their connexion with them; while mercenaries were sent from Arcadia by the Corinthians, and some Sicyonians, who were pressed into the service. From beyond the Peloponnese, some Boeotians joined them.

Compared, however, with these who came as auxiliaries, the Siceliots themselves supplied larger numbers in every branch of the service, inasmuch as they were powerful states; for numerous heavy-armed, ships, and horses, and an abundant crowd besides, were collected by them. And compared, again, with all the rest pot together, as one may say, the Syracusans by themselves furnished more numerous levies, both from the greatness of their city, and because they were in the greatest peril.

Such were the auxiliaries collected on either side, which, by this time, had all joined both parties, and there were no subsequent additions to either.

The Syracusans and their allies, then, reasonably conceived that it would be a glorious prize for them, after their recent victory in the sea-fight, to capture the whole armament of the Athenians, great as it was, and not to let them escape either way, neither by sea nor land. They began therefore immediately to close up the great harbour, the mouth of which was about eight stades across, with triremes ranged broadside, and merchant-vessels, and boats, mooring them with anchors; while they prepared every thing else, in case the Athenians should still have courage for a sea-fight, and entertained no small designs with regard to any thing.

The Athenians, seeing them closing up the harbour, and having received intelligence of their other plans, thought it necessary to hold a council.

Accordingly the generals and the Taxiarchs assembled to deliberate on their difficulties, arising both from other causes, and especially because they had neither any more provisions for their immediate use, (for, thinking that they were going to sail away, they had sent before to Catana, and commanded them to bring them no longer,) nor were likely to have them in future, unless they should gain the command of the sea. They determined therefore to evacuate the upper part of their lines, and having enclosed with a cross wall just by the ships the least space that could be sufficient to hold their stores and their sick, to garrison that, while with the rest of their troops, making every one go on board, they manned all their ships, both such as were sound and such as were less fit for service; and after a naval engagement, if they were victorious, to proceed to Catana; but if not, to burn their ships, throw themselves into him. and retreat by land, in whatever direction they would soonest reach some friendly town, whether barbarian or Grecian.

They, then, having resolved on these things, acted accordingly; for they gradually descended from their upper lines, and manned all their ships, having compelled to go on board whoever, even in any degree, seemed of age for rendering service.

Thus there were manned in all about a hundred and ten ships; on board which they embarked a large number of bow-men and dart-men, taken from the Acarnanian and other mercenaries, and provided every thing else, as far as it was possible for them, when acting upon a plan which necessity alone dictated, such as the present.

When most things were in readiness, Nicias, seeing the soldiers disheartened by their decided defeat at sea, and wishing, in consequence of the scarcity of provisions, to hazard a final battle as speedily as possible, assembled them, and on that occasion addressed them all together first, and spoke as follows:

"Soldiers of the Athenians, and of the other allies, the coming struggle will be common alike to all—for the safety and country of each of us, no less than of the enemy; since if we now gain a victory with our fleet, each one may see his native city again, wherever it may be.

Nor should you be disheartened, or feel like the most inexperienced of men, who, after failing in their first attempts, ever after have the anticipation of their fear taking the colour of their disasters.

But as many of you here as are Athenians, having already had experience in many wars, and all the allies who have ever joined us in our expeditions, remember the unexpected results that occur in warfare; and make your preparations with a hope that fortune may at length side with us, and with a determination to renew the conflict in a manner worthy of your numbers, which you see yourselves to be so great.

"Now whatever we saw likely to be serviceable against the confined space of the harbour, with reference to the crowd of ships that there will be, and the enemy's troops upon their decks, from which we suffered before, every thing has now been looked to and prepared by us also, as far as present circumstances would allow, with the co-operation of the masters of our vessels.

For great numbers of bow-men and dart-men will go on board, and a multitude such as we should not have used, had we been fighting in the open sea, as it would have interfered with the display of our skill through the weight of our ships; but in the present land-fight which we are compelled to make on board our ships, these things will be of service.

We have also ascertained the different ways in which we must adapt the structure of our vessels for opposing theirs, and especially, against the stoutness of their cheeks, from which we received most damage, we have provided grappling irons, which will prevent the ship's retiring again after it has once charged, if the soldiers on board then do their duty.

For to this necessity are we reduced, that we must maintain a land-fight on board our fleet; and it seems to be our interest neither to retire ourselves, nor to suffer them to do it; especially as the shore, except so far as our troops occupy it, is in possession of the enemy.

"Remembering this, then, you must fight on as long as you can, and not be driven to land, but determine, when one ship has closed with another, not to separate before you have swept off the soldiers from your enemy's deck.

