Chapter XXXV: The Sicilian Expedition (1)

The largest island in the Mediterranean, Sicily has been a stepping-stone between African, Asiatic, and European nations. Freeman[e] has compared it with Great Britain in its “geographical and historical position.” Its original inhabitants seem to have been the Sicans who were invaded first by the Elymians and then by the Sicels. Relations with Sicily were begun as early as the Mycenæan age, and jars of Ægean ware have been unearthed in the tombs of Syracuse. The Phœnicians established factories and trading places in Sicily, and then came the Greeks overflowing the island and founding many a city and stronghold. As we have seen in a previous chapter, Sicily became one of the earliest and most important of the Greek colonies.

SICILIAN HISTORY

The African city of Carthage, which we think of chiefly along with Roman history, early took up the grievances of the Phœnicians against the Greeks. In the sixth century B.C., various settlements had fallen by the ears with one another. About 580 B.C. the Greek adventurer Pentathlus threatened the Phœnician settlements, but was defeated and slain. Carthage, however, was awakened to the danger from Greek land-hunger, and about 560 B.C. sent an expedition under Malchus, who gave a severe check to Greek encroachment and an encouragement to Carthaginian ambition. Finally, by 480 B.C., the Carthaginians were ready to combine with the Persians against Greek prosperity and independence. While Xerxes assailed the mother-country, Carthage by agreement sent an enormous expedition against the Sicilian Greeks. Their general was Hamilcar, and the magnificence of his host has been as splendidly exaggerated as that of Xerxes. His success was equal to that of the Persian, except that Xerxes escaped alive, while Hamilcar perished.

[Sidenote: [481-447 B.C.]]

The chief instruments of the Sicilian victory were the tyrants who had gathered to themselves supreme power in their own cities or groups of cities as the tyrants of the mother-country had previously done. In Sicily there were four powerful masters of four chief cities: Anaxilaus of Rhegium in Italy, who crossing the straits, took possession of Zancle; his father-in-law Terillus of Himera; Gelo of Syracuse and his father-in-law, Theron of Acragas. It was a quarrel between Theron and Terillus that gave the Carthaginians their immediate excuse for invading Sicily. Terillus being thwarted by Theron played a treacherous part like that of Hippias, and begged the Persians to attack Acragas. Terillus called in Carthage to his aid against Theron. There is a tradition that the defeat of the Carthaginians happened on the same day as the battle of Salamis. Such traditions are always subject to scepticism, and yet the coincidence of Vicksburg and Gettysburg in American history is hardly more incredible.

Theron had called on Gelo to aid him in expelling the Carthaginians, and Gelo had won the greater glory. He died two years later leaving his younger brother Hiero to succeed him. It was Hiero’s privilege to thwart the ambition of the Etruscans as his elder brother had foiled Carthage. The naval battle of Cyme was the brilliant victory which led Pindar to write one of his loftiest songs. He and Simonides, Æschylus, and Bacchylides, were all received with honour at the opulent court of Hiero. The glitter of court life, however, was small compensation for the tyranny of the various despots of Sicily. Their ambitions clashed at the least pretext, always at the cost of the blood of their subjects. They had a curious way of deporting the inhabitants of an entire city to some other place to suit their own whims. And gradually time took its revenge upon them. Theron left as his heir a weak son, Thrasydæus who went to battle with Hiero, and, losing the battle, lost also his prestige and his power, for the cities Himera and Acragas formed themselves into democracies. Five years later, in 467 B.C., Hiero died, and his tyranny fell to his brother Thrasybulus whose blood-thirsty and tax-hungry cruelties aroused a revolution. He was besieged in Syracuse, compelled to surrender and sent into exile.

Life in Sicily is not to this day so quiet as in certain other portions of the globe, and it was inevitable in the change from despotism to democracy that there should be much friction and bloodshed, but the cities lost none of the prosperity they had acquired under the tyrants. Syracuse continued to be the principal city and power in the island; Agrigentum, as the Romans named Acragas, being the second in power.

Now a new source of danger appeared, this time not from a foreign invasion, or from the ambition of such pretenders as had tried to re-establish the power of Gelo. The new threat came from a racial jealousy. The old inhabitants, the Sicels, who had been crowded into the interior, gave birth to a Napoleonic ambition. A young man named Ducetius who first appeared in 461, having fed upon certain small successes in acquiring power, showed his ingenuity in 453 by forming a federation of Sicel towns with himself as prince. He seized an early opportunity to assail the Greeks, and justified the fidelity of the Sicels by capturing the towns of Morgantium, Ætna, and the Acragantine stronghold of Motya, building a new city--Palice. He now became important enough to merit the anger of Syracuse, and a large force from Syracuse and Agrigentum marched against him. The toy Napoleon met his little Waterloo. His partisans deserted him and he found himself alone. A desperate resolve occurred to him as the only means of saving his life. He rode by night to the gates of Syracuse, entered the city secretly, and sat himself down before the altar in the market place. He was soon surrounded by a crowd who had too keen a sense of the dramatic not to forgive him and let him off with the easy exile to Corinth. From this Elba this Napoleon soon emerged. He violated his parole laying the blame on an oracle, and took a body of colonists to Sicily where he founded the city of Calacta (or Kale Akte). He began gradually to reach out for more power, but his death in 440 ended his schemes and left his federation as a prize for Syracuse.

[Sidenote: [440-431 B.C.]]

