Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Thomas Hobbes, Ed.

THE SEVENTH BOOK

THE PRINCIPAL CONTENTS

• Gylippus arriveth at Syracuse, checketh the fortune of the Athenians, and cutteth off their works with a counter-wall.
-- The Lacedaemonians invade Attica and fortify Deceleia. -- The confederates of each side are solicited for supplies to be sent to Syracuse. -- Two battles fought in the great haven: in the first of which the Syracusians are beaten, in the second superior. -- Demosthenes arriveth with a new army, and, attempting the works of the enemy in Epipolae by night, is repulsed with great slaughter of his men. -- They fight the third time, and the Syracusians, having the victory, block up the haven with boats. -- A catalogue of the confederates on each side. -- They fight again at the bars of the haven, where the Athenians, losing their galleys, prepare to march away by land. -- In their march they are afflicted, beaten, and finally subdued by the Syracusians. -- The death of Nicias and Demosthenes and misery of the captives in the quarry. -- Which happened in the nineteenth year of this war.

2. In the meantime, the Corinthians with the rest of their galleys putting to sea from Leucas, made after [as they were] every one with what speed he could; and Gongylus, one of the Corinthian commanders, though the last that set forth, arrived first at Syracuse with one galley, and but a little before the coming of Gylippus. And finding them ready to call an assembly about an end of the war, he hindered them from it and put them into heart, relating how both the rest of the galleys were coming, and also Gylippus, the son of Cleandridas, for general, sent unto them by the Lacedaemonians. [2] With this the Syracusians were re-confirmed, and went presently out with their whole army to meet him, for they understood now that he was near. [3] He, having taken Iegas, a fort, in his way as he passed through the territory of the Siculi, and embattled his men, cometh to Epipolae, and getting up by Euryelus, where also the Athenians had gotten up before, marched together with the Syracusians towards the wall of the Athenians. [4] At the time when he arrived, the Athenians had finished a double wall of seven or eight furlongs towards the great haven, save only a little next the sea, which they were yet at work on. And on the other side of their circle, towards Trogilus and the other sea, the stones were for the most part laid ready upon the place; and the work was left in some places half, and in some wholly finished. So great was the danger that Syracuse was now brought into.

3. The Athenians, at the sudden coming on of Gylippus, though somewhat troubled at first, yet put themselves in order to receive him. And he, making a stand when he came near, sent a herald to them, saying that if they would abandon Sicily within five days with bag and baggage, he was content to give them truce. [2] Which the Athenians contemning, sent him away without any answer. After this, they were putting themselves into order of battle one against another; [3] but Gylippus, finding the Syracusians troubled and not easily falling into their ranks, led back his army in a more open ground. Nicias led not the Athenians out against him, but lay still at his own fortification. And Gylippus, seeing he came not up, withdrew his army into the top called Temenites, where he lodged all night. [4] The next day, he drew out the greater part of his army and embattled them before the fortification of the Athenians that they might not send succour to any other place; but a part also they sent to the fort of Labdalum, and took it, and slew all those they found within it; for the place was out of sight to the Athenians. [5] The same day the Syracusians also took an Athenian galley as it entered into the great haven.

4. After this, the Syracusians and their confederates began a wall through Epipolae, from the city towards the single cross wall upwards, that the Athenians, unless they could hinder it, might be excluded from bringing their own wall any further on. [2] And the Athenians by this time, having made an end of their wall to the sea, were come up again; and Gylippus (for some part of the wall was but weak), rising with his army by night, went to assault it. [3] But the Athenians, also knowing it (for they lodged all night without the wall), went presently to relieve it; which Gylippus perceiving, again retired. And the Athenians, when they had built it higher, kept the watch in this part themselves, and divided the rest of the wall to the charge of their confederates. Also it seemed good to Nicias to fortify the place called Plemmyrium. [4] It is a promontory over against the city, which, shooting into the entrance of the great haven, straiteneth the mouth of the same; which fortified, he thought would facilitate the bringing in of necessaries to the army. For by this means, their galleys might ride nearer to the haven of the Syracusians, and not upon every motion of the navy of the enemies to be to come out against them, as they were before, from the bottom of the [great] haven. And he had his mind set chiefly now upon the war by sea, seeing his hopes by land diminished since the arrival of Gylippus. [5] Having therefore drawn his army and galleys to that place, he built about it three fortifications, wherein he placed his baggage, and where now also lay at road both his great vessels of carriage and the nimblest of his galleys. [6] Hereupon principally ensued the first occasion of the great loss of his sea soldiers. For having but little water, and that far to fetch, and his mariners going out also to fetch in wood, they were continually intercepted by the Syracusian horsemen, that were masters of the field. For the third part of the Syracusian cavalry were quartered in a little town called Olympieium to keep those in Plemmyrium from going abroad to spoil the country. [7] Nicias was advertised moreover of the coming of the rest of the Corinthian galleys, and sent out a guard of twenty galleys with order to wait for them about Locri and Rhegium and the passage there into Sicily.

5. Gylippus in the meantime went on with the wall through Epipolae, using the stones laid ready there by the Athenians, and withal drew out the Syracusians and their confederates beyond the point of the same, and ever as he brought them forth put them into their order; [2] and the Athenians, on the other side, embattled themselves against them. Gylippus, when he saw his time, began the battle; and being come to hands, they fought between the fortifications of them both, where the Syracusians and their confederates had no use at all of their horsemen. [3] The Syracusians and their confederates being overcome, and the Athenians having given them truce to take up their dead and erected a trophy, Gylippus assembled the army and told them that this was not theirs, but his own fault, who, by pitching the battle so far within the fortifications, had deprived them of the use both of their cavalry and darters; [4] and that therefore he meant to bring them on again, and wished them to consider that for forces they were nothing inferior to the enemy; and for courage, it were a thing not to be endured that, being Peloponnesians and Dorians, they should not master and drive out of the country Ionians, islanders, and a rabble of mixed nations.

6. After this, when he saw his opportunity, he brought out the army again. Nicias and the Athenians, who thought it necessary, if not to begin the battle, yet by no means to set light by the wall in hand (for by this time it wanted but little of passing the point of theirs, and proceeding, would give the enemy advantage, both to win if he fought, and not to fight unless he listed), did therefore also set forth to meet the Syracusians. [2] Gylippus, when he had drawn his men of arms farther without the walls than he had done before, gave the onset. His horsemen and darters he placed upon the flank of the Athenians, in ground enough, to which neither of their walls extended. [3] And these horsemen, after the fight was begun, charging upon the left wing of the Athenians next them, put them to flight; by which means the rest of the army was by the Syracusians overcome likewise and driven headlong within their fortifications. [4] The night following, the Syracusians brought up their wall beyond the wall of the Athenians so as they could no longer hinder them, but should be utterly unable, though masters of the field, to enclose the city.

7. After this, the other twelve galleys of the Corinthians, Ambraciotes, and Leucadians, undescried of the Athenian galleys that lay in wait for them, entered the haven, under the command of Erasinides, a Corinthian, and helped the Syracusians to finish what remained to the cross wall. [2]

Now Gylippus went up and down Sicily, raising forces both for sea and land and soliciting to his side all such cities as formerly either had not been forward or had wholly abstained from the war. [3] Other ambassadors also, both of the Syracusians and Corinthians, were sent to Lacedaemon and Corinth to procure new forces to be transported either in ships or boats, or how they could; because the Athenians had also sent to Athens for the like. [4] In the meantime, the Syracusians both manned their navy and made trial of themselves, as intending to take in hand that part also, and were otherwise exceedingly encouraged.

8. Nicias perceiving this and seeing the strength of the enemy and his own necessities daily increasing, he also sent messengers to Athens, both at other times and often, upon the occasion of every action that passed, and now especially, as finding himself in danger, and that unless they quickly sent for those away that were there already, or sent a great supply unto them, there was no hope of safety. [2] And fearing lest such as he sent, through want of utterance or judgment or through desire to please the multitude, should deliver things otherwise than they were, he wrote unto them a letter, conceiving that thus the Athenians should best know his mind, whereof no part could now be suppressed by the messenger, and might therefore enter into deliberation upon true grounds. [3] With these letters and other their instructions, the messengers took their journey. And Nicias, in the meantime having a care to the well guarding of his camp, was wary of entering into any voluntary dangers.

9. In the end of this summer, Euetion, general for the Athenians, with Perdiccas, together with many Thracians, warring against Amphipolis, took not the city, but bringing his galleys about into Strymon, besieged it from the river, lying at Imeraeum. And so this summer ended.

10. The next winter, the messengers from Nicias arrived at Athens, and having spoken what they had in charge, and answered to such questions as they were asked, they presented the letter; which the clerk of the city, standing forth, read unto the Athenians, containing as followeth:

11. "Athenians, you know by many other my letters what hath passed formerly; nor is it less needful for you to be informed of the state we are in, and to take counsel upon it, at this present. [2] When we had in many battles beaten the Syracusians, against whom we were sent, and had built the walls within which we now lie, came Gylippus a Lacedaemonian, with an army out of Peloponnesus, and also out of some of the cities of Sicily, and in the first battle was overcome by us; but in the second, forced by his many horsemen and darters, we retired within our works. [3] Whereupon giving over our walling up of the city for the multitude of our enemies, we now sit still. Nor can we indeed have the use of our whole army, because some part of the men of arms are employed to defend our walls. And they have built a single wall up to us, so that now we have no more means to enclose it, except one should come with a great army and win that cross wall of theirs by assault. [4] And so it is that we who seemed to besiege others are besieged ourselves for so much as concerneth the land; for we cannot go far abroad by reason of their cavalry.

12. "They have also sent ambassadors for another army into Peloponnesus; and Gylippus is gone amongst the cities of Sicily, both to solicit such to join with him in the war as have not yet stirred, and of others to get, if he can, both more land soldiers and more munition for their navy. [2] For they intend, as I have been informed, both to assault our wall by land with their army and to make trial what they are able to do with their navy by sea. [3] For though our fleet (which they also have heard) were vigorous at first, both for soundness of the galleys and entireness of the men, yet our galleys are now soaked with lying so long in the water and our men consumed. [4] For we want the means to haul a-land our galleys and trim them, because the galleys of the enemy, as good as ours and more in number, do keep us in a continual expectation of assault, which they manifestly endeavour. [5] And seeing it is in their own choice to attempt or not, they have therefore liberty to dry their galleys at their pleasure; for they lie not, as we, in attendance upon others.

13. "Nay, we could hardly do it, though we had many galleys spare, and were not constrained, as now, to keep watch upon them with our whole number. For should we abate though but a little of our observance, we should want provision; which, as we are, being to pass so near their city, is brought in with difficulty. [2] And hence it is that our mariners both formerly have been and are now wasted. For our mariners, fetching wood and water and foraging far off, are intercepted by the horsemen; and our slaves, now we are on equal terms, run over to the enemy. As for strangers, some of them having come aboard by constraint, return presently to their cities; and others having been levied at first with great wages, thinking they came to enrich themselves rather than to fight, now they see the enemy make so strong resistance, both otherwise beyond their expectation and especially with their navy, partly take pretext to be gone that they may serve the enemy, and partly, Sicily being large, shift themselves away every one as he can. Some there are also, who having bought here Hyccarian slaves, have gotten the captains of galleys to accept of them in the room of themselves, and thereby destroyed the purity of our naval strength.

14. "To you I write, who know how small a time any fleet continueth in the height of vigour, and how few of the mariners are skilful both how to hasten the course of a galley and how to contain the oar. [2] But of all, my greatest trouble is this: that being general, I can neither make them do better (for your natures are hard to be governed) nor get mariners in any other place (which the enemy can do from many places), and must of necessity have them from whence we brought both those we have and those we have lost. For our now confederate cities, Naxos and Catana, are not able to supply us. [3] Had the enemy but that one thing more, that the towns of Italy that now send us provision, seeing what estate we are now in and you not helping us, would turn to them, the war were at an end and we expugned without another stroke. [4]

"I could have written to you other things more pleasing than these, but not more profitable, seeing it is necessary for you to know certainly the affairs here when you go to council upon them. Withal, because I know your natures to be such as though you love to hear the best, yet afterwards when things fall not out accordingly you will call in question them that write it, I thought best to write the truth for my own safety's sake.

