 Chapter 11, Parts 1 and 2 of A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 2. Chapter 11, The Decline and Downfall of the Athenian Empire. Part 1, New Political Combinations with Argos. Sparta had good reasons for desiring peace. The prospect in the Peloponnesus gave her no little concern. Mantinier had been gradually enlarging her boundaries southwards, and that could not be permitted. Elis was sulky and hostile, because in a quarrel with Leprion Sparta had supported her rival. Far more serious than these minor vexations was the circumstance that the Treaty of Peace with Argos was about to expire. It had been a consideration of supreme importance for Sparta when she entered upon the war with Athens, that for the next ten years she was secure on the side of her old Peloponnesian rival. But there was now the chance that Athens and Argos might combine, and as Argos had not agreed to renew the Treaty, there was urgent need to come to terms with Athens. These reasons which recommended the peace to Sparta ought to have prevented Athens from consenting to it. The settlement was a complete failure. Not only did the Corinthians and the other chief allies refuse to exceed to it, but the signatories found themselves unable to carry out the terms they had agreed upon. The Chalcedeans refused to surrender Amphipolis, and the Spartans could not compel them. Athens therefore justly declined to carry out her part of the bargain. As a way out of this deadlock, the Spartans, impatient at all costs to recover the Sphacterian prisoners, conceived the device of entering into a defensive alliance with their old enemy. This proposal, warmly supported by Nicias, was accepted and the captives were at length restored, Athens still retaining Pylos and Sithera. This approximation between Sparta and Athens led directly to the dissolution of the Peloponnesian League. Corinth, Mantinier and Elis, considering themselves deserted by their leader, broke with her and formed an alliance with Argos, who now enters upon the scene. The Chalcedeans of Thrace joined. There was, however, little reason to fear or hope that the intimacy between Sparta and Athens could be long or strong, seeing that Athens insisted on keeping Sithera and Pylos until Amphipolis should be restored to her and the other states should accede to the peace. In the following year these unstable political combinations were upset by a change in the balance of parties at Athens and by the triumph of the Anti-Athenian War Party at Sparta. The opposition to Nicias was led by Hyperbulus, a man of the same class and same kind of ability as Cleone, a comic poet, and no statesman was such a favourite but of comedy as Hyperbulus, described him as a Cleone in hyperbole. But the party was now strengthened by the accession of a young man of high birth, brilliant intellect and no morality, educated by his kinsmen Pericles in democratic traditions, he was endowed by nature with extraordinary beauty and talents, by fortune with the inheritance of wealth which enabled him to indulge an inordinate taste for ostentation. He had shocked his kinsfolk and outraged the city, by his disilluteness but by the incredible insolence which accompanied it. The numerous anecdotes of his petulance, which no one dared to punish, need not all be true, but they illustrate the fact that undue respect for persons of birth and wealth had not disappeared in the Athenian democracy. Alcibiades was feared and courted and pursued by lovers of both sexes. He fought with bravery at Delium where his life was saved by his friend Socrates the philosopher. It was a celebrated friendship. Intellectual power and physical courage were the only points of likeness between them. Socially and morally, as well as in favour and fortune, they were as contrasted as two men well could be. Though Socrates took no interest in politics, he was an unequalled dialectician and an aspiring statesman found his society a good training for the business of political debate. Alcibiades indeed had not in him the staff of which true statesmen are made. He had not the purpose, the perseverance or the self-control. An extremely able and dexterous politician he certainly was, but he wanted that balance which a politician, whether strupulous or unstrupulous, must have in order to be a great statesman. Nor had Alcibiades any sincere belief in the democratic institutions of his country, still less any genuine sympathy with the advanced democratic party whose cause he espoused. When he said, as the Alcibiades makes him say at Sparta, at a later stage of his career, that democracy is acknowledged folly, he assuredly expressed what he felt in his heart. Yet at this time his ultimate aim may have been to win such a place as that which Pericles had held and rule his country without being formally her ruler. At all events he saw his way to power through war and conquest. The accession of Alcibiades was particularly welcome to the radical party, not so much on account of his family connections, his diplomatic and rhetorical talents, but because he had a military training and could perform the functions of Strategos. Unfitness for the post of Strategos was, as we have seen, the weak point in the position of men like Hyperbulus and Cleone. When Alcibiades was elected as Strategos and Nicias was not re-elected, the prospects of the radical party looked brighter. The change was immediately felt. Athens entered into an alliance with Argos and her allies Elis and Mantinea for a hundred years and the treaty was sealed by a joint expedition against Epidorus. Footnote. A fragment of the stone on which this treaty, given in full by Thucydides, was written was found near the Dionysiac Theatre. End of footnote. Sparta assisted Epidorus and then the Athenians declared that the Lacedaemonians had broken the peace. The new policy of Athens received a check by the return of Nicias to power and the refusal of the people to re-elect the adventurous Alcibiades, the alliance with Argos was not broken off. Sparta, alarmed by the activity of Argos against Epidorus, resolved to strike a blow and sent forth in summer an army under King Aegis to invade the Argyve land. The allies gathered at Flius and Corinth, which had no longer any reason to hold aloof, sent a contingent. The Argyve troops under Thracillus, with their Mantinean and Elian allies, were in every way inferior to the enemy, yet concentrating close to Namia, they could easily defend the chief pass from the north into the plain of Argos. But Aegis outmaneuvered them. Sending the Biosians along the main road by Namia, he led his own troops by a difficult mountain path from the west and descended into the plain by the valley of the Inacus, the Corinthians and Fliasians he sent over by another pass. Thus the Argyves were hemmed in between two armies and cut off from their city. They left their position near Namia and came down into the plain. The Biosians appear not to have followed. The soldiers of both Thracillus and Aegis were confident of victory, but the generals were of another mind. Aegis, as well as his antagonist, considered his position precarious and consequently they came to terms concluding a truce for four months. On both sides there was a loud outcry against the generals and Thracillus was nearly stoned to death by his disappointed soldiers. Athenian forces now arrived at Argos under Lachys and Nicostratus, accompanied by Alcibiades as an ambassador. Stepping beyond his instructions, Alcibiades induced the allies to disregard the truce on the technical ground that not having been accepted by the Athenians it was not valid. The allied troops accordingly crossed the mountains into Arcadia and won or commoners. The men of Elis then proposed to move against their own particular foes, the people of Lepreone, and being outvoted they deserted their allies and marched home. The army, thus weakened by the loss of three thousand hoplites, was obliged to hasten southward to protect Mantinea against which the Lacedaemonians under Aegis, along with the men of Tegea, had meanwhile come forth. And now at length a great battle was fought. The exact numbers are not known, but must have approached ten thousand on each side. Coming round the hill of Scopi, a spur of Mount Minolus which projects into the plain between Tegea and Mantinea at the point where the territories of the two cities met, the Lacedaemonians found the enemy drawn up for fight and proved their excellent discipline by a rapid formation in the face of the hostile line. They won the battle, but their success was endangered and its completeness diminished by a hitch which occurred at the outset. There was a tendency in all Greek armies, when engaging, to push towards the right, each man fearing for his own exposed right side and trying to edge under the stream of his neighbour's shield. Consequently an army was always inclined to outflank the left wing of the enemy by its own right. On this occasion Aegis observed that the Mantineans who were on the right wing of the foe stretched far beyond his own left wing and fearing it would be disastrously outflanked and surrounded gave a signal to the troops of his extreme left to make a lateral movement further towards the left and at the same time he commanded two captains on his right to move their divisions round to fill up the gap thus created. The first order was executed, but the two captains refused to move. The result was that the extreme left was isolated and utterly routed while a band of 1,000 chosen Argyves dashed through the gap. On the right however the Lacedaemonians were completely victorious over the Athenians and other allies. The Athenians would have been surrounded and utterly at the mercy of their foes if Aegis had not recalled his troops to assist his discomfited left wing. Both Lekies and Nicostratus fell. The Lacedaemonians returned home and celebrated the feast of the Carnian Apollo in joy. The victory did much to restore the prestige of Sparta which had dwindled since the disaster of Sracteria. The public opinion of Greece had pronounced Sparta to be stupid and inert. It now began