The succor brought from Thebes, by Mykalessian fugitives, arrived unhappily only in time to avenge, but not to save, the inhabitants. The Thracians were already retiring with the booty which they could carry away, when the bœotarch Skirphondas overtook them, both with cavalry and hoplites, after having put to death some greedy plunderers who tarried too long in the town. He compelled them to relinquish most of their booty, and pursued them to the sea-shore; not without a brave resistance from these peltasts, who had a peculiar way of fighting which disconcerted the Thebans. But when they arrived at the sea-shore, the Athenian ships did not think it safe to approach very close, so that not less than two hundred and fifty Thracians were slain before they could get aboard;[536] and the Athenian commander, Diitrephês was so severely wounded that he died shortly afterwards. The rest pursued their voyage homeward.
Meanwhile, the important station of Naupaktus and the mouth of the Corinthian gulf again became the theatre of naval encounter. It will be recollected that this was the scene of the memorable victories gained by the Athenian admiral Phormion in the second year of the Peloponnesian war,[537] wherein the nautical superiority of Athens over her enemies, as to ships, crews, and admiral, had been so transcendently manifested. In that respect matters had now considerably changed. While the navy of Athens had fallen off since the days of Phormion, that of her enemy had improved: Ariston, and other skilful Corinthian steersmen, not attempting to copy Athenian tactics, had studied the best mode of coping with them, and had modified the build of their own triremes accordingly,[538] at Corinth as well as at Syracuse. Seventeen years before, Phormion with eighteen Athenian triremes would have thought himself a full match for twenty-five Corinthian; but the Athenian admiral of this year, Konon, also a perfectly brave man, now judged so differently, that he constrained Demosthenês and Eurymedon to reinforce his eighteen triremes with ten others,—out of the best of their fleet, at a time when they had certainly none to spare,—on the ground that the Corinthian fleet opposite, of twenty-five sail, was about to assume the offensive against him.[539]
Soon afterwards Diphilus came to supersede Konon, with some fresh ships from Athens, which made the total number of triremes thirty-three. The Corinthian fleet, reinforced so as to be nearly of the same number, took up a station on the coast of Achaia opposite Naupaktus, at a spot called Erineus, in the territory of Rhypes. They ranged themselves across the mouth of a little indentation of the coast, or bay, in the shape of a crescent, with two projecting promontories as horns: each of these promontories was occupied by a friendly land-force, thus supporting the line of triremes at both flanks. This was a position which did not permit the Athenians to sail through the line, or manœuvre round it and in the rear of it. Accordingly, when the fleet of Diphilus came across from Naupaktus, it remained for some time close in front of the Corinthians, neither party venturing to attack; for the straightforward collision was destructive to the Athenian ships with their sharp, but light and feeble beaks, while it was favorable to the solid bows and thick epôtids, or ear-projections, of the Corinthian trireme. After considerable delay, the Corinthians at length began the attack on their side, yet not advancing far enough out to sea to admit of the manœuvring and evolutions of the Athenians. The battle lasted some time, terminating with no decisive advantage to either party. Three Corinthian triremes were completely disabled, though the crews of all escaped by swimming to their friends ashore: on the Athenian side, not one trireme became absolutely water-logged, but seven were so much damaged, by straightforward collision with the stronger bows of the enemy, that they became almost useless after they got back to Naupaktus. The Athenians had so far the advantage, that they maintained their station, while the Corinthians did not venture to renew the fight: moreover, both the wind and the current set towards the northern shore, so that the floating fragments and dead bodies came into possession of the Athenians. Each party thought itself entitled to erect a trophy, but the real feeling of victory lay on the side of Corinth, and that of defeat on the side of Athens. The reputed maritime superiority of the latter was felt by both parties to have sustained a diminution; and such assuredly would have been the impression of Phormion, had he been alive to witness it.[540]
This battle appears to have taken place, so far as we can make out, a short time before the arrival of Demosthenês at Syracuse, about the close of the month of May. We cannot doubt that the Athenians most anxiously expected news from that officer, with some account of victories obtained in Sicily, to console them for having sent him away at a moment when his services were so cruelly wanted at home. Perhaps they may even have indulged hopes of the near capture of Syracuse, as a means of restoring their crippled finances. Their disappointment would be all the more bitter when they came to receive, towards the end of June or beginning of July, despatches announcing the capital defeat of Demosthenês in his attempt upon Epipolæ, and the consequent extinction of all hope that Syracuse could ever be taken. After these despatches, we may perhaps doubt whether any others subsequently reached Athens. The generals would not write home during the month of indecision immediately succeeding, when Demosthenês was pressing for retreat, and Nikias resisting it. They might possibly, however, write immediately on taking their resolution to retreat, at the time when they sent to Katana to forbid farther supplies of provisions, but this was the last practicable opportunity; for closely afterwards followed their naval defeat, and the blocking up of the mouth of the Great Harbor. The mere absence of intelligence would satisfy the Athenians that their affairs in Sicily were proceeding badly; but the closing series of calamities, down to the final catastrophe, would only come to their knowledge indirectly; partly through the triumphant despatches transmitted from Syracuse to Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes, partly through individual soldiers of their own armament who escaped.
According to the tale of Plutarch, the news was first made known at Athens through a stranger, who, arriving at Peiræus, went into a barber’s shop and began to converse about it, as upon a theme which must of course be uppermost in every one’s mind.