15. ‘And now think thus: that though we have carried ourselves, both captains and soldiers, in that for which we came at first hither, unblameably, yet since all Sicily is united against us and another army expected out of Peloponnesus, you must resolve (for those we have here are not enough for the enemy's present forces) either to send for these away, or to send hither another army, both of land and sea soldiers, no less than the former, and money not a little; and also a general to succeed me, who am able no longer to stay here, being troubled with the stone [in the kidneys]. [2] I must crave your pardon. I have done you many good services in the conducts of your armies when I had my health. What you will do, do in the very beginning of spring, and delay it not. For the enemy will soon have furnished himself of his Sicilian aids; and though those from Peloponnesus will be later, yet if you look not to it, they will get hither partly unseen, as before, and partly by preventing you with speed.’

16. These were the contents of the letter of Nicias. The Athenians, when they had heard it read, though they released not Nicias of his charge, yet for the present, till such time as others chosen to be in commission might arrive, they joined with him two of those that were already in the army, Menander and Euthydemon, to the end that he might not sustain the whole burthen alone in his sickness. [2] They concluded likewise to send another army, as well for the sea as the land, both of Athenians enrolled and of their confederates. And for fellow-generals with Nicias, they elected Demosthenes, the son of Alcisthenes, and Eurymedon, the son of Thucles. Eurymedon they sent away presently for Sicily, about the time of the winter solstice, with ten galleys and twenty talents of silver, to tell them there that aid was coming and that there was care taken of them.

17. But Demosthenes, staying, made preparation for the voyage to set out early the next spring; and sent unto the confederates, appointing what forces they should provide, and to furnish himself amongst them with money and galleys and men of arms. [2]

The Athenians sent also twenty galleys about Peloponnesus, to watch that none should go over into Sicily from Corinth or Peloponnesus. [3] For the Corinthians, after the ambassadors were come to them and had brought news of the amendment of the affairs in Sicily, thought it was well that they had sent thither those other galleys before; but now they were encouraged a great deal more, and prepared men of arms to be transported into Sicily in ships; [4] and the Lacedaemonians did the like for the rest of Peloponnesus. The Corinthians manned fiveand-twenty galleys to present battle to the fleet that kept watch at Naupactus, that the ships with the men of arms, whilst the Athenians attended these galleys so embattled against them, might pass by unhindered.

18. The Lacedaemonians, as they intended before, and being also instigated to it by the Syracusians and Corinthians, upon advertisement now of the Athenians' new supply for Sicily, prepared likewise to invade Attica, thereby to divert them. And Alcibiades also importunately urged the fortifying of Deceleia, and by no means to war remissly. [2] But the Lacedaemonians were heartened thereunto principally because they thought the Athenians having in hand a double war, one against them and another against the Sicilians, would be the easier pulled down, and because they conceived the breach of the last peace was in themselves. For in the former war, the injury proceeded from their own side, in that the Thebans had entered Plataea in time of peace; and because also, whereas it was inserted in the former articles that arms should not be carried against such as would stand to trial of judgment, they had refused such trial when the Athenians offered it. And they thought all their misfortunes had deservedly befallen them for that cause, remembering amongst others, the calamity at Pylus. [3] But when the Athenians with a fleet of thirty sail had spoiled part of the territory of Epidaurus and of Prasiae and other places, and their soldiers that lay in garrison in Pylus had taken booty in the country about, and seeing that as often as there arose any controversy touching any doubtful point of the articles, the Lacedaemonians offering trial by judgment, they refused it, then indeed, the Lacedaemonians, conceiving the Athenians to be in the same fault that themselves had been in before, betook themselves earnestly to the war. [4] And this winter, they sent about unto their confederates to make ready iron, and all instruments of fortification. And for the aid they were to transport in ships to the Sicilians, they both made provision amongst themselves and compelled the rest of Peloponnesus to do the like. So ended this winter, and the eighteenth year of the war written by Thucydides.

19. The next spring, in the very beginning, earlier than ever before, the Lacedaemonians and their confederates entered with their army into Attica, under the command of Agis, the son of Archidamus, their king. And first they wasted the champagne country, and then went in hand with the wall at Deceleia, dividing the work amongst the army, according to their cities. [2] This Deceleia is from the city of Athens at the most but one hundred and twenty furlongs, and about as much or a little more from Boeotia. This fort they made in the plain, and in the most opportune place that could be to annoy the Athenians, and in sight of the city. [3] Now the Peloponnesians and their confederates in Attica went on with their fortification. They in Peloponnesus sent away their ships with the men of arms about the same time into Sicily, of which the Lacedaemonians, out of the best of their Helotes and men made newly free, sent in the whole six hundred, and Eccritus, a Spartan, for commander; and the Boeotians three hundred, under the conduct of Xenon and Nicon, Thebans, and Hegesander, a Thespian. [4] And these set forth first, and put to sea at Taenarus in Laconia. After them a little, the Corinthians sent away five hundred more, part from the city itself of Corinth and part mercenary Arcadians, and Alexarchus, a Corinthian, for captain. The Sicyonians also sent two hundred with them that went from Corinth, and Sargeus, a Sicyonian, for captain. [5] Now the twenty-five Corinthian galleys that were manned in winter lay opposite to the twenty galleys of Athens which were at Naupactus till such time as the men of arms in the ships from Peloponnesus might get away; for which purpose they were also set out at first, that the Athenians might not have their minds upon these ships so much as upon the galleys.

20. In the meantime also the Athenians, whilst Deceleia was fortifying, in the beginning of the spring, sent twenty galleys about Peloponnesus under the command of Charicles, the son of Apollodorus, with order when he came to Argos to take aboard the men of arms which the Argives were to send them, according to league; [2] and sent away Demosthenes (as they intended before) into Sicily, with threescore galleys of Athens and five of Chios, and one thousand two hundred men of arms of the roll of Athens, and as many of the islanders as they could get, provided by their subject confederates of all other necesseries for the war. But he had order to join first with Charicles and help him to make war first upon Laconia. [3] So Demosthenes went to Aegina and stayed there both for the remnant of his own army, if any were left behind, and for Charicles till he had taken aboard the Argives.

21. In Sicily, about the same time of the spring, Gylippus also returned to Syracuse, bringing with him from the cities he had dealt withal as great forces as severally he could get from them. [2] And having assembled the Syracusians, he told them that they ought to man as many galleys as they could and make trial of a battle by sea; and that he hoped thereby to perform somewhat to the benefit of the war which should be worthy the danger. [3] Hermocrates also was none of the least means of getting them to undertake the Athenians with their navy, who told them that neither the Athenians had this skill by sea hereditary or from everlasting, but were more inland men than the Syracusians, and forced to become seamen by the Medes, and that to daring men, such as the Athenians are, they are most formidable that are as daring against them; for wherewith they terrify their neighbours, which is not always the advantage of power, but boldness of enterprising, with the same shall they in like manner be terrified by their enemies. [4] He knew it, he said, certainly, that the Syracusians, by their unexpected daring to encounter the Athenian navy, would get more advantage in respect of the fear it would cause than the Athenians should endamage them by their odds of skill. He bade them therefore to make trial of their navy and to be afraid no longer. [5] The Syracusians, on these persuasions of Gylippus and Hermocrates, and others if any were, became now extremely desirous to fight by sea, and presently manned their galleys.

22. Gylippus, when the navy was ready, drew out his whole power of land soldiers in the beginning of night, meaning to go himself and assault the fortifications in Plemmyrium; withal the galleys of the Syracusians, by appointment, thirty-five of them came up towards it out of the great haven; and forty-five more came about out of the little haven, where also was their arsenal, with purpose to join with those within and to go together to Plemmyrium that the Athenians might be troubled on both sides. [2] But the Athenians having quickly manned sixty galleys to oppose them, with twenty-five of them they fought with the thirty-five of the Syracusians in the great haven, and with the rest went to meet those that came about from the little haven. And these fought presently before the mouth of the great haven and held each other to it for a long time, one side endeavouring to force, the other to defend the entrance.

23. In the meantime, Gylippus (the Athenians in Plemmyrium being now come down to the water side, and having their minds busied upon the fight of the galleys) betimes in the morning and on a sudden assaulted the fortifications before they could come back again to defend them, and possessed first the greatest and afterwards the two lesser; for they that watched in these, when they saw the greatest so easily taken, durst stay no longer. [2] They that fled upon the losing of the first wall and put themselves into boats and into a certain ship got hardly into the camp; for whilst the Syracusians in the great haven had yet the better in the fight upon the water, they gave them chase with one nimble galley. But by that time that the other two walls were taken, the Syracusians upon the water were overcome; and the Athenians which fled from those two walls got to their camp with more ease. [3] For those Syracusian galleys that fought before the haven's mouth, having beaten back the Athenians, entered in disorder, and falling foul one on another, gave away the victory unto the Athenians, who put to flight not only them, but also those other by whom they had before been overcome within the haven, and sunk eleven galleys of the Syracusians and slew most of the men aboard them, save only the men of three galleys, whom they took alive. [4] Of their own galleys they lost only three. When they had drawn to land the wreck of the Syracusian galleys and erected a trophy in the little island over against Plemmyrium, they returned to their camp.

24. The Syracusians, though such were their success in the battle by sea, yet they won the fortification in Plemmyrium, and set up three trophies, for every wall one. One of the two walls last taken they demolished; but two they repaired and kept with a garrison. [2] At the taking of these walls, many men were slain and many taken alive; and their goods, which altogether was a great matter, were all taken. For the Athenians using these works for their storehouse, there was in them much wealth and victual belonging unto merchants and much unto captains of galleys. For there were sails within it for forty galleys, besides other furniture, and three galleys drawn to land. [3] And this loss of Plemmyrium was it that most and principally impaired the Athenians' army. For the entrance of their provision was now no longer safe; for the Syracusians lying against them there with their galleys kept them out, and nothing could be brought in unto them but by fight; and the army besides was thereby otherwise terrified and dejected.

25. After this the Syracusians sent out twelve galleys under the command of Agatharchus, a Syracusian. Of which one carried ambassadors into Peloponnesus to declare what hope they had now of their business and to instigate them to a sharper war in Attica. The other eleven went into Italy, upon intelligence of certain vessels laden with commodities coming to the Athenian army, which also they met with and destroyed most of them; [2] and the timber, which for building of galleys the Athenians had ready framed, they burned in the territory of Caulonia. After this they went to Locri; [3] and riding here, there came unto them one of the ships that carried the men of arms of the Thespians, whom the Syracusians took aboard and went homeward by the coast. [4] The Athenians that watched for them with twenty galleys at Megara took one of them and the men that were in her, but could not take the rest, so that they escaped through to Syracuse. [5] There was also a light skirmish in the haven of Syracuse, about the piles which the Syracusians had driven down before their old harbour, to the end that the galleys might ride within and the Athenians not annoy them by assault. The Athenians, having brought to the place a ship of huge greatness, fortified with wooden turrets and covered against fire, caused certain men with [little] boats to go and fasten cords unto the piles, and so broke them up with craning. [6] Some also the divers did cut up with saws. In the meantime the Syracusians from the harbour and they from the great ship shot at each other, till in the end the greatest part of the piles were by the Athenians gotten up. But the greatest difficulty was to get up those piles which lay hidden. [7] For some of them they had so driven in as that they came not above the water, so that he that should come near was in danger to be thrown upon them as upon a rock. But these also, for reward, the divers went down and sawed asunder. But the Syracusians continually drave down other in their stead. [8] Other devices they had against each other, as was not unlikely between armies so near opposed; and many light skirmishes passed, and attempts of all kinds were put in execution. [9] The Syracusians moreover sent ambassadors, some Corinthians, some Ambraciotes, and some Lacedaemonians, unto the cities about them to let them know that they had won Plemmyrium and that in the battle by sea they were not overcome by the strength of the enemy, but by their own disorder; and also to show what hope they were in in other respects, and to entreat their aid both of sea and land forces; forsomuch as the Athenians expecting another army, if they would send aid before it came whereby to overthrow that which they had now there, the war would be at an end. Thus stood the affairs of Sicily.