to reconsider its judgment. But the victory had direct political results. It transformed the situation in the Peloponnesus. One of those double changes which usually went together a change in the constitution and a change in foreign policy was brought about at Argos. The democracy was replaced by an oligarchy and the alliance with Athens was abandoned for an alliance with Sparta. Mantinier, Elis and the Achaean towns also went over to the victor. Athens was again isolated. It was probably at this juncture that the advanced Democrats in Athens made an attempt to remove from their way the influential man who was their chief opponent, Nicias. It had been due to his councils that Argos had not been more effectively supported. There was probably a good deal of dissatisfaction at Athens and when Hyperbolus proposed that a vote of ostracism should be held he had good grounds to hope that there would be a decision against Nicias and no apparent reason to fear for himself. He might calculate that most of the supporters of Nicias would vote against the more dangerous Elcibiades. The calculation was so well grounded that it missed its mark for Elcibiades seeing the risk which threatened him deserted Hyperbolus and the Democratic Party and allied himself with Nicias. So it came about that Hyperbolus was ruined by his own machination. All the followers of Nicias and Elcibiades wrote his name on their sherds and he was banished for ten years. His political career had ended. This was the last case of ostracism at Athens. The institution was not abolished but it became a dead letter. Henceforward it was deemed a sufficient safeguard for the constitution that any man who proposed a measure involving a change in any of the established laws was liable to be prosecuted under the law known as the Graffi Paranomone which it was death to transgress. The new alliance of the pious and punctilious Nicias, champion of peace with the profane and unstable Elcibiades bent on enterprises of war was more unnatural than that between the Highbore Noble and the Lampmaker. But Nicias seems to have been to some small extent aroused from his policy of inactivity. We find him undertaking an expedition against Calcidici where nothing had been done since the peace except the capture of Cione and the execution of all the male inhabitants. Nicias failed in an attempt on Amphipolis but in the following year an enterprise in the southern Aegean was attended with success. The island of Milos had hitherto remained outside the sea lordship of the Athenians and Athens under the influence of Elcibiades now attacked her. The town of Milos was invested in the summer by land and sea and surrendered at discretion in the following winter. All the men of military age were put to death, the other inhabitants were enslaved and the island was colonized by Athenians. The conquest of Milos is remarkable not for the rigorous treatment of the Melians which is merely another example of the inhumanity which we have already met in the cases of Plataea, Metellini, Cione but for the unprovoked aggressions of Athens without any tolerable pretext. By the curious device of constructing a colloquy between Athenian envoys and the Melian government, Thucydides has brought the episode into dramatic relief. In this scene the Athenians assert in frank and shameless words the law of nature that the stronger should rule over the weaker. This was a doctrine which it was Hellenic to follow but unusual to enunciate in all its nakedness and in the negotiations which preceded the blockade no Athenian spokesman would have uttered the undiplomatic audacities which Thucydides ascribes to them. The historian has artfully used the dialogue to indicate the overbearing spirit of the Athenians flown with insolence on the eve of an enterprise that was destined to bring signal retribution and humble their city in the dust. Different as Thucydides and Herodotus were in their minds and methods they had both the same characteristically Hellenic feeling for a situation like this. The check of Athens rounded the theme of the younger as the check of Persia had rounded the theme of the elder historian and although Nemesis who moves openly in the pages of Herodotus is not acknowledged by Thucydides she seems to have cast a shadow here. During the years immediately succeeding the peace there are some signs that the Athenians turned their attention to matters of religion which had perhaps been too much neglected during the war. It may have been in these years that they set about the building of a new temple for Athena and Erectheus concerning which we shall hear again at a later stage. It may have been at this time that Asclepius the god of healing came over with his snake from Epidorus and established himself in a sanctuary under the south slope of the Acropolis and it was probably soon after the peace that a resolution was carried imposing a new tax upon the fruits of the earth for the maintenance of the worship of Eleusis. The farmers of Attica were required to pay one six hundredth of every midimnas of barley and one twelve hundredth of every midimnas of wheat. The same burden was imposed upon the allies and the council was directed to invite all Hellenic cities and it seemed possible to approach on the matter to send first fruits likewise. End of Chapter 11 Part 1 Chapter 11 Part 2 The Western Policy of Athens During the fifth century the eyes of Athenian statesmen often wandered to western Greece beyond the seas. We can surprise some oblique glances as early as the days of Themistocles and we have seen how under Pericles a Western policy definitely began. An alliance was formed with the Elimion town of Sugesta and subsequently treaties of alliance, the stone records are still partly preserved were concluded as has been already mentioned with Leontini and Regium. One general object of Athens was to support the Ionian cities against the Dorian which were predominant in number and power and especially against Syracuse the daughter and friend of Corinth. The same purpose of counteracting the Dorian predominance may be detected in the foundation of Thurii but Thurii did not effect this purpose. The colonists were a mixed body other than Athenian elements gained the upper hand and in the end Thurii became rather a Dorian centre and was no support to Athens. It is to be observed that at the time of the foundation of Thurii and for nigh 30 years more Athens is seeking merely influence in the west. She has no thought of dominion. The growth of her connection with Italian and Sicilian affairs was forced upon her by the conditions of commerce and the rivalry of Corinth. The treaties with Leontini and Regium had led to no immediate interference in Sicily on the part of the Athenians. The first action came six years later on an appeal for help from both cities. Leontini was struggling to preserve her independence against Syracuse her southern neighbour. All the Dorian cities with the exception of Acragas and Camarena were on the side of Syracuse while Leontini had the support of Regium, Catani, Naxos and Camarina. The continued independence of the Ionian element in western Greece might seem to be seriously at stake. The Embassy of the Leontines was accompanied by the greatest of their citizens, Gorgias, the professor of eloquence, whose fame and influence were panhellenic. We may well believe that when the Embassy arrived the Athenians were far more interested in the great man than in his mission that they thronged in excitement to the assembly, caring little what he said, but much how he said it. His eloquence indeed was hardly needed to win a favourable answer. Athens was convinced of the expediency of bringing Sicily within the range of her politics. It was important to Hindacorn and other help being conveyed from thence to her Peloponnesian enemies. It was important to prevent Syracuse, the friend of Corinth, from raising her head too high, and already adventurous imaginations may have pressed beyond the thought of Athenian influence and dreamed of Athenian dominion in the west. Hyperbulus seems to have especially interested himself in the development of a policy in the western Mediterranean. Aristophanes ridicules him for contemplating an enterprise against Carthage herself. An expedition was sent out under the command of Lachys. It achieved little, but if it had been followed up might have led to much. Massana was induced to join Athens who thus obtained free navigation of the Straits. The old alliance with Sugesta was renewed, but a severe check was experienced in an attempt to take Inessa. The poor success of this expedition must partly at least be set down to the dishonesty of the general Lachys and his treasurer. Cleone seems to have called Lachys to account for his defecations on his return, and a comic poet gested how Lachys et up the Sicilian cheese – Sicily was famous for her cheeses – with the help of his treasurer, the cheese grater. The episode of Pylos and the operations at Corsaira may fairly be regarded as causes which ruined Athenian prospects in Sicily. For these affairs detained the fleet which was bound for the west under the command of Eurimidon and Sophocles, and the delay led to the loss of the one thing which the expedition of Lachys had gained, the adhesion of Massana. This city, cleft by adverse political parties, revolted, and the fleet, when at last it came, accomplished nothing worthy of record. Its coming seems rather to have been the occasion for the definite shaping of a movement among almost all the Sicilian states towards peace, a movement unfavorable to the Athenian designs. When the Athenian generals invited the cities to join in the war against Syracuse, they were answered by the gathering of a congress at Gila, where delegates from all the Sicilian cities met to discuss the situation and consider the possibility of peace. The man who took the most prominent part at this remarkable congress was Hermocrates of Syracuse. He developed what has been justly described as a Sicilian policy. Sicily is a world by itself with its own interests and politics, and the Greeks outside Sicily should be considered as strangers and not permitted to make or meddle in the affairs of the island. Let the Sicilian cities settle their own differences among themselves, but combine to withstand intervention from Athens or any other external power. Thus the policy of Hermocrates was neither local nor panhellenic but Sicilian. It has been compared to the Monroe doctrine of the United States. The policy indeed was never realized, and we shall see that Hermocrates himself was driven by circumstances to become eminently untrue to the doctrine which he preached. But the Congress of Gila was not a failure. The policy of peace prevented at the time any serious Athenian intervention. Soon afterwards a sedition was disastrous to Leontini. Its oligarchs became Syracusan citizens. Leontini ceased to exist as a city and became a Syracusan fortress. Such an incident, following so hard upon the pacification for which Syracusan diplomacy had helped to bring about, must have produced a strange impression on the Siciliates. It seemed clear that Syracuse wanted to get rid of the Athenians only for the purpose of tyrannizing over her neighbors. Athens was again invited to intervene and she did intervene, but not seriously or effectively. And it was not till the year of the conquest of Milos that she resumed her active interest in the politics of western Hellas. End of Chapter 11 Part 2 Chapter 11 Parts 3 and 4 of a history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great Vol. 