tions of putting the aboard. unusually emphatic and impressive. "Recollect (he Exhortasaid) that you too, not less than the Syracusans, Nikias on are now fighting for your own safety and for your crews country; for it is only by victory in the coming struggle that any of you can ever hope to see his country again. Yield not to despair like raw recruits after a first defeat: you, Athenians and allies, familiar with the unexpected revolutions of war, will hope now for the fair turn of fortune, and fight with a spirit worthy of the great force which you see here around you. We generals have now made effective provision against our two great disadvantages-the narrow circuit of the harbour, and the thickness of the enemy's prows'. Sad as the necessity is, we have thrown aside all our Athenian skill and tactics, and have prepared to fight under the conditions forced upon us by the enemy-a land battle on shipboard. It will be for you to conquer in this last desperate struggle, where there is no friendly shore to receive you if you give way. You, hoplites on the deck, as soon as you have the enemy's trireme in contact, keep him fast, and relax not until you have swept away his hoplites and mastered his deck. You, seamen and rowers, must yet keep up your courage, in spite of this sad failure in our means, and subversion of our tactics. You are better defended on deck above, and you have more triremes to help you, than in the recent defeat. Such of you as are not Athenian citizens, I entreat 1 Thucyd. vii. 62. Α δὲ ἀρωγὰ ἐνείδομεν ἐπὶ τῇ τοῦ λίμενος στενότητε πρὸς τὸν μέλλοντα ὄχλον τῶν νεῶν ἔσεσθαι, &c. 2 * Thucyd. vii. 62. Ἐς τοῦτο γὰρ δὴ ἠναγκάσμεθα, ὥστε πεζομαχεῖν ἀπὸ τῶν νεῶν, καὶ τὸ μήτε αὐτοὺς ἀνακρούεσθαι, μήτε ἐκείνους ἐᾷν, ὠφέ λιμον φαίνεται. to recollect the valuable privileges which you have hitherto enjoyed from serving in the navy of Athens. Though not really citizens, you have been reputed and treated as such: you have acquired our dialect, you have copied our habits, and have thus enjoyed the admiration, the imposing station, and the security, arising from our great empire'. Partaking as you do freely in the benefits of that empire, do not now betray it to these Sicilians and Corinthians whom you have so often beaten. For such of you as are Athenians, I again remind you that Athens has neither fresh triremes, nor fresh hoplites, to replace those now here. Unless you are now victorious, her enemies near home will find her defenceless; and our countrymen there will become slaves to Sparta, as you will to Syracuse. Recollect, every man of you, that you now going aboard here are the all of Athens-her hoplites, her ships, her 1 Thucyd. vii. 63. Τοῖς δὲ ναύταις παραινῶ, καὶ ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ τῷδε καὶ δέομαι, μὴ ἐκπεπλῆχθαί τι ταῖς ξυμφοραῖς ἄγαν......ἐκείνην τε τὴν ἡδονὴν ἐνθυμεῖσθαι, ὡς ἀξία ἐστὶ διασώσασθαι, οἱ τέως ̓Αθηναῖοι νομιζό μενοι καὶ μὴ ὄντες ὑμῶν, τῆς τε φωνῆς τῇ ἐπιστήμῃ καὶ τῶν τρόπων τῇ μιμήσει, ἐθαυμάζεσθε κατὰ τὴν Ἑλλάδα, καὶ τῆς ἀρχῆς τῆς ἡμέτερας οὐκ ἔλασσον κατὰ τὸ ὠφελεῖσθαι, ἔς τε τὸ φοβερὸν τοῖς ὑπηκόοις καὶ τὸ μὴ ἀδικεῖσθαι πολὺ πλεῖον, μετείχετε, ὥστε κοινωνοὶ μόνοι ἐλευθέρως ἡμῖν τῆς ἀρχῆς ὄντες, δικαίως αὐτὴν νῦν μὴ καταπροδίδοτε, &c. Dr. Arnold (together with Göller and Poppo), following the Scholiast, explain these words as having particular reference to the metics in the Athenian naval service. But I cannot think this correct. All persons in that service—who were freemen, but yet not citizens of Athens—are here designated; partly metics, doubtless, but partly also citizens of the islands and dependent allies-the §évoi vavßárai alluded to by the Corinthians and by Periklês at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war (Thucyd. i. 121-143) as the vŋr dúvaμis μâdλov ǹ oikeía of Athens. Without doubt there were numerous foreign seamen in the warlike navy of Athens, who derived great consideration as well as profit from the service, and often passed themselves off for Athenian citizens when they really were not