While Syracuse was beginning to plume itself upon its leadership and to dream of more definite control, the city of Athens was building an empire, not over one island but many. It was only natural that she should wish to stand well with the rich cities of Sicily. At first there could hardly have been any thought of conquest, and Grote[f] points out that Plutarch is mistaken and is contradicted by Thucydides, when he implies that even as late as the quarrel between Corinth and Corcyra, the Athenians had thought of dominion over Sicily. Professor Bury[d] however sees a distinct desire to have influence, if not conquest, from a very early day. He says:

“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 Elymian town of Segesta, and subsequently treaties of alliance (the stone records are still partly preserved) were concluded with Leontini and Rhegium. 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 counter-acting 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 thirty 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.” Adolph Holm[b] is equally positive in accusing the Athenians of an early desire to obtain a footing in Sicily.

[Sidenote: [431-425 B.C.]]

The outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 B.C. found Sicily in a high state of prosperity, political equality, and intellectual health. According as the various cities had been founded by Dorian or Ionian colonists their family prejudices inclined them towards Sparta or Athens. The war in fact, according to Müller,[h] was called by the oracles, the Doric War. The preponderance in Sicily was largely toward Sparta and Corinth, for Corinth had been the mother-city to Syracuse. Grote[f] thus discusses the feelings of the various cities at this time:

“In that struggle the Italian and Sicilian Greeks had no direct concern, nor anything to fear from the ambition of Athens; who, though she had founded Thurii in 443 B.C., appears never to have aimed at any political ascendency even over that town--much less anywhere else on the coast. But the Sicilian Greeks, though forming a system apart in their own island, from which it suited the dominant policy of Syracuse to exclude all foreign interference, were yet connected by sympathy, and one side even by alliances, with the two main streams of Hellenic politics. Among the allies of Sparta were numbered all or most of the Dorian cities of Sicily--Syracuse, Camarina, Gela, Agrigentum, Selinus, perhaps Himera and Messana--together with Locri and Tarentum in Italy; among the allies of Athens, perhaps, the Chalcidic or Ionic Rhegium in Italy. Whether the Ionic cities in Sicily--Naxos, Catana, and Leontini--were at this time united with Athens by any special treaty, is very doubtful. But if we examine the state of politics prior to the breaking out of the war, it will be found that the connection of the Sicilian cities on both sides with central Greece was rather one of sympathy and tendency, than of pronounced obligation and action. The Dorian Sicilians, though sharing the antipathy of the Peloponnesian Dorians to Athens, had never been called upon for any co-operation with Sparta; nor had the Ionic Sicilians yet learned to look to Athens for protection against Syracuse.”

Sparta counted apparently upon the active assistance of Syracuse, and demanded that the Dorians in Italy and Sicily should contribute to her both ships and money. She realised no ships, a little money, and profuse expressions of interest and sympathy. The awakening of the old Dorio-Ionic blood feud suggested to the Syracusans, however, that while the Peloponnesian War was remote from them both geographically and commercially, it yet furnished a good excuse for attacking such cities in Sicily as were in any way attached to Athens. Naxos, Catana, and Leontini were looked upon as the first prizes to be seized. These towns were so far from being able to send aid to Athens that they were compelled to ask aid of her. They succeeded in forming an alliance with Camarina, which was a Dorian city but jealous of Syracuse, and with the town of Rhegium in Italy. The friendship of Rhegium brought over to Syracuse the Italian city of Locri. With the aid of Locri and practically all the Dorian cities, Syracuse was so strong that the Ionic allies were soon in desperate straits. They sent their eloquent orator Gorgias to implore the Athenians for aid and to advise them to grant it, lest when Syracuse had conquered all Sicily she should send her troops and ships to the aid of the Spartans and Corinthians. The Athenians sent twenty triremes under Laches, who after various minor successes fell under suspicion as to his honesty and efficiency, and was called home.

[Sidenote: [425-416 B.C.]]

The Ionians sent another appeal to Athens, and received the promise of forty more triremes. In the spring of 425 this fleet left Athens under command of Eurymedon and Sophocles. It was this fleet which, almost accidentally, paused on the Spartan coast at Pylos with the result that it gained for Athens the renowned victory of Sphacteria, as previously described. This victory was very profitable to Athens in its immediate glory, but was of very gloomy purport in the Sicilian matter, for the fleet having delayed to take part in the victory, and later pausing at Corcyra, did not reach Sicily before September. This delay had given the Syracusan allies time to undo what little had been achieved by Laches. He had won the friendship of the town of Messana, thus giving Athens command of the straits. The delay however had weakened the friendship of Messana, and lost its alliance. Furthermore, the cities which Athens had come to aid were found to be in a decided humour to put an end to the civil war. A congress of Sicilian cities was called at Gela.

This congress at Gela takes on a decided importance in political history because of the theories brought forward there by a Syracusan orator, Hermocrates, whose political creed has been compared to the Monroe Doctrine of the United States. The creed was not successfully carried out, and as has often happened in the history of the United States, the promulgators of the doctrine were by no means consistent in their actions. Hermocrates pleaded for a policy, which in modern phrase would be called “Sicily for the Sicilians.” He wished Sicily to regard herself as an entity, considering all foreigners to be outsiders, and all interference to be meddling. He was not rash enough or un-Grecian enough to deny the Sicilian cities the luxury of fighting with one another; but he called for unity against the invader or the intriguer from other shores. From his speech, as imagined by Thucydides,[i] the peroration is worth quoting for its cool common sense:

“And I call on you all, of your own free will, to act in the same manner as myself, and not to be compelled to do it by your enemies. For there is no disgrace in connections giving way to connections, whether a Dorian to a Dorian, or a Chalcidian to those of the same race; in a word, all of us who are neighbours, and live together in one country, and that an island, and are called by the one name of Sicilians. For we shall go to war again, I suppose, when it may so happen, and come to terms again amongst ourselves by means of general conferences; but to foreign invaders we shall always, if we are wise, offer united resistance, inasmuch as by our separate losses we are collectively endangered; and we shall never in future call in any allies or mediators. For by acting thus we shall at the present time avoid depriving Sicily of two blessings--riddance both of the Athenians and of civil war--and shall in future enjoy it by ourselves in freedom, and less exposed to the machinations of others.”

