mostly slain'. Three Athenian triremes were destroyed also.

surprises

Plemmy

But this victory, itself not easily won, was more Gylippus than counterbalanced by the irreparable loss of and takes Plemmyrium. During the first excitement at the rium. Athenian naval station, when the ships were in course of being manned to meet the unexpected onset from both ports at once, the garrison of Plemmyrium went to the water's edge to watch and encourage their countrymen, leaving their own walls thinly guarded, and little suspecting the presence of their enemy on the land side. This was just what Gylippus had anticipated. He attacked the forts at day-break, taking the garrison completely by surprise, and captured them after a feeble resistance; first the greatest and most important fort, next the two smaller. The garrison sought safety as they could, on board the transports and vessels of burden at the station, and rowed across the Great Harbour to the land-camp of Nikias on the other side. Those who fled from the greater fort, which was the first taken, ran some risk from the Syracusan triremes, which were at that moment victorious at sea. But by the time that the two lesser forts were taken, the Athenian fleet had regained its superiority, so that there was no danger of similar pursuit in the crossing of the Great Harbour.

This well-concerted surprise was no less productive to the captors than fatal as a blow to the Athenians. Not only were many men slain, and many made prisoners, in the assault-but there were vast

1

Thucyd. vii. 23; Diodor. xiii. 9; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 20. VOL. VII. 2 D

Important quences of

conse

the capture.

Increased

spirits and

stores of every kind, and even a large stock of money found within the fort; partly belonging to the military chest, partly the property of the trierarchs and of private merchants, who had deposited it there as in the place of greatest security. The sails of not less than forty triremes were also found there, and three triremes which had been dragged up ashore. Gylippus caused one of the three forts to be pulled down, and carefully garrisoned the other two'.

Great as the positive loss was here to the Athenians at a time when their situation could ill bear it-the collateral damage and peril growing out of the capture of Plemmyrium was yet more serious, besides the alarm and discouragement which it spread among the army. The Syracusans were now masters of the mouth of the harbour on both sides, so that not a single storeship could enter without a convoy and a battle. What was of not less detriment-the Athenian fleet was now forced to take station under the fortified lines of its own land-force, and was thus cramped up on a small space in the innermost portion of the Great Harbour, between the city-wall and the river Anapus ; the Syracusans being masters everywhere else, with full communication between their posts all round, hemming in the Athenian position both by sea and by land..

To the Syracusans, on the contrary, the result of confidence the recent battle proved every way encouraging; not merely from the valuable acquisition of Plemmyrium, but even from the sea-fight itself; which 1 Thucyd. vii. 23, 24.

racusans, even for sea-fight.

had indeed turned out to be a defeat, but which promised at first to be a victory, had they not thrown away the chance by their own disorder. It removed all superstitious fear of Athenian nautical superiority; while their position was so much improved by having acquired the command of the mouth of the harbour, that they began even to assume the aggressive at sea. They detached a squadron of twelve triremes to the coast of Italy, for the purpose of intercepting some merchantvessels coming with a supply of money to the Athenians. So little fear was there of an enemy at sea, that these vessels seem to have been coming without convoy, and were for the most part destroyed by the Syracusans, together with a stock of shiptimber which the Athenians had collected near Kaulonia. In touching at Lokri on their return, they took aboard a company of Thespian hoplites who had made their way thither in a transport. They were also fortunate enough to escape the squadron of twenty triremes which Nikias detached to lie in wait for them near Megara-with the loss of one ship however, including her crew1.

Efforts of cusans to

the Syra

ther

forcements

towns.

One of this Syracusan squadron had gone forward from Italy with envoys to Peloponnesus, to communicate the favourable news of the capture of procure farPlemmyrium, and to accelerate as much as possible fre the operations against Attica, in order that no rein- Sicilian forcements might be sent from thence. At the same time, other envoys went from Syracuse-not merely Syracusans, but also Corinthians and Lacedæmonians-to visit the cities in the interior of 1 Thucyd. vii. 25.

Conflicts

between the Athenians

cusans in

the Great Harbour.

Sicily. They made known everywhere the prodigious improvement in Syracusan affairs arising from the gain of Plemmyrium, as well as the insignificant character of the recent naval defeat. They strenuously pleaded for farther aid to Syracuse without delay; since there were now good hopes of being able to crush the Athenians in the harbour completely, before the reinforcements about to be despatched could reach them'.

While these envoys were absent on their mission, the Great Harbour was the scene of much desultory and Syra- conflict, though not of any comprehensive single battle. Since the loss of Plemmyrium, the Athenian naval station was in the north-west interior corner of that harbour, adjoining the fortified lines occupied by their land-army. It was enclosed and protected by a row of posts or stakes stuck in the bottom and standing out of the water2. The Syracusans on their side had also planted a stockade in front of the interior port of Ortygia, to defend theirships, their ship-houses, and their docks within. As the two stations were not far apart, each party watched for opportunities of occasional attack or annoyance by missile weapons to the other; and daily skirmishes of this sort took place, in which on the whole the Athenians seem to have had the advantage. They even formed the plan of breaking through the outworks of the Syracusan dockyard and burning the ships within. They brought up a ship of the largest size, with wooden towers and

side defences, against the line of posts fronting the dockyard, and tried to force the entrance, either by

1

1 Thucyd. vii. 25.

' Thucyd. vii. 38.

means of divers who sawed them through at the bottom, or by boat-crews who fastened ropes round them and thus unfixed or plucked them out. All this was done under cover of the great vessel with its towers manned by light-armed, who exchanged showers of missiles with the Syracusan bowmen on the top of the ship-houses, and prevented the latter from coming near enough to interrupt the operation. The Athenians contrived thus to remove many of the posts planted-even the most dangerous among them, those which did not reach to the surface of the water, and which therefore a ship approaching could not see. But they gained little by it, since the Syracusans were able to plant others in their On the whole, no serious damage was done either to the dockyard or to the ships within. And the state of affairs in the Great Harbour stood substantially unaltered, during all the time that the envoys were absent on their Sicilian tour-probably three weeks or a month'.

room.

Sicilian re

to aid Sy

These envoys had found themselves almost every Defeat of a where well received. The prospects of Syracuse inforcement were now so triumphant, and those of Nikias with marching his present force so utterly hopeless, that the racuse. waverers thought it time to delare themselves; and all the Greek cities in Sicily, except Agrigentum, which still remained neutral (and of course except Naxos and Katana), resolved on aiding the winning cause. From Kamarina came 500 hoplites, 400 darters, and 300 bowmen; from Gela, 5 triremes, 400 darters, and 200 horsemen. Besides these, an additional force from the other cities was collected, 1 Thucyd. vii. 25.