so. entire remaining city, and her splendid name'. Bear up then and conquer, every man with his best mettle, in this one last struggle-for Athens as well as yourselves, and on an occasion which will never return." If, in translating the despatch written home ten months before by Nikias to the people of Athens, we were compelled to remark, that the greater part of it was the bitterest condemnation of his own previous policy as commander-so we are here carried back, when we find him striving to palliate the ruinous effects of that confined space of water which paralysed the Athenian seamen, to his own obstinate improvidence in forbidding the egress of the fleet when insisted on by Demosthenês. His hearers probably were too much absorbed with the terrible present, to revert to irremediable mistakes of the past. Immediately on the conclusion of his touching address, the order was given to go aboard, and the seamen took their places. But when the triremes were fully manned, and the trierarchs, after superintending the embarkation, were themselves about to enter and push off-the agony of Nikias was too great to be repressed. Feeling more keenly than any man the intensity of this last death struggle, and the serious, but inevitable shortcomings of the armament in its present condition-he still thought that he had not said enough for the occasion. He now renewed his appeal personally to the trierarchs,—all of them citizens of rank and wealth at Athens. They were 1 Thucyd. vii. 64. Οτι οἱ ἐν ταῖς ναυσὶν ὑμῶν νῦν ἐσόμενοι, καὶ πέζοι τοῖς ̓Αθηναίοις εἰσὶ καὶ νῆες, καὶ ἡ ὑπόλοιπος πόλις, καὶ τὸ μέγα ὄνομα τῶν ̓Αθηνῶν...... Agony of his efforts Nikias to encou rage the officers. Bold and animated Gylippus to the Syracusan fleet. all familiarly known to him, and he addressed him- Very different was the spirit prevalent, and very language of opposite the burning words uttered, on the seaboard of the Syracusan station, as the leaders were mustering their men immediately before embarkation. They had been apprised of the grappling irons now about to be employed by the Athenians, See the striking chapter of Thucyd. vii. 69. Even the same style of Diodorus (xiii. 15) becomes animated in describing this scene. and had guarded against them in part by stretching hides along their bows, so that the "iron-hand" might slip off without acquiring any hold. The preparatory movements even within the Athenian station being perfectly visible, Gylippus sent the fleet out with the usual prefatory harangue. He complimented them on the great achievements which they had already performed in breaking down the naval power of Athens, so long held irresistible1. He reminded them that the sally of their enemies was only a last effort of despair, seeking nothing but escape, undertaken without confidence in themselves, and under the necessity of throwing aside all their own tactics in order to copy feebly those of the Syracusans. He called upon them to recollect the destructive purposes which the invaders had brought with them against Syracuse, to inflict with resentful hand the finishing stroke upon this half-ruined armament, and to taste the delight of satiating a legitimate revenge3. arrange Condition The Syracusan fleet-76 triremes strong, as in the Syracusan last battle was the first to put off from shore; ments. Pythen with the Corinthians in the centre, Sikanus of the Great and Agatharchus on the wings. A certain proportion of them were placed near the mouth of the harbour, in order to guard the barrier; while the 1 Thucyd. vii. 65. 2 Thucyd. vii. 66, 67. 3 Thucyd. vii. 68. πρὸς οὖν ἀταξίαν τε τοιαύτην......ὀργῇ προσω μίξωμεν, καὶ νομίσωμεν ἅμα μὲν νομιμώτατον εἶναι πρὸς τοὺς ἐναντίους, οἳ ἂν ὡς ἐπὶ τιμωρίᾳ τοῦ προσπεσόντος δικαιώσωσιν ἀποπλῆσαι τῆς γνώμης τὸ θυμούμενον, ἅμα δὲ ἐχθροὺς ἀμύνασθαι ἐγγενησόμενον ἡμῖν, καὶ τὸ λεγόμενόν που) ἥδιστον εἶναι. This plain and undisguised invocation of the angry and revengeful passions should be noticed, as a mark of character and manners. sympathi Harbour sing popu lation sur rounding it. |