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 Graham Redman A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great Vol. 2 by John Bagnell Bury Chapter 11 Part 3 The Sailing of the Sicilian Expedition First Operations in Sicily In that year there arrived at Athens an appeal for help from Sugesta, who was at war with her stronger southern neighbor, Salinas. The appeal was supported by the Leontine Democrats, who had no longer a city of their own. Athens sent envoys to Sicily for the purpose of reporting on the situation and spying out the resources of Sugesta, which had undertaken if the Athenians would send an armament to provide the expenses of the war. The ambassadors returned with sixty talents of uncoined silver and glowing stories of the untold wealth of the people of Sugesta. They described the sacred vessels of gold and the rich plate of the private citizens. Alcibiades and all the younger generation were in favour of responding to the appeal of vigorously espousing the causes of Sugesta against Salinas of the Leontines against Syracuse. Nicias wisely opposed the notion and set forth the enormous cost of an expedition which should be really effective. The people, however, elated by their recent triumph over Melos, were fascinated by the idea of making new conquests in a distant unfamiliar world. The ordinary Athenian had very vague ideas of what Sicily meant, and carried away by dreams of a western empire, he paid no more attention to the discrete councils of Nicias than to vote a hundred triremes instead of the sixty which were originally asked for. But having committed the imprudence of not listening to Nicias when his caution was, from the highest point of view, wisdom, the people went on to commit the graver blunder of electing him as a commander of the expedition which he disapproved. He was appointed as general along with Alcibiades and Lamecas. This shows how great was the consideration of his military capacity and he was doubtless regarded as a safe make-weight against the adventurous spirit of his colleagues. But though Nicias had shown himself capable of carrying out that Periclean strategy which Athens had hitherto adopted, his ability and temperament were wholly unsuited for the conduct of an enterprise of conquest, demanding bolder and greater operations. When the expedition was ready to sail in the early summer, a mysterious event delayed it. One morning in May it was found that the square stone figures which stood at the entrance of temples and private houses in Athens and were known as Hermae had been mutilated. The Pious Athenians were painfully excited. Such an unheard of sacrilege seemed an evil omen for the Periclean enterprise and it was illogically argued that the act betokened a conspiracy against the state. The enemies of Alcibiades seized the occasion and tried to implicate him in the outrage. It was said that a profane mockery of the Ellucinian mysteries had been enacted in his house, a charge which may well have been true, and it was argued that he was the author of the present sacrilege and prime mover in a conspiracy against the democracy. It did not appear why a conspirator should thus advertise his plot, but though the theory hardly hung together, it might be good enough for an excited populace. Alcibiades demanded the right of clearing himself from the charge before the fleet started. In this case his acquittal was certain as he was deemed necessary to the enterprise, and his enemies, aware of this, procured the postponement of his trial till his return. The fleet then set sale and in the excitement of its starting the sacrilege was almost forgotten. Thucydides says that no armament so magnificent had ever before been sent out by a single Greek state. There were 134 triremes and an immense number of smaller attendant vessels, there were 5100 hoplites, and the total number of combatants was well over 30,000. For cavalry they relied on their Sicilian allies, only 30 horse went with the fleet. A halt was made at Regium, where disappointments awaited them. Regium adopted a reserved attitude which the Athenians did not expect. The government said that their conduct must be regulated by that of the other Italian states. This looks as if the Italians were aiming at a policy of joint interests, such as that which the Siciliates had discussed at the Congress of Gila. In the next place the Athenians had relied on the wealth of Sugesta for supporting their expedition, and they now learned that their spies had been deceived by simple tricks. Guilt vessels of silver had been displayed to them as solid gold, and the Sugestians, collecting all the plate they could get from their own and other cities, had passed the same service from house to house, and led the envoys to believe that each of the hosts who sumptuously entertained them possessed a magnificent service of his own. This discovery came as an unwelcome surprise to soldiers and commanders alike. It was a serious blow to the enterprise, but no one, not even Nicias, seems to have thought of giving the enterprise up. What then was to be done? A council of war was held at Regium. Nicias advocated a course which involved risking and doing as little as possible. To sail about, make some demonstrations, secure anything that could be secured without trouble, give any help to the Leontines that could be given without danger. Alcibiades proposed that active attempts should be made to win over the Sicilian cities by diplomacy, and that then, having so strengthened their position, they should take steps to force the Linus and Syracuse to do right by Sugesta and Leontini. Both Nicias and Alcibiades kept in the forefront the ostensible object of the expedition to right the wrongs of Leontini and Sugesta. But Lamecus, who was no statesman or diplomatist, but a plain soldier, regarded the situation from a soldier's point of view. Grasping the fact that Syracuse was the real enemy, the ultimate mark at which the whole enterprise was aimed, he advised that Syracuse should be attacked at once while her citizens were still unprepared. Fortunately for Syracuse, the bold strategy of Lamecus did not prevail. He had no influence or authority except on the field, and failing to convince his colleagues, who perhaps condemned him as a mere soldier, he gave his vote to the plan of Alcibiades. Nexos and Cattani were won over. The Athenian fleet made a demonstration in the great harbour of Syracuse and captured a ship. But nothing more had been done when a mandate arrived from Athens recalling Alcibiades to stand his trial for impiety. The people of Athens had reverted to their state of religious agony over the mutilation of the Hermae and the mystery which encompassed it increased their terrors. A commission of inquiry was appointed, false informations were lodged, numbers of arrests were made, and Dossides, a young man of good family, was one of the prisoners, and he at length resolved to confess the crime and give the names of his accomplices. His information was readily believed. The public agitation was tranquilised and all the prisoners whom he accused were tried and put to death. He was himself pardoned, and soon afterwards left Athens. But it is not certain, after all, whether the information of Dossides was true. Thucydides declares that the truth of the mystery was never explained. It was indeed never known for certain who the actual perpetrators were. So far the affair remained a mystery. But the purpose of the deed and the source of its inspiration can hardly be doubtful. It was wrought on the eve of the Sicilian expedition, and can have had no other intention than to hinder the expedition from sailing by working on the superstitions of the people. If we ask then who, above all others, were vitally concerned in preventing the sailing of the fleet, the answer is obvious, Corinth and Syracuse. We are justified in inferring that the authors of the outrage, to us their names would be of only subordinate interest, were men suborned by Corinth in receipt of Corinthian silver. In the main point the mutilation of the Hermae is assuredly no mystery. The investigations in connection with the Hermae led to the exposure of other prophet nations, especially of travesties of the Eleusinian mysteries in which Alcibiades was involved. His enemies of both parties deemed that it was the time to strike. Thessalus, the son of Simon, preferred the impeachment which began thus. Thessalus, son of Simon, of the Deem Lassiades, impeached Alcibiades, son of Clineas, of the Deem Scamboniades, of wrongdoing in respect to the two goddesses, Demeter and Cori, by mimicking