Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
enemy under their city walls, and Alcibiades advised to secure the
friendship of the other towns, and then to march against them,
Nicias dissented from them both, and insisted that they should
cruise quietly around the island and display their armament, and,
having landed a small supply of men for the Egesteans, return to
Athens, weakening at once the resolution and casting down the
spirits of the men. And when, a little while after, the Athenians
called home Alcibiades in order to his trial, he being, though
joined nominally with another in commission, in effect the only
general, made now no end of loitering, of cruising, and
considering, till their hopes were grown stale, and all the
disorder and consternation which the first approach and view of
their forces had cast amongst the enemy was worn off, and had left
them.
Whilst yet Alcibiades was with the fleet, they went before Syracuse
with a squadron of sixty galleys, fifty of them lying in array
without the harbor, while the other ten rowed in to reconnoiter,
and by a herald called upon the citizens of Leontini to return to
their own country. These scouts took a galley of the enemy's, in
which they found certain tablets, on which was set down a list of
all the Syracusans, according to their tribes. These were wont to
be laid up at a distance from the city, in the temple of Jupiter
Olympius, but were now brought forth for examination to furnish a
muster-roll of young men for the war. These being so taken by the
Athenians, and carried to the officers, and the multitude of names
appearing, the diviners thought it unpropitious, and were in
apprehension lest this should be the only destined fullfilment of
the prophecy, that "the Athenians shall take all the Syracusans."
Yet, indeed, this was said to be accomplished by the Athenians at
another time, when Callippus the Athenian, having slain Dion,
became master of Syracuse. But when Alcibiades shortly after
sailed away from Sicily, the command fell wholly to Nicias.
Lamachus was, indeed, a brave and honest man, and ready to fight
fearlessly with his own hand in battle, but so poor and ill off,
that whenever he was appointed general, he used always, in
accounting for his outlay of public money, to bring some little
reckoning or other of money for his very clothes and shoes. On the
contrary, Nicias, as on other accounts, so, also, because of his
wealth and station, was very much thought of. The story is told that
once upon a time the commission of generals being in consultation
together in their public office, he bade Sophocles the poet give
his opinion first, as the senior of the board. "I," replied
Sophocles, "am the older, but you are the senior." And so now,
also, Lamachus, who better understood military affairs, being quite
his subordinate, he himself, evermore delaying and avoiding risk,
and faintly employing his forces, first by his sailing about Sicily
at the greatest distance aloof from the enemy, gave them
confidence, then by afterwards attacking Hybla, a petty fortress,
and drawing off before he could take it, made himself utterly
despised. At the last he retreated to Catana without having
achieved anything, save that he demolished Hyocara, a humble town
of the barbarians, out of which the story goes that Lais the
courtesan, yet a mere girl, was sold amongst the other prisoners,
and carried thence away to Peloponnesus.
But when the summer was spent, after reports began to reach him
that the Syracusans were grown so confident that they would come
first to attack him, and troopers skirmishing to the very camp
twitted his soldiers, asking whether they came to settle with the
Catanians, or to put the Leontines in possession of their city, at
last, with much ado, Nicias resolved to sail against Syracuse. And
wishing to form his camp safely and without molestation, he
procured a man to carry from Catana intelligence to the Syracusans
that they might seize the camp of the Athenians unprotected, and
all their arms, if on such a day they should march with all their
forces to Catana; and that, the Athenians living mostly in the
town, the friends of the Syracusans had concerted, as soon as they
should perceive them coming, to possess themselves of one of the
gates, and to fire the arsenal; that many now were in the
conspiracy and awaited their arrival. This was the ablest thing
Nicias did in the whole of his conduct of the expedition. For
having drawn out all the strength of the enemy, and made the city
destitute of men, he set out from Catana, entered the harbor, and
chose a fit place for his camp, where the enemy could least
incommode him with the means in which they were superior to him,
while with the means in which he was superior to them, he might
expect to carry on the war without impediment.
When the Syracusans returned from Catana, and stood in battle array
before the city gates, he rapidly led up the Athenians and fell on
them and defeated them, but did not kill many, their horse
hindering the pursuit. And his cutting and breaking down the
bridges that lay over the river gave Hermocrates, when cheering up
the Syracusans, occasion to say, that Nicias was ridiculous, whose
great aim seemed to be to avoid fighting, as if fighting were not
the thing he came for. However, he put the Syracusans into a very
great alarm and consternation, so that instead of fifteen generals
then in service, they chose three others, to whom the people
engaged by oath to allow absolute authority.
