Such was the state of feeling between the two great powers of Central Greece in November 414 B.C., when the envoys arrived from Syracuse; envoys from Nikias on the one part, from Gylippus and the Syracusans on the other; each urgently calling for farther support. The Corinthians and Syracusans vehemently pressed their claims at Sparta; nor was Alkibiadês again wanting, to renew his instances for the occupation of Dekeleia. It was in the face of this impending liability to renewed Peloponnesian invasion that the Athenians took their resolution, above commented on, to send a second army to Syracuse and prosecute the siege with vigor. If there were any hesitation yet remaining on the part of the Lacedæmonians, it disappeared so soon as they were made aware of the imprudent resolution of Athens; which not only created an imperative necessity for sustaining Syracuse, but also rendered Athens so much more vulnerable at home, by removing the better part of her force. Accordingly, very soon after the vote passed at Athens, an equally decisive resolution for direct hostilities was adopted at Sparta. It was determined that a Peloponnesian allied force should be immediately prepared, to be sent at the first opening of spring to Syracuse, and that at the same time Attica should be invaded, and the post of Dekeleia fortified. Orders to this effect were immediately transmitted to the whole body of Peloponnesian allies; especially requisitions for implements, materials, and workmen, towards the construction of the projected fort at Dekeleia.[414]
CHAPTER LX.
FROM THE RESUMPTION OF DIRECT HOSTILITIES BETWEEN ATHENS AND SPARTA, DOWN TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ATHENIAN ARMAMENT IN SICILY.
The Syracusan war now no longer stands apart, as an event by itself, but becomes absorbed in the general war rekindling throughout Greece. Never was any winter so actively and extensively employed in military preparations, as the winter of 414-413 B.C., the months immediately preceding that which Thucydidês terms the nineteenth spring of the Peloponnesian war, but which other historians call the beginning of the Dekeleian war.[415] While Eurymedon went with his ten triremes to Syracuse, even in midwinter, Demosthenês exerted himself all the winter to get together the second armament for early spring. Twenty other Athenian triremes were farther sent round Peloponnesus to the station of Naupaktus, to prevent any Corinthian reinforcements from sailing out of the Corinthian gulf. Against these latter, the Corinthians on their side prepared twenty-five fresh triremes, to serve as a convoy to the transports carrying their hoplites.[416] In Corinth, Sikyôn, and Bœotia, as well as at Lacedæmon, levies of hoplites were going on for the armament to Syracuse, at the same time that everything was getting ready for the occupation of Dekeleia. Lastly, Gylippus was engaged with not less activity in stirring up all Sicily to take a more decisive part in the coming year’s struggle.
From Cape Tænarus in Laconia, at the earliest moment of spring, embarked a force of six hundred Lacedæmonian hoplites—Helots and Neodamodes—under the Spartan Ekkritus, and three hundred Bœotian hoplites under the Thebans Xenon and Nikon, with the Thespian Hegesandrus. They were directed to cross the sea southward to Kyrênê in Libya, and from thence to make their way along the African coast to Sicily. At the same time a body of seven hundred hoplites under Alexarchus, partly Corinthians, partly hired Arcadians, partly Sikyonians, under constraint from their powerful neighbors,[417] departed from the northwest of Peloponnesus and the mouth of the Corinthian gulf for Sicily, the Corinthian triremes watching them until they were past the Athenian squadron at Naupaktus.
These were proceedings of importance: but the most important of all was the reinvasion of Attica at the same time by the great force of the Peloponnesian alliance, under the Spartan king Agis son of Archidamus. Twelve years had elapsed since Attica last felt the hand of the destroyer, a little before the siege of Sphakteria. The plain in the neighborhood of Athens was now first laid waste, after which the invaders proceeded to their special purpose of erecting a fortified post for occupation at Dekeleia. The work, apportioned among the allies present, who had come prepared with the means of executing it, was completed during the present summer, and a garrison was established there composed of contingents relieving each other at intervals, under the command of king Agis himself. Dekeleia was situated on an outlying eminence belonging to the range called Parnês, about fourteen miles to the north of Athens, near the termination of the plain of Athens, and commanding an extensive view of that plain as well as of the plain of Eleusis. The hill on which it stood, if not the fort itself, was visible even from the walls of Athens. It was admirably situated both as a central point for excursions over Attica, and for communication with Bœotia; while the road from Athens to Orôpus, the main communication with Eubœa, passed through the gorge immediately under it.[418]