the mysteries and displaying them to his comrids in his own house, wearing a dress like that which a Hierophant with the mysteries wears, and calling himself Hierophant. The Trireme Salaminier was sent to summon Alcibiades to return, but with instructions to use no violence. Alcibiades might have refused, but he did not do so. He went with the Salaminier as far as Theoriae, where he made his escape and went into voluntary exile. The Athenians condemned him to death, along with some of his Kimsfolk, and confiscated his property. In Sicily, when Alcibiades had gone, the rest of the year was frittered away in a number of small enterprises which led to nothing. At length, when winter came, Nicias aroused himself to a far more serious undertaking. By a cunning strategy, he lewered the Syracusan army to Catani for the purpose of making an attack on the Athenian camp, which they were led to believe they would take unawares, while in the meantime the Athenian host had gone on board the fleet and sailed off to the great harbour of Syracuse. Nicias landed and fortified his camp on the south-west side of the harbour, near the point of Dascon, just south of the temple of the Olympians' use, which he was strupulous to treat with profound respect. When the Syracusans returned, a battle was fought, the first battle of the war. The Athenians had the disadvantage of having no cavalry for whatever, but the woeful want of discipline, which prevailed in the ranks of the enemy, outbalanced the advantage they had from twelve hundred horse. A storm of rain and lightning aided the Athenians to discomfort their untrained antagonists, but the cavalry stood the Syracusans in good stead by protecting their retreat. A success had now been gained, but the temper of Nicias forbade it to be improved. On the day ensuing he ordered the whole army to embark and sail back to Katani. He had numbers of excellent reasons, the winter season, the want of cavalry, of money, of allies, and in the meantime Syracuse was left to make her preparations. The Athenian fleet and army was to go on falling away from its freshness and vigor. All scissorly was to get more and more accustomed to the sight of the great Amada sailing to and fro, its energies frittered away on small and mostly unsuccessful enterprises, and when it did strike something like a vigorous blow, not daring to follow it up. The winter was employed by both parties in seeking allies. The sissles of the island for the most part joined Athens. Camerina, wooed by both Athens and Syracuse, remained neutral. It is in the assembly of Camerina that Thucydides makes homocrates re-assert the doctrine of a purely Sicilian policy which he had formulated ten years before at Gila, while an Athenian envoy develops in its most naked form the theory of pure self-interest, reminding us of the tone which the Thucydidian Athenians adopted in the Melian Dialogue. A train had been laid for the capture of Massana before Alcibiades had been recalled, but when the time came for making the attempt it failed, Alcibiades began the terrible vengeance which he proposed to reek upon his country by informing the Syracusan party in Massana of the plot. It seemed indeed as if a fatality dogged Athens in her conduct of the expedition which she had so lightly undertaken. If she had committed the command to Alcibiades and Lamechus without Nicias, it would probably have been a success resulting in the capture of Syracuse. But, not content with the unhappy appointment of Nicias, she must go on to pluck the whole soul out of the enterprise by depriving it of Alcibiades. That active diplomatist now threw as much energy into the work of ruining the expedition as he had given to the work of organizing it. He went to Sparta and was present at the assembly which received a Syracusan embassy begging for Spartan help. He made a vigorous and effective speech. He exposed the boundless plans of Athenian ambition aiming at conquests in the west, including Carthage, which should enable them to return and conquer the Peloponnesus. These had perhaps been the dreams of Alcibiades himself, but they had certainly never taken a definite shape in the mind of any sober Athenian statesman. Alcibiades urged the Spartans especially to take two measures. To send at once a Spartan general to Sicily to organize the defense, a general was far more important than an army, and to fortify Decilia in Attica, a calamity which the Athenians were always dreading. I know, said the renegade, the secrets of the Athenians. Thucydides shows what defense Alcibiades might have made for his own vindictive. It can hardly be called treacherous conduct. The description of the Athenian democracy as acknowledged folly may well have been a phrase actually used by Alcibiades. Intense hostility animated the exile, but, one asks, did he act merely to gratify this feeling, or had he not further projects for his own career? If we might trust the speech which Thucydides ascribes to him, his ultimate aim was to win back his country. With Spartan help, presumably, he was to rise on the calamity of Athens, and, we may read between the lines, the acknowledged folly was to be abolished. One can hardly see a place for Alcibiades except as a second by Zistratus. The speech of this powerful advocate turned the balance at a most critical point in the history of Helas. The Lacedaemonians, who were wavering between the policies of neutrality and intervention, were decided by his advice and appointed an officer named Guy Lippus to take command of the Syracusan forces. Corinth, too, sent ships to the aid of her daughter city. Since the sailing of the expedition, Athens was in a mood of adventurous speculation and sanguine expectancy, dreaming of some great and wonderful change for the better in her fortunes. Aristophanes made this mood of his countryman the motive of a fanciful comedy entitled The Birds, which he brought out at the great Dionysia. Some have sought to detect definite political illusions in the story of the foundation of Cloud Cuckoo Town by the birds of the air under the direction of two Athenian adventurers, persuasive and his follower hopeful. But this is to misapprehend the intention of the drama and to do wrong to the poet's art. The significance of the birds for the historian is that it exhibits with good-humoured banter the temporary mood of the Athenian folk. End of Chapter 11, Part 3 Chapter 11, Part 4, Siege of Syracuse, 414 B.C. The island of Syracuse, the original settlement of Archaeas, always remained the heart and centre of the city. However the city might extend over the hill above it, the island was always what the acropolis was to Athens, and what Larissa was to Argos. It was even called the Acropolis, a name which was never given to the hill. But the military importance of the Epipalee, the long hill which shuts in the north side of the great harbour, could not be ignored, although it was only gradually that the Syracusans came fully to recognise its significance. The water between the island and the mainland had been filled up. This was an inducement to the settlement to creep up the height, and finally the eastern part of the hill, known as Acrodina, was fortified by a wall running from north to south. At a later period, during the domestic troubles which followed the expulsion of Thracibulus, the suburb of Tica, northwest of Acrodina, was added to the enclosed city. Henceforward the name Epipalee was restricted to the rest of the heights, westward from the wall of Tica and Acrodina. It formed a sort of triangle with this wall as the base, at the high point of Urielus as the vertex. The Syracusans did something, though not perhaps as much as they might, to prepare for a siege. They reformed their system of military command and elected homocrates a general. They fortified the precinct of Apollo Temmonites, which was just outside the wall of Acrodina, and also strengthened Polycna, the fort south of the hill near the shrine of Olympian Zeus. The first brief operation of the Athenians against Syracuse had been made on the table-land west of the Great Harbour. With the second act, which began in the ensuing spring, the scene changes to the north, and the hostilities are enacted on the heights of Epipalee. Homocrates had realized the necessity of guarding these heights. It was accordingly fixed that a great review should be held of all the fighting population, and a force of six hundred was to be chosen for the guard of Epipalee. But the hour had almost passed. At the very moment when the muster was being held low in the meadows on the banks of the Anapus, the Athenians were close at hand. The fleet had left Catani the night before, steered for the bay on the north side of the Epipalee, and set down the army at a landing-place within less than a mile from the height of Urielus. The soldiers hastened up the ascent and were masters of Epipalee before the Syracusan host knew what was happening. The six hundred made an attempt to dislodge them and were repulsed with great loss. The Athenians then fortified a place called Labdalan near the north cliffs. They have been criticized for not rather fortifying Urielus. The plan of the siege was to run a wall right across the hill, from the cliffs on the north to the harbour on the south. This would cut off communications by land, while the fleet, which was stationed at Thepsis, ready to enter the great harbour, would cut off communications by sea. For this purpose a point was chosen in the centre of the intended line of wall, and a round fort, the circle, Coclos, was built there, from which the wall was to be constructed northward and southward. The Syracusans, having made a vain attempt to stop the building of the wall, set themselves to build a counter wall, beginning at the Temanites and running westward with a view to intercept the southern wall of the Athenians and prevent its reaching the harbour. The Athenians did not try to hinder them, and devoted themselves entirely to the building of their own wall north of the round fort. This seemed at first of greater consequence than the southern section, since they