 Section 4, The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Elsie Selwyn. The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 2, edited by Charles F. Horn, Rossiter Johnson, and John Rudd. Great Plague at Athens, B.C. 430. Almost at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, when the prosperity of Athens had placed her at the height of her power, and given her unquestioned supremacy among the Grecian states, her strength was greatly impaired by a visitation against which there is nothing in military prowess or patriotic pride and devotion that could prevail. It is one of the tragic contrasts of history, the picture of Athens and her full triumph and glory, smitten at a moment when she needed to put forth her full strength, by a deadly foe against whose might mortal arms were vain. Her citizens were rejoicing in her social no less than her military preeminence, and they had already been trained in the hardships necessary to have endured in defense of an invaded country. Again they were prepared to undergo whatever service might be laid upon them in her behalf. They could foresee the arduous tasks and inevitable sufferings of a great war, but had no warning of an impending calamity far worse than those which even wore. Though always attended with horrors, usually in tales, Pericles had lately delivered his great funeral oration at the public internment of soldiers who had fallen for Athens. The bright colors and tone of cheerful confidence as Grote, whose account of the plague follows, which pervaded the discourse of Pericles, appeared the more striking for being an immediate antecedence to the awful description of this distemper. The death of Pericles himself, who directly or indirectly fell a victim to the prevailing pestilence, marked a grievous crisis for Athens in what was already become a measureless public woe. During the autumn of the year BC 427, the epidemic again broke out, after a considerable intermission and for one year continued to the sad ruin both of the strength and the comfort of the city. At the close of one year after the attempted surprise of Plataea by the Thebans, the belligerent parties in Greece remained in an unaltered position as to relative strength. Nothing decisive had been accomplished on either side, either by the invasion of Attica or by the flying descents around the coast of Peloponnesus. In spite of mutual damage inflicted doubtless in the greatest measure upon Attica, no progress was yet made toward the fulfillment of those objects which had induced the Peloponnesians to go to war. Especially the most pressing among all their wishes, the relief of Potidaea, was in no way advanced, for the Athenians had not found it necessary to relax the blockade of that city. The results of the first year's operations had thus been to disappoint the hopes of the Corinthians and the other ardent instigators of war, while it justified the anticipations both of Pericles and of Archedamus. A second devastation of Attica was resolved upon for the commencement of spring, and measures were taken for carrying it all over that territory, since the settled policy of Athens, not to hazard a battle with the invaders, was now ascertained. About the end of March or beginning of April, the entire Peloponnesian force, two-thirds from each Confederate city as before, was assembled under the command of Archedamus and marched into Attica. This time they carried the work of systematic destruction not merely over the Triashian plain and the plain immediately near to Athens as before, but also to the more southerly portions of Attica, down even as far as the mines of Laurium. They traversed and ravaged both the eastern and western coast, remaining not less than forty days in the country. They found that territory deserted as before, all the population having retired within the walls. In regard to this second invasion, Pericles recommended the same defensive policy as he had applied to the first, and apparently the citizens had now come to Aquasess in it, if not willingly, at least with a full conviction of its necessity. But a new visitation had now occurred, diverting their attention from the invader, though enormously aggravating their sufferings, a few days after Archedamus entered Attica, a pestilence or epidemic sickness broke out unexpectedly at Athens. It appears that this terrific disorder had been raging for some time throughout the region around the Mediterranean, having begun, as was believed in Ethiopia, then passing into Egypt and Libya, and overrunning a considerable portion of Asia under the Persian government. About sixteen years before, there had been a similar calamity in Rome and in various parts of Italy. Recently had been felt in Lemnos and some other islands of the Aegean. Yet seemingly not with such intensity as to excite much notice generally in the Grecian world. At length it passed to Athens and first showed itself in the Piraeus. The progress of the disease was as rapid and destructive as its appearance had been sudden, while the extraordinary accumulation of people within the city and long walls and consequence of the presence of the invaders in the country was but too favorable to every form of contagion. Families crowded together in closed cabins in places of temporary shelter. Throughout a city constructed like most of those in Greece, with little regard to the conditions of solubility and in the state of mental chagrin, from the forest abandonment and sacrifice of their properties in the country, transmitted the disorder with fatal facility from one to the other. Beginning as it did about the middle of April, the increasing heat of summer further aided the disorder, the symptoms of which, unlike violent and sudden, made themselves the more remarked because the year was particularly exempt from maladies of every other description. Of this plague or more properly eruptive typhoid fever, distinctive from yet analogous to the smallpox, a description no less clear than impressive has been left by the historian Thucydides himself, not only a spectator but a sufferer. It is not one of the least of his merits that his notice of the symptoms given at so early a stage of medical science and observation is such as to instruct the medical reader of the present age and to enable the malady to be understood and identified, the observations with which that notice is ushered and deserve particular attention. In respect to this distemper, he says, let every man, physician or not, say what he thinks respecting the source from once it may probably have arisen and respecting the causes which he deems sufficiently powerful to have produced so great a revolution. But I, having myself had the distemper and having seen other suffering under it will state what it actually was and will indicate in addition such other matters as will furnish any man who lays them to heart with knowledge and the means of calculation before him in case of the same misfortune should ever occur again. To record past facts as a basis for rational provision in regard to the future, the same sentiment which Thucydides mentions in his preface as having animated him to the composition of his history, was at that time of duty so little understood that we have reason to admire not less the manner in which he performs it in practice than the distinctness with which he conceives it in theory. We infer from his language that speculation in his day was active respecting the causes of this plague according to the vague and fanciful physics and scanty stock of ascertained facts which was all that could then be consulted. By resisting the itch of theorizing from one of these loose hypotheses which then appeared plausibly to explain everything he probably renounced the point of view from which most credit and interest would be derivable at the time. This simple and precise summary of observed facts carries with it an imperishable value and even affords grounds for imagining that he was no stranger to the habits and training of his contemporary Hippocrates and the other us Clepeids of Kos. It is hardly within the province of a historian of Greece to repeat after Thucydides the painful enumeration of symptoms violent in the extreme in pervading every portion of the bodily system which marked this fearful disorder. Beginning in Piraeus it quickly passed into the city and both the one and the other was speedily filled with sickness and suffering the like of which had never before been known. The seizures were sudden and a large proportion of the sufferers perished after deplorable agonies on the seventh or on the ninth day. Others whose strength of consultation carried them over this period found themselves the victims of exhausting and incurable diarrhea afterward with others again after traversing both these stages the distemper fixed itself in some particular member the eyes, the genitals, the hands or the feet which were rendered permanently useless or in some cases amputated even where the patient himself recovered. There were also some whose recovery was attended with a total loss of memory so that they no more knew themselves or recognized their friends no treatment or remedy appearing except in accidental cases to produce any beneficial effect the physicians or surgeon whose aid was invoked became completely at fault. While trying their accustomed means without a veil they soon ended by catching the malady themselves in perishing the charms and incantations to which the unhappy patient resorted were not likely to be more efficacious. While some asserted that the Peloponnesians had poisoned the cisterns of water others referred the visitation to the wrath of the gods and especially to Apollo known by heroes of the Iliad as author of pestilence in the Greek coast before Troy. It was remembered that this Delphian god had promised the Lachodemonians and replied to their application immediately before the war that he would assist them whether invoked or uninvoked and the disorder now raging was ascribed to the intervention of their irresistible ally while the elderly men further called to mind an irracular voice sung in the time of their youth. The Dorian war will come in pestilence along with it. Under the distress which suggested and was reciprocally aggravated by these gloomy ideas prophets were consulted and supplications with solemn procession were held at the temples to appease the divine wrath. When it was found that neither the priest nor the physician could retard the spread or mitigate the intensity of the disorder Athenians abandoned themselves to despair and the space within the walls became a scene of desolating misery. Every man attacked with the malady at once lost his courage a state of depression itself among the worst features of the case which made him lie down and die without any attempt to seek for preservatives and although what first friends and relatives lent their aid to tend the sick with the usual family sympathies yet so terrible was the number of these attendants who perished like sheep from such contact that at length no man would thus expose himself while the most generous spirits who persisted longest in the discharge of their duty were carried off in the greatest numbers. The patient was thus