There stood near them the temple of Jupiter Olympius, which the
Athenians (there being in it many consecrated things of gold and
silver) were eager to take, but were purposely withheld from it by
Nicias, who let the opportunity slip, and allowed a garrison of the
Syracusans to enter it, judging that if the soldiers should make
booty of that wealth, it would be no advantage to the public, and
he should bear the guilt of the impiety. Not improving in the
least this success, which was everywhere famous, after a few days'
stay, away he goes to Naxos, and there winters, spending largely
for the maintenance of so great an army, and not doing anything
except some matters of little consequence with some native
Sicilians that revolted to him. Insomuch that the Syracusans took
heart again, made excursions to Catana, wasted the country, and
fired the camp of the Athenians. For which everybody blamed
Nicias, who, with his long reflection, his deliberateness, and his
caution, had let slip the time for action. None ever found fault
with the man when once at work, for in the brunt he showed vigor
and activity enough, but was slow and wanted assurance to engage.
When, therefore, he brought again the army to Syracuse, such was
his conduct, and with such celerity, and at the same time security,
he came upon them, that nobody knew of his approach, when already
he had come to shore with his galleys at Thapsus, and had landed
his men; and before any could help it he had surprised Epipolae,
had defeated the body of picked men that came to its succor, took
three hundred prisoners, and routed the cavalry of the enemy, which
had been thought invincible. But what chiefly astonished the
Syracusans, and seemed incredible to the Greeks, was, in so short a
space of time the walling about of Syracuse, a town not less than
Athens, and far more difficult, by the unevenness of the ground,
and the nearness of the sea and the marshes adjacent, to have such
a wall drawn in a circle round it; yet this, all within a very
little, finished by a man that had not even his health for such
weighty cares, but lay ill of the stone, which may justly bear the
blame for what was left undone. I admire the industry of the
general, and the bravery of the soldiers for what they succeeded
in. Euripides, after their ruin and disaster, writing their
funeral elegy, said that
Eight victories over Syracuse they gained,
While equal yet to both the gods remained.
And in truth one shall not find eight, but many more victories, won
by these men against the Syracusans, till the gods, in real truth,
or fortune intervened to check the Athenians in this advance to the
height of power and greatness.
Nicias, therefore, doing violence to his body, was present in most
actions. But once, when his disease was the sharpest upon him, he
lay in the camp with some few servants to attend him. And Lamachus
having the command fought the Syracusans, who were bringing a
cross-wall from the city along to that of the Athenians, to hinder
them from carrying it round; and in the victory, the Athenians
hurrying in some disorder to the pursuit, Lamachus getting
separated from his men, had to resist the Syracusan horse that came
upon him. Before the rest advanced Callicrates, a man of good
courage and skill in war. Lamachus, upon a challenge, engaged with
him in single combat, and receiving the first wound, returned it so
home to Callicrates, that they both fell and died together. The
Syracusans took away his body and arms, and at full speed advanced
to the wall of the Athenians, where Nicias lay without any troops
to oppose to them, yet roused by this necessity, and seeing the
danger, he bade those about him go and set on fire all the wood and
materials that lay provided before the wall for the engines, and
the engines themselves; this put a stop to the Syracusans, saved
Nicias, saved the walls, and all the money of the Athenians. For
when the Syracusans raw such a fire blazing up between them and the
wall, they retired.
Nicias now remained sole general, and with great prospects; for
cities began to come over to alliance with him, and ships laden
with corn from every coast came to the camp, everyone favoring
when matters went well. And some proposals from among the
Syracusans despairing to defend the city, about a capitulation,
were already conveyed to him. And in fact Gylippus, who was on his
way with a squadron to their aid from Lacedaemon, hearing, on his
voyage, of the wall surrounding them, and of their distress, only
continued his enterprise thenceforth, that, giving Sicily up for
lost, he might, if even that should be possible, secure the
Italians their cities. For a strong report was everywhere spread
about that the Athenians carried all before them, and had a general
alike for conduct and for fortune invincible.
And Nicias himself, too, now against his nature grown bold in his
present strength and success, especially from the intelligence he
received under hand of the Syracusans, believing they would almost
immediately surrender the town upon terms, paid no manner of regard
to Gylippus coming to their assistance, nor kept any watch of his
approach so that, neglected altogether and despised, Gylippus went
in a longboat ashore without the knowledge of Nicias, and, having
landed in the remotest parts from Syracuse, mustered up a
considerable force, the Syracusans not so much as knowing of his
arrival nor expecting him; so that an assembly was summoned to
consider the terms to be arranged with Nicias, and some were
actually on the way, thinking it essential to have all dispatched
before the town should be quite walled round, for now there
remained very little to be done, and the materials for the building
lay all ready along the line.
In this very nick of time and danger arrived Gongylus in one galley
from Corinth, and everyone, as may be imagined, flocking about
him, he told them that Gylippus would be with them speedily, and
that other ships were coming to relieve them. And, ere yet they
could perfectly believe Gongylus, an express was brought from
Gylippus, to bid them go forth to meet him. So now taking good
heart, they armed themselves; and Gylippus at once led on his men
from their march in battle array against the Athenians, as Nicias