26. Demosthenes, as soon as his forces which he was to carry to the succour of those in Sicily were gotten together, put to sea from Aegina, and sailing into Peloponnesus, joined with Charicles and the thirty galleys that were with him. And having taken aboard some men of arms of the Argives, came to Laconia, and first wasted part of the territory of Epidaurus Limera. [2] From thence going to that part of Laconia which is over against the island Cythera, where there is a temple of Apollo, they wasted a part of the country and fortified an isthmus there, both that the Helotes might have a refuge in it running away from the Lacedaemonians and that freebooters from thence, as from Pylus, might fetch in prizes from the territory adjoining. [3] As soon as the place was taken in, Demosthenes himself went on to Corcyra, to take up the confederates there, with intent to go thence speedily into Sicily. And Charicles, having stayed to finish and put a garrison into the fortification, went afterwards with his thirty galleys to Athens; and the Argives also went home.

27. The same winter also came to Athens a thousand and three hundred targetiers, of those called Machaerophori of the race of them that are called Dii, and were to have gone with Demosthenes into Sicily. [2] But coming too late, the Athenians resolved to send them back again into Thrace, as being too chargeable a matter to entertain them only for the war in Deceleia; for their pay was to have been a drachma a man by the day. [3] For Deceleia, being this summer fortified first by the whole army and then by the several cities maintained with a garrison by turns, much endamaged the Athenians and weakened their estate, both by destroying their commodities and consuming of their men, so as nothing more. [4] For the former invasions, having been short, hindered them not from reaping the benefit of the earth for the rest of the time. But now, the enemy continually lying upon them, and sometimes with greater forces, sometimes of necessity with the ordinary garrison making incursions and fetching in booty, Agis, the king of Lacedaemon, being always there in person and diligently prosecuting the war, the Athenians were thereby very grievously afflicted. [5] For they were not only deprived of the fruit of the land, but also above twenty thousand of their slaves fled over to the enemy, whereof the greatest part were artificers; besides they lost all their sheep and oxen. And by the continual going out of the Athenian horsemen, making excursions to Deceleia and defending the country, their horses became partly lamed through incessant labour in rugged grounds and partly wounded by the enemy.

28. And their provision, which formerly they used to bring in from Euboea by Oropus the shortest way, through Deceleia by land, they were now forced to fetch in by sea at great cost about the promontory of Sunium. And whatsoever the city was wont to be served withal from without, it now wanted, and instead of a city was become as it were a fort. [2] And the Athenians, watching on the battlements of the wall, in the day time by turns, but in the night, both winter and summer, all at once (except the horsemen), part at the walls and part at the arms, were quite tired. [3] But that which pressed them most was that they had two wars at once. And yet their obstinacy was so great as no man would have believed till now they saw it. For being besieged at home from the fortification of the Peloponnesians, no man would have imagined that they should not only not have recalled their army out of Sicily, but have also besieged Syracuse there, a city of itself no less than Athens; and therein so much have exceeded the expectation of the rest of the Grecians both in power and courage (who in the beginning of this war conceived that if the Peloponnesians invaded their territory, some of them, that they might hold out two years, others three, no man more), as that in the seventeenth year after they were first invaded they should have undertaken an expedition into Sicily, and being every way weakened already by the former war, have undergone another, not inferior to that which they had before with the Peloponnesians. [4] Now their treasure being by these wars and by the detriment sustained from Deceleia and other great expenses that came upon them at a very low ebb, about this time they imposed on such as were under their dominion a twentieth part of all goods passing by sea for a tribute, by this means to improve their comings in. For their expenses were not now as before, but so much greater by how much the war was greater, and their revenue besides cut off.

29. The Thracians, therefore, that came too late to go with Demosthenes, they presently sent back, as being unwilling to lay out money in such a scarcity, and gave the charge of carrying them back to Diitrephes, with command as he went along those coasts (for his way was through the Euripus), if occasion served, to do somewhat against the enemy. [2] He accordingly landed them by Tanagra and hastily fetched in some small booty. Then going over the Euripus from Chalcis in Euboea, he disbarked again in Boeotia and led his soldiers towards Mycalessus, and lay all night at the temple of Mercury undiscovered, which is distant from Mycalessus about sixteen furlongs. [3] The next day he cometh to the city, being a very great one, and taketh it; for they kept no watch nor expected that any man would have come in and assaulted them so far from the sea. Their walls also were but weak, in some places fallen down, and in others low-built, and their gates open through security. [4] The Thracians, entering into Mycalessus, spoiled both houses and temples, slew the people without mercy on old or young, but killed all they could light on, both women and children, yea, and the labouring cattle, and whatsoever other living thing they saw. For the nation of the Thracians, where they dare, are extreme bloody, equal to any of the barbarians. Insomuch as there was put in practice at this time, besides other disorder, all forms of slaughter that could be imagined; [5] they likewise fell upon the schoolhouse, which was in the city a great one, and the children newly entered into it; and killed them every one. And the calamity of the whole city, as it was as great as ever befell any, so also was it more unexpected and more bitter.

30. The Thebans, hearing of it, came out to help them, and overtaking the Thracians before they had gone far, both recovered the booty and chased them to the Euripus and to the sea, where the galleys lay that brought them. Some of them they killed; [2] of those most in their going aboard, for swim they could not, and such as were in the [small] boats, when they saw how things went a-land, had thrust off their boats, and lay without the Euripus. In the rest of the retreat, the Thracians behaved themselves not unhandsomely against the Theban horsemen, by whom they were charged first; but running out, and again rallying themselves in a circle, according to the manner of their country, defended themselves well and lost but few men in that action. But some also they lost in the city itself, whilst they stayed behind for pillage. But in the whole of thirteen hundred there were slain [only] two hundred and fifty. [3] Of the Thebans and others that came out to help the city, there were slain, horsemen and men of arms, one with another about twenty; and amongst them Scirphondas of Thebes, one of the governors of Boeotia: and of the Mycallesians there perished a part. Thus went the matter at Mycalessus, the loss which it received being, for the quantity of the city, no less to be lamented than any that happened in the whole war.

31. Demosthenes, going from Corcyra after his fortifying in Laconia, found a ship lying in Pheia of Elis, and in her certain men of arms of Corinth, ready to go into Sicily. The ship he sunk; but the men escaped, and afterwards, getting another ship, went on in their voyage. [2] After this, Demosthenes, being about Zacynthus and Cephallenia, took aboard their men of arms and sent to Naupactus for the Messenians. From thence he crossed over to the continent of Acarnania, to Alyzea and Anactorium, which belonged to the Athenians. [3] Whilst he was in these parts, he met with Eurymedon out of Sicily, that had been sent in winter unto the army with commodities, who told him amongst other things how he had heard by the way after he was at sea that the Syracusians had won Plemmyrium. [4] Conon also, the captain of Naupactus, came to them and related that the twenty-five galleys of Corinth that lay before Naupactus would not give over war and yet delayed to fight, and therefore desired to have some galleys sent him, as being unable with his eighteen to give battle to twenty-five of the enemy. [5] Whereupon Demosthenes and Eurymedon sent ten galleys more to those at Naupactus, the nimblest of the whole fleet, by Conon himself, and went themselves about furnishing of what belonged to the army. Of whom Eurymedon went to Corcyra, and having appointed them there to man fifteen galleys, levied men of arms; for now giving over his course to Athens, he joined with Demosthenes, as having been elected with him in the charge of general; and Demosthenes took up slingers and darters in the parts about Acarnania.

32. The ambassadors of the Syracusians, which after the taking of Plemmyrium had been sent unto the cities about, having now obtained and levied an army amongst them, were conducting the same to Syracuse. But Nicias, upon intelligence thereof, sent unto such cities of the Siculi as had the passages and were their confederates, the Centoripines, Halicyaeans, and others, not to suffer the enemy to go by, but to unite themselves and stop them, for that they would not so much as offer to pass any other way, seeing the Agrigentines had already denied them. [2] When the Sicilians were marching, the Siculi, as the Athenians had desired them, put themselves in ambush in three several places, and setting upon them unawares and on a sudden, slew about eight hundred of them, and all the ambassadors save only one, a Corinthian, which conducted the rest that escaped, being about fifteen hundred, to Syracuse.

33. About the same time came unto them also the aid of the Camarinaeans, five hundred men of arms, three hundred darters, and three hundred archers. Also the Geloans sent them men for five galleys, besides four hundred darters and two hundred horsemen. [2] For now all Sicily, except the Agrigentines, who were neutral, but all the rest, who before stood looking on, came in to the Syracusian side against the Athenians. [3] [Nevertheless], the Syracusians, after this blow received amongst the Siculi, held their hands and assaulted not the Athenians for a while.

Demosthenes and Eurymedon, having their army now ready, crossed over from Corcyra and the continent with the whole army to the promontory of Iapygia. From thence they went to the Choerades, islands of Iapygia, and here took in certain Iapygian darters to the number of two hundred and fifty, of the Messapian nation. [4] And having renewed a certain ancient alliance with Artas, who reigned there and granted them those darters, they went thence to Metapontum, a city of Italy. There, by virtue of a league, they got two galleys and three hundred darters, which taken aboard, they kept along the shore till they came to the territory of Thurii. [5] Here they found the adverse faction to the Athenians to have been lately driven out in a sedition. [6] And because they desired to muster their army here, that they might see if any were left behind, and persuade the Thurians to join with them freely in the war, and, as things stood, to have for friends and enemies the same that were so to the Athenians; they stayed about that in the territory of the Thurians.

34. The Peloponnesians and the rest, who were at the same time in the twenty-five galleys that for safeguard of the ships lay opposite to the galleys before Naupactus, having prepared themselves for battle, and with more galleys, so as they were little inferior in number to those of the Athenians, went to an anchor under Irineus of Achaia in Rhypica. The place where they rode was in form like a half moon; [2] and their land forces they had ready on either side to assist them, both Corinthians and their other confederates of those parts, embattled upon the points of the promontory; and their galleys made up the space between, under the command of Polyanthes, a Corinthian. [3] Against these the Athenians came up with thirty-three galleys from Naupactus, commanded by Diphilus. The Corinthians at first lay still; [4] but afterwards when they saw their time, and the signal given, they charged the Athenians and the fight began. They held each other to it long. The Athenians sank three galleys of the Corinthians; [5] and though none of their own were sunk, yet seven were made unserviceable, which, having encountered the Corinthian galleys a-head, were torn on both sides between the beaks and the oars by the beaks of the Corinthian galleys, made stronger for the same purpose. After they had fought with equal fortune, and so as both sides challenged the victory; [6] though yet the Athenians were masters of the wrecks, as driven by the wind into the main, and because the Corinthians came not out to renew the fight, they at length parted. There was no chasing of men that fled, nor a prisoner taken on either side; because the Peloponnesians and Corinthians fighting near the land easily escaped, nor was there any galley of the Athenians sunk. [7] But when the Athenians were gone back to Naupactus, the Corinthians presently set up a trophy as victors, in regard that more of the Athenian galleys were made unserviceable than of theirs, and thought themselves not to have had the worse for the same reason that the others thought themselves not to have had the better. For the Corinthians think they have the better when they have not much the worse; and the Athenians think they have the worse when they have not much the better. [8] And when the Peloponnesians were gone and their army by land dissolved, the Athenians also set up a trophy in Achaia, as if the victory had been theirs, distant from Erineus, where the Peloponnesians rode, about twenty furlongs. This was the success of that battle by sea.

35. Demosthenes and Eurymedon, after the Thurians had put in readiness to go with them seven hundred men of arms and three hundred darters, commanded their galleys to go along the coast to Croton, and conducted their land soldiers, having first taken a muster of them all upon the side of the river Sybaris, through the territory of the Thurians. [2] But coming to the river Hylias, upon word sent them from the men of Croton that if the army went through their territory it should be against their will, they marched down to the seaside and to the mouth of the river Hylias, where they stayed all that night and were met by their galleys. The next day embarking, they kept along the shore and touched at every town saving Locri till they arrived at Petra in the territory of Rhegium.

