over, he reminded them that they were far away from home-and that defeat would render them victims, one and all, of the Syracusan cavalry. He little thought, nor did his prophets forewarn him, that such a calamity, serious as it would have been, was even desirable for Athens-since it would have saved her from the far more overwhelming disasters which will be found to sadden the coming chapters of this history.

Battle near

the Olym

victory of

the Athe

nians.

While the customary sacrifices were being performed, the slingers and bowmen on both sides pieionbecame engaged in skirmishing. But presently the trumpets sounded, and Nikias ordered his first division of hoplites to charge at once rapidly, before the Syracusans expected it. Judging from his previous backwardness, they never imagined that he would be the first to give orders for charging; nor was it until they saw the Athenian line actually advancing towards them that they lifted their own arms from the ground and came forward to give the meeting. The shock was bravely encountered on both sides, and for some time the battle continued hand to hand with undecided result. There happened to supervene a violent storm of rain with thunder and lightning, which alarmed the Syracusans, who construed it as an unfavourable augury —while to the more practised Athenian hoplites, it seemed a mere phænomenon of the season', so that

νους, καὶ οὐκ ἀπολέκτους ὥσπερ ἡμᾶς· καὶ προσέτι Σικελιώτας, οἱ ὑπερφρονοῦσι μὲν ἡμᾶς, ὑπομένουσι δὲ οὔ· διὰ τὸ τὴν ἐπιστήμην τῆς τόλμης ἥσσω ἔχειν.

This passage illustrates very clearly the meaning of the adverb navSnueí. Compare navdaμeì, navоuideì, Eschylus, Sept. Theb. 275.

1

Thucyd. vi. 70. Τοῖς δ ̓ ἐμπειροτέροις, τὰ μὲν γιγνόμενα, καὶ ὥρᾳ

Unabated confidence

cusans

they still farther astonished the Syracusans by the unabated confidence with which they continued the fight. At length the Syracusan army was broken, dispersed, and fled; first, before the Argeians on the right, next, before the Athenians in the centre. The victors pursued as far as was safe and practicable, without disordering their ranks: for the Syracusan cavalry, which had not yet been engaged, checked all who pressed forward, and enabled their own infantry to retire in safety behind the Helôrine road1.

So little were the Syracusans dispirited with this of the Syra- defeat, that they did not retire within their city they garri- until they had sent an adequate detachment to Olympicion guard the neighbouring temple and sacred precinct -Nikias of the Olympian Zeus; wherein there was much deposited wealth which they feared that the Athenians

son the

re-embarks

his army

and returns

to Katana. might seize. Nikias, however, without approaching the sacred ground, contented himself with occupying the field of battle, burnt his own dead, and stripped the arms from the dead of the enemy. The Syracusans and their allies lost 250 men, the Athenians 502.

ἔτους περαίνεσθαι δοκεῖν, τοὺς δὲ ἀνθεστῶτας, πολὺ μείζω ἔκπληξιν μὴ νικωμένους παρέχειν.

The Athenians, unfortunately for themselves, were not equally unmoved by eclipses of the moon. The force of this remark will be seen in the next chapter but one. At this moment, too, they were in high spirits and confidence; which greatly affected their interpretation of such sudden weather-phænomena: as will be seen also illustrated by melancholy contrast, in that same chapter.

1 Thucyd. vi. 70.

2 Thucyd. vi. 71. Plutarch (Nikias, c. 16) states that Nikias refused from religious scruples to invade the sacred precinct, though his soldiers were eager to seize its contents.