left to die alone and unheeded. Sometimes all the inmates of a house were swept away one after the other no man being willing to go near it. Desertion on the one hand, attendance on the other both tended to aggravate the calamity. There remained only those who, having had the disorder and recovered, were willing to tend the sufferers. These men formed the single exception to the all-pervading misery of the time for the disorder seldom attacked anyone twice and what it did the second attack was never fatal. Alate with their own escape they deemed themselves out of the reach of all disease and were full of compassionate kindness for those who sufferings were just beginning. It was from them too that the principal attention to the bodies of deceased victims proceeded for such was the state of dismay and sorrow that even the nearest relatives neglected the separable duties, sacred beyond all others in the eyes of a Greek. Nor is there any circumstance which conveys to us so vivid an idea of the prevalent agony and despair as when we read in the words of an eyewitness that the deaths took place among this close-packed crowd without the smallest decencies of attention, that the dead and dying lay piled upon one another, not merely in the public roads but even in the temples in spite of the understood defilement of the sacred building, that half-dead sufferers were seen lying around all the springs from insupportable thirst, that the numerous corpses thus unburied and exposed were in such a condition that the dogs which meddled with them died in consequence while no vultures or other birds of the like habits ever came near. Those bodies which escaped entire neglect were burnt or buried without the customary mourning and with unseemly carelessness in some cases the bearers of a body passing by a funeral pyre on which another body was burning would put their own there to be burnt also or perhaps if the pile was prepared ready for a body not yet arrived would deposit their own upon it, set fire to the pile and then depart. Such indecent confusion would have been intolerable to the feelings of the Athenians in any ordinary time. To all these scenes of physical suffering, death and reckless despair was super-added another evil which affected those who were fortunate enough to escape the rest. The bonds both of law and morality became relaxed amid such total uncertainty of every man both for his own life and that of others. Men cared not to abstain themselves from wrong under circumstances in which punishment was not likely to overtake them nor to put a check upon their passions and endure privations and obedience even to their strongest conviction. When the chance was so small they're living to reap reward or enjoy any future esteem. An interval short and sweet before their doom was realized before they became plunged in the widespread misery which they witnessed around and which affected indiscriminately the virtuous and the profligate was all that they looked to enjoy embracing with avity the immediate pleasures of sense as well as such positive gains however ill-gotten as could be made the means of procuring them and throwing aside all thought both of honor and of long-sighted advantage. Life and property being alike ephemeral there was no hope left but to snatch a moment of enjoyment before the outstretched hand of destiny should fall upon its victims. The picture of a society under the pressure of a murderous epidemic with its train of physical torments, wretchedness, and demoralization has been drawn by more than one eminent author but by none with more impressive fidelity and conciseness than by Thucydides who had no predecessor nor anything but the reality to copy from. We may remark that amid all the melancholy accompaniments of the time there are no human sacrifices such as those offered up at Carthage during pestilence to appease the anger of the gods. There are no cruel persecutions against imaginary authors of the disease such as those against the unturi, anointers of doors in the plague of Milan in 1630. Three years altogether did this calamity desolate Athens continuously during the entire second and third years of the war after which followed a period of market abatement for a year and a half but it then revived again and lasted for another year with the same fury as at first. The public loss over and above the private misery which this unexpected enemy inflicted upon Athens was incalculable. Out of twelve hundred horsemen all among the rich men of the state three hundred died of the epidemic besides forty four hundred hoplites out of the role formerly kept and a number of the poorer populations so great as to defy computation. No effort to the Peloponnesians could have done so much to ruin Athens or to bring the war to a termination such as they desired. And the distemper told the more in their favor as it never spread at all into Peloponnesus though it passed from Athens to some of the more populous islands. The Lachodemonian army was withdrawn from Attica somewhat earlier than it would have otherwise been for fear of taking the contagion. But it was while the Lachodemonians were yet in Attica and during the first freshness of the terrible malady that Pericles is equipped and conducted from Piraeus in armament of one hundred triremes and four thousand hoplites to attack the coasts of Peloponnesus. Three hundred horsemen were also carried in some horse transports prepared for the occasion out of old triremes. To diminish the crowd accumulated in the city was doubtless of beneficial tendency and perhaps those who went aboard might consider it as a chance of escape to quit an infected home. But unhappily they carried the infection along with them which desolated the fleet not less than the city and crippled all its efforts. Reinforced by fifty ships of war from Chaios and Lesbos the Athenians first landed near Epidaurus in Peloponnesus, ravaging the territory and making an unavailing attempt upon the city. Next they made like incursions on the most southerly portions of the Argolic peninsula. Troisin, Heliesus and Hermione and lastly attacked and captured Pracii on the eastern coast of Laconia. On returning to Athens the same armament was immediately conducted under Agnon and Cleopompus to press the siege of Patsadaia the blockade of which still continued without any visible progress. On arriving there an attack was made on the walls by battering engines and by the other aggressive methods then practiced. But nothing whatever was achieved. In fact the armament became incompetent for all serious effort and aggravated character which the distemper here assumed communicated by the soldiers fresh from Athens even to those who had before been free from it at Patsadaia. So frightful was the mortality that out of the 40,000 hoplites under Agnon no fewer than 1,050 died in the short space of 40 days. The armament was brought back in this distressed condition to Athens while the reduction of Patsadaia was left as before by the blockade. On returning from the expedition against Peloponnesus Pericles found his countrymen almost distracted with their manifold sufferings. Over and above the raging epidemic they had just gone over Attica and ascertained the devastation committed by the invaders throughout all the territory. Except the Marathonian Tetropolis and Declaclia districts spared as we are told through indulgence founded on an ancient legendary sympathy during their long stay of 40 days the rich had found their comfortable mansions and farms the poor their modest cottages and the various deems torn down and ruined. Death, sickness, loss of property and despair of the future now rendered the Athenians angry and intractable to the last degree. They vented their feelings against Pericles as the cause not merely of the war but also of all that they were now enduring. Either with or without his consent they sent envoys to Sparta to open negotiations for peace but the Spartans turned a deaf ear to the proposition. This new disappointment rendered them still more furious against Pericles whose long standing political enemies now doubtless found strong sympathy in their denunciations of his character and policy. That unshaken and majestic firmness which ranked first among his many eminent qualities was never more imperiously required and never more effectively manifested. In his capacity of strategus or general Pericles convoked a formal assembly of the people for the purpose of vindicating himself publicly against the prevailing sentiment and recommending perseverance in his line of policy. The speeches made by his opponents assuredly very bitter are not given by Thucydides but that of Pericles himself is set down at considerable length and a memorable discourse it is. It strikingly brings into relief both the character of the man and the impressive actual circumstances in an impregnable mind conscious not only of right purposes but of just and reasonable anticipations and bearing up with manliness or even defiance against the natural difficulty of the case heightened by an extreme of incalculable misfortune. He had foreseen while advising the war originally the probable impatience of his countrymen under its first hardships but he could not foresee the epidemic by which that impatience had been exasperated into madness and he now addressed them not merely with unabated adherence to his own deliberate convictions but also in a tone of reproachful remonstrance against their unmerited case of sentiment toward him seeking at the same time to combat that uncontrolled despair which for the moment overlaid both their pride and their patriotism. Far from humbling himself before the present sentiment it is at this time that he sets forth his titles to their esteem and the most direct and unqualified manner and claims the continuance of that which they had so long accorded as something belonging to him by acquired right. His main object through this discourse is to fill the minds of his audience with patriotic sympathy for the wheel of the entire city so as to counterbalance the absorbing sense of private woe. If the collective city flourishes he argues private misfortunes may at least be born but no amount of private prosperity will avail of the collective city falls a proposition literally true in ancient times and under the circumstances of ancient warfare though less true at present. Distracted by domestic calamity you are now angry both with me who advised you to go to war and with yourselves who followed the advice you listened to me considering me superior to others in judgment and speech and patriotism and incorruptible property nor ought I now to be treated as culpable for giving such advice the point of fact the war was unavoidable and there would have been still greater danger in shrinking from it. I am the same man still unchanged but you and your misfortunes cannot stand to the convictions which you adopted when yet unhurt extreme and unforeseen indeed are the sorrows which have fallen upon you yet inhabiting as you do a great city and brought up in dispositions suitable to it you must also resolve to bear up against the utmost pressure of adversity and never to surrender your dignity I have often explained to you that you