And this exhortation I offer to the soldiers not less than to the sailors, inasmuch as this work belongs more to those upon deck. And we have still even now a general superiority with our troops.

On the other hand, I advise the seamen, and entreat them too at the same time, not to be too much dismayed by their misfortunes, as we have now superior resources on our decks, and a larger number of ships. Consider, too, how well worth preserving is that pleasure enjoyed by those of you, who, being hitherto considered as Athenians, even though you are not, from your knowledge of our language and your imitation of our customs, were respected through Greece, and enjoyed no less a share of our empire as regarded the benefits you derived from it, and a far greater share as regards being feared by our subjects, and being secured from injuries.

Since then you alone, as free men, share our empire with us, abstain, as just men, from now utterly betraying it. And with contempt for Corinthians, whom you have often conquered, and for Siceliots, none of whom presumed, while our fleet was in fine condition, so much as to stand up against us, repel them, and show that, even when attended by weakness and misfortunes, your skill is superior to the fortunate strength of any others.

Those of you, again, who are Athenians, I must remind of this also, that you left behind you no more such ships in your docks, nor so fine a body of heavy-armed troops; and that if any thing else befall you but victory, your enemies here will immediately sail thither, and those of our countrymen who are left behind there will be unable to defend themselves against both their opponents on the spot and those who will join them; and thus at the same time you who are here will be at the mercy of the Syracusans, (and you know with what feelings you came against them,) and those who are there at home at that of the Lacedaemonians.

Being brought then to this one struggle for both parties, fight bravely now, if you ever did; and reflect, both individually and collectively, that those of you who will now be on board your ships represent both the army and the navy of the Athenians, all that is left of your country, and the great name of Athens: in behalf of which, whatever be the point in which one man excels another, either in science or courage, on no other occasion could he better display it, so as both to benefit himself and to contribute to the preservation of all.

Nicias delivered this exhortation to them, and immediately commanded them to man the ships. Gylippus and the Syracusans, on the other hand, were able to perceive, from the sight of their very preparations, that the Athenians were about to engage them at sea, and the device of throwing the grappling irons had also been previously reported to them.

They prepared themselves therefore on all other points severally, and on this also; for they covered over with hides their prows and a considerable space of the upper part of the vessel, so that the grapple, when thrown, might slip off, and not obtain any hold on them.

And now, when every thing was ready, their generals, together with Gylippus, exhorted them by speaking as follows:

"That our former achievements have been glorious ones, Syracusans and allies, and that this struggle will be for glorious results in future, most of you seem to us to be aware, (for you would not else have devoted yourselves so eagerly to it,) and if any one is not as sensible of it as he ought to be, we will prove it to him.

For when the Athenians had come to this country, for the subjugation of Sicily in the first place, and then, if they succeeded, for that of the Peloponnese also, and the rest of Greece; and when they possessed the largest empire enjoyed hitherto, either by Greeks of former times or of the present, you were the first men in the world who withstood their navy, with which they had borne down every thing, and have already conquered them in some sea-fights, and will now, in all probability, conquer them in this.

For when men have been put down in that in which they claim to excel, their opinion of themselves in future is far lower than if they had never entertained such an idea at first; and failing through the disappointment of their boasting, they give way even beyond the degree of their power. And such, probably, is now the feeling of the Athenians.

"But in our case, both the opinion we entertained before, and with which, even while we were yet unskilful, we were full of daring, has now been confirmed; and from the addition to it of the thought that we must be the best seamen in the world, since we have conquered the best, each man's hope is doubled. And, generally speaking, it is the greatest hope that supplies also the greatest spirit for undertakings.

Again, those points in which they are imitating our equipments are familiar to our habits, and we shall not be awkward at each of them: whereas, on their side, when many soldiers are on their decks contrary to their custom, and many dart-men, mere land-lubbers, (so to speak,) Acarnanians and others, have gone on board their ships, who will not so much as know how to discharge their weapons while stationary, how can they avoid swaying the ships, and falling all into confusion amongst themselves, by not moving according to their own fashion?

For neither will they derive any benefit from the superior number of their ships, (if any of you be afraid of this, I mean the idea of his not going to fight them with an equal number;) for many ships in a small space will be less effective for executing any of the movements they may wish, while they are most liable to he injured by our preparations. On the contrary, be assured of this, which is most true, according to the certain information which we believe we have received.

It is through the excess of their miseries, and from being forced to it by their present distress, that they are induced to make a desperate effort; not so much from confidence in their resources, as from hazarding a chance, in whatever way they can, that they may either force their passage and sail out, or afterwards retreat by land; since, at any rate, they could not fare worse than at present.