36. The Syracusians in the meantime, upon intelligence of their coming on, resolved to try again what they could do with their navy and with their new supply of landmen, which they had gotten together on purpose to fight with the Athenians before Demosthenes and Eurymedon should arrive. [2] And they furnished their navy, both otherwise and according to the advantages they had learnt in the last battle, and also made shorter the heads of their galleys, and thereby stronger, and made beaks to them of a great thickness, which they also strengthened with rafters fastened to the sides of the galleys, both within and without, of six cubits long, in such manner as the Corinthians had armed their galleys a-head to fight with those before Naupactus. [3] For the Syracusians made account that against the Athenian galleys not so built, but weak before, as not using so much to meet the enemy a-head as upon the side by fetching a compass, they could not but have the better, and that to fight in the great haven, many galleys in not much room was an advantage to them; for that using the direct encounter, they should break with their firm and thick beaks the hollow and infirm foreparts of the galleys of their enemies; [4] and that the Athenians, in that narrow room, would want means both to go about and to go through them, which was the point of art they most relied on. For as for their passing through, they would hinder it themselves as much as they could; and for fetching compass, the straitness of the place would not suffer it. [5] And that fighting a-head, which seemed before to be want of skill in the masters [to do otherwise], was what they would now principally make use of; for in this would be their principal advantage. For the Athenians, if overcome, would have no retiring but to the land, which was but a little way off and little in compass, near their own camp; and of the rest of the haven themselves should be masters. [6] And the enemy being pressed, could not choose, thronging together into a little room and all into one and the same place, but disorder one another, which was indeed the thing that in all their battles by sea did the Athenians the greatest hurt, having not, as the Syracusians had, the liberty of the whole haven to retire unto. And to go about into a place of more room, they having it in their power to set upon them from the main sea, and to retire again at pleasure, they should never be able, especially having Plemmyrium for enemy, and the haven's mouth not being large.

37. The Syracusians, having devised thus much over and above their former skill and strength, and far more confident now since the former battle by sea, assaulted them both with their army and with their navy at once. [2] The landmen from the city Gylippus drew sooner out a little and brought them to the wall of the Athenians' camp upon the side toward the city; and from Olympieium, the men of arms, all that were there, and the horsemen and light armed of the Syracusians came up to the wall on the other side. And by and by after, came sailing forth also the galleys of the Syracusians and their confederates. [3] The Athenians, that thought at first they would have made the attempt only with their landmen, seeing also the galleys on a sudden coming towards them, were in confusion; and some of them put themselves in order upon and before the walls against those that came from the city; and others went out to meet the horsemen and darters that were coming in great numbers and with speed from Olympieium and the parts without; others again went aboard, and withal came to aid those ashore. But when the galleys were manned they put off, being seventy-five in number, and those of Syracuse about eighty.

38. Having spent much of the day in charging and retiring and trying each other, and performed nothing worth the mentioning, save that the Syracusians sank a galley or two of the Athenians, they parted again; and the land soldiers retired at the same time from the wall of the Athenian camp. [2] The next day the Syracusians lay still without showing any sign of what they meant to do. Yet Nicias, seeing that the battle by sea was with equality and imagining that they would fight again, made the captains to repair their galleys, such as had been torn, and two great ships to be moored without those piles which he had driven into the sea before his galleys, to be instead of a haven enclosed. [3] These ships he placed about two acres' breadth asunder, to the end, if any galley chanced to be pressed, it might safely run in and again go safely out at leisure. In performing of this the Athenians spent a whole day from morning until night.

39. The next day the Syracusians assaulted the Athenians again with the same forces, both by sea and land, that they had done before, but begun earlier in the morning; [2] and being opposed fleet against fleet, they drew out a great part of the day now again as before in attempting upon each other without effect. Till at last Ariston, the son of Pyrrhichus, a Corinthian, the most expert master that the Syracusians had in their fleet, persuaded the commanders in the navy to send to such in the city as it belonged to and command that the market should be speedily kept at the seaside, and to compel every man to bring thither whatsoever he had fit for meat and there to sell it, that the mariners, disbarking, might presently dine by the galleys' side, and quickly again, unlooked for, assault the Athenians afresh the same day.

40. This advice being liked, they sent a messenger and the market was furnished. And the Syracusians suddenly rowed astern towards the city, and disbarking, dined there right on the shore. [2] The Athenians, supposing they had retired towards the city as vanquished, landed at leisure, and amongst other business went about the dressing of their dinner, as not expecting to have fought again the same day. But the Syracusians, suddenly going aboard, came towards them again; [3] and the Athenians, in great tumult and for the most part undined, embarking disorderly, at length with much ado went out to meet them. For a while they held their hands on both sides and but observed each other. [4] But anon after, the Athenians thought not fit by longer dallying to overcome themselves with their own labour, but rather to fight as soon as they could, and thereupon at once with a joint shout charged the enemy, and the fight began. [5] The Syracusians received [and resisted] their charge, and fighting, as they had before determined, with their galleys head to head with those of the Athenians, and provided with beaks for the purpose, brake the galleys of the Athenians very much between the heads of the galleys and the oars. The Athenians were also annoyed much by the darters from the decks, but much more by those Syracusians who, going about in small boats, passed under the rows of the oars of the enemy's galleys, and coming close to their sides, threw their darts at the mariners from thence.

41. The Syracusians, having fought in this manner with the utmost of their strength, in the end gat the victory; and the Athenians, between the [two] ships, escaped into their harbour. [2] The Syracusian galleys chased them as far as to those ships; but the dolphins hanging from the masts over the entrance of the harbour forbade them to follow any further. [3] Yet there were two galleys, which upon a jollity after victory approached them, but both were lost, of which one with her men and all was taken. [4] The Syracusians, after they had sunk seven galleys of the Athenians and torn many more, and of the men had taken some alive and killed others, retired, and for both the battles erected trophies, and had already an assured hope of being far superior by sea, and also made account to subdue the army by land. And they prepared to assault them again in both kinds.

42. In the meantime Demosthenes and Eurymedon arrived with the Athenian supply, being about seventy-three galleys, and men of arms, of their own and of their confederates, about five thousand, besides darters, as well barbarians as Greeks, not a few, and slingers and archers, and all other provision sufficient. [2] For the present it not a little daunted the Syracusians and their confederates to see no end of their danger, and that, notwithstanding the fortifying in Deceleia, another army should come now equal and like unto their former, and that their power should be so great in every kind. And on the other side, it was a kind of strengthening after weakness to the Athenian army that was there before. [3] Demosthenes, when he saw how things stood, and thinking it unfit to loiter and fall into Nicias' case-for Nicias, who was formidable at his first coming, when he set not presently upon Syracuse but wintered at Catana, both grew into contempt and was prevented also by the coming of Gylippus thither with an army out of Peloponnesus; the which, if Nicias had gone against Syracuse at first, had never been so much as sent for; for supposing themselves to have been strong enough alone, they had at once both found themselves too weak and the city been enclosed with a wall; whereby, though they had sent for it, it could not have helped them as it didDemosthenes, I say, considering this, and that he also even at the present and the same day was most terrible to the enemy, intended with all speed to make use of this present terribleness of the army. [4] And having observed that the cross wall of the Syracusians, wherewith they hindered the Athenians from enclosing the city, was but single, and that if they could be masters of the ascent to Epipolae and again of the camp there, the same might easily be taken (for none would have stood against them), hasted to put it to trial, and thought it his shortest way to the dispatching of the war. [5] For either he should have success, he thought, and so win Syracuse, or he would lead away the army and no longer without purpose consume both the Athenians there with him and the whole state. [6] The Athenians therefore went out and first wasted the territory of the Syracusians about the river Anapus, and were the stronger, as at first, both by sea and land. For the Syracusians durst neither way go out against them, but only with their horsemen and darters from Olympieium.

43. After this, Demosthenes thought good to try the wall which the Athenians had built to enclose the city withal with engines. But seeing the engines were burnt by the defendants fighting from the wall, and that having assaulted it in divers parts with the rest of his army he was notwithstanding put back, he resolved to spend the time no longer, but having gotten the consent of Nicias and the rest in commission thereunto, to put in execution his design for Epipolae, as was before intended. [2] By day it was thought impossible not to be discovered, either in their approach or in their ascent. Having therefore first commanded to take five days' provision of victual, and all the masons and workmen, as also store of casting weapons, and whatsoever they might need, if they overcame, for fortification, he and Eurymedon and Menander, with the whole army, marched about midnight to Epipolae, leaving Nicias in the camp. [3] Being come to Epipolae at Euryelus, where also the army went up before, they were not only not discovered by the Syracusians that kept the watch, but ascending took a certain fortification of the Syracusians there and killed part of them that kept it. [4] But the greatest number, escaping, ran presently to the camps, of which there were in Epipolae three walled about without the city, one of Syracusians, one of other Sicilians, and one of confederates, and carried the news of their coming in, and told it to those six hundred Syracusians that kept this part of Epipolae at the first, who presently went forth to meet them. [5] But Demosthenes and the Athenians lighting on them, though they fought valiantly, put them to flight, and presently marched on, making use of the present heat of the army to finish what he came for before it were too late; and others [going on] in their first course took the cross-wall of the Syracusians, they flying that kept it, and were throwing down the battlements thereof. [6] The Syracusians and their confederates, and Gylippus and those with him, came out to meet them from their camps; but because the attempt was unexpected and in the night, they charged the Athenians timorously, and were even at first forced to retire. [7] But as the Athenians advanced more out of order, [chiefly] as having already gotten the victory, but desiring also quickly to pass through all that remained yet unfoughten with, lest through their remissness in following they might again rally themselves, the Boeotians withstood them first, and charging, forced them to turn their backs.

44. And here the Athenians were mightily in disorder and perplexed, so that it hath been very hard to be informed of any side in what manner each thing passed. For if in the day time, when things are better seen, yet they that are present cannot tell how all things go, save only what every man with much ado seeth near unto himself, how then in a battle by night (the only one that happened between great armies in all this war) can a man know anything for certain? [2] For though the moon shined bright, yet they saw one another no otherwise than as by the moonlight was likely, so as to see a body, but not be sure whether it were a friend or not. [3] And the men of arms on both sides, being not a few in number, had but little ground to turn in. Of the Athenians, some were already overcome, others went on in their first way. Also a great part of the rest of the army was already part gotten up and part ascending, and knew not which way to march. For after the Athenians once turned their backs, all before them was in confusion; [4] and it was hard to distinguish of anything for the noise. For the Syracusians and their confederates prevailing encouraged each other and received the assailants with exceeding great shouts (for they had no other means in the night to express themselves); and the Athenians sought each other and took for enemies all before them, though friends and of the number of those that fled, and by often asking the word, there being no other means of distinction, all asking at once they both made a great deal of stir amongst themselves and revealed the word to the enemy. But they did not in like manner know the word of the Syracusians, because these, being victorious and undistracted, knew one another better; [5] so that when they lighted on any number of the enemy, though they themselves were more, yet the enemy escaped as knowing the watchword; but they, when they could not answer, were slain. [6] But that which hurt them most was the tune of the Paean, which being in both armies the same, drave them to their wits' end. For the Argives and Corcyraeans and all other of the Doric race on the Athenians' part, when they sounded the Paean, terrified the Athenians on one side; and the enemy terrified them with the like on the other side. [7] Wherefore at the last, falling one upon another in divers parts of the army, friends against friends, and countrymen against countrymen, they not only terrified each other, but came to handstrokes and could hardly again be parted. [8] As they fled before the enemy, the way of the descent from Epipolae by which they were to go back being but strait, many of them threw themselves down from the rocks, and died so. And of the rest that gat down safely into the plain, though the greatest part, and all that were of the old army by their knowledge of the country, escaped into the camp; yet of these that came last, some lost their way, and straying in the fields, when the day came on were cut off by the Syracusian horsemen that ranged the country about.