have no reason to doubt of eventual success in the war but I will now remind you more emphatically than before and even with a degree of ostentation suitable as a stimulus to your present unnatural depression that your naval force makes you masters not only of your allies but of the entire sea one half of the visible field for action and employment compared with so vast a power as this the temporary use of your houses and territories in mere trifle an ornamental accessory not worth considering and this too if you preserve your freedom you will quickly recover it was your fathers who first gained this empire without any of the advantages which ye now enjoy ye must not disgrace yourselves by losing what they acquired delighting as ye all do in the honor and empire enjoyed by the city ye must not shrink from the toils whereby alone that honor is sustained moreover ye now fight not merely for freedom instead of slavery but for empire against loss of empire with all the perils arising out of imperial unpopularity it is not safe for you now to abdicate even if ye choose to do so for ye hold your empire like a despotism unjust perhaps in the original acquisition but ruinous to part with when once acquired be not angry with me whose advice ye followed in going to war because the enemy have done such damages might be expected from them still less on account of this unforeseen distemper I know that this makes me an object of your special present hatred though very unjustly unless ye will consent to give me credit also for any unexpected good luck which may occur our city derives its particular glory from unshaken bearing up against misfortune her power her name her empire of Greeks over Greeks are such as have never before been seen and if we choose to be great we must take the consequence of that temporary envy and hatred which is the necessary price of permanent renown behave ye now in a manner worthy of that glory display that courage which is essential to protect you against disgrace at present as well as to guarantee your honor for the future send no further embassy to Sparta and bear your misfortunes without showing symptoms of distress the irresistible reason as well as the proud and resolute bearing of this discourse set forth with an eloquence which was not possible for Thucydides to reproduce together with the age and character of Pericles carried the ascent of the assembled people who went in the panics and engaged according to the habit on public matters would for a moment forget their private sufferings and considerations of the safety and grandeur of Athens possibly indeed those suffering though still continuing might become somewhat alleviated when the invaders quitted Attica and when it was no longer indispensable for all the population to confine itself within the walls accordingly the assembly resolved that no further propositions should be made for peace and that the war should be prosecuted with vigor but though the public resolution thus adopted shows the ancient habit of deference to the authority of Pericles the sentiments of individuals taken separately were still those of anger against him as the author of that system which had brought them into so much distress his political opponents Cleon, Cymus, or Lakratiras perhaps all three in conjunction took care to provide an opportunity for this prevalent irritation to manifest itself in act by bringing an accusation against him before the decastry the accusation is said to have been preferred on the ground of pecuniary malversation and ended by his being sentenced to pay a considerable fine the amount of which is differently reported fifteen, fifty, or eighty talents by different authors the accusing party thus appeared to have carried their point and to have disgraced as well as excluded from re-election the veteran statesmen the event however disappointed their expectations the imposition of the fine not only satiated all the irritation of the people against him but even occasioned a serious reaction in his favor and brought back as strongly as ever the ancient sentiment of esteem and admiration it was quickly found that those who had succeeded Pericles' generals neither possessed nor deserved in any equal degree the public confidence he was accordingly soon re-elected with as much power and influence as he had ever in his life enjoyed but that life long, honorable, and useful had already been prolonged considerably beyond the sixtieth year and there were about too many circumstances besides the recent fine which tended to hasten as well as to embitter its close at the very moment when Pericles was preaching to his countrymen and atone almost reproachful the necessity of manful and unabated devotion to the common country in the midst of private suffering he was himself among the greatest of sufferers and most hardly pressed to set the example of observing his own precepts the epidemic carried off not merely his two sons the only two legitimate Santhippus in perilous but also his sister several other relatives and his best and most useful political friends amid this train of domestic calamities and in the funeral obsequies of so many of his dearest friends he remained master of his grief and maintained his habitual self-command until the last misfortune the death of his favorite son perilous which left his house without any legitimate representative to maintain the family and the hereditary sacred rites on this final blow though he strove to command himself as before yet at the obsequies of the young man when it became his duty to place a wreath on the dead body his grief became uncontrollable and he burst out for the first time in his life into profuse tears and sobbing in the midst of these several personal trials he received the intimation through Alcibiades and some other friends of the restored confidence of the people toward him and of his reelection to the office of Stratigus but it was not without difficulty that he was persuaded to present himself again at the public assembly and resumed the direction of affairs the regret of the people who were normally expressed to him for the recent sentence perhaps indeed the fine may have been repaid to him or some evasion of it permitted saving the forms of law and the present temper of the city which was further displayed toward him by the grant of a remarkable exemption from the law of his own original proposition he had himself some years before then the author of that law whereby citizenship of Athens was restricted to persons born both of Athenian fathers under which restriction several thousand persons illegitimate on the mother side are said to have been deprived of the citizenship on occasion of a public distribution of corn invidious as it appeared to grant to Pericles singly an exemption from a law which had been strictly enforced against so many others the people were now moved not less by compassion than by anxiety to redress their own previous severity without a legitimate error that House of Pericles won branch to the great Alkaimone gents by his mother side would be left deserted and the continuity of the family's sacred rights would be broken a misfortune painfully felt by every Athenian family as calculated to wrong all the deceased members and provoke their posthumous displeasure toward the city accordingly permission was granted to Pericles to legitimize and to inscribe in his own gents and fatri his natural son by Aspasia who bore his own name Pericles was reinstated in his post of Stratagus as well as in his ascendancy over the public councils seemingly about August or September B.C. 430 he lived about one year longer and seems to have maintained his influence as long as his health permitted yet we hear nothing of him after this moment and he fell a victim not to the violent symptoms of the epidemic but to a slow and wearing fever which undermined his strength as well as his capacity to a friend who came to ask after him when in this disease Pericles replied by showing a charm or amulet which his female relations had hung about his neck approved how low he was reduced and how completely he had become a passive subject in the hands of others and according to another anecdote which we read yet more interesting and equally illustrative of his character it was during his last moments when he was lying apparently unconscious and insensible that the friends around his bed were passing in review the acts of his life and the nine trophies which he had erected at different times for so many victories he heard what they said though they fancied that he was past hearing and interrupted them by remarking what you praise in my life belongs partly to good fortune and is at best common to me with many other generals but the peculiarity of which I am most proud you have not noticed no Athenian has ever put on mourning through any action of mine section 4 recording by Elsie Stelwin section 5 of the great events by famous historians volume 2 this is a LibreVox recording all LibreVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibreVox.org recording by Mike Botez June 2019 great events by famous historians volume 2 edited by Charles F. Horn Roseter Johnson and John Rudd Defeat of the Athenians at Syracuse BC 413 by Sir Edward S. Creasy part 1 that great writer of the history of the Romans Thomas Arnold says of the defeat of Athenian fleet at Syracuse the Romans knew not and could not know how deeply the greatness of their own posterity and the fate of the whole western world were involved in the destruction of the fleet of Athens in the harbor of Syracuse had that great expedition proved victorious the energies of Greece during the next eventful century would have found their field in the west no less than in the east Greece and not Rome might have conquered Carthage Greek instead of Latin might have been at this day the principal element of the language of Spain of France and of Italy and the laws of Athens rather than of Rome might be the foundation of the law of the civilized world the foregoing the author's own selection really sums up all that needs be said as to the importance of the great event so finally treated by Creasy few cities have undergone more memorable sieges during ancient and medieval times than has the city of Syracuse Athenian Carthaginian Roman Vandal Byzantine Saracen and Norman have in turns beligured her walls and the resistance which she successfully opposed to some of her early assailants was of the deepest importance not only to the fortunes of the generations then in being to all the subsequent current of human events to adopt the eloquent expressions of Arnold respecting the check which she gave to the Carthaginian arms Syracuse was a breakwater which God's providence raised up to protect the yet immature strength of Rome and her triumphant repulse of the great Athenian expedition against her was of even more widespread and enduring importance it forms a decisive epoch in the strife for universal empire in which all the great states of antiquity successfully engaged and failed the present city of Syracuse is a place of little or no military strength as the fire of artillery from the neighboring sites would almost completely commanded but in ancient warfare its position