Nor were they insensible how vastly the scope of the contest was now widened, and the value of the stake before them enhanced. It was not merely to rescue their own city from siege, nor even to repel and destroy the besieging army, that they were now contending. It was to extinguish the entire power of Athens, and liberate the half of Greece from dependence; for Athens could never be expected to survive so terrific a loss as that of the entire double armament before Syracuse.[472] 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 Euryalus 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 Lacædemonians, Corinthians, and Bœotians 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.[473] But amidst so vast an assembled number, of which they were the chiefs, the paymasters, and the centre of combination, the Syracusans might well feel a sense of personal aggrandizement, 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 Harbor, which was nearly one mile broad, with vessels of every description, triremes, traders, boats, etc., anchored in an oblique direction, and chained together.[474] 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 harbor. Such had been the impression left by the recent sea-fight, that many in the camp leaned to the former scheme.[475] 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 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 manœuvres of every trireme, nor was any 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.[476] 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 unusually emphatic and impressive. “Recollect (he said) that you too, not less than the Syracusans, are now fighting for your own safety and for your 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 harbor, and the thickness of the enemy’s prows.[477] 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.[478] 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 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.[479] 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 entire remaining city, and her splendid name.[480] 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 paralyzed 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 all familiarly known to him, and he addressed himself to every man separately by his own name, his father’s name, and his tribe, adjuring him by the deepest and most solemn motives which could touch the human feelings. Some he reminded of their own previous glories, others of the achievements of illustrious ancestors, imploring them not to dishonor or betray these precious titles: to all alike he recalled the charm of their beloved country, with its full political freedom and its unconstrained license of individual agency to every man: to all alike he appealed in the names of their wives, their children, and their paternal gods. He cared not for being suspected of trenching upon the common places of rhetoric: he caught at every topic which could touch the inmost affections, awaken the inbred patriotism, and rekindle the abated courage of the officers, whom he was sending forth to this desperate venture. He at length constrained himself to leave off, still fancying in his anxiety that he ought to say more, and proceeded to marshal the land-force for the defence of the lines, as well as along the shore, where they might render as much service and as much encouragement as possible to the combatants on shipboard.[481]
Very different was the spirit prevalent, and very 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 apprized of the grappling-irons now about to be employed by the Athenians, 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 irresistible.[482] 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.[483] 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 revenge.[484]
The Syracusan fleet—seventy-six triremes strong, as in the last battle—was the first to put off from shore; Pythen with the Corinthians in the centre, Sikanus and Agatharchus on the wings. A certain proportion of them were placed near the mouth of the harbor, in order to guard the barrier; while the rest were distributed around the harbor in order to attack the Athenians from different sides as soon as they should approach. Moreover, the surface of the harbor swarmed with the light craft of the Syracusans, in many of which embarked youthful volunteers, sons of the best families in the city;[485] boats of no mean service during the battle, saving or destroying the seamen cast overboard from disabled ships, as well as annoying the fighting Athenian triremes. The day was one sacred to Hêraklês at Syracuse; and the prophets announced that the god would insure victory to the Syracusans, provided they stood on the defensive, and did not begin the attack.[486] Moreover, the entire shore round the harbor, except the Athenian station and its immediate neighborhood, was crowded with Syracusan soldiers and spectators; while the walls of Ortygia, immediately overhanging the water, were lined with the feebler population of the city, the old men, women, and children. From the Athenian station presently came forth one hundred and ten triremes, under Demosthenês, Menander, and Euthydêmus, with the customary pæan, its tone probably partaking of the general sadness of the camp. They steered across direct to the mouth of the harbor, beholding on all sides the armed enemies ranged along the shore, as well as the unarmed multitudes who were imprecating the vengeance of the gods upon their heads; while for them there was no sympathy, except among the fellow-sufferers within their own lines. Inside of this narrow basin, rather more than five English miles in circuit, one hundred and ninety-four ships of war, each manned with more than two hundred men, were about to join battle, in the presence of countless masses around, all with palpitating hearts, and near enough both to see and hear; the most picturesque battle—if we could abstract our minds from its terrible interest —probably in history, without smoke or other impediments to vision, and in the clear atmosphere of Sicily, a serious and magnified realization of those naumachiæ which the Roman emperors used to exhibit with gladiators on the Italian lakes, for the recreation of the people.