45. The next day the Syracusians erected two trophies, one in Epipolae at the ascent and another where the first check was given by the Boeotians. The Athenians received their dead under truce. And many there were that died, both of themselves and of their confederates; [2] but the arms taken were more than for the number of the slain. For of such as were forced to quit their bucklers and leap down from the rocks, though some perished, yet some there also were that escaped.

46. After this, the Syracusians, having by such unlooked-for prosperity recovered their former courage, sent Sicanus with fifteen galleys to Agrigentum, being in sedition, to bring that city, if they could, to their obedience. And Gylippus went again to the Sicilian cities by land to raise yet another army, as being in hope to take the camp of the Athenians by assault, considering how the matter had gone in Epipolae.

47. In the meantime the Athenian generals went to council upon their late overthrow and present general weakness of the army. For they saw not only that their designs prospered not, but that the soldiers also were weary of staying. [2] For they were troubled with sickness, proceeding from a double cause, this being the time of the year most obnoxious to diseases, and the place where they lay moorish and noisome; and all things else appeared desperate. [3] Demosthenes thought fit to stay no longer, and since the execution of his design at Epipolae had failed, delivered his opinion for going out of the haven whilst the seas were open and whilst, at least with this addition of galleys, they were stronger than the army of the enemy. [4] For it was better, he said, for the city to make war upon those which fortify against them at home than against the Syracusians, seeing they cannot now be easily overcome; and there was no reason why they should spend much money in lying before the city. This was the opinion of Demosthenes.

48. Nicias, though he also thought their estate bad, yet was unwilling to have their weakness discovered, and, by decreeing of their departure openly with the votes of many, to make known the same to the enemy; for if at any time they had a mind to be gone, they should then be less able to do it secretly. [2] Besides, the estate of the enemy, inasmuch as he understood it better than the rest, put him into some hope that it might yet grow worse than their own, in case they pressed the siege, especially being already masters of the sea, far and near, with their present fleet. There was moreover a party for the Athenians in Syracuse that desired to betray the state into their hands, and that sent messengers unto him and suffered him not to rise and be gone. [3] All which he knowing, though he were in truth doubtful what opinion to be of, and did yet consider, nevertheless openly in his speech he was against the withdrawing of the army, and said that he was sure the people of Athens would take it ill if he went thence without their order; for that they were not to have such judges as should give sentence upon their own sight of things done rather than upon the report of calumniators, but such as would believe whatsoever some fine speaker should accuse them of. That many, nay most of the soldiers here, who now cry out upon their misery, will there cry out on the contrary, and say the generals have betrayed the state and come away for a bribe. [4] That he would not, therefore, knowing the nature of the Athenians so well, choose to be put to death unjustly and charged with a dishonourable crime by the Athenians rather than, if he must needs do one, to suffer the same at the hand of the enemy by his own adventure. And yet, he said, the state of the Syracusians was still inferior to their own. [5] For paying much money to strangers and laying out much more on forts [without and about the city], having also had a great navy a year already in pay, they must needs want money at last, and all these things fail them. For they have spent already two thousand talents, and are much in debt besides. And whensoever they shall give over this course and make pay no longer, their strength is gone, as being auxiliary and not constrained to follow the war as the Athenians are. [6] Therefore it was fit, he said, to stay close to the city and not to go away as if they were too weak in money, wherein they were much superior.

49. Nicias, when he spake this, assured them of it, as knowing the state of Syracuse precisely and their want of money, and that there were some that desired to betray the city to the Athenians and sent him word not to go. Withal he had now confidence in the fleet, which, as being before overcome, he had not. [2] As for lying where they did, Demosthenes would by no means hear of it. But if the army might not be carried away without order from the Athenians but must needs stay in Sicily, then, he said, they might go to Thapsus or Catana, from whence by their landmen they might invade and turn much of the country to them and wasting the fields of the enemies, weaken the Syracusians; and be to fight with their galleys in the main sea, and not in a narrow (which is the advantage of the enemy), but in a wide place, where the benefit of skill should be theirs, and where they should not be forced, in charging and retiring, to come up and fall off in narrow and circumscribed limits. [3] In sum, he said, he by no means liked to stay where they were, but with all speed, no longer delaying the matter, to arise and be gone. Eurymedon also gave the like counsel. [4] Nevertheless, upon the contradiction of Nicias, there grew a kind of sloth and procrastination in the business, and a suspicion withal that the asseveration of Nicias was grounded on somewhat that he knew above the rest. And thereupon the Athenians deferred their going thence and stayed upon the place.

50. In the meantime Gylippus and Sicanus returned unto Syracuse. Sicanus without his purpose at Agrigentum, for whilst he was yet in Gela, the sedition which had been raised in the behalf of the Syracusians was turned into friendship; but Gylippus not without another great army out of Sicily, besides the men of arms, which having set forth from Peloponnesus in ships the spring before, were then lately arrived at Selinus from out of Afric. [2] For having been driven into Afric, and the Cyrenaeans having given them two galleys with pilots, in passing by the shore they aided the Euesperitae besieged by the Africans; and having overcome the Africans, they went over to Neapolis, a town of traffic belonging to the Carthagenians, where the passage into Sicily is shortest, and but two days and a night's sail over; and from thence they crossed the sea to Selinus. [3] As soon as they were come, the Syracusians again presently prepared to set upon the Athenians, both by sea and land. The Athenian generals, seeing them have another army, and their own not bettering but every day growing worse than other, but especially as being pressed to it by the sickness of the soldiers, repented now that they removed not before; and Nicias, being now no longer against it as he was but desirous only that it might not be concluded openly, gave order unto all as secretly as was possible to put forth of the harbour and to be ready when the sign should be given. [4] But when they were about it and everything was ready, the moon happened to be eclipsed; for it was full moon. And not only the greatest part of the Athenians called upon the generals to stay, but Nicias also (for he was addicted to superstition and observations of that kind somewhat too much) said that it should come no more into debate whether they should go or not till the three times nine days were past which the soothsayers appoint in that behalf. And the Athenians, though upon going, stayed still for this reason.

51. The Syracusians, also having intelligence of this, were encouraged unto the pressing of the Athenians much the more, for that they confessed themselves already too weak for them, both by sea and land; for else they would never have sought to have run away. Besides, they would not have them sit down in any other part of Sicily, and become the harder to be warred on; but had rather thereright, and in a place most for their own advantage, compel them to fight by sea. [2] To which end they manned their galleys; and after they had rested as long as was sufficient, when they saw their time, the first day they assaulted the Athenians' camp. And some small number of men of arms and horsemen of the Athenians sallied out against them by certain gates; and the Syracusians intercepting some of the men of arms, beat them back into the camp. But the entrance being strait, there were seventy of the horsemen lost, and men of arms some, but not many.

52. The next day they came out with their galleys, seventy-six in number, and the Athenians set forth against them with eightysix; and being come together, they fought. [2] Eurymedon had charge of the right wing of the Athenians, and desiring to encompass the galleys of the enemies, drew forth his own galleys in length more towards the shore, and was cut off by the Syracusians, that had first overcome the middle battle of the Athenians, from the rest, in the bottom and inmost part of the haven, and both slain himself, and the galleys that were with him lost. And that done, the rest of the Athenian fleet was also chased and driven ashore.

53. Gylippus, when he saw the navy of the enemy vanquished and carried past the piles and their own harbour, came with a part of his army to the pier to kill such as landed and to cause that the Syracusians might the easier pull the enemy's galleys from the shore, whereof themselves were masters. [2] But the Tuscans, who kept guard in that part for the Athenians, seeing them coming that way in disorder, made head, and charging these first, forced them into the marsh called Lysimeleia. [3] But when afterwards a greater number of the Syracusians and their confederates came to help them, then also the Athenians, to help the Tuscans and for fear to lose their galleys, fought with them; and having overcome them, pursued them, and not only slew many of their men of arms, but also saved the most of their galleys and brought them back into the harbour. Nevertheless the Syracusians took eighteen and slew the men taken in them. [4] And amongst the rest they let drive before the wind (which blew right upon the Athenians) an old ship full of faggots and brands set on fire to burn them. The Athenians on the other side, fearing the loss of their navy, devised remedies for the fire, and having quenched the flame and kept the ship from coming near, escaped that danger.

54. After this the Syracusians set up a trophy, both for the battle by sea, and for the men of arms which they intercepted above before the camp, where also they took the horses. And the Athenians erected a trophy likewise, both for the flight of those footmen which the Tuscans drave into the marsh and for those which they themselves put to flight with the rest of the army.

55. When the Syracusians had now manifestly overcome their fleet (for they feared at first the supply of galleys that came with Demosthenes), the Athenians were in good earnest utterly out of heart. And as they were much deceived in the event, so they repented more of the voyage. [2] For having come against these cities, the only ones that were for institution like unto their own and governed by the people as well as themselves, and which had a navy and horses and greatness, seeing they could create no dissension amongst them about change of government to win them that way, nor could subdue it with the greatness of their forces when they were far the stronger, but misprospered in most of their designs, they were then at their wits' end; but now, when they were also vanquished by sea (which they would never have thought), they were much more dejected than ever.

56. The Syracusians went presently about the haven without fear and meditated how to shut up the same that the Athenians might not steal away without their knowledge, though they would. [2] For now they studied not only how to save themselves, but how to hinder the safety of the Athenians. For the Syracusians conceived, not untruly, that their own strength was at this present the greater, and that if they could vanquish the Athenians and their confederates both by sea and land, it would be a mastery of great honour to them amongst the rest of the Grecians. For all the rest of Greece should be one part freed by it, and the other part out of fear of subjection hereafter; for it would be impossible for the Athenians, with the remainder of their strength, to sustain the war that would be made upon them afterwards. And they, being reputed the authors of it, should be had in admiration, not only with all men now living, but also with posterity. [3] And to say truth, it was a worthy mastery, both for the causes shewn and also for that they became victors not of the Athenians only but many others, their confederates; nor again they themselves alone but their confederates also, having been in joint command with the Corinthians and Lacedaemonians, and both exposed their city to the first hazard, and of the business by sea performed the greatest part themselves. [4] The greatest number of nations, except the general roll of those which in this war adhered to Athens and Lacedaemon, were together at this one city.

57. And this number on both sides, against Sicily and for it, some to help win and some to help save it, came to the war at Syracuse, not on any pretence of right nor as kindred to aid kindred, but as profit or necessity severally chanced to induce them. The Athenians, being Ionic, went against the Syracusians, that be Doric, voluntarily. [2] With these, as being their colonies, went the Lemnians and Imbrians, and the Aeginetae that dwelt in Aegina then, all of the same language and institutions with themselves; also the Hestiaeans of Euboea. Of the rest, some went with them as their subjects and some as their free confederates and some also hired. [3] Subjects and tributaries: as the Eretrians, Chalcideans, Styrians, and Carystians, from Euboea; Ceians, Andrians, Tenians, from out of the islands; Milesians, Samians, and Chians, from Ionia. [4] Of these the Chians followed them as free, not as tributaries of money, but of galleys. And these were almost all of them Ionians, descended from the Athenians, except only the Carystians, that are of the nation of the Dryopes. And though they were subjects and went upon constraint, yet they were Ionians against Dorians. Besides these there went with them Aeolians, namely, the Methymnaeans, subjects to Athens, not tributaries of money but of galleys; and the Tenedians and Aenians, tributaries. Now here, Aeolians were constrained to fight against Aeolians, namely, against their founders the Boeotians, that took part with the Syracusians. [5] But the Plataeans, and only they, being Boeotians, fought against Boeotians upon just quarrel. The Rhodians and Cythereans, Doric both, by constraint bore arms; one of them, namely the Cythereans, a colony of the Lacedaemonians, with the Athenians against the Lacedaemonians that were with Gylippus; [6] and the other, that is to say, the Rhodians, being by descent Argives, not only against the Syracusians, who were also Doric, but against their own colony, the Geloans, which took part with the Syracusians. Then of the islanders about Peloponnesus, there went with them the Cephallenians and Zacynthians, not but that they were free states, but because they were kept in awe as islanders by the Athenians, who were masters of the sea. [7] And the Corcyraeans, being not only Doric but Corinthians, fought openly against both Corinthians and Syracusians, though a colony of the one and of kin to the other, which they did necessarily (to make the best of it), but indeed no less willingly, in respect of their hatred to the Corinthians. Also the Messenians, now so called, in Naupactus, were taken along to this war, and the Messenians at Pylus, then holden by the Athenians. [8] Moreover the Megarean outlaws, though not many, by advantage taken of their misery, were fain to fight against the Selinuntians that were Megareans likewise. But now the rest of their army was rather voluntary. [9] The Argives not so much for the league as for their enmity against the Lacedaemonians and their present particular spleen, followed the Athenians to the war, though Ionic, against Dorians. And the Mantineans and other Arcadian mercenaries went with them as men accustomer ever to invade the enemy shewed them; and now for gain had for enemies, as much as any, those other Arcadians which went thither with the Corinthians. The Cretans and Aetolians were all mercenary; and it fell out that the Cretans, who together with the Rhodians were founders of Gela, not only took not part with their colony, but fought against it willingly for their hire. And some Acarnanians also went with them for gain; [10] but most of them went as confederates, in love to Demosthenes and for good will to the state of Athens. And thus many within the bound of the Ionian gulf. [11] Then of Italians, fallen into the same necessity of seditious times, there went with them to this war the Thurians and Metapontians; of Greek Sicilians, the Naxians and Catanaeans. Of barbarian, the Egestaeans, who also drew with them the most of those Greek Sicilians. Without Sicily, there went with them some Tuscans, upon quarrels between them and the Syracusians, and some Iapygian mercenaries. These were the nations that followed the army of the Athenians.