and the care bestowed on its walls rendered it formidably strong against the means of offense which were employed by Visigin armies the ancient city in its most prosperous times was chiefly built on the knob of land which projecting to the sea on the eastern coast of Sicily between two bays one of which to the north was called the Bay Athapsus while the southern one formed the great harbor of the city of Syracuse itself a small island or peninsula for such a tsun was rendered lies at the southeastern extremity of this knob of land stretching almost entirely across the mouth of the great harbor and rendering it nearly landlocked this island comprised the original settlement of the first greek colonists from Corinth who founded Syracuse 2500 years ago and the modern city has shrunk again into these primary limits but in the 5th century before our era the growing wealth and population of the Syracusans had led them to occupy and include within their city walls portion after portion of the mainland lying next to the little isle so that at the time of the Athenian expedition the seward part of the land between the two bays already spoken of was built over and fortified from bay to bay and constituted the larger part of Syracuse the landward wall therefore of this district of the city traversed this knob of land which continues to slope upward from the sea and which to the west of the old fortifications that is toward the interior of Sicily rises rapidly for a mile or two but diminishes in width and finally terminates in a long narrow ridge between which mount Hibla a succession of customs and uneven low ground extends on each flank of this ridge the descent is steep and precipitous from its summits to the strips of level land that lie immediately below it both to the southwest and northwest the usual mode of assailing fortified towns in the time of the Peloponnesian war the double wall round them sufficiently strong to check any sally of the garrison from within or any attack of a relieving force from without the interval within the two walls of the circumvallation was roofed over and formed barracks in which the besiegers posted themselves and awaited the effects of wanton treachery among the besieged in producing a surrender and in every greek city of those days as in every italian republic of the middle ages the rage of domestic sedition between aristocrats and democrats run high rancorous refugees swarmed in the camp of every invading enemy and every blockaded city was sure to contain within its walls a body of intriguing malcontents who were eager to purchase a party triumph at the expense of a national disaster famine and faction were the allies on whom besiegers relied the generals of that time trusted to the operation of these sure confederates as soon as they could establish a complete blockade they rarely ventured on the attempt to storm any fortified post for the military engines of antiquity were feeble in breaching masonry which the first Dionysius affected in the mechanics of destruction and the lives of spearmen the boldest and most high trained would, of course have been idly spent in charges against unshotered walls the city built close to the sea like Syracuse was impregnable saved by the combined operations of a superior hostile fleet and a superior hostile army and Syracuse from her size her population and her military and naval resources not unnaturally thought herself secure from finding in another greek city a foe capable of sending a sufficient armament to menace her capture and subjection but in the spring of BC 414 the Athenian navy was mistress of her harbor and the adjacent seas an Athenian army had defeated her troops and cooped them within the town and from bay to bay a blockading wall was being rapidly carried across the strips of level ground and the high ridge outside the city then turned a people a which, if completed would have cut the Syracuse off from all sucker from the interior of Sicily and have left them at the mercy of the Athenian generals the besiegers work were indeed unfinished but every day the unfortified interval in their lines grew narrower and with it diminished all apparent hope of safety for the beleaguered town Athens was now staking the flower of her forces and the accumulated fruits of 70 years of glory on one bold throw for the dominion of the western world as Napoleon from Mount Coeur d'Alion pointed to Saint Jean Dacre and his staff that the capture of that town would decide his destiny and would change the face of the world so the Athenian officers from the heights of epistol must have looked on Syracuse and felt that with it's fall all the known powers of the earth would fall beneath them they must have felt also that Athens if repulsed there must pause forever from her career of conquest and sink from an imperial republic into a ruined and subservient community at Marathon the first in date of the great battles of the world we beheld Athens struggling for self-preservation against the invading armies of the east at Syracuse as the ambitious and oppressive invader of others in her as in other republics of old and of modern times the same energy that had inspired the most heroic efforts in defense of the national independence soon learned to employ itself in daring and unscrupulous schemes of self aggrandizement at the expense of neighboring nations in the interval between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars she had rapidly grown into a conquering and dominant state the chief of a thousand tributary cities and the mistress of the largest and best manned navy that the Mediterranean had yet beheld the occupation of her territory by Cerses and Mardonius in the second Persian war had forced her whole population to become marines and the glorious results of the struggle confirmed them in their zeal for their country's service at sea the voluntary suffrage of the Greek cities of the coasts and islands of the Aegean first placed Athens at the head of the confederation formed for the further prosecution of the war against Persia but this titular ascendancy was soon converted by her into practical and arbitrary dominion she protected them from piracy and the Persian power which soon fell into decrepitude and decay but she exacted in return implicit obedience to herself she claimed and enforced a prerogative of taxing them at her discretion and proudly refused to be accountable for her mode of expending their supplies Remorseless against her assessments was treated as factious disloyalty and refusal to pay was promptly punished as revolt permitting and encouraging her subject allies to furnish older contingents in money instead of part consisting of women and men the sovereign republic gained the double object of training her own citizens by a constant and well paid service in her fleets and of seeing her confederates lose their skill and discipline by inaction and become more and more passive and powerless under her yoke their towns were generally dismantled while the imperial city herself was fortified with the greatest care and sumptuousness the accumulated revenues from her tributaries serving to strengthen and adorn to the utmost her havens her docks her arsenals her theaters and her shrines and to array her in that plenitude of architectural magnificence the ruins of which still attest the intellectual grandeur of the age and people which produced a pericles to plan and aphidias to execute all republics that acquire supremacy over other nations rule them selfishly and oppressively there is no exception to this in either ancient or modern times Carthage, Rome Venice Genoa Florence Pisa Holland and Republican France all terrorized over every province and subject state where they gained authority but none of them openly avowed their system of doing so upon principle with a candor which the Athenian republicans displayed when any remonstrance was made against the severe executions which they imposed upon their vassal allies they avowed that their empire was a tyranny and frankly stated that they solely trusted to force and terror to uphold it they appealed to what they called the eternal law of nature that the weak should be coerced by the strong sometimes they stated and not without some truth that the unjust hatred of Sparta against themselves forced them to be unjust to others in self defense to be safe they must be powerful and to be powerful they must plunder and coerce their neighbors they never dreamed of communicating any franchise or share in office to their dependents but jealously monopolized every post of command and all political and judicial power exposing themselves to every risk with unflinching gallantry embarking readily in every ambitious scheme and never suffering difficulty or disaster to shake their tenacity of purpose in the hope of acquiring unbounded empire for their country and the means of maintaining each of the 30,000 citizens who made up the sovereign republic in exclusive devotion to military occupations and to those brilliant sciences and arts in which Athens already had reached the meridian of intellectual splendor her great political dramatist speaks of the Athenian empire as comprehending a thousand states the language of the stage must not be taken too literally but the number of dependencies of Athens at the time when the Peloponnesian confederacy attacked her was undoubtedly very great with a few trifling exceptions all the islands of the Aegean and all the Greek cities which in that age fringed the coast of Asia Minor the Hellespont and Thrace paid tribute to Athens and implicitly obeyed her orders the Aegean Sea was an attic lake westward of Greece her influence though strong was not equally predominant she had colonies and allies among the wealthy and populous Greek settlements in Sicily and south Italy had no organized system of confederates in those regions and her galleys brought her no tribute from the western seas the extension of her empire over Sicily was the favorite project of her ambitious orators and generals while her great statesmen Pericles lived his commanding genius kept his countrymen under control the fortunes of Athens in distant enterprises while they had unsubdued and powerful enemies at their own doors he taught Athens this maxim but he also taught her to know and to use her own strength and when Pericles had departed the bold spirit which he had fostered over leaped the solitary limits which he had prescribed when her bitter enemies the Corinthians succeeded BC 431 in inducing Sparta to attack her and a confederacy was formed of five-six of the continental Greeks all animated by anxious jealousy and bitter hatred of Athens when armies far superior in numbers and equipment to those which had marched against Persians were poured into the Athenian territory and laid it to waste to the city walls the general opinion was that Athens would be reduced in two or three years at the furthest to submit to the requisitions of her invaders but her strong fortifications by which she was girded and linked to her principal haven gave her in those ages almost all the advantages of an insular position Pericles had made her trust to her empire of the seas every Athenian in those days was a practiced seaman