had to consider the maintenance of communications with their fleet at Thepsis. But though they were apparently not concerning themselves with the Syracusan builders, they were really watching for a good opportunity. The carelessness of the Syracusans soon gave the looked for chance. An attack was made on the counter wall, and it was utterly destroyed. The generals then began to look to the southern section of their own wall, and without waiting to build it on the side of the round fort, they began to fortify the southern cliff near the temple of Heracles above the marshy ground on the northwest side of the great harbour. The Syracusans then began a second counter work, not on the hill, but over this low swampy ground to hinder the Athenians from bringing their wall down from the cliff to the harbour. This work was not a wall that could not have been suited to the swampy ground, but a trench with a palisade. At the break of day the Athenians led by Lamecus descended into the swamp and destroyed the Syracusan works. But what was gained was more than undone by what followed. Troops saled out of Syracuse, a battle was fought, and Lamecus, the hero Lamecus as comic poets called him in derision while he lived in admiration when he died, exposed himself rashly and was slain. This was the third great blow to the prospect of Athenian success. Nicias had been appointed, Alcibiades had been recalled, now Lamecus was gone. To make things worse, Nicias himself was ill. The southern Athenian wall advanced southward in a double line, and the fleet had now taken up its station in the great harbour. The Syracusans, not realising how much they had gained in the death of Lamecus, were prematurely in despair. They changed their generals and were prepared to make terms. Nicias strangely swerving as his won'ted sobriety was prematurely elated. He thought that Syracuse was in his hands and made the fatal mistake of neglecting the completion of the wall on the north side. His neglect was the more culpable as he had received information of the help that was coming for Syracuse from the mother country. But alike in his normal mood of caution and in his abnormal moment of confidence, Nicias was doomed to do the wrong thing. All thought of capitulation was abandoned when the Corinthian captain, named Gongolas, reached Syracuse with the news that Corinthian ships and a Spartan general were on their way. That general had indeed given up the hope of being able to relieve Syracuse, which from the reports of Athenian success that had reached him was thought to be past helping. But he had sailed on to the coast of Italy with the aim of saving the Italian cities. At Locry, Gallipus learned that Syracuse might still be saved since the northern wall was not yet completed. He immediately sailed to Himera and collected a land-force supplied by Gila, Salinas, and Himera itself and marched overland to Syracuse. He ascended the hill of Epipoli by the same path on the north side which had been climbed by the Athenian army when they seized the heights and without meeting any opposition advanced along the north bend of the hill to Tica and entered the city. Such was the result of the gross neglect of Nicias. If the wall had been finished the attempt of Gallipus would never have been made. If Urielus had been fortified the attempt would probably have failed. Gallipus immediately undertook the command of the Syracusean army and inspired the inhabitants with new confidence. He was as unlike the typical Spartan as Nicias was unlike the typical Athenian. He had all the energy and resourcefulness of Brassidas without that unique soldier's attractive personality. He set himself instantly to the work of the defense and his first exploit was the capture of the Fort Labdalan. But the great object was to prevent the Athenians from hemming in the city by completing the northern section of their wall and this could be done only by building a new counter-wall. The Athenians themselves began to build vigorously and there was a race in wall building between the two armies. As the work went on attacks were made on both sides with varying success. In the end the Syracusean builders prevailed the Athenian wall was turned and never reached the northern coast. This was not enough for Gallipus. His wall was continued to reach Urielus and four forts were erected on the western part of the hill so that Syracuse could now hinder help from reaching the Athenians by the path by which Gallipus had himself ascended. In the meantime Nicias had occupied Plymyrion the headland which facing the island forms the lower lip of the mouth of the great harbour. Here he built three forts and established a station for his ships some of which were now dispatched to lie in wait for the expected fleet from Corinth. The Syracuseans made a sort of answer to the occupation of Plymyrion by sending a force of cavalry to the fort of Polykna to guard the southern coast of the harbour. But though the Athenians commanded the south part of Epipoli and the entrance to the harbour the Syracusean wall from Tica to Urielus had completely changed the aspect of the situation for Syracuse from despair to reasonable hope. The winter had now come and was occupied with embassies and preparations. Gallipus spent it in raising fresh forces in Sicily. Camarena, so long neutral, at length joined Syracuse who had in fact all Greek Sicily on her side except her rival Acragas who persistently held aloof and the towns of Naxos and Catani. Appeals of help were again sent to the Peloponnesus. Corinth was still unremitting in her zeal and Sparta had sent a force of six hundred hoplites Neodemodes and helots. Thebes and Thespii also sent contingents. We must go back for a moment to Old Greece. The general war is being rekindled there and the war in Sicily begins to lose the character of a collateral episode and becomes merged in the larger conflict in which greater interests than those of Syracuse and Sicily are at stake. The Spartans had come to the conclusion that they had been themselves the wrongdoers in the earlier war and the Athenian successes, especially the capture of Pylos had been a retribution which they deserved. But now the Athenians had clearly committed a wrong in their aggression on Sicily and Sparta might with a good conscience go to war against her. The advice of Alcibiades to fortify Decalia was adopted. A fort was built and provided with a garrison under the command of King Aegis. From Mount Lycabetus at Athens one can see the height of Decalia through the gap between Pentelicus on the right and Parnes of which Decalia is an outlying hill on the left. It was a good position for reaching all parts of Attica which could no longer be cultivated and at the same time maintaining easy communications with Beotia. But while the Peloponnesians were carrying the war once more to the very gates of Athens that city was called upon to send forth a new expedition to the west on a scale similar to the first. Nicias wrote home a plain and unvarnished account of the situation. We are expressly told that he adopted the unusual method of sending a written dispatch instead of a verbal message. It was all important that the Athenian assembly should learn the exact state of the case. He explained that since the coming of Galipus and the increase of the numbers of the garrison and the building of the counterwall the besiegers had become themselves besieged. They even feared an attack on their own element the sea and their ships had become leaky and the crews fallen out of practice. Further successes of the enemy might cut off their supplies now derived from the cities of Italy. One of two things must be done. The enterprise must be abandoned or a new armament as strong as the first must be sent out at once. Nicias also begged for his own recall on the ground of the disease from which he suffered. The Athenian people repeated its previous recklessness by voting a second expedition and by refusing to supersede Nicias in whom they had a blind and touching trust. They appointed Eurymiden and Domosthanes as commanders of the new armament. End of chapter 11 part 4 Recording by Graham Redman Chapter 1 parts 5 and 6 of A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great Volume 2 by John Bagnell Bury Chapter 1 parts 5 and 6 Chapter 5 The Second Expedition The original interference of Athens in the local affairs of Sicily her appearance to defend Cegasta against Salinas and the Leontines against Syracuse has grown into a gigantic struggle in which the greater part of the Hellenic nation is engaged. The elder stage of the Peloponnesian War has begun again with the addition of a Sicilian war on such a scale as had never been seen before. In that elder stage Sicilian warfare had been a mere appendage to warfare in old Greece. Now Sicily has become the centre of the struggle the headquarters of both sides. Sicily itself the struggle was now becoming a question of life and death such as the Persian invasion had been for Greece. Syracuse under the guidance of Hermocrates and Gilippus put forth all her energy in the organisation of her fleet and in the spring she had a navy numbering 80 triremes. The crews were inexperienced but they could remember that it was under the pressure of the Persian danger that Athens herself had learnt her sea skill. Gilippus determined to attack the Athenian station at Plamirion by land and sea. By sea the Syracusans were defeated but while the naval battle was being fought in the harbour a land force under Gilippus had marched round to Plamirion and captured the forts on the headland. The Athenian ships were thus forced back to their station close to their double wall on the north of the harbour of which the entrance was now commanded by the Syracusans. The Athenians were thus besieged both by land and sea and could not venture to send ships out of the harbour except in a number sufficient to resist an attack. Presently the new Syracuse and sea power achieved the important success of capturing off the Italian coast a treasure fleet which was on its way from Athens. At length the news came that the