Both the army and the fleet now began to occupy themselves seriously with the construction of the southernmost part of the wall of circumvallation; beginning immediately below the Athenian fortified point of descent from the southern cliff of Epipolæ, and stretching across the lower marshy ground to the Great Harbor. The distance between these two extreme points was about eight stadia or nearly an English mile: the wall was double, with gates, and probably towers, at suitable intervals, inclosing a space of considerable breadth, doubtless roofed over in part, since it served afterwards, with the help of the adjoining citadel on the cliff, as shelter and defence for the whole Athenian army. The Syracusans could not interrupt this process, nor could they undertake a new counter-wall up the mid-slope of Epipolæ, without coming out to fight a general battle, which they did not feel competent to do. Of course the Circle had now been put into condition to defy a second surprise.
But not only were they thus compelled to look on without hindering the blockading wall towards the Harbor. It was now, for the first time, that they began to taste the real restraints and privations of a siege.[380] Down to this moment, their communication with the Anapus and the country beyond, as well as with all sides of the Great Harbor, had been open and unimpeded; whereas now, the arrival of the Athenian fleet, and the change of position of the Athenian army, had cut them off from both,[381] so that little or no fresh supplies of provision could reach them except at the hazard of capture from the hostile ships. On the side of Thapsus, where the northern cliff of Epipolæ affords only two or three practicable passages of ascent, they had before been blocked up by the Athenian army and fleet; and a portion of the fleet seems even now to have been left at Thapsus: so that nothing now remained open, except a portion, especially the northern portion, of the slope of Epipolæ. Of this outlet the besieged, especially their numerous cavalry, doubtless availed themselves, for the purpose of excursions and of bringing in supplies. But it was both longer and more circuitous for such purposes than the plain near the Great Harbor and the Helôrine road: moreover, it had to pass by the high and narrow pass of Euryâlus, and might thus be rendered unavailable to the besieged, whenever Nikias thought fit to occupy and fortify that position. Unfortunately for himself and his army, he omitted this easy but capital precaution, even at the moment when he must have known Gylippus to be approaching.
In regard to the works actually undertaken, the order followed by Nikias and Lamachus can be satisfactorily explained. Having established their fortified post on the centre of the slope of Epipolæ, they were in condition to combat opposition and attack any counter-wall on whichever side the enemy might erect it. Commencing in the first place the execution of the northern portion of the blockading line, they soon desist from this and turn their attention to the southern portion, because it was here that the Syracusans carried their two first counter-works. In attacking the second counter-work of the Syracusans, across the marsh to the Anapus, they chose a suitable moment for bringing the main fleet round from Thapsus into the Great Harbor, with a view to its coöperation. After clearing the lower ground, they probably deemed it advisable, in order to establish a safe and easy communication with their fleet, that the double wall across the marsh, from Epipolæ to the Harbor, should stand next for execution; for which there was this farther reason, that they thereby blocked up the most convenient exit and channel of supply for Syracuse. There are thus plausible reasons assignable why the northern portion of the line of blockade, from the Athenian camp on Epipolæ to the sea at Trogilus, was left to the last, and was found open, at least the greater part of it, by Gylippus.