To avail yourselves then of such confusion, and of the very fortune of our bitterest enemies, which has betrayed itself, let us close with them in wrath, and consider that the feeling of those men is most lawful, with regard to their enemies, who determine, when taking vengeance on their aggressor, to glut the animosity of their heart: and that we too shall have an opportunity of avenging ourselves on our foes—the very thing which is every where said to be most sweet.

For that they are our foes, and our bitterest foes, you all know; inasmuch as they came against our country to enslave it, and if they had succeeded, would have imposed on our men all that was most painful; on our children and wives, all that is most dishonourable; and on our whole country, the title which is most degrading.

Wherefore no one ought to relent, or deem it gain that they should merely go away without danger to us. For that they will do just the same, even if they gain the victory. But that, through our succeeding (as we probably shall do) in our wishes, these men should be punished, and should leave a more secure liberty for the whole of Sicily, which even before enjoyed that blessing; this is a glorious object to contend for. And of all hazards those are most rare, which, while they cause least harm by failure, confer most advantage by success.

The Syracusan commanders and Gylippus having in their turn thus exhorted their men, immediately manned the ships on their side also, since they saw that the Athenians were doing it.

Nicias, on the other hand, being dismayed at the present circumstances of himself and his colleagues, and seeing how great and how close at hand now their peril was, since they were all but on the point of putting out; considering, too, (as men usually feel in great emergencies,) that in deed every thing fell short of what they would have it, while in word enough had not yet been said by them; again called to him each one of the Trierarchs, addressing them severally by their father's name, their own, and that of their tribe; begging each one who enjoyed any previous distinction, from personal considerations not to sacrifice it, nor to obscure those hereditary virtues for which his forefathers were illustrious; reminding them too of their country—the most free one in the world—and the power, subject to no man's dictation, which all enjoyed in it with regard to their mode of life; mentioning other things also, such as men would say at a time now so critical, not guarding against being thought by any one to bring forward old and hackneyed topics, and such as are advanced in all cases alike, about men's wives and children and country's gods, but loudly appealing to them, because they think they may be of service in the present consternation.

Thus he, thinking that he had addressed to them an exhortation which was not so much a satisfactory one, as one that he was compelled to be content with, went away from them, and led the troops down to the beach, and ranged them over as large a space as he could, that the greatest possible assistance might be given to those on board towards keeping up their spirits.

Demosthenes, Menander, and Euthydemus, who went on board the Athenian fleet to take the command, put out from their own station, and immediately sailed to the bar at the mouth of the harbour, and the passage through it which had been closed up, wishing to force their way to the outside.

The Syracusans and their allies, having previously put out with pretty nearly the same number of ships as before, proceeded to keep guard with part of them at the passage out, and also round the circumference of the whole harbour, that they might fall upon the Athenians on all sides at once, while their troops also at the same time came to their aid at whatever part their vessels might put in to shore. The commanders of the Syracusan fleet were Sicanus and Agatharchus, each occupying a wing of the whole force, with Pythen and the Corinthians in the centre.

When the Athenians came up to the bar, in the first rush with which they charged they got the better of the ships posted at it, and endeavoured to break the fastenings. Afterwards, when the Syracusans and their allies bore down upon them from all quarters, the engagement was going on no longer at the bar alone, but over the harbour also; and an obstinate one it was, such as none of the previous ones had been. For great eagerness for the attack was exhibited by the seamen on both sides, when the command was given;

and there was much counter-manoeuvring on the part of the masters, and rivalry with each other; while the soldiers on board exerted themselves, when vessel came in collision with vessel, that the operations on deck might not fall short of the skill shown by others. Indeed every one, whatever the duty assigned him, made every effort that he might himself in each case appear the best man.

And as a great number of ships were engaged in a small compass, (for indeed they were the largest fleets fighting in the narrowest space that had ever been known, since both of them together fell little short of two hundred,) the attacks made with the beaks were few, as there were no means of backing water, or cutting through the enemy's line; but chance collisions were more frequent, just as one ship might happen to run into another, either in flying from or attacking a second.

So long as a vessel was coming up to the charge, those on her decks plied their javelins, arrows, and stones in abundance against her; but when they came to close quarters, the heavy-armed marines, fighting hand to hand, endeavoured to board each others ships.

In many cases too it happened, through want of room, that on one side they were charging an enemy, and on the other were being charged themselves, and that two ships, and sometimes even more, were by compulsion eutangled round one. And thus the masters had to guard against some, and to concert measures against others—not one thing at a time, but many things on every side—while the great din from such a number of ships coming into collision both spread dismay and prevented their hearing what the boatswains said.