great fleet under Eurymidon and Demosthenes was on its way. It consisted of 73 triremes. There were 5,000 hoplites and immense numbers of light armed troops. The chance of Syracuse lay in attacking the dispirited forces of Nikias before the help arrived and it was obviously the policy of Nikias a congenial policy to remain inactive. The Syracusans made a simultaneous assault on the walls by land and on the naval station below the walls by sea. The land attack was beaten off but two days fighting by sea resulted in a distinct victory for Syracuse. The great harbour was too small for the Athenians to win the advantage of their superiority in seamanship and their ships were not adapted for the kind of sea warfare which was possible in a narrow space. The effective use of the long light beaks depended on the possibility of manoeuvring. The Syracusans had shaped the beaks of their vessels with a view to the narrow space by making them short and heavy. On the day after the victory the fleet of Eurimidon and Demosthenes sailed into the great harbour. Demosthenes saw at once that all was over unless the Syracuse and Crosswall were captured. An attempt to carry it from the south was defeated and the only alternative was to march round the west end of the hill and ascend by the old path near Euryalis. It was a difficult enterprise guarded as the west part of Epipoli was by the forts as well as the wall and by a picked body of six hundred men who were constantly keeping watch. A moonlight night was chosen for the attempt. The Athenians were at first successful. One fort was taken and the six hundred under Hermocrates himself were repelled. But when one part of their force received a decisive check from the Thespians the disorder spread to the rest and they fell back everywhere driven down the hill on top of their comrades who had not yet reached the summit. Some throwing away their shields leapt from the cliffs. About two thousand were slain. These failures damped the spirits of the army and Demosthenes saw that no prophet could be won by remaining any longer where they were. The only wise course was to leave the unhealthy march while they still had command of the sea and before the winter came. At Syracuse they were merely wasting strength and money but though Demosthenes had the sense of the army and the sense of the other commanders with him he could not persuade Nikias to adopt this course. The same quality of nature which had made Nikias oppose the council of Lamecus to attack Syracuse now made him oppose the council of Demosthenes to leave Syracuse. Fear of responsibility was the dominant note in the character of Nikias. He was afraid of Poulidemus and the Trojan women. He was afraid of the censure, perhaps the condemnation of the Athenian assembly. Nor would he even accept the compromise of retiring to Khatani and carrying on the war on a new plan. Demosthenes and Eurymidon, being two to one should have insisted on instant departure but they foolishly yielded to the obstinacy of their senior colleague. In a few days, however, events overbore the resolution of Nikias himself. Gillipus arrived at Syracuse with new contingents he had collected in the islands and Peloponnesian and Beocian suckers after a long roundabout journey by way of Kairini at length reached the great harbour. Nikias gave way and everything was ready for departure but on the night on which they were to start the enemy suspecting nothing the full moon suffered an eclipse. The superstitious army regarded the phenomenon as a heavenly warning and cried out for delay. Nikias was not less superstitious than the sailors. Unluckily his best prophet, Stilbedes, was dead and the other diviners ruled that he must wait either three days or for the next full moon. There was perhaps a difference of opinion among the seers and Nikias decided to be on the safe side by waiting the longer period. Never was a celestial phenomenon more truly disastrous than that lunar eclipse. With the aid of Nikias it sealed the doom of the Athenian army. Religious rites occupied the next few days but meanwhile the Syracusans had learned of the Athenian intention to abandon the siege. Their confidence was raised by the implied confession of defeat and they resolved not to be content with having saved their city but to destroy the host of the enemy before it could escape. So they drew up their fleet, 76 ships in the great harbour for battle and 86 Athenian ships moved out to meet them. The Athenians were at a disadvantage as before having no room for manoeuvring and centre, right and left they were defeated. The general Eurimidan was slain. The left wing was driven back on the marshy northwest shore of the harbour between their own wall and Dascon. The force under Gallipus endeavoured to advance along the swamp of Lysimilia and prevent the crews of their ships from landing but he was driven off by the Etruscan allies of Athens who had been sent to guard the shore here. Then there was a battle for the ships and the Syracusans succeeded in dragging away 18. The defeat completed the dejection of the Athenian army the victory crowned the confidence of their enemies. The one thought of the Athenians was to escape. The eclipse was totally forgotten but Syracuse was determined that escape should be made impossible. The mouth of the great harbour was barricaded by a line of ships and boats of all kinds and sizes bound together by chains and connected by bridges. The fate of the Athenians depended on their success in breaking through that barrier. They abandoned their posts on the hill and went on board their ships. At the moment Nikias revealed the best side of his character. He left nothing undone that could hearten his troops. We are told that after the usual speech still thinking as men do in the hour of great struggles that he had not done that he had not said half enough he went round the fleet in a boat making a personal appeal to the triarch of each ship. He spoke to them as men will at such times of their wives and children and the gods of their country for men do not care whether their words sound commonplace but only think that they may have some effect in the terrible moment. The peon sounded and the Athenian line sailed forth together across the bay to attack the barrier. When they reached it Syracusan vessels came out against them on all sides. The Athenians were driven back into the middle of the harbour and the battle resolved itself into an endless number of separate conflicts. The ships were wavered. The walls of the island the slopes of Accradina above were crowded with women and old men the shores below with warriors watching the course of the struggle. Thucydides gives a famous description of the scene one would think that he had been an eyewitness the fortune of the battle varied and it was not possible that the spectators on the shore should all receive the same impression of it. Being quite close of them see their own ships victorious their courage would then revive and they would earnestly call upon the gods not to take from them their hope of deliverance. But others who saw their ships worsted cried and shrieked aloud and were by the sight alone more utterly unnerved than the defeated combatants themselves. Others again who had fixed their gaze on some part of the struggle which was undecided were in a state of excitement still more terrible. They were swaying their bodies to and fro in an agony of hope and fear as the stubborn conflict went on and on. For at every instant they were all but saved or all but lost and while the strife hung in the balance you might hear in the Athenian army at once lamentation, shouting cries of victory or defeat and all the various sounds which are rung from a great host in extremity of danger. Those motions of human passion suspense, agony triumph, despair which swayed to and fro in the breasts of thousands round and over the waters of the great harbour on that September day have been lifted out of the tide of time and preserved forever by the genius of Thucydides. In the end the Athenians gave way. They were driven back to the shelter of their own wall chased by the foe. The crews of the remnant of the navy which amounted to 60 ships rushed on shore as best they could. The land forces were in a panic no such panic had ever been experienced in an Athenian army. Thucydides compares the situation to that of the Spartans at Swacteria. The generals did not even think of asking for the customary truce to bury the corpses which were strewn over the waters of the bay. Demosthenes proposed that they should make another attempt to pass the barrier at daybreak. The ships were even now rather more numerous than those of the enemy but the men positively refused to embark. Nothing remained but to escape by land. If they had started at once they would probably have succeeded in reaching shelter at Catani or inland among the friendly sickles. But homocrates contrived a stratagem to delay their departure so as to give him time to block the roads. Taking advantage of the known fact that there were persons in Syracuse who intrigued with the besiegers he sent some horsemen who rode up within earshot of the Athenian camp and feigning to be friends stated that the roads were guarded and that it would be well to wait and set out better prepared. The message was believed. The Athenians remained the next day and the Syracusans blocked the roads. In his picture of the sad start of the Athenians on their forlorn retreat Niccius does his wonderful powers of description. They had to tear themselves away from the prayers of their sick and wounded comrades who were left to the mercy of the enemy. They could hardly make up their minds to go. The bit of hostile soil under the shelter of their walls had come to seem to them like their home. Niccius notwithstanding his illness rose to this supreme occasion as he had never risen to another. He tried to cheer and animate the miserable host whose wretched plight was indeed of his own making by words of hope. They set forth Niccius leading the van Demosthenes the Rear along the western road which crosses