The Athenian fleet made directly for that portion of the barrier where a narrow opening—perhaps closed by a movable chain—had been left for merchant-vessels. Their first impetuous attack broke through the Syracusan squadron defending it, and they were already attempting to sever its connecting bonds, when the enemy from all sides crowded in upon them and forced them to desist. Presently the battle became general, and the combatants were distributed in various parts of the harbor. On both sides a fierce and desperate courage was displayed, even greater than had been shown on any of the former occasions. At the first onset, the skill and tactics of the steersmen shone conspicuous, well seconded by zeal on the part of the rowers and by their ready obedience to the voice of the keleustês. As the vessels neared, the bowmen, slingers, and throwers on the deck, hurled clouds of missiles against the enemy; next, was heard the loud crash of the two impinging metallic fronts, resounding all along the shore.[487] When the vessels were thus once in contact, they were rarely allowed to separate: a strenuous hand-fight then commenced by the hoplites in each, trying respectively to board and master their enemy’s deck. It was not always, however, that each trireme had its own single and special enemy: sometimes one ship had two or three enemies to contend with at once, sometimes she fell aboard of one unsought, and became entangled. After a certain time, the fight still obstinately continuing, all sort of battle order became lost; the skill of the steersman was of little avail, and the voice of the keleustês was drowned amidst the universal din and mingled cries from victors as well as vanquished. On both sides emulous exhortations were poured forth, together with reproach and sarcasm addressed to any ship which appeared flinching from the contest; though factitious stimulus of this sort was indeed but little needed.
Such was the heroic courage on both sides, that for a long time victory was altogether doubtful, and the whole harbor was a scene of partial encounters, wherein sometimes Syracusans, sometimes Athenians, prevailed. According as success thus fluctuated, so followed the cheers or wailings of the spectators ashore. At one and the same time, every variety of human emotion might be witnessed; according as attention was turned towards a victorious or a defeated ship. It was among the spectators in the Athenian station above all, whose entire life and liberty were staked in the combat, that this emotion might be seen exaggerated into agony, and overpassing the excitement even of the combatants themselves.[488] Those among them who looked towards a portion of the harbor where their friends seemed winning, were full of joy and thanksgiving to the gods: such of their neighbors who contemplated an Athenian ship in difficulty, gave vent to their feelings in shrieks and lamentation; while a third group, with their eyes fixed on some portion of the combat still disputed, were plunged in all the agitations of doubt, manifested even in the tremulous swing of their bodies, as hope or fear alternately predominated. During all the time that the combat remained undecided, the Athenians ashore were distracted by all these manifold varieties of intense sympathy. But at length the moment came, after a long-protracted struggle, when victory began to declare in favor of the Syracusans, who, perceiving that their enemies were slackening, redoubled their shouts as well as their efforts, and pushed them all back towards the land. All the Athenian triremes, abandoning farther resistance, were thrust ashore like shipwrecked vessels in or near their own station; a few being even captured before they could arrive there. The diverse manifestations of sympathy among the Athenians in the station itself were now exchanged for one unanimous shriek of agony and despair. The boldest of them rushed to rescue the ships and their crews from pursuit, others to man their walls in case of attack from land: many were even paralyzed at the sight, and absorbed with the thoughts of their own irretrievable ruin. Their souls were doubtless still farther subdued by the wild and enthusiastic joy which burst forth in maddening shouts from the hostile crowds around the harbor, in response to their own victorious comrades on shipboard.
Such was the close of this awful, heart-stirring, and decisive combat. The modern historian strives in vain to convey the impression of it which appears in the condensed and burning phrases of Thucydidês. We find in his description of battles generally, and of this battle beyond all others, a depth and abundance of human emotion which has now passed out of military proceedings. The Greeks who fight, like the Greeks who look on, are not soldiers withdrawn from the community, and specialized as well as hardened by long professional training, but citizens with all the passions, instincts, sympathies, joys, and sorrows of domestic as well as political life. Moreover, the non-military population in ancient times had an interest of the most intense kind in the result of the struggle; which made the difference to them, if not of life and death, at least of the extremity of happiness and misery. Hence the strong light and shade, the Homeric exhibition of undisguised impulse, the tragic detail of personal motive and suffering, which pervades this and other military descriptions of Thucydidês. When we read the few but most vehement words which he employs to depict the Athenian camp under this fearful trial, we must recollect that these were not only men whose all was at stake, but that they were moreover citizens full of impressibility, sensitive and demonstrative Greeks; and, indeed, the most sensitive and demonstrative of all Greeks. To repress all manifestations of strong emotion was not considered in ancient times essential to the dignity of the human character.