58. On the other side, there opposed them on the part of the Syracusians, the Camarinaeans their borderers; and beyond them again the Geloans; [2] and then (the Agrigentines not stirring) beyond them again the same way, the Selinuntians. These inhabit the part of Sicily that lieth opposite to Afric. Then the Himeraeans, on the side that lieth on the Tyrrhene sea, where they are the only Grecians inhabiting, and only aided them. [3] These were their confederates of the Greek nation within Sicily, all Dorians and free states. Then of the barbarians there, they had the Siculi, all but what revolted to the Athenians. For Grecians without Sicily, the Lacedaemonians sent them a Spartan commander, with some Helotes and the rest freedmen. Then aided them both with galleys and with land men the Corinthians only; and for kindred's sake, the Leucadians and Ambraciotes; out of Arcadia, those mercenaries sent by the Corinthians; and Sicyonians on constraint; and from without Peloponnesus, the Boeotians. [4] To the foreign aids the Sicilians themselves, as being great cities, added more in every kind than as much again; for they got together men of arms, galleys, and horses, great store, and other number in abundance. And to all these again the Syracusians themselves added, as I may say, about as much more, in respect of the greatness both of their city and of their danger.

59. These were the succours assembled on either part, and which were then all there; and after them came no more, neither to the one side nor the other. [2] No marvel then if the Syracusians thought it a noble mastery if to the victory by sea already gotten they could add the taking of the whole Athenian army, so great as it was, and hinder their escape both by sea and land. [3] Presently therefore they fall in hand with stopping up the mouth of the great haven, being about eight furlongs wide, with galleys laid cross and lighters and boats upon their anchors; and withal prepared whatsoever else was necessary in case the Athenians would hazard another battle, meditating on no small matters in anything.

60. The Athenians, seeing the shutting up of the haven and the rest of the enemy's designs, thought good to go to council upon it. [2] And the generals and commanders of regiments having met and considered their present want, both otherwise and in this, that they neither had provision for the present (for upon their resolution to be gone, they had sent before to Catana to forbid the sending in of any more), nor were likely to have for the future unless their navy got the upper hand, they resolved to abandon their camp above and to take in some place, no greater than needs they must, near unto their galleys, with a wall, and leaving some to keep it, to go aboard with the rest of the army, and to man every galley they had, serviceable and less serviceable; and having caused all sorts of men to go aboard and fight it out, if they gat the victory, to go to Catana; if not, to make their retreat in order of battle by land (having first set fire on their navy) the nearest way unto some amicable place, either barbarian or Grecian, that they should best be able to reach unto before the enemy. [3]

As they had concluded, so they did. For they both came down to the shore from their camp above and also manned every galley they had and compelled to go aboard every man of age of any ability whatsoever. [4] So the whole navy was manned to the number of one hundred and ten galleys, upon which they had many archers and darters, both Acarnanians and other strangers, and all things else provided according to their means and purpose. [5] And Nicias, when almost everything was ready, perceiving the soldiers to be dejected for being so far overcome by sea, contrary to their custom, and yet in respect of the scarcity of victual desirous as soon as could be to fight, called them together and encouraged them then the first time with words to this effect:

61. "Soldiers, Athenians, and other our confederates, [though] the trial at hand will be common to all alike and will concern the safety and country no less of each of us than of the enemy (for if our galleys get the victory, we may every one see his native city again), [2] yet ought we not to be discouraged like men of no experience, who failing in their first adventures, ever after carry a fear suitable to their misfortunes. [3] But you Athenians here present, having had experience already of many wars, and you our confederates, that have always gone along with our armies, remember how often the event falleth out otherwise in war than one would think; and in hope that fortune will once also be of our side, prepare yourselves to fight again in such manner as shall be worthy the number you see yourselves to be.

62. "What we thought would be helps in the narrowness of the haven, against such a multitude of galleys as will be there and against the provision of the enemy upon their decks, whereby we were formerly annoyed, we have with the masters now considered them all, and as well as our present means will permit, made them ready. [2] For many archers and darters shall go aboard: and that multitude, which if we had been to fight in the main sea we would not have used, because by slugging the galleys it would take away the use of skill, will nevertheless be useful here, where we are forced to make a landfight from our galleys. [3] We have also devised, instead of what should have been provided for in the building of our galleys, against the thickness of the beaks of theirs, which did most hurt us, to lash their galleys unto ours with iron grapnels, whereby (if the men of arms do their part) we may keep the galleys which once come close up from falling back again. [4] For we are brought to a necessity now of making it a land-fight upon the water; and it will be the best for us neither to fall back ourselves nor to suffer the enemy to do so, especially when, except what our men on land shall make good, the shore is altogether hostile.

63. "Which you remembering, must therefore fight it out to the utmost and not suffer yourselves to be beaten back unto the shore; [2] but when galley to galley shall once be fallen close, never think any cause worthy to make you part unless you have first beaten off the men of arms of the enemy from their decks. And this I speak to you rather that are the men of arms than to the mariners, inasmuch as that part belongeth rather unto you that fight above; [3] and in you it lieth even yet to achieve the victory for the most part with the landmen. Now for the mariners, I advise, and withal beseech them, not to be too much daunted with the losses past, having now both a greater number of galleys and greater forces upon the decks. Think it a pleasure worth preserving that being taken, by your knowledge of the language and imitation of our fashions, for Athenians (though you be not so), you are not only admired for it through all Greece, but also partake of our dominion in matter of profit no less than ourselves, and for awfulness to the nations subject and protection from injury, more. [4] You therefore that alone participate freely of our dominion cannot with any justice betray the same. In despite therefore of the Corinthians, whom you have often vanquished, and of the Sicilians, who as long as our fleet was at the best durst never so much as stand us, repel them; and make it appear that your knowledge, even with weakness and loss, is better than the strength of another with fortune.

64. ‘Again, to such of you as are Athenians, I must remember this: that you have no more such fleets in your harbours, nor such able men of arms, and that if aught happen to you but victory, your enemies here will presently be upon you at home; and those at home will be unable to defend themselves both against those that shall go hence and against the enemy that lieth there already. So one part of us shall fall into the mercy of the Syracusians, against whom you yourselves know with what intent you came hither; [2] and the other part, which is at home, shall fall into the hands of the Lacedaemonians. Being therefore in this one battle to fight both for yourselves and them, be therefore valiant now if ever; and bear in mind every one of you that you that go now aboard are the land forces, the sea forces, the whole estate and great name of Athens. For which, if any man excel others in skill or courage, he can never shew it more opportunely than now, when he may both help himself with it and the whole.’

65. Nicias, having thus encouraged them, commanded presently to go aboard. Gylippus and the Syracusians might easily discern that the Athenians meant to fight by seeing their preparation. Besides, they had advertisement of their purpose to cast iron grapnels into their galleys; [2] and as for everything else, so also for that they had made provision. For they covered the fore-part of their galleys and also the decks for a great way, with hides, that the grapnels cast in might slip and not be able to take hold. [3] When all was ready, Gylippus likewise and the other commanders used unto their soldiers this hortative:

66. "That not only our former acts have been honourable, but that we are to fight now also for further honour, men of Syracuse and confederates, the most of you seem to know already; for else you never would so valiantly have undergone it; and if there be any man that is not so sensible of it as he ought, we will make it appear unto him better. [2] For whereas the Athenians came into this country with design first to enslave Sicily and then, if that succeeded, Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece, and whereas already they had the greatest dominion of any Grecians whatsoever, either present or past, you, the first that ever withstood their navy, wherewith they were everywhere masters, have in the former battles overcome them, and shall in likelihood overcome them again in this. [3] For men that are cut short where they thought themselves to exceed become afterwards further out of opinion with themselves than they would have been if they had never thought so; and when they come short of their hope in things they glory in, they come short also in courage of the true strength of their forces. And this is likely now to be the case of the Athenians.

67. "Whereas with us it falleth out that our former courage, wherewith though unexperienced we durst stand them, being now confirmed, and an opinion added of being the stronger, giveth to every one of us a double hope. And in all enterprises the greatest hope conferreth for the most part the greatest courage. [2] As for their imitation of our provisions, they are things we are acquainted withal, and we shall not in any kind be unprovided for them. But they, when they shall have many men of arms upon their decks, being not used to it, and many, as I may term them, land-darters, both Acarnanians and others, who would not be able to direct their darts though they should sit, how can they choose but put the galleys into danger and be all in confusion amongst themselves, moving in a fashion not their own? [3] As for the number of their galleys, it will help them nothing, if any of you fear also that, as being to fight against odds in number. For many in little room are so much the slower to do what they desire, and easiest to be annoyed by our munition. But the very truth you shall now understand by these things, whereof we suppose we have most certain intelligence. [4] Overwhelmed with calamities and forced by the difficulties which they are in at this present, they are grown desperate, not trusting to their forces, but willing to put themselves upon the decision of fortune, as well as they may, that so they may either go out by force or else make their retreat afterward by land, as men whose estates cannot change into the worse.

68. ‘Against such confusion, therefore, and against the fortune of our greatest enemies now betraying itself into our hands, let us fight with anger, and with an opinion not only that it is most lawful to fulfil our hearts' desire upon those our enemies that justified their coming hither as a righting of themselves against an assailant, but also that to be revenged on an enemy is both most natural and, as is most commonly said, the sweetest thing in the world. [2] And that they are our enemies, and our greatest enemies, you all well enough know, seeing them come hither into our dominion to bring us into servitude. Wherein if they had sped, they had put the men to the greatest tortures, the women and children to the greatest dishonesty, and the whole city to the most ignominious name in the world. [3] In regard whereof, it is not fit that any of you should be so tender as to think it gain if they go away without putting you to further danger; for so they mean to do, though they get the victory; but effecting (as it is likely we shall) what we intend, both to be revenged of these and to deliver unto all Sicily their liberty, which they enjoyed before but now is more assured. Honourable is that combat and rare are those hazards wherein the failing bringeth little loss and the success a great deal of profit.’

