in hauling off the ships as prizes. His march however was so hurried and disorderly, that the Tyrrhenian troops, on guard at the flank of the Athenian station, sallied out against them as they approached, beat the foremost of them, and drove them away from the shore into the marsh called Lysimeleia. More Syracusan troops came to their aid; but the Athenians also, anxious above all things for the protection of their ships, came forth in greater numbers; and a general battle ensued in which the latter were victorious. Though they did not inflict much loss upon the enemy, yet they saved most of their own triremes which had been driven ashore, together with the crews-and carried them into the naval station. Except for this success on land, the entire Athenian fleet would have been destroyed: as it was, the defeat was still complete, and eighteen triremes were lost, all their crews being slain. This was probably the division of Eurymedon, which having been driven ashore in the recess of Daskon, was too far off from the Athenian station to receive any land assistance. As the Athenians were hauling in their disabled triremes, the Syracusans made a last effort to destroy them by means of a fireship, for which the wind happened to be favourable. But the Athenians found means to prevent her approach, and to extinguish the flames1.

Here was a complete victory gained over Athens on her own element-gained with inferior numbers -gained even over the fresh, and yet formidable fleet recently brought by Demosthenês. It told but Thucyd. vii. 52, 53; Diodor. xiii. 13.

1

cusans de

termine to the mouth

block up

of the har

bour, and

capture the

Athenian

too plainly on which side the superiority now lay- The Syrahow well the Syracusans had organized their naval strength for the specialties of their own harbourhow ruinous had been the folly of Nikias in retaining his excellent seamen imprisoned within that destroy or petty and unwholesome lake, where land and water whole alike did the work of their enemies. It not only armament. disheartened the Athenians, but belied all their past experience, and utterly confounded them. Sickness of the whole enterprise, and repentance for having undertaken it, now became uppermost in their minds yet it is remarkable that we hear of no complaints against Nikias separately'. But repentance came too late. The Syracusans, fully alive to the importance of their victory, sailed round the harbour in triumph as again their own', and already looked on the enemy within it as their prisoners. They determined to close up and guard the mouth of it, from Plemmyrium to Ortygia, so as to leave no farther liberty of exit.

of the Syra

cusans

power of

new ha

Nor were they insensible how vastly the scope of Large views the contest was now widened, and the value of the stake before them enhanced. It was not merely against the to rescue their own city from siege, nor even to Athensrepel and destroy the besieging army, that they zards now were now contending. It was to extinguish the endanger entire power of Athens, and liberate the half of that power. Greece from dependence; for Athens could never be expected to survive so terrific a loss as that of

1 Thucyd. vii. 55. Οἱ μὲν ̓Αθηναῖοι ἐν παντὶ δὴ ἀθυμίας ἦσαν, καὶ ὁ παράλογος αὐτοῖς μέγας ἦν, πολὺ δὲ μείζων ἔτι τῆς στρατείας ὁ μετάμελος. 2 Thucyd. vii. 56. Οἱ δὲ Συρακόσιοι τόν τε λιμένα εὐθὺς παρέπλεον ἀδεῶς, &c.

opened to

Vast num

bers, and miscellaneous

origin, of

the combatants now

engaged in fighting for or against Syracuse.

the entire double armament before Syracuse'. The Syracusans exulted in the thought that this great achievement would be theirs; that their city was the field, and their navy the chief instrument, of victory; a lasting source of glory to them, not merely in the eyes of contemporaries, but even in those of posterity. Their pride swelled when they reflected on the Pan-Hellenic importance which the siege of Syracuse had now acquired, and when they counted up the number and variety of Greek warriors who were now fighting, on one side or the other, between Euryâlus and Plemmyrium. With the exception of the great struggle between Athens and the Peloponnesian confederacy, never before had combatants so many and so miscellaneous been engaged under the same banners. Greeks continental and insular-Ionic, Doric, and Æolic-autonomous and dependent-volunteers and mercenaries-from Miletus and Chios in the east to Selinus in the west-were all here to be found; and not merely Greeks, but also the barbaric Sikels, Egestæans, Tyrrhenians, and Iapygians. If the Lacedæmonians, Corinthians, and Boeotians, were fighting on the side of Syracuse-the Argeians and Mantineians, not to mention the great insular cities, stood in arms against her. The jumble of kinship among the combatants on both sides, as well as the cross action of different local antipathies, is put in lively antithesis by Thucydidês?. But amidst so vast an assembled number, of which they were the chiefs, the paymasters, and the centre of

1

Thucyd. vii. 56.

2

Thucyd. vii. 57, 58.

The Syrablock up

cusans

the mouth

combination-the Syracusans might well feel a sense of personal aggrandisement, and a consciousness of the great blow which they were about to strike, sufficient to exalt them for the time above the level even of their great Dorian chiefs in Peloponnesus. It was their first operation, occupying three days, to close up the mouth of the Great Harbour, which was nearly one mile broad, with vessels of every of the description-triremes, traders, boats, &c.-anchored harbour. in an oblique direction, and chained together'. They at the same time prepared their naval force with redoubled zeal for the desperate struggle which they knew to be coming. They then awaited the efforts of the Athenians, who watched their proceedings with sadness and anxiety.

Nikias and his colleagues called together the principal officers to deliberate what was to be done. As they had few provisions remaining, and had counter-ordered their farther supplies, some instant and desperate effort was indispensable; and the only point in debate was, whether they should burn their fleet and retire by land, or make a fresh maritime exertion to break out of the harbour. Such had been the impression left by the recent sea-fight, that many in the camp leaned to the former scheme2. But the generals resolved upon first trying the latter, and exhausted all their combinations to give to it the greatest possible effect. They now evacuated the upper portion of their lines, both on the higher ground of Epipolæ, and even on the lower ground, such portion as was nearest to the southern cliff; confining themselves to a limited fortified space Thucyd. vii. 59; Diodor. xiii. 14.

* Plutarch, Nikias, c. 24.

The Athesolve to

nians re.

force their way out

prepara

tions made

by the

generals.

close to the shore, just adequate for their sick, their wounded, and their stores; in order to spare the necessity for a large garrison to defend them, and thus leave nearly their whole force disposable for sea-service. They then made ready every trireme in the station, which could be rendered ever so imperfectly seaworthy, constraining every fit man to serve aboard them, without distinction of age, rank, or country. The triremes were manned with double crews of soldiers, hoplites as well as bowmen and darters—the latter mostly Akarnanians; while the hoplites, stationed at the prow with orders to board the enemy as quickly as possible, were furnished with grappling-irons to detain the enemy's ship immediately after the moment of collision, in order that it might not be withdrawn and the collision repeated, with all its injurious effects arising from the strength and massiveness of the Syracusan epôtids. The best consultation was held with the steersmen as to arrangement and manoeuvres of every trireme, and no precaution omitted which the scanty means at hand allowed. In the well-known impossibility of obtaining new provisions, every man was anxious to hurry on the struggle'. But Nikias, as he mustered them on the shore immediately before going aboard, saw but too plainly that it was the mere stress of desperation which impelled them; that the elasticity, the disciplined confidence, the maritime pride, habitual to the Athenians on shipboard-was extinct, or dimly and faintly burning.

He did his best to revive them, by exhortations Thucyd. vii. 60.