a state indeed whose members of an age fit for service but no time exceeded 30,000 could only have acquired such a naval dominion as Athens once held by devoting and zealously training all its sons to service in its fleets in order to mend the numerous galleys which she sent out she necessarily employed large numbers of hired mariners and slaves at the war but the staple of her cruise was Athenian and all posts of command were held by native citizens it was by reminding them of this practice in seamanship and the certain superiority which their discipline gave them over the enemy's marine that their great minister mainly encouraged them to resist the combined power of Lacedaemon and her allies he taught them that Athens might thus reap the fruit of her zealous devotion to maritime affairs ever since the invasion she had not indeed perfected herself but the reward of her superior training was the rule of the sea a mighty dominion for it gave her the rule of much fair land beyond its waves safe from the idle ravages with which the Lacedaemonians might harass Attica but never could subdue Athens Athens accepted the war with which her enemies threatened her rather than descend from her pride of place and though the awful visitation of the plague came upon her and swept away more of her citizens than the Dorian spear lay low she held her own gallantly against her enemies if the Peloponnesian armies in irresistible strength wasted every spring of her corn lands her vineyards and her olive groves with fire and sword she retaliated on their coasts with her fleets which if resisted were only resisted to display the preeminent skill and bravery of her seaman some of her subject allies revolted but the revolts were in general sternly and promptly quelled the genius of one enemy had indeed inflicted blows on her power in Thrace which she was unable to remedy but he fell in battle in the 10th year of the war and with the loss of Brassidas the Lacedaemonians seemed to have lost all energy and judgment both sides at length grew weary of the war and in 421 a truce for 50 years was concluded which though ill kept and though many of the confederates of Sparta refused to recognize it and hostilities still continued in many parts of Greece protected the Athenian territory from the ravages of enemies and enabled Athens to accumulate large sums out of the proceeds of her annual revenues so also as a few years passed by the havoc which the pestilence and the sword had made in her population was repaired and in 415 Athens was full of bold and restless spirits who longed for some field of distant enterprise wherein they might signalize themselves and aggrandize the state and who looked to the alarm of Spartan hostility as a mere old woman's tale when Sparta had wasted their territory she had done her worst and the fact of its always been in her power to do so seemed a strong reason for seeking to increase the transmarine dominion of Athens the west was now the quarter toward which the thoughts of every aspiring Athenian were directed from the very beginning of the war Athens had kept up an interest in Sicily and her squadron had from time to time appeared on its coasts and taken part in the dissensions in which the Sicilian Greeks were universally engaged one against the other there were plausible grounds for direct quarrel and an open attack on Syracuse with the capture of Syracuse all Sicily it was hoped would be secured Carthage and Italy were next to be attacked with large levies of Iberian mercenaries she then meant to overwhelm her Peloponnesian enemies the Persian monarchy lay in hopeless imbecility inviting Greek invasion nor did the known world contain the power that seemed capable of checking the growing might of Athens if Syracuse once should be hers the national historian of Rome has left us an episode of his great work a disquisition on the probable effects that would have followed if Alexander the Great had invaded Italy posterity has generally regarded a disquisition as proving levy's patriotism more strongly than his impartiality or acuteness yet right or wrong the speculations of the Roman writer were directed to the consideration of a very remote possibility to whatever age Alexander's life might have been prolonged the east would have furnished full occupation for his martial ambition as well as for those schemes of commercial grandeur and imperial amalgamation of nations in which the truly great qualities of his mind loved to display themselves with his death the dismemberment of his empire among his generals was certain the dismemberment of Napoleon's empire among his marshals would certainly have ensued if he had been cut off in the zenith of his power Rome also was far weaker when the Athenians were in Sicily than she was a century afterward in Alexander's time there can be little doubt but that Rome would have been bloated out from the independent powers of the west had she been attacked at the end of the 5th century BC by an Athenian army largely aided by Spanish mercenaries and flushed with triumphs over Sicily and Africa instead of the collision between her and Greece having been deferred until the latter had sunk into decrepitude and the Roman Mars had grown into full vigor the armament which the Athenians equipped against Syracuse was in every way worthy of the state which formed such projects of universal empire and it has been truly turned the noblest that ever yet had been sent forth by a free and civilized Commonwealth the fleet consisted of 134 war gullies with a multitude of storeships a powerful force of the best heavy armed infantry that Athens and her allies could furnish was sent onboard it together with a smaller number of slingers and bowmen the quality of the forces was even more remarkable than the number the zeal of individuals vied with that of the Republic in giving every gully the best possible crew and every troop the most perfect accoutrements and with private as well as public wealth eagerly lavished on all that could give splendor as well as efficiency to the expedition the faded fleet began its voyage for the Sicilian shores in the summer of 415 the Syracusans themselves at the time of the Peloponnesian war were a bold and turbulent democracy terrorizing over the weaker Greek cities in Sicily and trying to gain in that island the same arbitrary supremacy which Athens maintained along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean in numbers and in spirit they were fully equal to the Athenians but far inferior to them in military and naval discipline when the probability of an Athenian invasion was first publicly discussed at Syracuse and efforts were made by some of the wiser citizens to improve the state of the national defenses and prepare for the impeding danger the rumors of coming war and the proposal for preparation were received by the mass of the Syracusans with scornful incredulity the speech of one of their popular orators is preserved to us in Thucydides the Syracusan orator told his countrymen to dismiss with scorn the visionary terrors which a set of designing men among themselves strove to excite in order to get power and influence thrown into their own hands he told them that Athens knew her own interest too well to think of wantonly provoking their hostility even if the enemies were to come said he so distant from their resources and opposed to such a power as ours their destruction would be easy and inevitable their ships will have enough to do to get to our island at all and to carry such stores of all sorts as will be needed they cannot therefore carry besides an army large enough to cope with such a population as ours they will have no fortified place from which to commence their operations but must rest them on no better base than a set of wretched tents and such means as the necessities of the moment will allow them but in truth I do not believe that they would even be able to effect a disembarkation let us therefore set at naught these reports as altogether of home manufacture and be sure that if any enemy does come the state will know how to defend itself in a manner worthy of national honor such assertions pleased the Syracusan assembly but the invaders of Syracuse came made good their landing in Sicily and if they had promptly attacked the city itself instead of wasting nearly a year in desultory operations in other parts of Sicily the Syracusans must have paid the penalty of their self sufficient carelessness in submission to the Athenian yoke but of the three generals who led the Athenian expedition two only were men of ability and one was most weak and incompetent fortunately for Syracuse the most skillful of the three was soon deposed from his command by a factious and fanatic vote of his fellow countrymen and the other competent one Lamacus fell early in a skirmish while more fortunately still for her the feeble and vacillating Nicaea's remained unrecalled and unheard to assume the undivided leadership of the Athenian army and fleet and to mar by alternate over caution and over carelessness every chance of success which the early part of the operations offered still even under him the Athenians nearly won the town they defeated the raw levies of the Syracusans cooped them within the walls and as before mentioned almost affected a continuous fortification from bay to bay over epipole the completion of which would certainly have been followed by a capitulation end of section 5 recording by Mike Botez section 6 of the great events by famous historians volume 2 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Mike Botez June 2019 the great events by famous historians volume 2 edited by Charles F. Horn Rossiter Johnson and John Rudd defeat of the Athenians at Syracuse BC 413 by Sir Edward S. Creasy part 2 Alcibiades the most complete example of genius without principle that history produces the bowling broke of antiquity but with high military talents super added to diplomatic and oratorical powers on being summoned home from his command in Sicily to take his trial before the Athenian tribunal had escaped to Sparta and had exerted himself there with all the selfish drunker of renegade to renew the war of Athens and to send instant assistance to Syracuse when we read his words in the pages of Thucydides who was himself an exile from Athens at this period and may probably have been at Sparta and heard Alcibiades speak we are at a loss whether most to admire or abhor his subtle councils after an artful exordium in which he tried to disarm the suspicions which he felt must be entertained of him and to point out to the Spartans how completely his interests and theirs were identified through hatred of the Athenian democracy he thus proceeded hear me at any rate on the matters which require your grave attention and which I from the personal knowledge I have of them can and ought to bring before you we Athenians sailed to Sicily with the design of subduing first the Greek cities there and next those in Italy then we intended to make an attempt on the dominions of Carthage and on Carthage itself if all these projects succeeded nor did we limit ourselves to them in these quarters we intended to increase our fleet with the inexhaustible supplies of ship timber which