While the Syracusans thus began to despair of their situation, the prospects of the Athenians were better than ever, promising certain and not very distant triumph. The reports circulating through the neighboring cities all represented them as in the full tide of success, so that many Sikel tribes, hitherto wavering, came in to tender their alliance, while three armed pentekonters also arrived from the Tyrrhenian coast. Moreover, abundant supplies were furnished from the Italian Greeks generally. Nikias, now sole commander since the death of Lamachus, had even the glory of receiving and discussing proposals from Syracuse for capitulation, a necessity which was openly and abundantly canvassed within the city itself. The ill-success of Hermokratês and his colleagues had caused them to be recently displaced from their functions as generals, to which Herakleidês, Euklês, and Tellias, were appointed. But this change did not give them confidence to hazard a fresh battle, while the temper of the city, during such period of forced inaction, was melancholy in the extreme. Though several propositions for surrender, perhaps unofficial, yet seemingly sincere, were made to Nikias, nothing definitive could be agreed upon as to the terms.[382] Had the Syracusan government been oligarchical, the present distress would have exhibited a large body of malcontents upon whom he could have worked with advantage; but the democratical character of the government maintained union at home in this trying emergency.[383]
We must take particular note of these propositions in order to understand the conduct of Nikias during the present critical interval. He had been from the beginning in secret correspondence with a party in Syracuse;[384] who, though neither numerous nor powerful in themselves, were now doubtless both more active and more influential than ever they had been before. From them he received constant and not unreasonable assurances that the city was on the point of surrendering, and could not possibly hold out. And as the tone of opinion without, as well as within, conspired to raise such an impression in his mind, so he suffered himself to be betrayed into a fatal languor and security as to the farther prosecution of the besieging operations. The injurious consequences of the death of Lamachus now became evident. From the time of the departure from Katana down to the battle in which that gallant officer perished,—a period seemingly of about three months, from about March to June 414 B.C.,—the operations of the siege had been conducted with great vigor as well as unremitting perseverance, and the building-work, especially, had been so rapidly executed as to fill the Syracusans with amazement. But so soon as Nikias is left sole commander, this vigorous march disappears and is exchanged for slackness and apathy. The wall across the low ground near the harbor might have been expected to proceed more rapidly, because the Athenian position generally was much stronger, the chance of opposition from the Syracusans was much lessened, and the fleet had been brought into the Great Harbor to coöperate. Yet in fact it seems to have proceeded more slowly; Nikias builds it at first as a double wall, though it would have been practicable to complete the whole line of blockade with a single wall before the arrival of Gylippus, and afterwards, if necessary, to have doubled it either wholly or partially, instead of employing so much time in completing this one portion that Gylippus arrived before it was finished, scarcely less than two months after the death of Lamachus. Both the besiegers and their commander now seem to consider success as certain, without any chance of effective interruption from within, still less from without; so that they may take their time over the work, without caring whether the ultimate consummation comes a month sooner or later.
Though such was the present temper of the Athenian troops, Nikias could doubtless have spurred them on and accelerated the operations, had he himself been convinced of the necessity of doing so. Hitherto, we have seen him always overrating the gloomy contingencies of the future, and disposed to calculate as if the worst was to happen which possibly could happen. But a great part of what passes for caution in his character, was in fact backwardness and inertia of temperament, aggravated by the melancholy addition of a painful internal complaint. If he wasted in indolence the first six months after his arrival in Sicily, and turned to inadequate account the present two months of triumphant position before Syracuse, both these mistakes arose from the same cause; from reluctance to act except under the pressure and stimulus of some obvious necessity. Accordingly, he was always behindhand with events; but when necessity became terrible, so as to subdue the energies of other men, then did he come forward and display unwonted vigor, as we shall see in the following chapter. But now, relieved from all urgency of apparent danger, and misled by the delusive hopes held out through his correspondence in the town, combined with the atmosphere of success which exhilarated his own armament, Nikias fancied the surrender of Syracuse inevitable, and became, for one brief moment preceding his calamitous end, not merely sanguine, but even careless and presumptuous in the extreme. Nothing short of this presumption could have let in his destroying enemy, Gylippus.[385]
That officer—named by the Lacedæmonians commander in Sicily, at the winter-meeting which Alkibiadês had addressed at Sparta—had employed himself in getting together forces for the purpose of the expedition. But the Lacedæmonians, though so far stimulated by the representations of the Athenian exile as to promise aid, were not forward to perform the promise. Even the Corinthians, decidedly the most hearty of all in behalf of Syracuse, were yet so tardy, that in the month of June, Gylippus was still at Leukas, with his armament not quite ready to sail. To embark in a squadron for Sicily, against the numerous and excellent Athenian fleet now acting there, was a service not tempting to any one, and demanding both personal daring and devotion. Moreover, every vessel from Sicily, between March and June 414 B.C., brought intelligence of progressive success on the part of Nikias and Lamachus, thus rendering the prospects of Corinthian auxiliaries still more discouraging.
