History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides (free ebooks for android .txt) 📕

Summer was now over. The winter following, the Athenians at once

began to prepare for moving on Syracuse, and the Syracusans on their

side for marching against them. From the moment when the Athenians

failed to attack them instantly as they at first feared and

expected, every day that passed did something to revive their courage;

and when they saw them sailing far away from them on the other side of

Sicily, and going to Hybla only to fail in their attempts to storm it,

they thought less of them than ever, and called upon their generals,

as the multitude is apt to do in its moments of confidence, to lead

them to Catana, since the enemy would not come to them. Parties also

of the Syracusan horse employed in reconnoitring constantly rode up to

the Athenian armament, and among other insults asked them whether they

had not really come to settle with the Syracusans in a foreign country

rather than to resettle the Leontines in their own.

Aware of this, the Athenian generals determined to draw them out

in mass as far as possible from the city, and themselves in the

meantime to sail by night alongshore, and take up at their leisure a

convenient position. This they knew they could not so well do, if they

had to disembark from their ships in front of a force prepared for

them, or to go by land openly. The numerous cavalry of the

Syracusans (a force which they were themselves without) would then

be able to do the greatest mischief to their light troops and the

crowd that followed them; but this plan would enable them to take up a

position in which the horse could do them no hurt worth speaking of,

some Syracusan exiles with the army having told them of the spot

near the Olympieum, which they afterwards occupied. In pursuance of

their idea, the generals imagined the following stratagem. They sent

to Syracuse a man devoted to them, and by the Syracusan generals

thought to be no less in their interest; he was a native of Catana,

and said he came from persons in that place, whose names the Syracusan

generals were acquainted with, and whom they knew to be among the

members of their party still left in the city. He told them that the

Athenians passed the night in the town, at some distance from their

arms, and that if the Syracusans would name a day and come with all

their people at daybreak to attack the armament, they, their

friends, would close the gates upon the troops in the city, and set

fire to the vessels, while the Syracusans would easily take the camp

by an attack upon the stockade. In this they would be aided by many of

the Catanians, who were already prepared to act, and from whom he

himself came.

The generals of the Syracusans, who did not want confidence, and who

had intended even without this to march on Catana, believed the man

without any sufficient inquiry, fixed at once a day upon which they

would be there, and dismissed him, and the Selinuntines and others

of their allies having now arrived, gave orders for all the Syracusans

to march out in mass. Their preparations completed, and the time fixed

for their arrival being at hand, they set out for Catana, and passed

the night upon the river Symaethus, in the Leontine territory.

Meanwhile the Athenians no sooner knew of their approach than they

took all their forces and such of the Sicels or others as had joined

them, put them on board their ships and boats, and sailed by night

to Syracuse. Thus, when morning broke the Athenians were landing

opposite the Olympieum ready to seize their camping ground, and the

Syracusan horse having ridden up first to Catana and found that all

the armament had put to sea, turned back and told the infantry, and

then all turned back together, and went to the relief of the city.

In the meantime, as the march before the Syracusans was a long

one, the Athenians quietly sat down their army in a convenient

position, where they could begin an engagement when they pleased,

and where the Syracusan cavalry would have least opportunity of

annoying them, either before or during the action, being fenced off on

one side by walls, houses, trees, and by a marsh, and on the other

by cliffs. They also felled the neighbouring trees and carried them

down to the sea, and formed a palisade alongside of their ships, and

with stones which they picked up and wood hastily raised a fort at

Daskon, the most vulnerable point of their position, and broke down

the bridge over the Anapus. These preparations were allowed to go on

without any interruption from the city, the first hostile force to

appear being the Syracusan cavalry, followed afterwards by all the

foot together. At first they came close up to the Athenian army, and

then, finding that they did not offer to engage, crossed the

Helorine road and encamped for the night.