Italy affords to put in requisition the whole military force of the conquered Greek states and also to hire large armies of the barbarians of the Iberians and others in those regions who are allowed to make the best possible soldiers then when we had done all this we intended to assail Peloponnesus with our collected force our fleets would blockade you by sea and desolate your coasts our armies would be landed at different points and assail your cities some of these we expected to storm and others we meant to take by surrounding them with fortified lines we thought that it would thus be an easier matter thoroughly to war you down and then we should become the masters of the whole Greek race as for expense we reckoned that each conquered state would give us supplies of money and provisions sufficient to pay for its own conquest and furnish the means for the conquest of its neighbors such are the designs of the present Athenian expedition to Sicily and you have heard them from the lips of the man who of all men living is most accurately acquainted with them the other Athenian generals who remain with the expedition will endeavor to carry out these plans and be sure that without your speed interference they will all be accomplished the Sicilian Greeks are deficient in military training but still if they could at once be brought to combine in unorganized resistance to Athens they might even now be saved but as for the Syracusans resisting Athens by themselves they have already with the whole strength of their population fought a battle and been beaten they cannot face the Athenians at sea and it is quite impossible for them to hold out against the force of their invaders and if this city falls into the hands of the Athenians all Sicily is theirs and presently Italy also and the danger which I warned you of from that quarter will soon fall upon yourselves you must therefore in Sicily fight for the safety of Peloponnesus send some galleys dither instantly put men on board who can work their own way over and who as soon as they land can do duty as regular troops but above all let one of yourselves let a man of Sparta go over to take the chief command to bring into order and effective discipline the forces that are in Syracuse and urge those present hang back to come forward and aid the Syracusans the presence of a Spartan general at this crisis will do more to save the city than a whole army the renegade then proceeded to urge on them the necessity of encouraging their friends in Sicily by showing that they themselves were in earnest in hostility of Athens he exhorted them not only to march their armies into Attica again but to take up permanent fortified position in the country and he gave them in detail information of all that the Athenians most dreaded and how his country might receive the most distressing and enduring injury at their hands the Spartans resolved to act on his advice and appointed Gilepus to the Sicilian command Gilepus was a man who to the national bravery and military skill of a Spartan united political sagacity that was worthy of his great fellow countrymen Brassidas but his merits were debased by mean and sordid vices and his is one of the cases in which history has been austerely just and where little or no fame has been accorded to the successful but venal soldier but for the purpose for which he was required in Sicily an abler man could not have been found unless a daemon his country gave him neither men nor money but she gave him her authority and the influence of her name and of his own talents was speedily seen in the zeal with which the Corinthians and other Peloponnesian Greeks began to equip a squadron to act under him for the rescue of Sicily as soon as four galleys were ready he hurried over with them to Sicily and there though he received such evil tidings of the state of Syracuse that he abandoned all hope of saving that city he determined to remain on the coast and do what he could in preserving the Italian cities from the Athenians so nearly indeed had Nicias completed his beligoring lines and so utterly desperate had the state of Syracuse seemingly become that an assembly of the Syracusans was actually convened and they were discussing the terms on which they should offer to capitulate when a galley was seen dashing into the great harbor and making her way toward the town with all the speed which her rowers could supply from her shining the part of the harbor where the Athenian fleet lay and making straight for the Syracusans side it was clear that she was a friend the enemy's cruisers careless through confidence of success made no attempt to cut her off she touched the beach and a Corinthian captain springing on shore from her was eagerly conducted to the assembly of the Syracusan people just in time to prevent the fatal vote being put for a surrender providentially for Syracuse gondulous the commander of the galley had been prevented by an Athenian squadron from following Gallipus to south Italy and he had been obliged to push direct for Syracuse from Greece the sight of actual soccer and the promise of more revived the drooping spirits of the Syracusans he felt that they were not left desolate to perish and the tidings that aspartan was coming to command them confirmed their resolution to continue their resistance Gallipus was already near the city he had learned at Locri that the first report which had reached him of the state of Syracuse was exaggerated and that there was unfinished space in the besiegers lines through which it was barely possible to introduce reinforcements into the town crossing the straits of Messina which the culpable negligence of Nicias had left unguarded Gallipus landed on the northern coast of Sicily and there began to collect from the Greek cities an army of which the regular troops that he brought from Peloponises formed the nucleus such was the influence of the name of Sparta and such were his own abilities and activity that he succeeded in raising force of about 2,000 fully armed infantry with a larger number of irregular troops Nicias as if infatuated made no attempt to counteract his operation nor when Gallipus marched his little army toward Syracuse did the Athenian commander endeavor to check him the Syracusians marched out to meet him and while the Athenians were solely intent on completing their fortifications on the southern side toward the harbor Gallipus turned their position by occupying the high ground in the extreme rear of Epipole he then marched through the unfortified interval of Nicias lines into the besieged town and joining his troops with the Syracusian forces after some engagements with varying success gained the mastery over Nicias drove the Athenians from Epipole and hemmed them into a disadvantageous position in the low grounds near the Great Harbor the attention of all Greece was now fixed on Syracuse and every enemy of Athens felt the importance of the opportunity now offered of checking her ambition and perhaps of striking a deadly blow at her power larger reinforcements from Corinth Thebes and other cities now reached the Syracusians while the baffled and dispirited Athenian general earnestly besought his countrymen to recall him and represented the further prosecution of the siege as hopeless but Athens had made it a maxim never to let difficulty or disaster drive her back from any enterprise undertaken so long as she possessed the means of making any effort however desperate for its accomplishment with indomitable pertinacity she now decreed instead of recalling her first armament from before Syracuse to send out a second though her enemies near home had now renewed open warfare against her despite buying a permanent fortification in her territory had severely distressed her population and were pressing her with almost all the hardship of an actual siege she still was the mistress of the sea and she sent forth another fleet of 70 galleys and another army which seemed to drain almost the last reserves of her military population to try if Syracuse could not yet be won and the honor of the Athenian arms be preserved from the stigma over retreat here was indeed a spirit that might be broken but never would bend at the head of this second expedition she wisely placed her best general Demostinis one of the most distinguished officers that the Long Peloponnesian war had produced and who if he had originally held the Sicilian command would soon have brought Syracuse to submission the fame of Demostinis the general has been dimmed by the superior laster of his great countryman Demostinis the orator when the name Demostinis is mentioned it is the latter alone that is thought of the soldier has found no biographer yet out of the long list of great men whom the Athenian Republic produced there are few that deserve to stand higher than this brave though finally unsuccessful leader of her fleets and armies in the first half of the Peloponnesian war in his first campaign in Etolia he had shown some of the rashness of youth and had received a lesson of caution by which he profited throughout the rest of his career but without losing any of his natural energy in enterprise or in execution he had performed the distinguished service of rescuing no pactos of full hostile armament in the seventh year of the war he had then at the request of the Akarnanian republics taken on himself the office of commander in chief of all their forces and at their head he had gained some important advantages over the enemies of Athens in western Greece his most celebrated exploits had been the occupation of Pelos on the Messinian coast the successful defense of that place against the fleet and armies of Lassidiman and the subsequent capture of the Spartan forces on the Isle of Sfacteria which was the severest blow dealt to Sparta throughout the war and which had mainly caused her to humble herself to make the truce with Athens Demosthenes was as honorably unknown in the war of party politics at Athens as he was eminent in the war against the foreign enemy we read of no intrigues of his on either the aristocratic or democratic side he was neither in the interest of Nicaea's nor of Cleon his private character was free from any of the stains which polluted that of Alcibiades on all these points the silence of the comic dramatist is decisive evidence in his favor he had also the moral courage not always combined with physical of seeking to do his duty to his country irrespective of any that he himself might incur and unhampered by any petty jealousy of those who are associated with him in command there are a few men named in ancient history of whom posterity would gladly know more or whom we sympathize with more deeply in the calamities that befell them than Demosthenes the son of Alquistines who in the spring of the year 413 left Piraeus at the head of the 2nd Athenian expedition against Sicily his arrival was critically timed for Gallipas had encouraged the Syracusans to attack the Athenians under Nicaea's by sea as well as by land and by one able stratagem Aristan one of the admirals of the Corinthian auxiliary squadron the Syracusans and their confederates had inflicted on the fleet of Nicaea's the first defeat that the Athenian navy had ever sustained from a