gether, resounded over the water, and were answered on shore by the cheers or wailings of the spectators as their friends were victorious or vanquished. For a long time the battle was maintained with heroic courage and dubious result. At length as the Athenian vessels began to yield and make back towards the shore, a universal shriek of horror and despair arose from the Athenian army, whilst shouts of joy and victory were raised from the pursuing vessels, and were echoed back from the Syracusans on land. As the Athenian vessels neared the shore their crews leaped out, and made for the camp, whilst the boldest of the land army rushed forward to protect the ships from being seized by the enemy. The Athenians succeeded in saving only 60 ships, or about half their fleet. The Syracusan fleet, however, had been reduced to 50 ships; and on the same afternoon, Nicias and Demosthenes, as a last hope of escape, exhorted their men to make another attempt to break the enemy's line, and force their way out of the harbour. But the courage of the crews was so completely damped that they positively refused to reembark. § 16. The Athenian army still numbered 40,000 men; and as all chance of escape by sea was now hopeless, it was resolved to retreat by land to some friendly city, and there defend themselves against the attacks of the Syracusans. This Hermocrates was determined to prevent. The day on which the battle was fought happened to be sacred to Hercules, and a festival among the Syracusans. This circumstance, in addition to the joy and elation naturally resulting from so great a victory, had thrown the city into a state of feasting and intoxication; and had the Athenians taken their departure that night, nobody would have been found to oppose them. Hermocrates, therefore, when darkness had set in, sent down some men to the Athenian wall, who, pretending to come from the secret correspondents of Nicias in Syracuse, warned him not to decamp that night, as all the roads were beset by the Syracusans. Nicias fell into the snare, and thus, by another fatal mistake, really afforded the Syracusans an opportunity for obstructing his retreat. It was not till the next day but one after the battle that the Athenian army began to move. Never were men in so complete a state of prostration. Their vessels were abandoned to the enemy without an attempt to save them. As the soldiers turned to quit that fatal encampment, the sense of their own woes was for a moment suspended by the sight of their unburied comrades, who seemed to reproach them with the neglect of a sacred duty; but still more by the wailings and entreaties of the wounded, who clung around their knees, and implored not to be abandoned to certain destruction. Amidst this scene of universal woe and dejection, a fresh and unwonted spirit of energy and heroism seemed to be infused into Nicias. Though suffering under an incurable complaint, he was everywhere seen marshalling his troops, and encouraging them by his exhortations. The march was directed towards the territory of the Sicels in the interior of the island. The army was formed into a hollow square with the baggage in the middle; Nicias leading the van, and Demosthenes bringing up the rear. Having forced the passage of the river Anapus, they marched on the first day about five miles to the westward, on the second day about half that distance, and encamped on a cultivated plain. From this place the road ascended by a sort of ravine over a steep hill called the Acræan cliff, on which the Syracusans had fortified themselves. After spending two days in vain attempts to force this position, Nicias and Demosthenes resolved during the night to strike off to the left towards the sea. Nicias, with the van, succeeded in reaching the coast; but Demosthenes, who had lost his way, was overtaken by the Syracusans at noon on the following day, and surrounded in a narrow pass. Many of his troops had disbanded during the night march, and many fell in the conflict which now ensued, till being reduced to the number of 6000, they surrendered, on condition of their lives being spared. § 17. Meanwhile Nicias, with the van, had pursued his march, and crossed the river Erineus. On the following day, however, Gylippus overtook him, and, having informed him of the fate of his colleague, summoned him to surrender. But Nicias was incredulous, and pursued his march amidst the harassing attacks of the Syracusans. The attempt to cross the river Asinarus decided the fate of his army. The men rushed into the water in the greatest disorder, partly to escape the enemy, but chiefly from a desire to quench the burning thirst with which they were tormented. Hundreds were pressed forwards down the steep banks of the river, and were either trodden under fcot, or impaled on the spears of those below, or carried away by the stream. Yet others from behind still kept pressing on, anxious to partake of the now turbid and bloody water. The troops thus became so completely disorganised that all further resistance was hopeless, and Nicias surrendered at discretion. Out of the 40,000 who started from the camp only 10,000 at the utmost were left at the end of the sixth day's march, the rest had either deserted or been slain. The prisoners were sent to work in the stone-quarries of Achradina and Epipolæ. Here they were crowded together without any shelter, and with scarcely provisions enough to sustain life. The numerous bodies of those who died were left to putrefy where they had fallen, till at length the place became such an intolerable centre of stench and infection that, at the end of seventy days, the Syracusans, for their own comfort and safety, were obliged to remove the survivors. All but the Athenians and the Italian and Sicilian Greeks were sold into slavery. What became of the Athenians we are not informed, but they were probably employed as slaves by the richer Syracusans, since the story runs that many succeeded in winning the affection and pity of their masters by reciting portions of the dramas of Euripides. Nicias and Demosthenes were condemned to death in spite of all the efforts of Gylippus and Hermocrates to save them. The latter contrived to spare them the humiliation of a