the Annapus and passes the modern village of Floridia. The aim was to reach sickle territory first and then to get to Catani as they could for it would have been madness to attempt the straight road to Catani to Vepipolai under the Syracusan forts. The chief difficulty in their way was a high point called the Acrian cliff, approached by rugged pass which begins near Floridia. It was not till the fourth day that having toiled along the pass under constant annoyance from darters and horsemen, they came in sight of the cliff and found that the way was barred by a wall with a garrison of Syracusan hoplites behind it. To attempt to pass was impossible. They retreated on Floridia in a heavy thunderstorm. They now moved southwards and abandoning the idea of reaching the sickle hill-land from this point, marched to the Helorine Road which would take them in the direction of Gela. During the sixth day's march a sort of panic seems to have fallen on the rear of the army under Demosthenes. The men lagged far behind and the army was parted in two. Niccius advanced with his division as speedily as he could. There were several streams to cross and it was all important to press on before the Syracusans had time to block the passages by walls and palisades. The Helorine Road approaches the shore near the point where the river Cachiparis flows into the sea. When they reached the Ford, the Athenians found a Syracusan band on the other side raising a fortification. They drove the enemy away without much difficulty and marched as far as the river Arinius where they encamped for the night. On the next morning a Syracusan herald drew near. He had news to tell. The rear of the army had been surrounded the day before in the Olive Garden of Polysalus through which the Helorine Road passed and had been forced to surrender. The lives of the six thousand men were to be spared. Demosthenes did not condescend to make terms for himself when a capitulation had been arranged. He sought death by his own hand but the enemy who desired to secure a captive general intercepted the stroke. Having sent a messenger under a truce to assure himself of the truth of the tale Nikias offered terms to the Syracusans that the rest of the army should be allowed to go free on condition that Athens should repay the costs of the war, the security being a hostage for every talent. That once rejected. The Syracusans were bent on achieving the glory of leading the whole army captive. For that day the miserable army remained where it was worn out with want of food. Next morning they resumed the march and harassed by the darts of the enemy made their way to the stream of the Asynaros. Here they found a hostile force on the opposite steep bank but they cared little for the foe for they were consumed with intolerable thirst. They rushed down into the bed of the river struggling with one another to reach the water. The Syracusans who were pursuing came down the banks and slaughtered them unresisting as they drank. The water was soon foul but muddy and died with blood as it was. They drank not withstanding and fought for it. At last Nikias surrendered. He surrendered to Gallipus for he had more trust in him than any of the others. The slaughter which was as great as any that had been wrought in the war was then stayed and the survivors were made prisoners. It seems that a great many of the captives were appropriated for their own use by the individual victors and their lot may have been comparatively light. But the fate of the state prisoners was cruel. Several thousand were thrown into the stone quarries of Accradina deep unroofed dungeons on the burning heat of the day on a miserable allowance of food and water. The allies of the Athenians were kept in this misery for seventy days. The Athenians themselves were doomed to endure the torture for six months longer throughout the whole winter. Such was the vengeance which Syracuse reeked upon her invaders. The prisoners who survived the ordeal were put to work in the public prison or sold. Some were rescued by young men by their manners. Others owed mitigation of their lot even freedom to the power which an Athenian poet exercised over the hearts of men in Sicily as well as in his own city. Slaves who knew speeches and choruses of the plays of Euripides by heart and could recite them well found favour in the sight of their masters. And we hear of those who, after many days returned to their Athenian homes and thanked the poet for their deliverance. Some mystery has hung round the fate of the two generals Demosthenes and Nicias, but there is no doubt that they were put to death without mercy and some reason to suppose that they were not spared the pain of torture. Hermocrates and Gallipus would have wished to save them but they were powerless in face of the intense feeling of fury against Athens which animated Syracuse in the hour of her triumph. If a man's punishment should be proportionate not to his intentions but to the positive sum of mischief which his conduct has caused no measure of punishment would have been too great for the desserts of Nicias. His incompetence, his incredible bungling ruined the expedition and led to the downfall of Athens. But the blunders of Nicias were merely the revelation of his own nature and for his own nature he could hardly be held accountable. The whole blame rests with the Athenian people who insisted on his playing a part for which he was utterly unsuited. It has already been observed that one dominant note of the character of Nicias was fear of responsibility. Throughout the whole war there was no post which so absolutely demanded the power of undertaking full responsibility as that of chief commander in this great and distant expedition. And yet Nicias was chosen. The selection shows that he was popular as well as respected. He was popular with his army and he seems to have been hardly a sufficiently strict disciplinarian. It has been well said that in the camp he never forgot that the soldiers whom he commanded had votes in the ecclesia which they might use against himself when they return to Athens. Timid as a general, Timid as a statesman, hampered by superstition, the decorous Nicias was a brave soldier and an amiable man whose honourable qualities were the means of leading him into a false position. If he had been less scrupulous and devout and had been endowed with better brains, he would not have ruined his country. Given the man a people chooses, it has been said, the people itself in its exact worth and worthlessness is given. In estimating the character of the Athenian people, we must not forget their choice of this hero of conscientious indecision. So deep is the pity which the tragic fate of the Athenians excites in us that we almost forget to sympathise with the sons of Syracuse in the joy of their deliverance. Yet they deserve our sympathy. They had passed through a sore trial and they had destroyed the powerful invader who had come to rob them of their freedom. To celebrate the anniversaries of their terrible victory they instituted games which they called Asinaleon a river which had witnessed the last scene. In connection with these games some beautiful coins were struck. Perhaps there is nothing which enlists our affections for Syracuse so much as her coins. And it was at this very period that she brought the art of engraving coin dyes to perfection. Never in any country in any age of the world was the art of engraving on metal practised with such high inspiration and such consummate skill as in Sicily. No holy place in Hellas possessed diviner faces in bronze or marble than the faces which the Sicilian cities circulated on their silver money. The greatest of the Sicilian artists were Syracusan and among the greatest of the Syracusan were Evinitus and Caimon. The dye engraver's achievements may seem small compared with the life-size or colossal works of a sculptor of the beautiful, Evinitus, and his fellows may claim to stand in the same rank as Phidias. Their heads of Persephone and of the water-nymph Arathusa encircled by dolphins, their wonderful four-horse chariots seemed to invest Syracuse with a glory to which she hardly attained. In the years after the defeat of Athens there were several issues of large tendracum medallions modelled on those Damaratian coins which had commemorated Gelon's victory at Himmera. The engraving of these was committed to Caimon and Evinitus and a nameless artist perhaps the greater than either of whom a single medallion an exquisite Persephone crowned with barley has been found on the slopes of Etna. End of Part 5 Part 6 Consequences of the Sicilian Catastrophe The Sicilian expedition was part of the general aggressive policy of Athens which made her unpopular in Greece. Unjust that policy was but this enterprise was not more frequently unrighteous than some of her other undertakings and it had the plausible enough pretext of protecting the weaker cities in the west against the stronger. More fruitful is the question whether the expedition was expedient from a purely political point of view. It was often said that it was a wild venture an instance of a whole people going mad like the English people in the matter of the Crimean War. It is hard to see how this view can be maintained. If there were ever an enterprise of which the wisdom cannot be judged by the result it is the enterprise against Syracuse. All the chances were in its favour. If the advice of Lamechus had been taken and Syracuse attacked at once there cannot be much doubt that Syracuse would have fallen at the outset. If Nikias had not let precious time pass and delayed the completion of the wall to the northern cliff of Epipoli the doom of the city was sealed. Gilippus could never have entered. The failure was due to nothing in the character of the enterprise itself but entirely to the initial mistake in the appointment of the general. And it was quite in the nature of things that Athenian seapower predominant in the east should have been to seek further expansion in the west. An energetic establishment of Athenian influence in that region was recommended