numerically inferior enemy Gallipas was preparing to follow up his advantage by fresh attacks on the Athenians on both elements when the arrival of the Demosthenes completely changed the aspect of affairs and restored the superiority to the invaders with 73 war galleys in the highest state of efficiency and brilliantly equipped with a force of 5000 peaked men of the regular infantry of Athens and her allies and a still larger number of bowmen, javelin men and slingers on board the Demosthenes rode around the great harbor with loud cheers and martial music as if in defiance of the Syracusans and their confederates his arrival had indeed changed their newly born hopes into the deepest consternation the resources of Athens seemed inexhaustible and resistance to her hopeless they had been told that she was reduced to the last extremities and that her territory was occupied by an enemy and yet here they saw her sending forth as if in prodigality of power a second armament to make foreign conquests not inferior to that when the NICS had first landed on the Sicilian shores with the intuitive decision of a great commander Demosthenes at once saw that the possession of Epipole was the key to the possession of Syracuse and he resolved to make a prompt and vigorous attempt to recover that position while his force was unimpaired and the consternation that the people had produced among the besieged remained unabated the Syracusans and their allies had run out an outwork along the Epipole from the city walls intersecting the fortified lines of circumvillation which NICS had commenced but from which he had been driven by guillipus could Demosthenes and reestablishing the Athenian troops on the high ground he might fairly hope to be able to resume the circumvillation of the city and become the conqueror of Syracuse for when once the besiegers lines were completed the number of the troops with which guillipus had garrisoned the place would only tend to exhaust the stores of provisions and accelerate its downfall an easily repelled attack was first made on the outwork in the daytime probably more with the view of blinding the besieged to the nature of the operations than with any expectations of succeeding in an open assault with every disadvantage of the ground to contend against but when the darkness had set in Demosthenes formed his men in columns each soldier taken with him 5 days provisions and the engineers and workmen of the camp following the troops with their tools and all portable implements of fortification so as at once to secure any advantage of ground that the army might gain thus equipped and prepared he led his men along by the foot of the southern flank of Epipole in a direction toward the interior of the island till he came immediately below the narrow ridge that forms the extremity of the high ground looking westward he then wheeled his vanguard to the right send them rapidly up the paths that wind along the face of the cliff and succeeded in completely surprising the Syracusan outposts and in placing his troops fairly on the extreme summit of the all important Epipole thence the Athenians marched eagerly down the slope toward the town routing some Syracusan detachments that were quartered in their way and vigorously assailing the unprotected side of the outwork all at first favored them the outwork was abandoned by its garrison and the Athenian engineers began to dismantle it in vain Gilipus brought up fresh troops to check the assault the Athenians broke and drove them back and continued to press hotly forward in the full confidence of victory but amid the general consternation of the Syracusans and their Confederates one body of infantry stood firm this was a brigade of their Beocian allies which was posted low down the slope of Epipole outside the city walls Cooley and steadily the Beocian infantry formed their line and undismayed by the current of flight around them advanced against the the Athenians this was the crisis of the battle but the Athenian van was disorganized by its own previous successes and yielding to the unexpected charge thus made on it by the troops in perfect order and of the most obstinate courage it was driven back in confusion upon the other divisions of the army to press forward when once the tide was thus turned the Syracusans passed rapidly from the extreme of panic to the extreme of vengeful daring and with all their forces they now fiercely assailed the embarrassed and receding Athenians in vain did the officers of the latter strive to reform their line amid the din and the shouting of the fight and the confusion inseparable upon a night engagement especially one where many thousand combatants were pent and world together in a narrow and uneven area the necessary maneuvers were impracticable and though many companies still fought on desperately wherever the moonlight and the semblance of a foe they fought without concert or subordination and not infrequently amid the deadly chaos Athenian troops assailed each other keeping their ranks close the Syracusans and their allies pressed on against the disorganized masses of the besiegers and at length drove them with heavy slaughter over the cliffs which an hour or two before they had scaled full of hope and apparently certain of success this defeat was decisive of the event of the siege the Athenians afterwards struggled only to protect themselves from the vengeance which the Syracusans sought to wreck in the complete destruction of their invaders never however was vengeance more complete and terrible a series of sea fights followed in which the Athenian galleys were utterly destroyed or captured the mariners and soldiers who escaped death in disastrous engagements and a vain attempt to force a retreat into the interior of the island became prisoners of war Nicaea's and the Mostanese were put to death in cold blood and their men either perished miserably in the Syracusan dungeons or were sold into slavery to the very persons whom in their pride of power they had crossed the seas to enslave all dangers from Athens to the independent nations of the west was now forever at an end she indeed continued to struggle against her combined enemies and revolted allies with unparalleled gallantry and many more years of varying warfare passed away before she surrendered to their arms but no success in subsequent contests could ever have restored her to the preeminence in enterprise of forces and maritime skill which she had acquired before her fatal reverses in Sicily nor among the rival Greek republics whom her own rushness aided to crush her was there any capable of reorganizing her empire or resuming her schemes of conquest the dominion of western Europe was left for Rome and Carthage to dispute two centuries later in conflicts still more terrible and with even higher displays of military daring and genius than Athens had witnessed either in her rise her meridian or her fall and of section 6 recording by Mike Botez section 7 of the great events by famous historians volume 2 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the great events by famous historians volume 2 edited by Charles F. Horn Rosita Johnson and John Rod retreat after 10,000 Greeks 401 399 BC Xenophon the expedition of the Greeks generally known as the retreat of the 10,000 was conducted by Xenophon a Greek historian, essays and military commander Xenophon was a pupil of Socrates of whom he left the famous memoir in 401 BC he accepted the invitation of his friend Roxenis of Boetia a general of Greek mercenaries to take service under Cyrus the Younger brother of Arthur Xerxes Menemmen king of Persia Cyrus had considered himself as deeply wrong by his older brother who had thrown him into prison on the death of their father Darius escaping from prison he formed a design to rest the throne from Arthur Xerxes for this purpose he engaged the forces of Roxenis and to this army Xenophon attached himself who was Sardis from which the army marched east under the pretext of chastising the revolting mountaineers of Cedia instead of attacking the Cedians the followers of Cyrus proceeded east through Asia and Babylonia till they met the forces of AntoXerxes at Cunexa a furious battle took place and the rout of their king's army had begun when Cyrus elated with a victory that seemed to be the last to pass challenged his brother to single combat in the duel that ensued Cyrus was slain Roxenis had already fallen and the virtual command of the Greek army soon devolved upon Xenophon who thereupon began the famous retreat a vivid account of battles and of hardships endured from the cold in their struggle through mountain snows through almost impassable forests and across bridgeless rivers is given in Xenophon's Anabasis the celebrated work in seven books which forms the classical narrative of the campaign and the retreat soon after the death of Cyrus in September BC 401 the seizure and the murder of the leading Greek generals by the treacherous Persian satrap Tisa Fairnes placed the Greek army in great peril Xenophon who now took practical command counseled exorted the surviving leaders and on the next day the Greeks formed in a hollow square the baggage in the center and began their retreat which led them along the Tigris to the territory of the Cardachi Kurds through Armenia and across Georgia the enemy often harassing them at the point where the climax of the story which is presented here may be said to begin the Greeks have entered Armenia passed the sources of the Tigris and reached the teleboss having made a treaty with Tiri Basis governor of the province and discovered his insincerity and that he was ready to attack them in their passage over the mountains they resolved upon a quick resumption of their march when in the fifth months of the retreat the Greeks had last from the hill top behold the wixen they set up a cry the sea which has echoed through succeeding ages of the great historic jubilations of humanity at the end of the retreat their numbers were reduced to about 6000 and from the starting point at Kunaksa to the middle of the southern coasts of the Black Sea they had traveled as much as 2000 miles from Ephesus to Kunaksa and then to the Black Sea region they had marched in 15 months February 401 BC to June 400 and 9 months more passed before they joined a Spartan army in Asia Minor and their task was fully accomplished their great performance is regarded as having prepared the bay for Alexander's triumph and advances in the east the young conqueror on the eve of the battle of Isis declared that he owed inspiration to the feat of the 10,000 it was thought necessary to march away as fast as possible before the enemy's force should be reassembled and get position of the pass collecting their baggage advance therefore they set forward through a deep snow taking with them several guys and having the same day passed the height on which Tiri Batsius had intended to attack them they encamped hence they proceeded 3 days journey through a desert tract of country a distance of 15 parasangs to the river Euphrates and pass it without being wet higher than the middle the sources of the river were said not to be far off from hence they advanced 3 days march through much snow and a level plain a