We read with amazement, and the contemporary world saw with yet greater amazement, that while this important work was actually going on, and while the whole Peloponnesian confederacy was renewing its pressure with redoubled force upon Athens, at that very moment,[419] the Athenians sent out, not only a fleet of thirty triremes under Chariklês to annoy the coasts of Peloponnesus, but also the great armament which they had resolved upon under Demosthenês, to push offensive operations against Syracuse. The force under the latter general consisted of sixty Athenian and five Chian triremes; of twelve hundred Athenian hoplites of the best class, chosen from the citizen muster-roll; with a considerable number of hoplites besides, from the subject-allies and elsewhere. There had been also engaged on hire fifteen hundred peltasts from Thrace, of the tribe called Dii; but these men did not arrive in time, so that Demosthenês set sail without them.[420] Chariklês having gone forward to take aboard a body of allies from Argos, the two fleets joined at Ægina, inflicted some devastations on the coasts of Laconia, and established a strong post on the island of Kythêra to encourage desertion among the Helots. From hence Chariklês returned with the Argeians, while Demosthenês conducted his armament round Peloponnesus to Korkyra.[421] On the Eleian coast, he destroyed a transport carrying hoplites to Syracuse, though the men escaped ashore: from thence he proceeded to Zakynthus and Kephallenia, from whence he engaged some additional hoplites, and to Anaktorium, in order to procure darters and slingers from Akarnania. It was here that he was met by Eurymedon with his ten triremes, who had gone forward to Syracuse in the winter with the pecuniary remittance urgently required, and was now returning to act as colleague of Demosthenês in the command.[422] The news brought by Eurymedon from Sicily was in every way discouraging. Yet the two admirals were under the necessity of sparing ten triremes from their fleet to reinforce Konon at Naupaktus, who was not strong enough alone to contend against the Corinthian fleet which watched him from the opposite coast. To make good this diminution, Eurymedon went forward to Korkyra, with the view of obtaining from the Korkyræans fifteen fresh triremes and a contingent of hoplites, while Demosthenês was getting together the Akarnanian darters and slingers.[423]
Eurymedon not only brought back word of the distressed condition of the Athenians in the harbor of Syracuse, but had also learned, during his way back, their heavy additional loss by the capture of the fort at Plemmyrium. Gylippus returned to Syracuse early in the spring, nearly about the time when Agis invaded Attica and when Demosthenês quitted Peiræus. He returned with fresh reinforcements from the interior, and with redoubled ardor for decisive operations against Nikias before aid could arrive from Athens. It was his first care, in conjunction with Hermokratês, to inspire the Syracusans with courage for fighting the Athenians on shipboard. Such was the acknowledged superiority of the latter at sea, that this was a task of some difficulty, calling for all the eloquence and ascendency of the two leaders: “The Athenians (said Hermokratês to his countrymen) have not been always eminent at sea as they now are: they were once landsmen like you, and more than you, they were only forced on shipboard by the Persian invasion. The only way to deal with bold men like them, is to show a front bolder still. They have often by their audacity daunted enemies of greater real force than themselves, and they must now be taught that others can play the same game with them. Go right at them before they expect it; and you will gain more by thus surprising and intimidating them, than you will suffer by their superior science.” Such lessons, addressed to men already in the tide of success, were presently efficacious, and a naval attack was resolved.[424]
The town of Syracuse had two ports, one on each side of the island of Ortygia. The lesser port—as it was called afterwards, the Portus Lakkius—lay northward of Ortygia, between that island and the low ground or Nekropolis near the outer city: the other lay on the opposite side of the isthmus of Ortygia within the Great Harbor. Both of them, it appears, were protected against attack from without, by piles and stakes planted in the bottom in front of them. But the lesser port was the more secure of the two, and the principal docks of the Syracusans were situated within it; the Syracusan fleet, eighty triremes strong, being distributed between them. The entire Athenian fleet was stationed under the fort of Plemmyrium, immediately opposite to the southern point of Ortygia.
Gylippus laid his plan with great ability, so as to take the Athenians completely by surprise. Having trained and prepared the naval force as thoroughly as he could, he marched out his land-force secretly by night, over Epipolæ and round by the right bank of the Anapus, to the neighborhood of the fort of Plemmyrium. With the first dawn of morning, the Syracusan fleet sailed out, at one and the same signal, from both the ports; forty-five triremes out of the lesser port, thirty-five out of the other. Both squadrons tried to round the southern point of Ortygia, so as to unite and to attack the enemy at Plemmyrium in concert. The Athenians, though unprepared and confused, hastened to man sixty ships; with twenty-five of which, they met the thirty-five Syracusans sailing forth from the Great Harbor, while with the other thirty-five they encountered the forty-five from the lesser port, immediately outside of the mouth of the Great Harbor. In the former of these two actions the Syracusans were at first victors; in the second also, the Syracusans from the outside forced their way into the mouth of the Great Harbor, and joined their comrades. But being little accustomed to naval warfare, they presently fell into complete confusion, partly in consequence of their unexpected success: so that the Athenians, recovering from the first shock, attacked them anew and completely defeated them; sinking or disabling eleven ships, of three of which the crews were made prisoners, the rest being mostly slain.[425] Three Athenian triremes were destroyed also.