The Athenian expedition having been coldly received by the cities it came to rescue, returned to Athens, where Eurymedon was fined and Sophocles banished on a charge of bribery. And now the reservation made by Hermocrates as to the right of the Sicilian cities to war upon one another, was soon justified. And to such an extent that the Ionic cities began to realise that the Syracusans had been chiefly anxious to expel the foreign invader, in order that the island might be left entirely to Syracusan ambition. In the city of Leontini the aristocrats crushed the democrats, and turned the city into a Syracusan fort after destroying the greater portion of it. The common people appealed to Athens, and received in reply two triremes under Phæax in B.C. 422. Before he had accomplished anything the Peace of Nicias put a temporary close to the war.

In 417 B.C. the two Sicilian cities of Selinus and Segesta (or Egesta) quarrelled over a bit of territory. Syracuse aided Selinus, and Segesta, after appealing in vain to Agrigentum and to Carthage, sent envoys to Athens. The Leontine people also reminded Athens that Syracuse, having destroyed Leontini and assailed Segesta, was planning and accomplishing the gradual reduction of all Sicilian cities favourable to Athens, and thus building up an empire which would give Sparta unlimited aid. The people of Segesta asked only for men and ships, and promised to provide ample money for expenses.

[Sidenote: [416-415 B.C.]]

The idea of such an armada delighted the fire-brand Alcibiades, who saw in it a chance to be a leader and to find an abundance of the things he most desired--adventure, notoriety, and money. The cautious Nicias opposed the scheme, and secured a delay until ambassadors could be sent to Segesta to learn if the city were really wealthy enough to pay as it promised. And now it was a case of Greek meeting Sicilian. The people of Segesta had sent secret expeditions to all their friendly towns, Phœnician or Grecian, to borrow all the treasure they could wheedle out of their prospective allies. When the Athenian envoys appeared, they were taken to the temple of Venus and shown a great array of gifts, “bowls, wine ladles, censers, and other articles of furniture in no small quantity.” These were all silver or of silver gilt, and made a far greater showing than they merited. Then the Athenians were put through a round of entertainments. In each case the host displayed all his own plate, and in addition a large portion of the common fund, which was passed from house to house surreptitiously. The gullible Athenians were overwhelmed by the evident opulence of the private citizens of Segesta, and when sixty talents of uncoined silver (valued at over £12,000 or $60,000) were handed over to the Athenians for the first month’s expenses of the fleet, the embassy was thoroughly duped, and returned to Athens glowing with enthusiasm for an alliance with such a western Golconda. Then followed a tug of war between Nicias and Alcibiades. Nicias was to be one of the commanders of the expedition, and he could well claim that it was no fear of bodily danger that made him averse to it. He opposed it purely as a piece of folly. Alcibiades replied in favour of the expedition, and it was so evident that the people were determined to send the fleet that Nicias in a last effort tried to alarm the city by magnifying the difficulties of the task and demanding a tremendous force. To the Athenians, in their drunkenness for empire, and in that frenzy of “Westward Ho!” which, in the fifteenth century, attacked all Europe, the opposition of Nicias was only wind on flame. They rejoiced the more at the magnificence of the problem.

To decide upon sending a fleet of one hundred triremes instead of the sixty asked for, was folly enough; but to elect Nicias as the commander of the expedition, and to ally with him his bitter opponent, Alcibiades, was pure delirium. Still, Athens had just conquered Melos, and no task was too gigantic for her hopes.[a]

THE MUTILATION OF THE HERMÆ

For the two or three months immediately succeeding the final resolution taken by the Athenians to invade Sicily, the whole city was elate and bustling with preparation. The prophets, circulators of oracles, and other accredited religious advisers, announced generally the favourable dispositions of the gods, and promised a triumphant result. All classes in the city, rich and poor,--cultivators, traders, and seamen,--old and young, all embraced the project with ardour; as requiring a great effort, yet promising unparalleled results, both of public aggrandisement and individual gain. Each man was anxious to put down his own name for personal service; so that the three generals, Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus, when they proceeded to make their selection of hoplites, instead of being forced to employ constraint or incur ill-will, as happened when an expedition was adopted reluctantly with many dissentients, had only to choose the fittest among a throng of eager volunteers.

Such efforts were much facilitated by the fact that five years had now elapsed since the Peace of Nicias, without any considerable warlike operations. While the treasury had become replenished with fresh accumulations, and the triremes increased in number, the military population, reinforced by additional numbers of youth, had forgotten both the hardships of the war and the pressure of epidemic disease. Hence the fleet now got together, while it surpassed in number all previous armaments of Athens, except a single one in the second year of the previous war under Pericles, was incomparably superior even to that, and still more superior to all the rest in the other ingredients of force, material as well as moral, in picked men, universal ardour, ships as well as arms in the best condition, and accessories of every kind in abundance. Such was the confidence of success, that many Athenians went prepared for trade as well as for combat; so that the private stock, thus added to the public outfit and to the sums placed in the hands of the generals, constituted an unparalleled aggregate of wealth. After between two and three months of active preparations, the expedition was almost ready to start, when an event happened which fatally poisoned the prevalent cheerfulness of the city. This was the mutilation of the Hermæ, one of the most extraordinary events in all Grecian history.