by the political situation. It must be remembered that the most serious and abiding hostility with which Athens had to reckon was the commercial rivalry of Corinth and the close alliance of Corinth with her Dorian daughters and friends in the west was a strong and adequate motive for Athenian intervention. The necessity of a counterweight to Corinthian influence in Sicily and Italy had long been recognised. Some attempts had been made to meet it, and when peace with Sparta set Athenian forces free for service outside Greece and the Aegean, it was natural that the opportunity should be taken to act effectively in the west. The infatuation of the Athenian people was shown not in willing the expedition but in committing it in the west and in the east. These blunders seemed to point to something wrong in the constitution or its working. They did in fact show that an expedition of that kind was liable to be mismanaged when any of the arrangements connected with its execution depended on a popular assembly or might be interfered with for party purposes. To Thucydides, it was the most important part of the expedition of the Athenian people and the most important part of the process. To Thucydides, it was clear that the primary mistakes were political, not military. And after the disaster of the Acinaros, there was a feeling that some change must be made in the administration. Athens was hard-pressed by the Lacedimonian post at Decalia which stopped cultivation and became a refuge for deserting slaves. Of these slaves who numbered about 20,000, we can hardly doubt they worked in the mines of Laurion. In any case, one most disastrous effect of the seizure of Decalia was the closing of the mines since even southern Attica was at the mercy of the Lacedimonians. Thus one of the chief sources of Athenian revenue was cut off. She was robbed of her supply of Loriot owls and in a few years we find her melting gold dedicatory offerings to make gold coins and even coining in copper thinly plated with silver. Thus the treasury was at a low ebb and there were no men to replace those who were lost in Sicily. It was felt that the committees of the Council of Five Hundred were hardly competent to conduct the city through such a crisis. A smaller and more permanent body was required, and the chief direction of affairs was entrusted to a board of ten named Probouli which practically superseded the Council for the time being. Shortly before this a change had been made in the system of tribute payment the fixed assessment was replaced by a tax of 5% on all imports and exports carried by sea to or from the harbours of the empire. It was thought that this duty would produce a larger income than the tribute and it might seem a more equitable principle for payment for it would be paid by those who had profited most from the growth of Egean trade under the Athenian Thalesocracy. Its effectiveness however depended on the requisite display of strength by Athens. No doubt there was considerable scope for disputing the amount due but all events the old system of tribute was restored as soon as the first substantial Athenian victory gave grounds again for confidence. The financial pressure was shown by the dismissal of a body of Thracian mercenaries who had arrived too late to sail to Sicily. They returned home under the conduct of D.E. Treffes who was instructed to employ them on the road in any way he could against the enemy. Sailing northward between Euboea and the mainland they disembarked on the coast of Biosia and reaching the small town of Mycalesus at Daybreak captured it. Nothing was ever so unexpected and terrible. The Thracians showed their barbarity in massacring all the inhabitants of the war. They broke into a boys' school and killed all the children. Reforms did not avert the dangers which threatened Athens. The tidings of the great calamity which had befallen the flower of her youth in Sicily moved Hellas from end to end. The one thought of enemies, neutrals and subjects alike was to seize the opportunity of shattering the power of Athens irretrievably. From Lesbos, from Chios to Agis at Decalea to the Fours at Sparta declaring that they were ready to revolt if a Peloponnesian fleet appeared off their coasts. A fleet was clearly necessary to do the work that was to be done. A naval policy was forced upon Sparta by the case. It was decided that a hundred ships should be equipped of which half in equal shares were to be supplied by Sparta and Biosia. They were to be deployed in the winter in building triremes and fortified Capesunium to protect the arrival of her corn ships. King Agis, while he was at Decalea possessed the right of sending troops wherever he chose. He received the overtures from Euboea and Lesbos and promised assistance. But Spartan interference in these islands was deferred owing to the more pressing demands of Chios which were addressed directly to Sparta and were backed by the support of a great power whose voice for many years had not been heard in the sphere of the politics of Halas. Persia now enters once more upon the stage of Greek history aiming at the recovery of the coast cities of Asia Minor and for this purpose playing off one Greek power against another. The Sicilian disaster suggested to Tisafernes the Satrap of Sardis and to Farnabasus, the Satrap of Helispontine Phrygia that it was the moment to rest from Athens her Asiatic dominions. This must be done by stirring up revolt and by a close alliance with Sparta. Each Satrap was anxious to secure for himself the credit of having brought about such a profitable alliance and each independently sent envoys to Lassa Demon, Farnabasus urging action in the Halispont Tisafernes supporting the appeal of Chios. The end demand, which had the powerful advocacy of Elcibiades carried the day. In the following summer, the rebellion against Athens actively began. The appearance of a few Spartan ships was the signal for the formal revolt of Chios and then in conjunction with the Chian fleet they excited Miletus, Tios, Lebedos to follow in the same path. Methimna and Mitilini lost little time in joining the movement and were followed by Chimi and Phokia. The Athenian historian has words of commendation for the city which played the chief part in this rebellion. No people, says Thucydides, as far as I know except the Chians and the Lassa Demonians but the Chians not equally with the Lassa Demonians have preserved moderation in prosperity and in proportion as their city has gained in power have gained also in the stability of their government. As a result they may seem to have shown a want of prudence yet they did not venture upon it until many brave allies were ready to share the peril with them and until the Athenians themselves seemed to confess that after their calamity in Sicily the state of their affairs was hopelessly bad and if they were deceived through the uncertainty of human things the era of judgment was common to many who, like them, believed that the Athenian power would speedily this successful beginning led to the Treaty of Miletus between Sparta and Persia in the hope of humbling to the dust her detested rival the city of Leonidas now sold to the barbarian the freedom of her fellow Greeks of Asia the Persian claim was that Athens had usurped the rights of the great king for well-nigh seventy years over the Asiatic cities and that her rears of tribute were owing to him for all that time Sparta recognised the right of the great king to all the dominion which belonged to him and his forefathers and he undertook to supply the pay for the seamen of the Peloponnesian fleet operating on the Asiatic coast while the war with Athens lasted it may be said for Sparta that she merely wanted to get the money at the time and had no intention of honourably carrying out her dishonourable undertaking but hoped to rescue the Greek cities but the Treaty of Miletus opened up a new path in Greek politics which was to lead the Persian king to the position of Arbiter of Hellas meanwhile Athens had not been idle straightened by want of money she had been forced to pass a measure to touch the reserve fund of one thousand talents she blockaded a Corinthian fleet destined for Kios on the Argolic coast she laid Kios itself waste and blockaded the town she won back Lesbos and gained some successes at Miletus but Knidus rebelled the Peloponnesians gained an advantage in a naval engagement at the small island of Simi and this was followed by the revolt of Rhodes this island was still divided between the territories of the three cities of Lindus, Iolissus and Camirus but a few years after the revolt the foundation of the island's future power was laid by the cynicism of the three communities in the common city of Rhodes by the spring of 411 the situation was that Athens had her northern and Hellespontine confederacy intact but that on the western coast of Asia little of importance remained to her but Lesbos, Samos, Kos and Halicarnassus she was confronted by a formidable Peloponnesian fleet supported by Persia and by a considerable reinforcement from Sicily 22 vessels under Hermocrates the return of Syracuse for her deliverance it could not be said indeed that all things had gone smoothly between Persia and Acidemen differences had arisen as to the amount of the subsidies and a new treaty was concluded in which the rights of the king were less distinctly formulated in the meantime Alcibiades had been cultivating the friendship of Tissophanes at Miletus and had on that account become an object of suspicion that Sparta he had a bitter enemy in King Agis whose wife he had seduced seeing that his life was in danger he had left Miletus and gone to the court of the Satrap where he began a new series of machinations with a view to his own return to Athens indeed his work at Sparta had now been done and political changes which were in the air at Athens invited the formation of new schemes the man who had done much to bring about the alliance of Tissophanes with Sparta now set himself to dissolve that union and bring about an understanding between the Satrap and Athens End of Part 6