69. When Gylippus and the commanders of the Syracusians had in this manner encouraged their soldiers, they presently put their men on board, perceiving the Athenians to do the same. [2] Nicias, perplexed with this present estate, and seeing how great and how near the danger was, being now on the point to put forth from the harbour, and doubting, as in great battles it falleth out that somewhat in every kind was still wanting, and that he had not yet sufficiently spoken his mind, called unto him again all the captains of galleys and spake unto them every one by their fathers, their tribes, and their proper names, and entreated every one of them that had reputation in any kind not to betray the same, and those whose ancestors were eminent not to deface their hereditary virtues, remembering them of their country's liberty and the uncontrolled power of all men to live as they pleased; and saying whatsoever else in such a pinch men are accustomed, not out of their store, to utter things stale, and in all occasions the same, touching their wives, children, and patrial gods, but such things as being thought by them available in the present discouragement, they use to cry into their ears. [3] And when he thought he had admonished them, not enough, but as much as the time would permit him, he went his way and drew out those forces that were to serve on land on the seaside and embattled them so as they might take up the greatest length of ground they were able, thereby so much the more to confirm the courage of them that were aboard. [4] And Demosthenes, Menander, and Eudemus (for those of the Athenian commanders went aboard), putting forth of the harbour, went immediately to the lock of the haven and to the passage that was left open with intention to force their way out.

70. But the Syracusians and their confederates, being out already with the same number of galleys they had before, disposed part of them to the guard of the open passage and the rest in circle about the haven, to the end they might fall upon the Athenians from all parts at once, and that their land forces might withal be near to aid them wheresoever the galleys touched. In the Syracusian navy commanded Sicanus and Agatharchus, each of them over a wing; and Pythen, with the Corinthians, had the middle battle. [2] After the Athenians were come to the lock of the haven, at the first charge they overcame the galleys placed there to guard it, and endeavoured to break open the bars thereof. But when afterwards the Syracusians and confederates came upon them from every side, they fought not at the lock only but also in the haven itself; and the battle was sharp, and such as there had never before been the like. [3] For the courage wherewith the mariners on both sides brought up their galleys to any part they were bidden was very great, and great was the plotting and counterplotting and contention one against another of the masters; also the soldiers, when the galleys boarded each other, did their utmost to excel each other in all points of skill that could be used upon the decks; and every man, in the place assigned him, put himself forth to appear the foremost. [4] But many galleys falling close together in a narrow compass (for they were the most galleys that in any battle they had used, and fought in the least room, being little fewer on the one side and the other than two hundred), they ran against each other but seldom, because there was no means of retiring nor of passing by, but made assaults upon each other oftener, as galley with galley, either flying or pursuing, chanced to fall foul. [5] And as long as a galley was making up, they that stood on the decks used their darts and arrows and stones in abundance; but being once come close, the soldiers at hand-strokes attempted to board each other. [6] And in many places it so fell out, through want of room, that they which ran upon a galley on one side were run upon themselves on the other; and that two galleys, or sometimes more, were forced to lie aboard of one; and that the masters were at once to have a care, not in one place only but in many together, how to defend on the one side and how to offend on the other; and the great noise of many galleys fallen foul of one another both amazed them and took away their hearing of what their directors directed. [7] For they directed thick and loud on both sides, not only as art required but out of their present eagerness; the Athenians crying out to theirs to force the passage, and now if ever valiantly to lay hold upon their safe return to their country; and the Syracusians and their confederates to theirs, how honourable a thing to every one of them it would be to hinder their escape and by this victory to improve every man the honour of his own country. [8] Moreover, the commanders of either side, where they saw any man without necessity to row a-stem, would call unto the captain of the galley by his name and ask him, the Athenians, whether he retired because he thought the most hostile land to be more their friend than the sea, which they had so long been masters of; the Syracusians theirs, whether when they knew that the Athenians desired earnestly by any means to fly, they would nevertheless fly from the flyers.

71. Whilst the conflict was upon the water, the land men had a conflict and sided with them in their affections, they of the place contending for increase of the honours they had already gotten, and the invaders fearing a worse estate than they were already in. [2] For the Athenians, who had their whole fortune at stake in their galleys, were in such a fear of the event as they had never been in the like, and were thereby of necessity to behold the fight upon the water with very different passions. [3] For the sight being near, and not looking all of them upon one and the same part, he that saw their own side prevail took heart and fell to calling upon the gods that they would not deprive them of their safety, and they that saw them have the worse not only lamented but shrieked outright, and had their minds more subdued by the sight of what was done than they that were present in the battle itself. Others that looked on some part where the fight was equal, because the contention continued so as they could make no judgment on it, with gesture of body on every occasion agreeable to their expectation, passed the time in a miserable perplexity. For they were ever within a little either of escaping or of perishing. [4] And one might hear in one and the same army, as long as the fight upon the water was indifferent, at one and the same time lamentations, shouts that they won, that they lost, and whatsoever else a great army in great danger is forced differently to utter. [5] They also that were aboard suffered the same, till at last the Syracusians and their confederates, after long resistance on the other side, put them to flight, and manifestly pressing, chased them with great clamour and encouragement of their own to the shore. [6] And the sea forces, making to the shore, some one way and some another, except only such as were lost by being far from it, escaped into the harbour. And the army that was upon the land, no longer now of different passions, with one and the same vehemence, all with shrieks and sighs unable to sustain what befel, ran part to save the galleys, part to the defence of the camp, and the residue, who were far the greatest number, fell presently to consider every one of the best way to save himself. [7] And this was the time wherein of all other they stood in greatest fear, and they suffered now the like to what they had made others to suffer before at Pylus. For the Lacedaemonians then, besides the loss of their fleet, lost the men which they had set over into the island; and the Athenians now, without some accident not to be expected, were out of all hope to save themselves by land.

72. After this cruel battle, and many galleys and men on either side consumed, the Syracusians and their confederates, having the victory, took up the wreck and the bodies of their dead, and returning into the city, erected a trophy. [2] But the Athenians, in respect of the greatness of their present loss, never thought upon asking leave to take up their dead or wreck, but fell immediately to consultation how to be gone the same night. [3] And Demosthenes, coming unto Nicias, delivered his opinion for going once again aboard and forcing the passage, if it were possible, betimes the next morning, saying that their galleys which were yet remaining and serviceable were more than those of the enemy; for the Athenians had yet left them about sixty, and the Syracusians under fifty. [4] But when Nicias approved the advice and would have manned out the galleys, the mariners refused to go aboard, as being not only dejected with their defeat, but also without opinion of ever having the upperhand any more. Whereupon they now resolved all to make their retreat by land.

73. But Hermocrates of Syracuse, suspecting their purpose, and apprehending it as a matter dangerous that so great an army, going away by land and sitting down in some part or other of Sicily, should there renew the war, repaired unto the magistrates and admonished them that it was not fit, through negligence, to suffer the enemy in the night time to go their ways (alleging what he thought best to the purpose), but that all the Syracusians and their confederates should go out and fortify in their way and prepossess all the narrow passages with a guard. [2] Now they were all of them of the same opinion no less than himself and thought it fit to be done; but they conceived withal that the soldier now joyful and taking his ease after a sore battle, being also holiday (for it was their day of sacrifice to Hercules), would not easily be brought to obey. For through excess of joy for the victory, they would most of them, being holiday, be drinking, and look for anything rather than to be persuaded at this time to take up arms again and go out. [3] But seeing the magistrates upon this consideration thought it hard to be done, Hermocrates, not prevailing, of his own head contrived this. Fearing lest the Athenians should pass the worst of their way in the night and so at ease out-go them, as soon as it grew dark he sent certain of his friends, and with them certain horsemen, to the Athenian camp; who, approaching so near as to be heard speak, called to some of them to come forth, as if they had been friends of the Athenians (for Nicias had some within that used to give him intelligence) and bade them to advise Nicias not to dislodge that night for that the Syracusians had beset the ways; [4] but that the next day, having had the leisure to furnish their army, they might march away.

74. Upon this advertisement they abode that night, supposing it had been without fraud. And afterwards, because they went not presently, they thought good to stay there that day also, to the end that the soldiers might pack up their necessaries as commodiously as they could, and begone, leaving all things else behind them save what was necessary for their bodies. [2] But Gylippus and the Syracusians, with their land forces, went out before them, and not only stopped up the ways in the country about by which the Athenians were likely to pass and kept a guard at the fords of brooks and rivers, but also stood embattled to receive and stop their army in such places as they thought convenient. And with their galleys they rowed to the harbour of the Athenians and towed their galleys away from the shore. Some few whereof they burnt, as the Athenians themselves meant to have done, but the rest at their leisure, as any of them chanced in any place to drive ashore, they afterwards hauled into the city.

75. After this, when everything seemed unto Nicias and Demosthenes sufficiently prepared, they dislodged, being now the third day from their fight by sea. [2] It was a lamentable departure, not only for the particulars, as that they marched away with the loss of their whole fleet, and that instead of their great hopes they had endangered both themselves and the state, but also for the dolorous objects which were presented both to the eye and mind of every of them in particular in the leaving of their camp. [3] For their dead lying unburied, when any one saw his friend on the ground, it struck him at once both with fear and grief. But the living that were sick or wounded both grieved them more than the dead, and were more miserable. [4] For with entreaties and lamentations they put them to a stand, pleading to be taken along by whomsoever they saw of their fellows or familiars, and hanging on the necks of their comrades, and following as far as they were able; and when the strength of their bodies failed, that they could go no further, with ah-mes! and imprecations were there left. Insomuch as the whole army, filled with tears and irresolute, could hardly get away, though the place were hostile and they had suffered already, and feared to suffer in the future, more than with tears could be expressed; but hung down their heads and generally blamed themselves. For they seemed nothing else but even the people of some great city expugned by siege and making their escape. [5] For the whole number that marched were no less one with another than forty thousand men. Of which not only the ordinary sort carried every one what he thought he should have occasion to use, but also the men of arms and horsemen, contrary to their custom, carried their victuals under their arms, partly for want and partly for distrust of their servants, who from time to time ran over to the enemy; but at this time went the greatest number. And yet what they carried was not enough to serve the turn, for not a jot more provision was left remaining in the camp. [6] Neither were the sufferings of others and that equal division of misery, which nevertheless is wont to lighten it in that we suffer with many, at this time so much as thought light in itself. And the rather because they considered from what splendour and glory which they enjoyed before into how low an estate they were now fallen. For never Grecian army so differed from itself. [7] For whereas they came with a purpose to enslave others, they departed in greater fear of being made slaves themselves; and instead of prayers and hymns with which they put to sea, they went back again with the contrary maledictions; and whereas they came out seamen, they departed landmen, and relied not upon their naval forces but upon their men of arms. Nevertheless, in respect of the great danger yet hanging over them, these miseries seemed all [but] tolerable.

76. Nicias, perceiving the army to be dejected, and the great change that was in it, came up to the ranks and encouraged and comforted them as far as for the present means he was able. And as he went from part to part he exalted his voice more than ever before, both as being earnest in his exhortation and because also he desired that the benefit of his words might reach as far as might be.

77. ‘Athenians and confederates, we must hope still, even in our present estate. Men have been saved ere now from greater dangers than these are. Nor ought you too much to accuse yourselves, either for your losses past, or the undeserved miseries we are now in. [2] Even I myself, that have the advantage of none of you in strength of body (you see how I am in my sickness), nor am I thought inferior to any of you for prosperity past, either in respect of mine own private person or otherwise, am nevertheless now in as much danger as the meanest of you. And yet I have worshipped the gods frequently according to the law and lived justly and unblameably towards men. [3] For which cause my hope is still confident of the future, though these calamities, as being not according to the measure of our desert, do indeed make me fear. But they may perhaps cease. For both the enemies have already had sufficient fortune, and the gods, if any of them have been displeased with our voyage, have already sufficiently punished us. [4] Others have invaded their neighbours as well as we; and as their offence, which proceeded of human infirmity, so their punishment also hath been tolerable. And we have reason now both to hope for more favour from the gods (for our case deserveth their pity rather than their hatred) and also not to despair of ourselves, seeing how good and how many men of arms you are, marching together in order of battle. Make account of this, that wheresoever you please to sit down, there presently of yourselves you are a city, such as not any other in Sicily can either easily sustain if you assault or remove if you be once seated. [5] Now for your march, that it may be safe and orderly, look to it yourselves, making no other account, any of you, but what place soever he shall be forced to fight in, the same, if he win it, must be his country and his walls. [6] March you must with diligence, both night and day alike, for our victual is short; and if we can but reach some amicable territory of the Siculi (for these are still firm to us for fear of the Syracusians), then you may think yourselves secure. Let us therefore send before to them and bid them meet us and bring us forth some supplies of victual. [7] In sum, soldiers, let me tell you it is necessary that you be valiant; for there is no place near where, being cowards, you can possibly be saved; whereas if you escape through the enemies at this time, you may every one see again whatsoever anywhere he most desires; and the Athenians may re-erect the great power of their city, how low soever fallen. For the men, not the walls nor the empty galleys, are the city.’