[Sidenote: [415 B.C.]]

The Hermæ, or half-statues of the god Hermes, were blocks of marble about the height of the human figure. The upper part was cut into a head, face, neck, and bust; the lower part was left as a quadrangular pillar, broad at the base, without arms, body, or legs, but with the significant mark of the male sex in front. They were distributed in great numbers throughout Athens, and always in the most conspicuous situations. The religious feeling of the Greeks considered the god to be planted or domiciliated where his statue stood, so that the companionship, sympathy, and guardianship of Hermes became associated with most of the manifestations of conjunct life at Athens, political, social, commercial, or gymnastic.

About the end of May 415 B.C., in the course of one and the same night, all these Hermæ, one of the most peculiar marks of the city, were mutilated by unknown hands. Their characteristic features were knocked off or levelled, so that nothing was left except a mass of stone with no resemblance to humanity or deity. All were thus dealt with in the same way, save and except very few: nay, Andocides affirms that there was but one which escaped unharmed. If we take that reasonable pains, which is incumbent on those who study the history of Greece, to realize in our minds the religious and political associations of the Athenians,--noted in ancient times for their superior piety, as well as for their accuracy and magnificence about the visible monuments embodying that feeling,--we shall in part comprehend the intensity of mingled dismay, terror, and wrath, which beset the public mind, on the morning after this nocturnal sacrilege, alike unforeseen and unparalleled. Amidst all the ruin and impoverishment which had been inflicted by the Persian invasion of Attica, there was nothing which was so profoundly felt or so long remembered as the deliberate burning of the statues and temples of the gods. If we could imagine the excitement of a Spanish or Italian town, on finding that all the images of the Virgin had been defaced during the same night, we should have a parallel, though a very inadequate parallel, to what was now felt at Athens--where religious associations and persons were far more intimately allied with all civil acts and with all the proceedings of every-day life--where, too, the god and his efficiency were more forcibly localised, as well as identified with the presence and keeping of the statue. To the Athenians, when they went forth on the following morning, each man seeing the divine guardian at his doorway dishonoured and defaced, and each man gradually coming to know that the devastation was general,--it would seem that the town had become as it were godless--that the streets, the market-place, the porticoes, were robbed of their divine protectors; and what was worse still, that these protectors, having been grossly insulted, carried away with them alienated sentiments--wrathful and vindictive instead of tutelary and sympathising.

Such was the mysterious incident which broke in upon the eager and bustling movement of Athens a few days before the Sicilian expedition was in condition for starting. In reference to that expedition, it was taken to heart as a most depressing omen. The mutilation of the Hermæ, however, was something much more ominous than the worst accident. It proclaimed itself as the deliberate act of organised conspirators, not inconsiderable in number, whose names and final purpose were indeed unknown, but who had begun by committing sacrilege of a character flagrant and unheard of. For intentional mutilation of a public and sacred statue, where the material afforded no temptation to plunder, is a case to which we know no parallel: much more, mutilation by wholesale--spread by one band and in one night throughout the entire city. Though neither the parties concerned, nor their purposes, were ever more than partially made out, the concert and conspiracy itself is unquestionable.

It seems probable, as far as we can form an opinion, that the conspirators had two objects, perhaps some of them one and some the other--to ruin Alcibiades--to frustrate or delay the expedition. Indeed the two objects were intimately connected with each other; for the prosecution of the enterprise, while full of prospective conquest to Athens, was yet more pregnant with future power and wealth to Alcibiades himself. Such chances would disappear if the expedition could be prevented; nor was it at all impossible that the Athenians, under the intense impression of religious terror consequent on the mutilation of the Hermæ, might throw up the scheme altogether.

Few men in Athens either had, or deserved to have, a greater number of enemies, political as well as private, than Alcibiades; many of them being among the highest citizens, whom he offended by his insolence, and whose liturgies and other customary exhibitions he outshone by his reckless expenditure. His importance had been already so much increased and threatened to be so much more increased by the Sicilian enterprise, that they no longer observed any measures in compassing his ruin. That which the mutilators of the Hermæ seemed to have deliberately planned, his other enemies were ready to turn to profit.

While the senate of Five Hundred were invested with full powers of action, Diognetus, Pisander, Charicles, and others, were named commissioners for receiving and prosecuting inquiries: and public assemblies were held nearly every day to receive reports. The first informations received, however, did not relate to the grave and recent mutilation of the Hermæ, but to analogous incidents of older date; to certain defacements of other statues, accomplished in drunken frolic--and above all, to ludicrous ceremonies celebrated in various houses, by parties of revellers caricaturing and divulging the Eleusinian mysteries. It was under this latter head that the first impeachment was preferred against Alcibiades.