The astonished barber, hearing for the first time such fearful tidings, ran up to Athens to communicate it to the archons as well as to the public in the market-place. The public assembly being forthwith convoked, he was brought before it, and called upon to produce his authority, which he was unable to do, as the stranger had disappeared. He was consequently treated as a fabricator of uncertified rumors for the disturbance of the public tranquillity, and even put to the torture.[541] How much of this improbable tale may be true, we cannot determine; but we may easily believe that neutrals, passing from Corinth or Megara to Peiræus, were the earliest communicants of the misfortunes of Nikias and Demosthenês in Sicily during the months of July and August. Presently came individual soldiers of the armament, who had got away from the defeat and found a passage home; so that the bad news was but too fully confirmed. But the Athenians were long before they could bring themselves to believe, even upon the testimony of these fugitives, how entire had been the destruction of their two splendid armaments, without even a feeble remnant left to console them.[542]
As soon as the full extent of their loss was at length forced upon their convictions, the city presented a scene of the deepest affliction, dismay, and terror. Over and above the extent of private mourning, from the loss of friends and relatives, which overspread nearly the whole city, there prevailed utter despair as to the public safety. Not merely was the empire of Athens apparently lost, but Athens herself seemed utterly defenceless. Her treasury was empty, her docks nearly destitute of triremes, the flower of her hoplites as well as of her seamen had perished in Sicily without leaving their like behind, and her maritime reputation was irretrievably damaged; while her enemies, on the contrary, animated by feelings of exuberant confidence and triumph, were farther strengthened by the accession of their new Sicilian allies. In these melancholy months—October, November, 413 B.C.—the Athenians expected nothing less than a vigorous attack, both by land and sea, from the Peloponnesian and Sicilian forces united, with the aid of their own revolted allies, an attack which they knew themselves to be in no condition to repel.[543]
Amidst so gloomy a prospect, without one ray of hope to cheer them on any side, it was but poor satisfaction to vent their displeasure on the chief speakers who had recommended their recent disastrous expedition, or on those prophets and reporters of oracles who had promised them the divine blessing upon it.[544] After this first burst both of grief and anger, however, they began gradually to look their actual situation in the face; and the more energetic speakers would doubtless administer the salutary lesson of reminding them how much had been achieved by their forefathers, sixty-seven years before, when the approach of Xerxes threatened them with dangers not less overwhelming. Under the peril of the moment, the energy of despair revived in their bosoms; they resolved to get together, as speedily as they could, both ships and money,—to keep watch over their allies, especially Eubœa,—and to defend themselves to the last. A Board of ten elderly men, under the title of Probûli, was named to review the expenditure, to suggest all practicable economies, and propose for the future such measures as occasion might seem to require. The propositions of these probûli were for the most part adopted, with a degree of unanimity and promptitude rarely seen in an Athenian assembly, springing out of that pressure and alarm of the moment which silenced all criticism.[545] Among other economies, the Athenians abridged the costly splendor of their choric and liturgic ceremonies at home, and brought back the recent garrison which they had established on the Laconian coast; they at the same time collected timber, commenced the construction of new ships, and fortified Cape Sunium, in order to protect their numerous transport ships in the passage from Eubœa to Peiræus.[546]
While Athens was thus struggling to make head against her misfortunes, all the rest of Greece was full of excitement and aggressive scheming against her. So vast an event as the destruction of this great armament had never happened since the expedition of Xerxes against Greece. It not only roused the most distant cities of the Grecian world, but also the Persian satraps and the court of Susa. It stimulated the enemies of Athens to redoubled activity; it emboldened her subject-allies to revolt; it pushed the neutral states, who all feared what she would have done if successful against Syracuse, now to declare war against her, and put the finishing stroke to her power as well as to her ambition. All of them, enemies, subjects, and neutrals, alike believed that the doom of Athens was sealed, and that the coming spring would see her captured. Earlier than the ensuing spring, the Lacedæmonians did not feel disposed to act; but they sent round their instructions to the allies for operations both by land and sea to be then commenced; all these allies being prepared to do their best, in hopes that this effort would be the last required from them, and the most richly rewarded. A fleet of one hundred triremes was directed to be prepared against the spring; fifty of these being imposed in equal proportion on the Lacedæmonians themselves and the Bœotians; fifteen on Corinth; fifteen on the Phocians and Lokrians; ten on the Arcadians, with Pellênê and Sikyon; ten on Megara, Trœzen, Epidaurus, and Hermionê. It seems to have been considered that these ships might be built and launched during the interval between September and March.[547] The same large hopes, which had worked upon men’s minds at the beginning of the war, were now again rife in the bosoms of the Peloponnesians;[548] the rather as that powerful force from Sicily, which they had then been disappointed in obtaining, might now be anticipated with tolerable assurance as really forthcoming.[549]
From the smaller allies, contributions in money were exacted for the intended fleet by Agis, who moved about during this autumn with a portion of the garrison of Dekeleia. In the course of his circuit, he visited the town of Herakleia, near the Maliac gulf, and levied large contributions on the neighboring Œtæans, in reprisal for the plunder which they had taken from that town, as well as from the Phthiot Achæans and other subjects of the Thessalians, though the latter vainly entered their protest against his proceedings.[550]