For many were the orders given and the shouts raised by those officers on each side, both in the discharge of their duty, and from their present eagerness for the battle: while they cried out to the Athenians, to force the passage, and now, if ever they meant to do it hereafter, to exert themselves heartily for a safe return to their country;

and to the Syracusans and their allies, that it would be a glorious achievement for them to prevent the enemy's escape, and by gaining the victory to confer honour on their respective countries.

The commanders, moreover, on each side, if they saw any captain in any part unnecessarily rowing astern, called out on him by name and asked him, on the side of the Athenians, whether they were retreating because they considered the land, which was in the possession of their bitterest enemies, as more their own than the sea, which had been won with no small trouble?

on that of the Syracusans, whether they were themselves flying from the flying Athenians, whom they knew for certain to be anxious to escape from them in any way whatever?

The troops on shore too, on both sides, when the sea-fight was so equally balanced, suffered a great agony and conflict of feelings; those of the country being ambitious now of still greater honour, while their invaders were afraid of faring even worse than at present.

For, since the Athenians' all was staked on their fleet, their fear for the future was like none they had ever felt before; and from the unequal nature of the engagement they were also compelled to have an unequal view of it from the beach.

For as the spectacle was near at hand, and as they did not all look at the same part at once, if any saw their own men victorious in any quarter, they would be encouraged, and turn to calling on the gods not to deprive them of safety; while those who looked on the part that was being beaten, uttered lamentations at the same time as cries, and from the sight they had of what was going on, expressed their feelings more than those engaged in the action. Others, again, looking on a doubtful point of the engagement, in consequence of the indecisive continuance of the conflict, in their excessive fear made gestures with their very bodies, corresponding with their thoughts, and continued in the most distressing state, for they were constantly within a little of escaping, or of being destroyed.

And thus amongst the troops of the Athenians, as long as they ware fighting at sea on equal terms, every sound might be heard at once, wailing, shouting, they conquer, they are conquered, and all the other various exclamations which a great armament in great peril would be constrained to utter— very much in the same way as their men on board their ships were affected—until at length, after the battle had continued for a long time, the Syracusans and their allies routed the Athenians, and pressing on them in a decisive manner, with much shouting and cheering of each other on, pursued them to the shore.

Then the sea forces, as many as were not taken afloat, put in to the land at different parts, and rushed from on board to the camp; while the army, no longer with any different feelings, but all on one impulse, lamenting and groaning, deplored the event, and proceeded, some to succour the ships, others to guard what remained of their wall; while others, and those the greatest part, began now to think of themselves, and how they should best provide for their own preservation.

Indeed their dismay at the moment had been exceeded by none of all they had ever felt. And they now experienced pretty nearly what they had themselves inflicted at Pylus: for by the Lacedaemonians' losing their ships, their men who had crossed over into the island were lost to them besides: and at this time for the Athenians to escape by land was hopeless, unless something beyond all expectation should occur.

After the battle had been thus obstinately disputed, and many ships and men destroyed on both sides, the Syracusans and allies, having gained the victory, took up their wrecks and dead, and then sailed away to the city, and erected a trophy.

The Athenians, from the extent of their present misery, did not so much as think about their dead or their wrecks, or of asking permission to take them up, but wished to retreat immediately during the night.

Demosthenes, however, went to Nicias, and expressed it as his opinion, that they should still man their remaining ships, and force their passage; out, if they could, in the morning; alleging that they still had left more ships fit for service than the enemy; for the Athenians had about sixty remaining, while their adversaries had less than fifty.

But when Nicias agreed with this opinion, and they wished to man them, the seamen would not embark, through being dismayed at their defeat, and thinking that they could not now gain a victory. And so they all now made up their minds to retreat by land.

But Hermocrates the Syracusan, suspecting their purpose, and thinking that it would be a dreadful thing, if so large a force, after retreating by land and settling any where in Sicily, should choose again to carry on the war with them, went to the authorities, and explained to them that they ought not to suffer them to retreat during the night, (stating what he himself thought,) but that all the Syracusans and allies should at once go out, and block up the roads, and keep guard beforehand at the narrow passes.

But though the magistrates also agreed with him in thinking this, no less than himself, and were of opinion that it ought to be done, yet they thought that the people, in their recent joy and relaxation after the labours of a great sea-fight, especially, too, as it was a time of feasting, (for they happened to celebrate on this day a sacrifice to Hercules,) would not easily be induced to listen to them; as the majority, from excessive gladness at their victory, had fallen to drinking during the festival, and would, they expected, rather obey them in any thing than in taking arms, just at present, and marching out.