But Alcibiades saw full well the danger of having such charges hanging over his head, and the peculiar advantage which he derived from his accidental position at the moment. He implored the people to investigate the charges at once; proclaiming his anxiety to stand trial and even to suffer death, if found guilty,--accepting the command only in case he should be acquitted,--and insisting above all things on the mischief to the city of sending him on such an expedition with the charge undecided, as well as on the hardship to himself of being aspersed by calumny during his absence, without power of defence. Such appeals, just and reasonable in themselves, and urged with all the vehemence of a man who felt that the question was one of life or death to his future prospects, were very near prevailing. His enemies could only defeat them by the trick of putting up fresh speakers, less notorious for hostility to Alcibiades. These men affected a tone of candour, deprecated the delay which would be occasioned in the departure of the expedition, if he were put upon his trial forthwith; and proposed deferring the trial until a certain number of days after his return. Such was the determination ultimately adopted: the supporters of Alcibiades probably not fully appreciating its consequences, and conceiving that the speedy departure of the expedition was advisable even for his interest, as well as agreeable to their own feelings. And thus his enemies, though baffled in their first attempt to bring on his immediate ruin, carried a postponement which insured to them leisure for thoroughly poisoning the public mind against him, and choosing their own time for his trial. They took care to keep back all farther accusation until he and the armament had departed.

THE FLEET SAILS

The spectacle of its departure was indeed so imposing, and the moment so full of anxious interest, that it banished even the recollection of the recent sacrilege. The entire armament was not mustered at Athens; for it had been judged expedient to order most of the allied contingents to rendezvous at once at Corcyra. But the Athenian force alone was astounding to behold. The condition, the equipment, the pomp both of wealth and force, visible in the armament, were still more impressive than the number. At day-break on the day appointed, when all the ships were ready in Piræus for departure, the military force was marched down in a body from the city and embarked. They were accompanied by nearly the whole population, metics and foreigners as well as citizens, so that the appearance was that of a collective emigration like the flight to Salamis sixty-five years before. While the crowd of foreigners, brought thither by curiosity, were amazed by the grandeur of the spectacle--the citizens accompanying were moved by deeper and more stirring anxieties. Their sons, brothers, relatives, and friends, were just starting on the longest and largest enterprise which Athens had ever undertaken; against an island extensive as well as powerful, known to none to them accurately, and into a sea of undefined possibilities--glory and profit on the one side, but hazards of unassignable magnitude on the other. At this final parting, ideas of doubt and danger became far more painfully present than they had been in any of the preliminary discussions; and in spite of all the reassuring effect of the unrivalled armament before them, the relatives now separating at the water’s edge could not banish the dark presentiment that they were bidding each other farewell for the last time.

The moment immediately succeeding this farewell--when all the soldiers were already on board and the _celeustes_ was on the point of beginning his chant to put the rowers in motion--was peculiarly solemn and touching. Silence having been enjoined and obtained, by sound of trumpet, the crews in every ship, and the spectators on shore, followed the voice of the herald in praying to the gods for success, and in singing the pæan. On every deck were seen bowls of wine prepared, out of which the officers and the _epibatæ_ made libations, with goblets of silver and gold. At length the final signal was given, and the whole fleet quitted Piræus in single file--displaying the exuberance of their yet untried force by a race of speed as far as Ægina. Never in Grecian history was an invocation more unanimous, emphatic, and imposing, addressed to the gods; never was the refusing nod of Zeus more stern or peremptory.[f]

The customary libations were poured out; and, after the triumphant pæan had been sung, the whole fleet set sail, and contended for the prize of naval skill and celerity, until they reached the shores of Ægina, from whence they enjoyed a prosperous voyage to their confederates at Corcyra.

At Corcyra the commanders reviewed the strength of the armament, which consisted of a hundred and thirty-four ships of war, with a proportional number of transports and tenders. The heavy-armed troops, exceeding five thousand, were attended with a sufficient body of slingers and archers. The army, abundantly provided with every other article, was extremely deficient in horses, which amounted to no more than thirty. But, at a moderate computation, we may estimate the whole military and naval strength, including slaves and servants, at twenty thousand men.[55]

With this powerful host, had the Athenians at once surprised and assailed the unprepared security of Syracuse, the expedition, however adventurous and imprudent, might, perhaps, have been crowned with success. But the timid mariners of Greece would have trembled at the proposal of trusting such a numerous fleet on the broad expanse of the Ionian Sea. They determined to cross the narrowest passage between Italy and Sicily, after coasting along the eastern shores of the former, until they reached the strait of Messana. That this design might be executed with the greater safety, they despatched three light vessels to examine the disposition of the Italian cities, and to solicit admission into their harbours. Neither the ties of consanguinity, nor the duties acknowledged by colonies towards their parent state, could prevail on the suspicious Thurians to open their gates, or even to furnish a market, to their Athenian ancestors. The towns of Tarentum and Locri prohibited them the use of their harbours, and refused to supply them with water; and they coasted the whole extent of the shore, from the promontory of Iapygia to that of Rhegium, before any one city would allow them to purchase the commodities for which they had immediate use. The magistrates of Rhegium granted this favour, but they granted nothing more.

A considerable detachment was sent to examine the preparations and the strength of Syracuse, and to proclaim liberty, and offer protection, to all the captives and strangers confined within its walls.

With another detachment Alcibiades sailed to Naxos, and persuaded the inhabitants to accept the alliance of Athens. The remainder of the armament proceeded to Catana, which refused to admit the ships into the harbour, or the troops into the city. But on the arrival of Alcibiades, the Catanians allowed him to address the assembly, and propose his demands. The artful Athenian transported the populace, and even the magistrates themselves, by the charms of his eloquence; the citizens flocked from every quarter, to hear a discourse which was purposely protracted for several hours; the soldiers forsook their posts; and the enemy, who had prepared to avail themselves of this negligence, burst through the unguarded gates, and became masters of the city. Those of the Catanians who were most attached to the interests of Syracuse, fortunately escaped death by the celerity of their flight. The rest accepted the proffered friendship of the Athenians. This success would probably have been followed by the surrender of Messana, which Alcibiades had filled with distrust and sedition. But when the plot was ripe for execution, the man who had contrived, and who alone could conduct it, was disqualified from serving his country. The arrival of the Salaminian galley recalled Alcibiades to Athens, that he might stand trial for his life.