distance of 15 parasangs the 3rd days march was extremely troublesome as the north wind blew full in their faces completely parsing up everything and binombing the men one of the ogres in consequence advised that they should sacrifice to the wind and a sacrifice was accordingly offered when the vehemence of the wind appeared to everyone manifestly to abate the depth of the snow was a fathom so that many of the baggage cattle and slaves perished with about 30 of the soldiers they continued to burn fires through the whole night for there was plenty of wood at the place of encampment but those who came up late could get no wood those therefore arrived before and had kindled fires would not admit the late comers to the fire unless they gave them a share of the corn or other provisions that they had brought thus they shared with each other what they respectively had in the places where the fires were made as the snow melted there were formed large pits that reached down to the ground and here there was accordingly opportunity to measure the depths of the snow from hence they marched through the snow the whole of the following day and many of the men contracted the bolemia Xenophon who commanded in the rear finding in his ways such of the men as had fallen down with it knew not what disease it was but as one of these acquainted with it told him that they were evidently affected with bolemia and that they would get had something to eat he went round among the baggage and wherever he saw anything eatable he gave it out and sent such as were able to run to distribute it among those disease who as soon as they had eaten rose up and continued their march as they proceeded chrysophists came just as it grew dark to a village and found at a spring in front of the rampart some women and girls belonging to the place fetching water women asked them who they were and the interpreter answered in the Persian language that they were people going from the king to the satrap they replied that he was not there but about the parasang of however as it was late they went with the water carriers within the rampart to the head man of the village and here chrysophists and as many of the troops as could come up encamped but after rest such as were unable to get to the end of the journey spend the night on the way without food or fire and some of the soldiers lost their lives on that occasion some of the enemy too who had collected themselves into a body pursued our rear and seized any of the baggage cattle that were unable to proceed fighting with one another for the possession of them such of the soldiers also as had lost their sight from the effect of the snow or had their toes modified by the cold were left behind it was found to be a relief to the eyes against the snow if the soldiers kept something black before them on the march and to the feet if they kept constantly in motion and allowed themselves no rest and if they took off their shoes in the night but as to such as slept with their shoes on the straps walked into their feet and the souls were frozen about them for when their old shoes had failed them shoes of raw highs had been made by the men themselves from the newly skinned oxen from such unavoidable sufferings some of the soldiers were left behind who seeing a piece of ground of a black appearance from the snow having disappeared there conjectured that it must have melted and it had in fact melted in a spot from the effect of the fountain which was sending a vapor in a wooded hollow closed at hand beside Tither they sat down and refused to proceed further Xenophil who was with the rearguard as soon as he heard this tried to prevail on them by every art and means not to be left behind telling them at the same time that the enemy were collected and pursuing them in great numbers at last he grew angry and they told him to kill them as they were quite unable to go forward he then thought it the best course to strike a terror if possible into the enemy that were behind lest they should fall upon the exhausted soldiers it was now dark and the enemy were advancing with a great noise quarreling about the booty that they had taken when such of the rearguards were not disabled started up and rushed toward them while the tired men shouting as loud as they could clash their spears against their shield the enemy who struck with alarm threw themselves among the snow into the hollow one of them afterward made himself heard from any quarter Xenophil and those with him telling the sick men that the party should come to their relief next day proceeded under march but before they had gone from Astadia they found other soldiers resting by the bay in the snow and covered up with it no guard being stationed over them they roused them up but they said that the head of the army was not moving forward Xenophil going past them and sending on some of the ablest of the peltasts ordered them to ascertain what it was that hindered their progress they brought word that the whole army was in that manner taking rest Xenophil and his men therefore stationing such a guard as they could took out their quarters there without fire or supper when it was near day he sent the youngest of his men to the sick telling them to rouse them and oblige them to proceed at this juncture Christopher sent some of his people from the village to see how the rear were faring the young men were rejoiced to see them and gave them the sick to conduct to the camp while they themselves went forward and before they had gone to Astadia found themselves at the village in which Christopher's was quartered when they came together it was thought safe enough to lodge the troops up and down to the village Christopher's accordingly remained where he was and the other officers appropriating by lots the several villages that they had in sight went to their respective quarters with their men here Polycrates an Athenian captain requested leave of absence and taking with him the most active of his men and hastening to the village to which Xenophil had been eloted surprised all the villages and their houses together with 17 cults that were bred as a tribute for the king and the headman's daughter who had been but nine days married her husband was gone out to haunt hairs and was not found in any of the villages their houses were underground the entrance like a mouth of a well but spacious below there were passages dug into them for the cattle but the people descended by ladders in the houses deep cows and fowls with their young all the cattle were kept on fodder within the walls there were also wheat, barley leguminous vegetables and barley wine in large bowels the grains of barley floated in it even with the brim of the vessels and reeds also lay in it some large and some smaller without joints and these when anyone was thirsty he was to take in his mouths and suck the liquor was very strong and as one mixed water with it and a very pleasant drink to those accustomed to it Xenophon made the chief man of his village suck with him and told him to be of good courage assuring him that he should not be deprived of his children and that they would not go away without filling his house with provisions in return for what they took if he would but prove himself the author of some service to the army till they should reach another tribe this he promised and to show his good will pointed out where some wine was buried this night therefore the soldiers rested in their several quarters in the midst of great abundance setting a guard over the chief and keeping his children at the same time under their eye the following day Xenophon took the head man and went with him to Cressophus and wherever he passed by a village he turned aside to visit those who were quartered in it and found them in all parts fisting and enjoying themselves nor would they anywhere let them go till they had set refreshment before them and they placed everywhere upon the same table lamp, kit pork, wheel and fowl with plenty of bread both of wheat and barley whenever any person to pay a compliment wish to drink to another they took him to the large bowel where he had to stoop down and drink sucking like an ox the chief they allowed to take whatever he pleased but he accepted nothing from them where he found any of his relatives however he took them with him when they came to Cressophus they found his men also fisting in their quarters crowned with wreath made of hay and Armenian boys in their barbarian dress waiting upon them to whom they made signs what they were to do as if they had been deaf and dumb when Cressophus and Xenophon had saluted one another they both asked the chief men through the interpreter who spoke the Persian language what country it was he replied that it was Armenia they then asked him for whom the horses were bred and he said that they were a tribute for the king and added that the neighboring country was that of Calibis and told them in what direction the road lay Xenophon then went away conducting the chief back to his family giving him the horse that he had taken which was rather old to fatter an offer in sacrifice for he had heard that it had been consecrated to the sun being afraid indeed that it might die as it had been injured by the journey he then took some of the young horses and gave one of them to each of the other generals the horses in this country were smaller than those of Persia but far more spirited the chief instructed the men to tie little bags around the feet of the horses and other cattle when they drove them through the snow for without such bags they sunk up to their bellies when the eighth day was come Xenophon committed the guy to Cressophus he left the chief all the members of his family except his son a youth just coming to mature age him he gave in charge to episthenes of amphipolis in order that if the father should conduct them properly he might return home with him at the same time they carried to his house as many provisions as they could and then broke up their camp and resumed their march the chief conducted them through the snow walking at liberty when he came to the end of the third day's march Cressophus was angry at him for not guiding them to some villages he said that there was none in the part of the country Cressophus then struck him but did not confine him and in consequence he ran off in the night leaving his son behind him this defer the ill-treatment and neglect of the guide was the only cause of dissension between Cressophus and Xenophon during the march episthenes conceived an affection for the youth and taking him home found him extremely attached to him after this occurrence they proceeded seven days journey five parasangs each day till they came to the river faces the breast of which is a plethrum hence they advanced two days journey ten parasangs when on the pass that let over the mountains into the plain the chalabies taoki and fissians were drawn up to opposing progress Cressophus seeing these enemies in possession of the height came to a halt at the distance of about 30 estadia that he might not approach them while leading the army in a column he accordingly ordered the other officers to bring up their companies that the whole force might be formed in line end of section 7