When, on consideration of this, it appeared a difficulty to the magistrates, and Hermocrates could not then prevail upon them to attempt it, he afterwards devised the following scheme. Being afraid that the Athenians might get the start of them by quietly passing during the night the most difficult points of the country, he sent certain of his own friends with some cavalry to the Athenian camp, as soon as it grew dark. These, riding up to within hearing, and calling to them certain individuals, as though they were friends of the Athenians, (for there were some who sent tidings to Nicias of what passed within the city,) desired them to tell that general not to lead off his army by night, as the Syracusans were guarding the roads; but to retire leisurely by day after making his preparations.

They then, after delivering this message, returned; while those who heard it, reported the same to the Athenian generals.

They, in accordance with the information, stopped for the night, considering it to be no false statement. And since they had not, as it was, set out immediately, they determined to remain over the next day also, that the soldiers might pack up, as well as they could, the most useful articles; and though they left every thing else behind, to take with them, when they started, just what was necessary for their personal support.

But the Syracusans and Gylippus had marched out before with their troops, and were blocking up the roads through the country where it was likely the Athenians would advance, as well as guarding the passages of the streams and rivers, and posting themselves for the reception of the army, in order to stop it where they thought best; while with their ships they sailed to those of the Athenians, and towed them off from the beach. Some few indeed the Athenians themselves had burnt, as they had intended; but the rest they lashed to their own at their leisure, as each had been thrown up on any part of the beach, and, without any one trying to stop them, conveyed them to the city.

After this, when Nicias and Demosthenes thought they were sufficiently prepared, the removal of the army took place, on the third day after the sea-fight.

It was a wretched scene then, not on account of the single circumstance alone, that they were retreating after having lost all their ships, and while both themselves and their country were in danger, instead of being in high hope; but also because, on leaving their camp, every one had grievous things both to behold with his eyes and to feel in his heart.

For as the dead lay unburied, and any one saw a friend on the ground, he was struck at once with grief and fear. And the living who were being left behind, wounded or sick, were to the living a much more sorrowful spectacle than the dead, and more piteous than those who had perished.

For having recourse to entreaties and wailings, they reduced them to utter perplexity, begging to be taken away, and appealing to each individual friend or relative that any of them might any where see; ZZZ hanging on their comrades, as they were now going away; or following as far as they could, and when in any case the strength of their body failed, not being left behind without many appeals to heaven and many lamentations. So that the whole army, being filled with tears and distress of this kind, did not easily get away, although from an enemy's country, and although they had both suffered already miseries too great for tears to express, and were still afraid for the future, lest they might suffer more.

There was also amongst them much dejection and depreciation of their own strength. For they resembled nothing but a city starved out and attempting to escape; and no small one too, for of their whole multitude there were not less than forty thousand on the march. Of these, all the rest took whatever each one could that was useful, and the heavy-armed and cavalry themselves, contrary to custom, carried their own food under their arms, some for want of servants, others through distrusting them; for they had for a long time been deserting, and did so in greatest numbers at that moment. And even what they carried was not sufficient; for there was no longer any food in the camp.

Nor, again, was their other misery, and their equal participation in sufferings, (though it affords some alleviation to endure with others,) considered even on that account easy to bear at the present time; especially, when they reflected from what splendour and boasting at first they had been reduced to such an abject termination. For this was the greatest reverse that ever befell a Grecian army;

since, in contrast to their having come to enslave others, they had to depart in fear of undergoing that themselves; and instead of prayers and hymns, with which they sailed from home, they had to start on their return with omens the very contrary of these; going by land, instead of by sea, and relying on a military rather than a naval force. But nevertheless, in consequence of the greatness of the danger still impending, all these things seemed endurable to them.

Nicias, seeing the army dejected, and greatly changed, passed along the ranks, and encouraged and cheered them, as well as existing circumstances allowed; speaking still louder than before, as he severally came opposite to them, in the earnestness of his feeling, and from wishing to be of service to them by making himself audible to as many as possible.

Still, even in our present circumstances, Athenians and allies, must we cherish hope; for some men have, ere now, been preserved even from more dreadful circumstances than these. Nor should you think too meanly of yourselves, or yield too much to your misfortunes and present sufferings, which are beyond your desert.