ALCIBIADES TAKES FLIGHT

Alcibiades escaped to Thurii, and afterwards to Argos; and when he understood that the Athenians had set a price on his head, he finally took refuge in Sparta, where his active genius seized the first opportunity to advise and promote those fatal measures, which, while they gratified his private resentment, occasioned the ruin of his country.

The removal of Alcibiades soon appeared in the languid operations of the Athenian armament. The cautious timidity of Nicias, supported by wealth, eloquence, and authority, gained an absolute ascendant over the more warlike and enterprising character of Lamachus, whose poverty exposed him to contempt. Instead of making a bold impression on Selinus or Syracuse, Nicias contented himself with taking possession of the inconsiderable colony of Hyccara. He ravaged, or laid under contribution, some places of smaller note, and obtained thirty talents from the Segestans, which, added to the sale of the booty, furnished about thirty thousand pounds sterling, a sum that might be usefully employed in the prosecution of an expensive war. But this advantage did not compensate for the courage inspired into the Syracusans by delay, and for the dishonour sustained by the Athenian troops, in their unsuccessful attempts against Hybla and Himera, as well as for their dejection at being confined, during the greatest part of the summer, in the inactive quarters of Naxos and Catana.

Ancient Syracuse, of which the ruined grandeur still forms an object of admiration, was situated on a spacious promontory, washed on three sides by the sea, and defended on the west by abrupt and almost inaccessible mountains. The town was built in a triangular form, whose summit may be conceived on the lofty mountain Epipolæ. Adjacent to these natural fortifications, the western or inland division of the city was distinguished by the name of Tyche, or Fortune, being adorned by a magnificent temple of that flattering divinity. The triangle gradually widening towards the base, comprehended the vast extent of Achradina, reaching from the northern shore of the promontory to the southern island, Ortygia. This small island, composing the whole of modern Syracuse, formed but the third and least extensive division of the ancient; which was fortified by walls eighteen miles in circuit, enriched by a triple harbour, and peopled by above two hundred thousand warlike citizens or industrious slaves.

When the Syracusans heard the first rumours of the Athenian invasion, they despised, or affected to despise them, as idle lies invented to amuse the ignorance of the populace. The hostile armament had arrived at Rhegium before they could be persuaded, by the wisdom of Hermocrates, to provide against a danger which their presumption painted as imaginary. But when they received undoubted intelligence that the enemy had reached the Italian coast, when they beheld their numerous fleet commanding the sea of Sicily and ready to make a descent on their defenceless island, they were seized with a degree of just terror and alarm proportional to their false security. The dilatory operations of the enemy not only removed the recent terror and trepidation of the Syracusans, but inspired them with unusual firmness. They requested the generals, whom they had appointed to the number of fifteen, to lead them to Catana, that they might attack the hostile camp. Their cavalry harassed the Athenians by frequent incursions, beat up their quarters, intercepted their convoys, destroyed their advanced posts, and even proceeded so near to the main body, that they were distinctly heard demanding, with loud insults, whether those boasted lords of Greece had left their native country, that they might form a precarious settlement at the foot of Mount Ætna.

NICIAS TRIES STRATEGY

[Sidenote: [415-414 B.C.]]

Provoked by these indignities, and excited by the impatient resentment of his own troops, Nicias was still restrained from an open attempt against Syracuse by the difficulties attending that enterprise. He employed a stratagem. A citizen of Catana, whose subtile and daring genius, prepared alike to die or to deceive, ought to have preserved his name from oblivion, appeared in Syracuse as a deserter from his native city; the unhappy fate of which, in being subjected to the imperious commands, or licentious disorder of the Athenians, he lamented with perfidious tears, and with the plaintive accents of well-dissembled sorrow. “The Athenians,” he said, “spurned the confinement of the military life; their posts were forsaken, their ships unguarded, they disdained the duties of the camp, and indulged in the pleasures of the city. On an appointed day it would be easy for the Syracusans, assisted by the conspirators of Catana, to attack them unprepared, to mount their undefended ramparts, to demolish their encampment, and to burn their fleet.” This daring proposal well corresponded with the keen sentiments of revenge which animated the inhabitants of Syracuse. The day was named; the plan of the enterprise was concerted, and the treacherous Catanian returned home to revive the hopes, and to confirm the resolution, of his pretended associates.

The success of this intrigue gave the utmost satisfaction to Nicias, whose armament prepared to sail for Syracuse on the day appointed by the inhabitants of that city for assaulting, with their whole force, the Athenian camp. Already had they marched, with this view, to the fertile plain of Leontini, when, after twelve hours’ sail, the Athenian fleet arrived in the great harbour, disembarked their troops, and fortified a camp without the western wall, near to a celebrated temple of Olympian Jupiter, a situation which had been pointed out by some Syracusan exiles, and which was well adapted to every purpose of accommodation and defence. Meanwhile the cavalry of Syracuse, having proceeded to the walls of Catana, had discovered, to their infinite regret, the departure of the Athenians. The unwelcome intelligence was conveyed, with the utmost expedition, to the infantry, who immediately marched back to protect Syracuse. The rapid return of the war-like youth restored the courage of the aged Syracusans. They were joined by the forces of Gela, Selinus, and Camarina; and it was determined to attack the hostile encampment.