public execution by providing them with the means of committing suicide. § 18. Such was the end of two of the largest and best appointed armaments that had ever gone forth from Athens. Nicias, as we have seen, was from the first opposed to the expedition in which they were employed, as pregnant with the most dangerous consequences to Athens; and, though, it must be admitted that in this respect his views were sound, it cannot at the same time be concealed, that his own want of energy, and his incompetence as a general, were the chief causes of the failure of the undertaking. Possessing much fortitude but little enterprise, respectable, in private life, punctual in the performance of his religious duties, not deficient in a certain kind of political wisdom, which, however, derived its colour rather from timidity and over-caution than from that happy mixture of boldness and prudence which characterises the true statesman, Nicias had by these qualities obtained far more than his just share of political reputation and influence, and had thus been named to the command of an expedition for which he was qualified neither by military skill nor by that enthusiasm and confidence of success which it so peculiarly demanded. His mistakes involved the fall of Demosthenes, an officer of far greater resolution and ability than himself, and who, had his counsels been followed, would in all probability have conducted the enterprise to a safe termination, though there was no longer room to hope for success. The career of Demosthenes marks him as one of the first generals of the age, but unfortunately he held only a subordinate rank in Sicily. The Athenians became sensible when too late of the difference between the two commanders. On the pillar erected to the memory of the warriors who fell in Sicily the name of Demosthenes found a place, whilst that of Nicias was omitted. FROM THE END OF THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION TO THE OVERTHROW OF THE FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS. §1. Consternation and hardships at Athens. § 2. Measures for defence. § 3. Revolt of Chios, Erythræ, and Clazomenæ. § 4. Spread of the revolt. Defection of Teos, Lesbos, and Miletus. Revolution at Samos, which becomes the head-quarters of the Athenian fleet. § 5. Recovery of Lesbos by the Athenians. Dissatisfaction of the Lacedæmonians with Tissaphernes. § 6. Schemes of Alcibiades. § 7. He proposes a league between the Athenians and Persians, and the establishment of an oligarchy at Athens. § 8. Agitation for an oligarchy at Athens. 9. Conference of Pisander with Alcibiades. Artifices of the latter. Fresh treaty between Tissaphernes and the Lacedæmonians. § 10. Progress of the oligarchical conspiracy at Athens and Samos. § 11. Establishment of the Four Hundred. § 12. Their proceedings. §13. Proceedings at Samos. Alcibiades joins the democracy there. 14. The Athenian envoys at Samos. § 15. Dissensions among the Four Hundred. They negotiate with Sparta. § 16. Counter revolution at Athens. Defeat of the Athenian fleet and capture of Euboea by the Lacedæmonians. 17. The Four Hundred deposed and democracy. re-established at Athens. § 1. THE first intelligence of the destruction of the Sicilian armament is said to have been communicated by a stranger, in a barber's shop in the Piræus. Big with the eventful news, the unfortunate barber hastened up to Athens to communicate it to the archons and the public; but he was treated as a tale-bearer and impostor; and being unable to corroborate his story, in consequence of the disappearance of his informant, he was put to the torture. The tidings were, however, soon confirmed by the arrival of fugitives who had managed to escape from the disastrous scene. Athens was now filled with affliction and dismay. To private grief for the loss of friends was added despair of the public safety. There seemed to be no means of preventing the city from falling into the hands of the Lacedæmonians. The popular fury vented itself in abusing the orators who had recommended the expedition, and the soothsayers who had foretold its success. The affairs of the Athenians wore indeed a most threatening aspect. The Lacedæmonian post at Decelea was a constant source of annoyance. No part of Attica escaped the forays which were made from thence. All the cattle were destroyed, and the most valuable slaves began to desert in great numbers to the enemy. Athens was almost in a state of siege. The fatigue of guarding the large extent of wall became very onerous on the reduced number of citizens. The knights or horsemen were on constant duty in order to repress the enemy's marauders; but their horses were soon lamed and rendered inefficient by the hard and stony nature of the soil. But what chiefly excited the despondency of the Athenians was the visible decline of their naval superiority. An engagement with the Corinthian fleet near Naupactus, in the summer of 413 B.C., had ended with neither side gaining the advantage, though the forces were nearly equal; but to the Athenians the moral effects were equivalent to a defeat. § 2. Yet that cheerfulness and energy under misfortune which form such striking and excellent traits in the character of the Athenians, did not long desert them. After the first movements of rage and despair, they began to contemplate their condition more calmly, and to take the necessary measures for defence. A board of elders was appointed, under the name of Probuli,* to watch over the public safety. The splendour of the public ceremonies was curtailed in order to raise funds for the necessities of the state; the garrison recently established on the coast of Laconia was recalled; the building of a new fleet was commenced; and Cape Sunium was fortified in order to ensure an uninterrupted communication between Piræus and Eubœa, from which island the Athenians principally drew their pro visions. § 3. Whilst the imperial city was thus driven to consult for her very existence, it seemed a chimerical hope that she could retain her widely scattered dependencies. Her situation inspired her enemies with new vigour; states hitherto neutral declared against her; her subject-allies prepared to throw off the * Πρόβουλοι, |