At length, in the month of June, arrived the news of that defeat of the Syracusans wherein Lamachus was slain, and of its important consequences in forwarding the operations of the besiegers. Great as those consequences were, they were still farther exaggerated by report. It was confidently affirmed, by messenger after messenger, that the wall of circumvallation had been completed, and that Syracuse was now invested on all sides.[386] Both Gylippus and the Corinthians were so far misled as to believe this to be the fact, and despaired, in consequence, of being able to render any effective aid against the Athenians in Sicily. But as there still remained hopes of being able to preserve the Greek cities in Italy, Gylippus thought it important to pass over thither at once with his own little squadron of four sail, two Lacedæmonians and two Corinthians, and the Corinthian captain Pythên; leaving the Corinthian main squadron to follow as soon as it was ready. Intending then to act only in Italy, Gylippus did not fear falling in with the Athenian fleet. He first sailed to Tarentum, friendly and warm in his cause. From hence he undertook a visit to Thurii, where his father Kleandridas, exiled from Sparta, had formerly resided as citizen. After trying to profit by this opening for the purpose of gaining the Thurians, and finding nothing but refusal, he passed on farther southward, until he came opposite to the Terinæan gulf near the southeastern cape of Italy. Here a violent gust of wind off the land overtook him, exposed his vessels to the greatest dangers, and drove him out to sea, until at length, standing in a northerly direction, he was fortunate enough to find shelter again at Tarentum.[387] But such was the damage which his ships had sustained, that he was forced to remain here while they were hauled ashore and refitted.[388]
So untoward a delay threatened to intercept altogether his farther progress. For the Thurians had sent intimation of his visit as well as of the number of his vessels, to Nikias at Syracuse; treating with contempt the idea of four triremes coming to attack the powerful Athenian fleet. In the present sanguine phase of his character, Nikias sympathized with the flattering tenor of the message, and overlooked the gravity of the fact announced. He despised Gylippus as a mere privateer, nor would he even take the precaution of sending four ships from his numerous fleet to watch and intercept the new-comer. Accordingly Gylippus, after having refitted his ships at Tarentum, advanced southward along the coast without opposition to the Epizephyrian Lokri. Here he first learned, to his great satisfaction, that Syracuse was not yet so completely blockaded but that an army might still reach and relieve it from the interior, entering it by the Euryâlus and the heights of Epipolæ. Having deliberated whether he should take the chance of running his ships into the harbor of Syracuse, despite the watch of the Athenian fleet, or whether he should sail through the strait of Messina to Himera at the north of Sicily, and from thence levy an army to cross the island and relieve Syracuse by land, he resolved on the latter course, and passed forthwith through the strait, which he found altogether unguarded. After touching both at Rhegium and Messênê, he arrived safely at Himera. Even at Rhegium, there was no Athenian naval force; though Nikias had, indeed, sent thither four Athenian triremes, after he had been apprized that Gylippus had reached Lokri, rather from excess of precaution, than because he thought it necessary. But this Athenian squadron reached Rhegium too late: Gylippus had already passed the strait; and fortune, smiting his enemy with blindness, landed him unopposed on the fatal soil of Sicily.
The blindness of Nikias would indeed appear unaccountable, were it not that we shall have worse yet to recount. To appreciate his misjudgment fully, and to be sensible that we are not making him responsible for results which could not have been foreseen, we have only to turn back to what had been said six months before by the exile Alkibiadês at Sparta: “Send forthwith an army to Sicily (he exhorted the Lacedæmonians); but send at the same time, what will be yet more valuable than an army, a Spartan to take the supreme command.” It was in fulfilment of this recommendation, the wisdom of which will abundantly appear, that Gylippus had been appointed. And had he even reached Syracuse alone in a fishing-boat, the effect of his presence, carrying the great name of Sparta, and full assurance of Spartan intervention to come, not to mention his great personal ability, would have sufficed to give new life to the besieged. Yet Nikias—having, through a lucky accident, timely notice of his approach, when a squadron of four ships would have prevented his reaching the island—disdains even this most easy precaution, and neglects him as a freebooter of no significance. Such neglect too is the more surprising, since the well-known philo-Laconian tendencies of Nikias would have led us to expect, that he would overvalue rather than undervalue the imposing ascendency of the Spartan name.