For my own part, though I am not superior to any of you in strength, (for you see what a state I am in through disease,) and though I consider myself to be second to none, whether in my private life or in other respects, yet now I am exposed to every danger, like the very meanest. And yet I have lived with much devotion, as regards the gods, and much justice and freedom from reproach, as regards men. And therefore my hope is still strong for the future;

and my calamities do not terrify me, so much as they might. Nay, they may perhaps be alleviated; for our enemies have enjoyed enough good fortune; and if we displeased any of the gods by making this expedition, we have already been sufficiently punished for it. Others also, we know, have ere now marched against their neighbours;

and after acting as men do, have suffered what they could endure. And so in our case it is reasonable now to hope that we shall find the wrath of the gods mitigated; for we are now deserving of pity at their hands, rather than of envy. Looking, too, on your own ranks, what experienced and numerous men of arms there are with you, advancing in battle-array together, do not be too much dismayed, but consider that you are yourselves at once a city, wherever you may settle; and that there is no other in Sicily that would either easily resist your attack, or expel you when settled any where. With regard to the march, that it may be safe and orderly, look to that yourselves;

with no other consideration, each of you, than that whatever the spot on which he may be compelled to fight, on that he will have, if victorious, both a country and a fortress.

And we shall hurry on our way both by day and night alike, as we have but scanty provisions; and if we can only reach some friendly town of the Sicels, (for they, through their fear of the Syracusans, are still true to us,) then consider yourselves to be in security. And a message has been sent forward to them, and directions have been given them to meet us, and bring a fresh supply of provisions.

In short, you must be convinced, soldiers, both that it is necessary for you to be brave men—since there is no place near which you can reach in safety, if you act like cowards—and, at the same time, that if you escape from your enemies now, the rest of you will gain a sight of all you may any where wish to see; and the Athenians will raise up again, though fallen at present, the great power of their country. For it is men that make a city, and not walls, or ships, without any to man them.

Nicias, then, delivered this exhortation, and at the same time went up to the troops, and if he saw them any where straggling, and not marching in order, he collected and brought them to their post; while Demosthenes also did no less to those who were near him, addressing them in a similar manner.

They marched in the form of a hollow square, the division under Nicias taking the lead, and that of Demosthenes following;

while the baggage bearers and the main crowd of camp followers were enclosed within the heavy-armed. When they had come to the ford of the river Anapus, they found drawn up at it a body of the Syracusans and allies; but having routed these, and secured the passage, they proceeded onwards; while the Syracusans pressed them with charges of horse, as their light-armed did with their missiles.

On that day the Athenians advanced about forty stades, and then halted for the night on a hill. The day following, they commenced their march at an early hour, and having advanced about twenty stades, descended into a level district, and there encamped, wishing to procure some eatables from the houses, (for the place was inhabited,) and to carry on with them water from it, since for many stades before them, in the direction they were to go, it was not plentiful.

The Syracusans, in the mean time, had gone on before, and were blocking up the pass in advance of them. For there was there a steep hill, with a precipitous ravine on either side of it, called the Acraeum Lepas.

The next day the Athenians advanced, and the horse and dart-men of the Syracusans and allies, each in great numbers, impeded their progress, hurling their missiles upon them, and annoying them with cavalry charges. The Athenians fought for a long time, and then returned again to the same camp, no longer having provisions as they had before; for it was no more possible to leave their position, because of the cavalry.

Having started early, they began their march again, and forced their way to the hill which had been fortified; where they found before them the enemy's infantry drawn up for the defence of the wall many spears deep; for the pass was but narrow.

The Athenians charged and assaulted the wall, but being annoyed with missiles by a large body from the hill, which was steep, (for those on the heights more easily reached their aim,) and not being able to force a passage, they retreated again, and rested.

There happened also to be at the same time some claps of thunder and rain, as is generally the case when the year is now verging on autumn; in consequence of which the Athenians were still more dispirited, and thought that all these things also were conspiring together for their ruin.

While they were resting, Gylippus and the Syracusans sent a part of their troops to intercept them again with a wall on their rear, where they had already passed: but they, on their side also, sent some of their men against them, and prevented their doing it.

After this, the Athenians returned again with all their army into the more level country, and there halted for the night. The next day they marched forward, while the Syracusans discharged their weapons on them, surrounding them on all sides, and disabled many with wounds; retreating if the Athenians advanced against them, and pressing on them if they gave way; most especially attacking their extreme rear, in the hope that by routing them little by little, they might strike terror into the whole army.

The Athenians resisted this mode of attack for a long time, but then, after advancing five or six stades, halted for rest on the plain; while the Syracusans also went away from them to their own camp.

During the night, their troops being in a wretched condition, both from the want of all provisions which was now felt, and from so many men being disabled by wounds in the numerous attacks that had been made upon them by the enemy, Nicias and Demosthenes determined to light as many fires as possible, and then lead off the army, no longer by the same route as they had intended, but in the opposite direction to where the Syracusans were watching for them, namely, to the sea.

Now the whole of this road would lead the armament, not towards Catana, but to the other side of Sicily, to Camarina, and Gela, and the cities in that direction, whether Grecian or barbarian.