The attack was begun with fury, and continued with perseverance for several hours. Both sides were animated by every principle that can inspire and urge the utmost vigour of exertion, and victory was still doubtful, when a tempest suddenly arose, accompanied with unusual peals of thunder. This event, which little affected the Athenians, confounded the unexperienced credulity of the enemy, who were broken and put to flight. The Syracusans escaped to their city, and the Athenians returned to their camp. In such an obstinate conflict the vanquished lost two hundred and sixty, the victors only fifty men.

The voyage, the encampment, and the battle, employed the dangerous activity, and gratified the impetuous ardour of the Athenians, but did not facilitate the conquest of Syracuse. Without more powerful preparations, Nicias despaired of taking the place, either by assault, or by a regular siege. Soon after his victory he returned with the whole armament to Naxos and Catana. Nicias had reason to expect that his victory over the Syracusans would procure him respect and assistance from the inferior states of Sicily. His emissaries were diffused over that island and the neighbouring coast of Italy. Messengers were sent to Tuscany, where Pisa and other cities had been founded by Greek colonies. An embassy was despatched to Carthage, the rival and enemy of Syracuse. Nicias gave orders to collect materials for circumvallation, iron, bricks, and all necessary stores. He demanded horses from the Segestans; and required from Athens reinforcements and a large pecuniary supply; and neglected nothing that might enable him to open the ensuing campaign with vigour and effect.

While the Athenians thus prepared for the attack of Syracuse, the citizens of that capital displayed equal activity in providing for their own defence. By the advice of Hermocrates, they appointed himself, Heraclides, and Sicanus; three, instead of fifteen generals. The commanders newly elected, both in civil and military affairs, were invested with unlimited power, which was usefully employed to purchase or prepare arms, daily to exercise the troops, and to strengthen and extend the fortifications of Syracuse. They likewise despatched ambassadors to the numerous cities and republics with which they had been connected in peace, or allied in war, to solicit the continuance of their friendship, and to counteract the dangerous designs of the Athenians.

Meanwhile the expected reinforcements arrived from Athens. In addition to his original force, Nicias had likewise collected a body of six hundred cavalry, and the sum of four hundred talents; and, in the eighteenth summer of the war, the activity of the troops and workmen had completed all necessary preparations for undertaking the siege of Syracuse.

The plan which Nicias adopted for conquering the city, was to draw a wall on either side. When these circumvallations had surrounded the place by land, he expected, by his numerous fleet, to block up the wide extent of the Syracusan harbours. The whole strength of the Athenian armament was employed in the former operations; and as all necessary materials had been provided with due attention, the works rose with a rapidity which surprised and terrified the besieged. Their former as well as their recent defeats deterred them from opposing the enemy in a general engagement; but the advice of Hermocrates persuaded them to raise walls which might traverse and interrupt those of the Athenians. The imminent danger urged the activity of the workmen; the hostile bulwarks approached each other; frequent skirmishes took place, in one of which the brave Lamachus unfortunately fell a victim to his rash valour; but the Athenian troops maintained their usual superiority.

Encouraged by success, Nicias pushed the enemy with vigour. The Syracusans lost hopes of defending their new works, or of preventing the complete circumvallation of their city. New generals were named in the room of Hermocrates and his colleagues; and this injudicious alteration increased the calamities of Syracuse, which at length prepared to capitulate.

While the assembly deliberated concerning the execution of a measure, which, however disgraceful, was declared to be necessary, a Corinthian galley, commanded by Gongylus, entered the central harbour of Ortygia, which being strongly fortified, and penetrating into the heart of the city, served as the principal and most secure station for the Syracusan fleet. Gongylus announced a speedy and effectual relief to the besieged city. He acquainted the Syracusans, that the embassy, sent the preceding year to crave the assistance of Peloponnesus, had been crowned with success. His own countrymen had warmly embraced the cause of their kinsmen, and most respectable colony. They had fitted out a considerable fleet, the arrival of which might be expected every hour. The Lacedæmonians also had sent a small squadron, and the whole armament was conducted by the Spartan Gylippus, an officer of tried valour and ability.

While the desponding citizens of Syracuse listened to this intelligence with pleasing astonishment, a messenger arrived by land from Gylippus himself. That experienced commander, instead of pursuing a direct course, which might have been intercepted by the Athenian fleet, had landed with four galleys on the western coast of the island. The name of a Spartan general determined the wavering irresolution of the Sicilians. The troops of Himera, Selinus, and Gela flocked to his standard; and he approached Syracuse on the side of Epipolæ, where the line of contravallation was still unfinished, with a body of several thousand men.

SPARTAN AID

The most courageous of the citizens sallied forth to meet this generous and powerful protector. The junction was happily effected; the ardour of the troops kindled into enthusiasm; and they distinguished that memorable day by surprising several important Athenian posts. This first success reanimated the activity of the soldiers and workmen. The traverse wall was extended with the utmost diligence, and a vigorous sally deprived the enemy of the strong castle of Labdalum. Nicias, perceiving that the interest of the Athenians in Sicily would be continually weakened by delay, wished to bring the fortune of the war to the decision of a battle. Nor did Gylippus decline the engagement. The first action was unfavourable to the Syracusans, who had been imprudently posted in the defiles between their own and the enemy’s walls, which rendered of no avail their superiority in cavalry and archers. The magnanimity of Gylippus acknowledged this error, for which he completely atoned by his judicious conduct in the succeeding engagements.