Diodorus (xiii. 6) affirms erroneously that the Athenians became

On the morrow, having granted to the Syracusans their dead bodies for burial, and collected the ashes of his own dead, Nikias re-embarked his troops, put to sea, and sailed back to his former station at Katana. He conceived it impossible, without cavalry and a farther stock of money, to maintain his position near Syracuse or to prosecute immediate operations of siege or blockade. And as the winter was now approaching, he determined to take up winter quarters at Katana— though considering the mild winter at Syracuse, and the danger of marsh fever near the Great Harbour in summer, the change of season might well be regarded as a questionable gain. But he proposed to employ the interval in sending to Athens for cavalry and money, as well as in procuring the like reinforcements from his Sicilian allies, whose numbers he calculated now on increasing by the accession of new cities after his recent victoryand to get together magazines of every kind for beginning the siege of Syracuse in the spring. Despatching a trireme to Athens with these requisi- Katana, and tions, he sailed with his forces to Messênê, within which there was a favourable party who gave hopes of opening the gates to him. Such a correspondence had already been commenced before the departure of Alkibiadês: but it was the first act of revenge which the departing general took on his country, to betray the proceedings to the philomasters of the Olympieion. Pausanias too says the same thing (x. 28. 3), adding that Nikias abstained from disturbing either the treasures or the offerings, and left them still under the care of the Syracusan priests.

Plutarch farther states that Nikias stayed some days in his position before he returned to Katana. But the language of Thucydidês indicates that the Athenians returned on the day after the battle.

He detertake up his

mines to

winter

quarters at

sends to

Athens for

reinforce

ments of

horse.

at Messênê

Syracusan party in Messênê. Accordingly these latter, watching their opportunity, rose in arms beHis failure fore the arrival of Nikias, put to death their chief through the antagonists, and held the town by force against the betrayal by Athenians; who after a fruitless delay of thirteen days, with scanty supplies and under stormy weather, were forced to return to Naxos, where they established a palisaded camp and station, and went into winter quarters'.

Alkibiadês.

Salutary lesson to

out of the

recent defeat-mischiefs to

the Athe

the delay of Nikias.

The recent stratagem of Nikias, followed by the the Syracu- movement into the harbour of Syracuse and the sans, arising battle, had been ably planned and executed. It served to show the courage and discipline of the army, as well as to keep up the spirits of the solnians from diers themselves and to obviate those feelings of disappointment which the previous inefficiency of the armament tended to arouse. But as to other results, the victory was barren; we may even say, positively mischievous-since it imparted a momentary stimulus which served as an excuse to Nikias for the three months of total inaction which followed-and since it neither weakened nor humiliated the Syracusans, but gave them a salutary lesson which they turned to account while Nikias was in his winter quarters. His apathy during these first eight months after the arrival of the expedition at Rhegium (from July 415 B.C. to March 414 B.C.), was the most deplorable of all calamities to his army, his country, and himself. Abundant proofs of this will be seen in the coming events at present we have only to turn back to his own predictions and recommendations. All the difficulties and dangers to be surmounted in

1 1 Thucyd. vi. 71-74.

Sicily had been foreseen by himself and impressed upon the Athenians: in the first instance, as grounds against undertaking the expedition-but the Athenians, though unfortunately not allowing them to avail in that capacity, fully admitted their reality, and authorised him to demand whatever force was necessary to overcome them'. He had thus been allowed to bring with him a force calculated upon his own ideas, together with supplies and implements for besieging; yet when arrived, he seems only anxious to avoid exposing that force in any serious enterprise, and to find an excuse for conducting it back to Athens. That Syracuse was the grand enemy, and that the capital point of the enterprise was the siege of that city, was a truth familiar to himself as well as to every man at Athens2: upon the formidable cavalry of the Syracusans, Nikias had himself insisted, in the preliminary debates. Yet -after four months of mere trifling, and pretence of action so as to evade dealing with the real difficulty -the existence of this cavalry is made an excuse for a farther postponement of four months until reinforcements can be obtained from Athens. To all the intrinsic dangers of the case, predicted by Nikias himself with proper discernment, was thus superadded the aggravated danger of his own factitious delay; frittering away the first impression of his armament-giving the Syracusans leisure to enlarge their fortifications-and allowing the Peloponnesians time to interfere against Attica as well as to succour Sicily. It was the unhappy weakness of this commander to shrink from decisive resolutions of

1

1 Thucyd. vi. 21-26.

VOL. VII.

2

Thucyd. vi. 20.

X