They kindled therefore many fires, and began their march in the night. And as all armies, and especially the largest, are liable to have terrors and panics produced amongst them, particularly when marching at night, and through an enemy's country, and with the enemy not far off; so they also were thrown into alarm;

and the division of Nicias, taking the lead as it did, kept together and got a long way in advance; while that of Demosthenes, containing about half or more, was separated from the others, and proceeded in greater disorder.

By the morning, nevertheless, they arrived at the sea-coast, and entering on what is called the Helorine road, continued their march, in order that when they had reached the river Cacyparis, they might march up along its banks though the interior; for they hoped also that in this direction the Sicels, to whom they had sent, would come to meet them.

But when they had reached the river, they found a guard of the Syracusans there too, intercepting the pass with a wall and a palisade, having carried which, they crossed the river, and marched on again to another called the Erineus; for this was the route which their guides directed them to take.

In the mean time the Syracusans and allies, as soon as it was day, and they found that the Athenians had departed, most of them charged Gylippus with having purposely let them escape; and pursuing with all haste by the route which they had no difficulty in finding they had taken, they overtook them about dinner-time.

When they came up with the troops under Demosthenes, which were behind the rest, and marching more slowly and disorderly, ever since they had been thrown into confusion during the night, at the time we have mentioned, they immediately fell upon and engaged them; and the Syracusan horse surrounded them with greater ease from their being divided, and confined them in a narrow space.

The division of Nicias was as much as fifty stades off in advance; for he led them on more rapidly, thinking that their preservation depended, under such circumstances, not on staying behind, if they could help it, and on fighting, but on retreating as quickly as possible, and only fighting as often as they were compelled.

Demosthenes, on the other hand, was, generally speaking, involved in more incessant labour, (because, as he was retreating in the rear, he was the first that the enemy attacked,) and on that occasion, finding that the Syracusans were in pursuit, he was not so much inclined to push on, as to form his men for battle; until, through thus loitering, he was surrounded by them, and both himself and the Athenians with him were thrown into great confusion. For being driven back into a certain spot which had a wall all round it, with a road on each side, and many olive trees growing about, they were annoyed with missiles in every direction. This kind of attack the Syracusans naturally adopted, instead of close combat;

for to risk their lives against men reduced to despair was no longer for their advantage, so much as for that of the Athenians. Besides, after success which was now so signal, each man spared himself in some degree, that he might not be cut off before the end of the business. They thought too that, even as it was, they should by this kind of fighting subdue and capture them.

At any rate, when, after plying the Athenians and their allies with missiles all day from every quarter, they saw them now distressed by wounds and other sufferings, Gylippus with the Syracusans and allies made a proclamation, in the first place, that any of the islanders who chose should come over to them, on condition of retaining his liberty: and some few states went over.

Afterwards, terms were made with all the troops under Demosthenes, that they should surrender their arms, and that no one should be put to death, either by violence, or imprisonment, or want of such nourishment as was most absolutely requisite.

Thus there surrendered, in all, to the number of six thousand; and the whole of the money in their possession they laid down, throwing it into the hollow of shields, four of which they filled with it. These they immediately led back to the city, while Nicias and his division arrived that day on the banks of the river Erineus; having crossed which, he posted his army on some high ground.

The Syracusans, having overtaken him the next day, told him that Demosthenes and his division had surrendered themselves, and called on him also to do the same. Being incredulous of the fact, he obtained a truce to enable him to send a horseman to see.

When he had gone, and brought word back again that they had surrendered, Nicias sent a herald to Gylippus and the Syracusans, saying that he was ready to agree with the Syracusans, on behalf of the Athenians, to repay whatever money the Syracusans had spent on the war, on condition of their letting his army go; and that until the money was paid, he would give Athenians as hostages, one for every talent.

The Syracusans and Gylippus did not accede to these proposals, but fell upon this division also, and surrounded them on all sides, and annoyed them with their missiles until late in the day.

And they too, like the others, were in a wretched plight for want of food and necessaries. Nevertheless, they watched for the quiet of the night, and then intended to pursue their march. And they were now just taking up their arms, when the Syracusans perceived it and raised their paean.

The Athenians therefore, finding that they had not eluded their observation, laid their arms down again; excepting about three hundred men, who forced their way through the sentinels, and proceeded, during the night, how and where they could.

As soon as it was day, Nicias led his troops forward; while the Syracusans and allies pressed on them in the same manner, discharging their missiles at them, and striking them down with their javelins on every side.

The Athenians were hurrying on to reach the river Assinarus, being urged to this at once by the attack made on every side of them by the numerous cavalry and the rest of the light-armed multitude, (for they thought they should be more at ease if they were once across the river,) and also by their weariness and craving for drink.