The Syracusans soon extended their works beyond the line of circumvallation, so that it was impossible to block up their city, without forcing their ramparts. The besiegers, while they maintained the superiority of their arms, had been abundantly supplied with necessaries from the neighbouring territory; but every place was alike hostile to them after their defeat. The soldiers who went out in quest of wood and water, were unexpectedly attacked and cut off by the enemy’s cavalry, or by the reinforcements which arrived from every quarter to the assistance of Syracuse; and they were at length reduced to depend for every necessary supply on the precarious bounty of the Italian shore.

Nicias, whose sensibility deeply felt the public distress, wrote a most desponding letter to the Athenians. He honestly described, and lamented, the misfortunes and disorders of his army. The slaves deserted in great numbers; the mercenary troops, who fought only for pay and subsistence, preferred the more secure and lucrative service of Syracuse. He therefore exhorted the assembly either to call them home without delay, or to send immediately a second armament, not less powerful than the first.

The principal squadrons of Syracuse lay in the harbour of Ortygia, separated, by an island of the same name, from the station of the Athenian fleet. While Hermocrates sailed forth with eighty galleys, to venture a naval engagement, Gylippus attacked the hostile fortifications at Plemmyrium, a promontory opposite to Ortygia, which confined the entrance of the Great Harbour. The defeat of the Syracusans at sea, whereby they lost fourteen vessels, was balanced by their victory on land, in which they took three fortresses, containing a large quantity of military and naval stores, and a considerable sum of money. In some subsequent actions, which scarcely deserve the name of battles, their fleet was still unsuccessful; but as they engaged with great caution, and found everywhere a secure retreat on a friendly shore, their loss was extremely inconsiderable. The want of success, in their first attempt, did not abate their resolution to gain the command at sea.

By unexampled assiduity the Syracusans at length prevailed in a general engagement, which was fought in the Great Harbour. Seven Athenian ships were sunk, many more were disabled, and Nicias saved the remains of his shattered and dishonoured armament by retiring behind a line of merchantmen and transports, from the masts of which had been suspended huge masses of lead, named dolphins from their form, sufficient to crush by their falling weight the stoutest galleys of antiquity. This unexpected obstacle arrested the progress of the victors; but the advantages already obtained elevated them with the highest hopes, and reduced the enemy to despair.

ALCIBIADES AGAINST ATHENS

[Sidenote: [414-413 B.C.]]

The Athenian misfortunes in Sicily were attended by misfortunes at home still more dreadful. In the eighteenth year of the war, Alcibiades accompanied to Sparta the ambassadors of Corinth and Syracuse, who had solicited and obtained assistance to the besieged city. On that occasion the Athenian exile first acquired the confidence of the Spartans, by condemning, in the strongest terms, the injustice and ambition of his ungrateful countrymen, “whose cruelty towards himself equalled their inveterate hostility to the Lacedæmonian republic; but that republic might, by following his advice, disarm their resentment. The town of Decelea was situated on the Attic frontier, at an equal distance of fifteen miles from Thebes and Athens. This place, which commanded an extensive and fertile plain, might be surprised and fortified by the Spartans, who, instead of harassing their foes by annual incursions, might thus infest them by a continual war. The wisdom of Sparta had too long neglected such a salutary and decisive measure, especially as the existence of a similar design had often been suggested by the fears of the enemy, who trembled even at the apprehension of seeing a foreign garrison in their territory.”

This advice first proposed, and often urged, by Alcibiades, was adopted in the commencement of the ensuing spring, when the warlike Agis led a powerful army into Attica. The defenceless inhabitants of the frontier fled before his irresistible arms; but instead of pursuing them, as usual, into the heart of the country, he stopped short at Decelea. As all necessary materials had been provided in great abundance, the place was speedily fortified on every side, and the walls of Decelea, which might be distinctly seen across the intermediate plain, bid defiance to those of Athens.

The latter city was kept in continual alarm by the watchful hostility of a neighbouring garrison. The open country was entirely laid waste, and the usual communication with the valuable island of Eubœa was interrupted, from which, in seasons of scarcity, or during the ravages of war, the Athenians commonly derived their supplies of corn, wine, and oil, and whatever is most necessary to life. Harassed by the fatigues of unremitting service, and deprived of daily bread, the slaves murmured, complained, and revolted to the enemy; and their defection robbed the state of twenty thousand useful artisans. Since the latter years of Pericles, the Athenians had not been involved in such distress.

The domestic calamities of the republic did not, however, prevent the most vigorous exertions abroad. Twenty galleys, stationed at Naupactus, watched the motions of the Peloponnesian fleet destined to the assistance of Syracuse; thirty carried on the war in Macedonia, to reduce the rebellion of Amphipolis; a considerable squadron collected tribute, and levied soldiers, in the colonies of Asia; another, still more powerful, ravaged the coast of Peloponnesus. Never did any kingdom or republic equal the magnanimity of Athens; never in ancient or modern times did the courage of any state, entertain an ambition so far superior to its power, or exert efforts so disproportionate to its strength. Amidst the difficulties and dangers which encompassed them on every side, the Athenians persisted in the siege of Syracuse, a city little inferior to their own; and, undaunted by the actual devastation of their country, unterrified by the menaced assault of their walls, they sent, without delay, such a reinforcement into Sicily, as afforded the most promising hopes of success in their expedition against that island.

ATHENIAN REINFORCEMENTS

[Sidenote: [413 B.C.]]