78. Nicias, as he used this hortative, went withal about the army, and where he saw any man straggle and not march in his rank, he brought him about and set him in his place. Demosthenes, having spoken to the same or like purpose, did as much to those soldiers under him. [2] And they marched forward, those with Nicias in a square battalion, and then those with Demosthenes in the rear. And the men of arms received those that carried the baggage and the other multitude within them. [3] When they were come to the ford of the river Anapus, they there found certain of the Syracusians and their confederates embattled against them on the bank; but these they put to flight, and having won the passage marched forward. But the Syracusian horsemen lay still upon them, and their light-armed plied them with their darts in the flank. [4] This day the Athenians marched forty furlongs, and lodged that night at the foot of a certain hill. The next day, as soon as it was light, they marched forwards about twenty furlongs, and descending into a certain champaign ground, encamped there, with intent both to get victual at the houses (for the place was inhabited) and to carry water with them thence; for before them, in the way they were to pass, for many furlongs together there was but little to be had. [5] But the Syracusians in the meantime got before them and cut off their passage with a wall. This was at a steep hill, on either side whereof was the channel of a torrent with steep and rocky banks; [6] and it is called Acraeum Lepas. The next day the Athenians went on; and the horsemen and darters of the Syracusians and their confederates, being a great number of both, pressed them so with their horses and darts that the Athenians after long fight were compelled to retire again into the same camp, but now with less victual than before, because the horsemen would suffer them no more to straggle abroad.

79. In the morning betimes they dislodged and put themselves on their march again, and forced their way to the hill which the enemy had fortified, where they found before them the Syracusian foot embattled in great length above the fortification [on the hill's side]; [2] for the place itself was but narrow. The Athenians coming up assaulted the wall; but the shot of the enemy, who were many, and the steepness of the hill (for they could easily cast home from above) making them unable to take it, they retired again and rested. [3] There happened withal some claps of thunder and a shower of rain, as usually falleth out at this time of the year, being now near autumn, which further disheartened the Athenians, who thought that also this did tend to their destruction. [4] Whilst they lay still, Gylippus and the Syracusians sent part of their army to raise a wall at their backs, in the way they had come; but this the Athenians hindered by sending against them part of theirs. [5] After this, the Athenians retiring with their whole army into a more champaign ground, lodged there that night, and the next day went forward again. And the Syracusians with their darts, from every part round about, wounded many of them; and when the Athenians charged, they retired, and when they retired, the Syracusians charged, and that especially upon the hindmost, that by putting to flight a few they might terrify the whole army. [6] And for a good while the Athenians in this manner withstood them; and afterwards, being gotten five or six furlongs forward, they rested in the plain; and the Syracusians went from them to their own camp.

80. This night it was concluded by Nicias and Demosthenes, seeing the miserable estate of their army, and the want already of all necessaries, and that many of their men in many assaults of the enemy were wounded, to lead away the army as far as they possibly could; not the way they purposed before, but toward the sea, which was the contrary way to that which the Syracusians guarded. [2] Now this whole journey of the army lay not towards Catana, but towards the other side of Sicily, Camarina and Gela, and the cities, as well Grecian as barbarian, that way. When they had made many fires accordingly, they marched in the night; [3] and (as usually it falleth out in all armies, and most of all in the greatest, to be subject to affright and terror, especially marching by night and in hostile ground, and the enemy near) were in confusion. The army of Nicias, leading the way, kept together and got far afore; [4] but that of Demosthenes, which was the greater half, was both severed from the rest and marched more disorderly. [5] Nevertheless, by the morning betimes they got to the seaside, and entering into the Helorine way they went on towards the river Cacyparis, to the end when they came thither to march upwards along the river's side through the heart of the country. For they hoped that this way the Siculi, to whom they had sent, would meet them. [6] When they came to the river, here also they found a certain guard of the Syracusians stopping their passage with a wall and with piles. When they had quickly forced this guard, they passed the river and again marched on to another river, called Erineus; for that was the way which the guides directed them.

81. In the meantime the Syracusians and their confederates, as soon as day appeared and that they knew the Athenians were gone, most of them accusing Gylippus as if he had let them go with his consent, followed them with speed the same way, which they easily understood they were gone, and about dinner time overtook them. [2] When they were come up to those with Demosthenes, who were the hindmost and had marched more slowly and disorderly than the other part had done, as having been put into disorder in the night, they fell upon them and fought. And the Syracusian horsemen hemmed them in and forced them up into a narrow compass, the more easily now because they were divided from the rest. [3] Now the army of Nicias was gone by this time one hundred and fifty furlongs further on. For he led away the faster because he thought not that their safety consisted in staying and fighting voluntarily, but rather in a speedy retreat, and then only fighting when they could not choose. [4] But Demosthenes was both in greater and more continual toil, in respect that he marched in the rear and consequently was pressed by the enemy; and seeing the Syracusians pursuing him, he went not on but put his men in order to fight, till by his stay he was encompassed and reduced, he and the Athenians with him, into great disorder. For being shut up within a place enclosed round with a wall, and which on either side had a way [open] amongst abundance of olive trees, they were charged from all sides at once with the enemy's shot. [5] For the Syracusians assaulted them in this kind, and not in close battle, upon very good reason. For to hazard battle against men desperate was not so much for theirs as for the Athenians' advantage. Besides, after so manifest successes, they spared themselves somewhat, because they were loth to wear themselves out before the end of the business, and thought by this kind of fight to subdue and take them alive.

82. Whereupon, after they had plied the Athenians and their confederates all day long from every side with shot and saw that with their wounds and other annoyance they were already tired, Gylippus and the Syracusians and their confederates first made proclamation that if any of the islanders would come over to them, they should be at liberty. And the men of some few cities went over. [2] And by and by after, they made agreement with all the rest that were with Demosthenes that they should deliver up their arms, and none of them be put to death, neither violently, nor by bonds, nor by want of the necessities of life. [3] And they all yielded, to the number of six thousand men; and the silver they had, they laid it all down, casting it into the hollow of targets, and filled with the same four targets. And these men they carried presently into the city.

Nicias, and those that were with him, attained the same day to the river Erineus, which passing, he caused his army to sit down upon a certain ground more elevate than the rest.

83. Where the Syracusians the next day overtook and told him, that those with Demosthenes had yielded themselves, and willed him to do the like. But he, not believing it, took truce for a horseman to enquire the truth. [2] Upon return of the horseman and word that they had yielded, he sent a herald to Gylippus and the Syracusians, saying that he was content to compound on the part of the Athenians to repay whatsoever money the Syracusians had laid out, so that his army might be suffered to depart, and that till payment of the money were made, he would deliver them hostages, Athenians, every hostage rated as a talent. [3] But Gylippus and the Syracusians, refusing the condition, charged them, and having hemmed them in, plied them with shot, as they had done the other army, from every side till evening. [4] This part of the army was also pinched with the want both of victual and other necessaries. Nevertheless, observing the quiet of the night, they were about to march. But no sooner took they their arms up than the Syracusians perceiving it gave the alarm. [5] Whereupon the Athenians, finding themselves discovered, sat down again, all but three hundred, who breaking by force through the guards, marched as far as they could that night.

84. And Nicias, when it was day, led his army forward, the Syracusians and their confederates still pressing them in the same manner, shooting and darting at them from every side. [2] The Athenians hasted to get the river Asinarus, not only because they were urged on every side by the assault of the many horsemen and other multitude and thought to be more at ease when they were over the river, but out of weariness also and desire to drink. [3] When they were come unto the river, they rushed in without any order, every man striving who should first get over. But the pressing of the enemy made the passage now more difficult. For being forced to take the river in heaps, they fell upon and trampled one another under their feet; and falling amongst the spears and utensils of the army, some perished presently; and others, catching hold one of another, were carried away together down the stream. [4] And [not only] the Syracusians standing along the farther bank, being a steep one, killed the Athenians with their shot from above as they were many of them greedily drinking and troubling one another in the hollow of the river; [5] but the Peloponnesians came also down and slew them with their swords, and those especially that were in the river. And suddenly the water was corrupted; nevertheless they drunk it, foul as it was with blood and mire; and many also fought for it.

85. In the end, when many dead lay heaped in the river, and the army was utterly defeated, part at the river, and part (if any gat away) by the horsemen, Nicias yielded himself unto Gylippus (having more confidence in him than in the Syracusians) to be for his own person at the discretion of him and the Lacedaemonians, and no further slaughter to be made of the soldiers. [2] Gylippus from thenceforth commanded to take prisoners. So the residue, except such as were hidden from them (which were many), they carried alive into the city. They sent also to pursue the three hundred which brake through their guards in the night, and took them. [3] That which was left together of this army to the public was not much; but they that were conveyed away by stealth were very many; [4] and all Sicily was filled with them, because they were not taken, as those with Demosthenes were, by composition. Besides, a great part [of these] were slain; for the slaughter [at this time] was exceeding great, none greater in all the Sicilian war. They were also not a few that died in those other assaults in their march. Nevertheless, many also escaped, some then presently and some by running away after servitude; the rendezvous of whom was Catana.

86. The Syracusians and their confederates, being come together, returned with their prisoners, all they could get, and with the spoil into the city. [2] As for all the other prisoners of the Athenians and their confederates, they put them into the quarries as the safest custody. But Nicias and Demosthenes they killed, against Gylippus' will. For Gylippus thought the victory would be very honourable if, over and above all his other success, he could carry home both the generals of the enemy to Lacedaemon. [3] And it fell out that one of them, Demosthenes, was their greatest enemy for the things he had done in the island and at Pylus; and the other, upon the same occasion, their greatest friend. For Nicias had earnestly laboured to have those prisoners which were taken in the island to be set at liberty by persuading the Athenians to the peace. [4] For which cause the Lacedaemonians were inclined to love him; and it was principally in confidence of that that he rendered himself to Gylippus. But certain Syracusians, as it is reported, some of them for fear (because they had been tampering with him) lest being put to the torture he might bring them into trouble, whereas now they were well enough; and others, especially the Corinthians, fearing he might get away by corruption of one or other, being wealthy, and work them some mischief afresh, having persuaded their confederates to the same, killed him. [5] For these, or for causes near unto these, was he put to death; being the man that, of all the Grecians of my time, had least deserved to be brought to so great a degree of misery.

87. As for those in the quarries, the Syracusians handled them at first but ungently. For in this hollow place, first the sun and suffocating air (being without roof) annoyed them one way; and on the other side, the nights coming upon that heat, autumnal and cold, put them, by reason of the alteration, into strange diseases; [2] especially doing all things, for want of room, in one and the same place, and the carcasses of such as died of their wounds or change [of air] or other like accident lying together there on heaps. Also the smell was intolerable; besides that they were afflicted with hunger and thirst. For for eight months together, they allowed no more but to every man a cotyle of water by the day and two cotyles of corn. And whatsoever misery is probable that men in such a place may suffer, they suffered. [3] Some seventy days they lived thus thronged. Afterwards, retaining the Athenians, and such Sicilians and Italians as were of the army with them, they sold the rest. [4] How many were taken in all it is hard to say exactly; but they were seven thousand at the fewest. [5] And this was the greatest action that happened in all this war, or at all, that we have heard of amongst the Grecians, being to the victors most glorious and most calamitous to the vanquished. [6] For being wholly overcome in every kind and receiving small loss in nothing, their army and fleet and all [that ever they had] perished (as they use to say) with an universal destruction. Few of many returned home. And thus passed the business concerning Sicily.