When they reached its banks, they rushed into it without any more regard for order, every man anxious to be himself the first to cross it; while the attack of the enemy rendered the passage more difficult. For being compelled to advance in a dense body, they fell upon and trode down one another; and some of them died immediately on the javelins and articles of baggage, while others were entangled together, and floated down the stream.

On the other side of the river, too, the Syracusans lined the bank, which was precipitous, and from the higher ground discharged their missiles on the Athenians, while most of them were eagerly drinking, and in confusion amongst themselves in the hollow bed of the stream.

The Peloponnesians, moreover, came down to them and butchered them, especially those in the river. And thus the water was immediately spoiled; but nevertheless it was drunk by them, mud and all, bloody as it was, and was even fought for by most of them.

At length, when many dead were now heaped one upon another in the river, and the army was destroyed, either at the river, or, even if any part had escaped, by the cavalry, Nicias surrendered himself to Gylippus, placing more confidence in him than in the Syracusans; and desired him and the Lacedaemonians to do what they pleased with himself, but to stop butchering the rest of the soldiers. After this, Gylippus commanded to make prisoners;

and they collected all that were alive, excepting such as they concealed for their own benefit (of whom there was a large number). They also sent a party in pursuit of the three hundred, who had forced their way through the sentinels during the night, and took them.

The part of the army, then, that was collected as general property, was not large, but that which was secreted was considerable; and the whole of Sicily was filled with them, inasmuch as they had not been taken on definite terms of surrender, like those with Demosthenes.

Indeed no small part was actually put to death; for this was the most extensive slaughter, and surpassed by none of all that occurred in this Sicilian war. In the other encounters also, which were frequent on their march, no few had fallen. But many also escaped, nevertheless; some at the moment, others after serving as slaves, and running away subsequently. These found a place of refuge at Catana.

When the Syracusans and allies were assembled together, they took with them as many prisoners as they could, with the spoils, and returned to the city.

All the rest of the Athenians and the allies that they had taken, they sent down into the quarries, thinking this the safest way of keeping them: but Nicias and Demosthenes they executed, against the wish of Gylippus. For he thought it would be a glorious distinction for him, in addition to all his other achievements, to take to the Lacedaemonians even the generals who had commanded against them.

And it so happened, that one of these, namely Demosthenes, was regarded by them as their most inveterate enemy, in consequence of what had occurred on the island and at Pylus; the other, for the same reasons, as most in their interest; for Nicias had exerted himself for the release of the Lacedaemonians taken from the island, by persuading the Athenians to make a treaty.

On this account the Lacedaemonians had friendly feelings towards him; and indeed it was mainly for the same reasons that he reposed confidence in Gylippus, and surrendered himself to him. But certain of the Syracusans (as it was said) were afraid, some of them, since they had held communication with him, that if put to the torture, he might cause them trouble on that account in the midst of their success; others, and especially the Corinthians, lest he might bribe some, as he was rich, and effect his escape, and so they should again incur mischief through his agency;

and therefore they persuaded the allies, and put him to death. For this cause then, or something very like this, he was executed; having least of all the Greeks in my time deserved to meet with such a misfortune, on account of his devoted attention to the practice of every virtue.

As for those in the quarries, the Syracusans treated them with cruelty during the first period of their captivity. For as they were in a hollow place, and many in a small compass, the sun, as well as the suffocating closeness, distressed them at first, in consequence of their not being under cover; and then, on the contrary, the nights coming on autumnal and cold, soon worked in them an alteration from health to disease, by means of the change.

Since, too, in consequence of their want of room, they did every thing in the same place;

and the dead, moreover, were piled up one on another—such as died from their wounds, and from the change they had experienced, and such like—there were, besides, intolerable stenches: while at the same time they were tormented with hunger and thirst; for during eight months they gave each of them daily only a cotyle of water, and two of corn. And of all the other miseries which it was likely that men thrown into such a place would suffer, there was none that did not fall to their lot. For some seventy days they thus lived all together;

but then they sold the rest of them, except the Athenians, and whatever Siceliots or Italiots had joined them in the expedition. The total number of those who were taken, though it were difficult to speak with exactness, was still not less than seven thousand. And this was the greatest Grecian exploit of all that were performed in this war;

nay, in my opinion, of all Grecian achievements that we have heard of also; and was at once most splendid for the conquerors, and most disastrous for the conquered. For being altogether vanquished at all points, and having suffered in no slight degree in any respect, they were destroyed (as the saying is) with utter destruction, both army, and navy, and every thing;

and only a few out of many returned home. Such were the events which occurred in Sicily.