The next day the Athenians and their allies prepared for battle,

their dispositions being as follows: Their right wing was occupied

by the Argives and Mantineans, the centre by the Athenians, and the

rest of the field by the other allies. Half their army was drawn up

eight deep in advance, half close to their tents in a hollow square,

formed also eight deep, which had orders to look out and be ready to

go to the support of the troops hardest pressed. The camp followers

were placed inside this reserve. The Syracusans, meanwhile, formed

their heavy infantry sixteen deep, consisting of the mass levy of

their own people, and such allies as had joined them, the strongest

contingent being that of the Selinuntines; next to them the cavalry of

the Geloans, numbering two hundred in all, with about twenty horse and

fifty archers from Camarina. The cavalry was posted on their right,

full twelve hundred strong, and next to it the darters. As the

Athenians were about to begin the attack, Nicias went along the lines,

and addressed these words of encouragement to the army and the nations

composing it:

“Soldiers, a long exhortation is little needed by men like

ourselves, who are here to fight in the same battle, the force

itself being, to my thinking, more fit to inspire confidence than a

fine speech with a weak army. Where we have Argives, Mantineans,

Athenians, and the first of the islanders in the ranks together, it

were strange indeed, with so many and so brave companions in arms,

if we did not feel confident of victory; especially when we have

mass levies opposed to our picked troops, and what is more, Siceliots,

who may disdain us but will not stand against us, their skill not

being at all commensurate to their rashness. You may also remember

that we are far from home and have no friendly land near, except

what your own swords shall win you; and here I put before you a motive

just the reverse of that which the enemy are appealing to; their cry

being that they shall fight for their country, mine that we shall

fight for a country that is not ours, where we must conquer or

hardly get away, as we shall have their horse upon us in great

numbers. Remember, therefore, your renown, and go boldly against the

enemy, thinking the present strait and necessity more terrible than

they.”

After this address Nicias at once led on the army. The Syracusans

were not at that moment expecting an immediate engagement, and some

had even gone away to the town, which was close by; these now ran up

as hard as they could and, though behind time, took their places

here or there in the main body as fast as they joined it. Want of zeal

or daring was certainly not the fault of the Syracusans, either in

this or the other battles, but although not inferior in courage, so

far as their military science might carry them, when this failed

them they were compelled to give up their resolution also. On the

present occasion, although they had not supposed that the Athenians

would begin the attack, and although constrained to stand upon their

defence at short notice, they at once took up their arms and

advanced to meet them. First, the stone-throwers, slingers, and

archers of either army began skirmishing, and routed or were routed by

one another, as might be expected between light troops; next,

soothsayers brought forward the usual victims, and trumpeters urged on

the heavy infantry to the charge; and thus they advanced, the

Syracusans to fight for their country, and each individual for his

safety that day and liberty hereafter; in the enemy’s army, the

Athenians to make another’s country theirs and to save their own

from suffering by their defeat; the Argives and independent allies

to help them in getting what they came for, and to earn by victory

another sight of the country they had left behind; while the subject

allies owed most of their ardour to the desire of self-preservation,

which they could only hope for if victorious; next to which, as a

secondary motive, came the chance of serving on easier terms, after

helping the Athenians to a fresh conquest.

The armies now came to close quarters, and for a long while fought

without either giving ground. Meanwhile there occurred some claps of

thunder with lightning and heavy rain, which did not fail to add to

the fears of the party fighting for the first time, and very little

acquainted with war; while to their more experienced adversaries these

phenomena appeared to be produced by the time of year, and much more

alarm was felt at the continued resistance of the enemy. At last the

Argives drove in the Syracusan left, and after them the Athenians

routed the troops opposed to them, and the Syracusan army was thus cut

in two and betook itself to flight. The Athenians did not pursue

far, being held in check by the numerous and undefeated Syracusan

horse, who attacked and drove back any of their heavy infantry whom

they saw pursuing in advance of the rest; in spite of which the

victors followed so far as was safe in a body, and then went back

and set up a trophy. Meanwhile the Syracusans rallied at the

Helorine road, where they reformed as well as they could under the

circumstances, and even sent a garrison of their own citizens to the

Olympieum, fearing that the Athenians might lay hands on some of the

treasures there. The rest returned to the town.

The Athenians, however, did not go to the temple, but collected

their dead and laid them upon a pyre, and passed the night upon the

field. The next day they gave the enemy back their dead under truce,

to the number of about two hundred and sixty, Syracusans and allies,

and gathered together the bones of their own, some fifty, Athenians

and allies, and taking the spoils of the enemy, sailed back to Catana.

It was now winter; and it did not seem possible for the moment to

carry on the war before Syracuse, until horse should have been sent

for from Athens and levied among the allies in Sicily—to do away

with their utter inferiority in cavalry—and money should have been

collected in the country and received from Athens, and until some of

the cities, which they hoped would be now more disposed to listen to

them after the battle, should have been brought over, and corn and all

other necessaries provided, for a campaign in the spring against

Syracuse.

With this intention they sailed off to Naxos and Catana for the

winter. Meanwhile the Syracusans burned their dead and then held an

assembly,