PART IV
CHAPTER 27
LEE L. BRICE
IN summer 415, Athens sent a large military force to Sicily in what has come to be called the Sicilian Expedition. At the time Athens and Sparta were enjoying an uneasy peace, the Peace of Nicias, which they had agreed to in 421, ending the Archidamian phase of the Peloponnesian War (Thuc. 5.14–25.1). The expedition (not a violation of the Peace) began with an appeal from the Sicilian city of Egesta for assistance, but it quickly grew into a massive military effort led by multiple generals. The force included triremes, transports, and supply ships loaded with all manner of personnel and matériel from Athens and its allies. In Thucydides’s words, it was “the costliest and grandest” fleet ever to set sail from a single Greek city (6.31.1).1 In Sicily what began with a naval expedition became a siege of Syracuse including battles on land and sea. Regardless of the original intentions, this expedition would lead to a significant Athenian defeat, the end of the Peace of Nicias, and contribute to the ultimate Spartan victory in the war. Since it eventually involved nearly every kind of warfare employed by Greeks during this period the expedition provides an instructive case study for the state of Greek military practices and technology in the late fifth century.
What would become a disastrous campaign grew out of an embassy in 416 from Egesta asking Athens to honor an old treaty and aid them and other Sicilian allies. Athens had signed treaties of alliance (symmachia) with a number of Sicilian cities including Egesta and Leontini during their western campaigns of 427–424, but in the interim Egesta had been defeated by Selinus while Leontini had been depopulated by Syracuse. The Egestaeans promised to pay sixty talents for the wages of sixty ship crews. Athens proceeded cautiously, sending envoys to confirm the situation and the funds (6.6.2–7.1, 6.8.1–2, 6.46; Diod. 12.83.1–4; Kallet 2001: 27–31). Once the envoys confirmed the presence of the funds in Egesta and returned to Athens in 415, there were public assemblies in which Alcibiades presented a proposal to sail to Sicily and Nicias argued against the proposal. After much political maneuvering in two assemblies spread over the course of several days, the Athenians selected Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus as generals (strategoi) of a force that far exceeded the original request (6.8.3–26; Diod. 13.2.1; on these debates and the Egestaean offer, see Kallet 2001: 21–84). The expedition thus started out with multiple leaders, one of whom, Nicias, had opposed it from the beginning.
THE OPPOSING FORCES
The force sent to Sicily ended up being a large force even if it was not the largest ever sent out by Athens. After departing the harbor at Piraeus in glory, the Athenian force met up with additional allies at Corcyra. The combined flotilla included two Rhodian penteconters, 134 triremes, of which one hundred were Athenian, and one horse transport (hippagogos). The only detail we have on the ship types is that of the Athenian ships, sixty were “fast” (tacheiai) ships and forty were transports (stratiotides, hoplitagogoi), and all were fitted out expensively. Presumably the transports could be converted if necessary, but there is little evidence that they ever were. In addition to the warships, there were thirty cargo ships carrying food, supplies, tools, bakers, stonemasons and carpenters, as well as over one hundred smaller boats pressed into service, presumably to carry supplies, and additional merchant vessels that voluntarily accompanied the fleet (6.31.1, 43–44.1).
The soldiers sent initially were no less mixed. There were 5,100 hoplites including 1,500 Athenians drawn from the hoplite rolls, 700 Athenian thetes serving as marines (epibatai), 500 Argives, 250 Mantineans, and mercenaries, the remainder drawn from other allies. Additional manpower included 480 archers, 80 of whom were Cretan, 700 Rhodian slingers, and 120 light-armed Megarians.2 The extent to which Athens relied on its allies emerges from Thucydides’s catalog of participants, which includes thirty-eight cities and peoples on the Athenian side (7.56–57). The oarsmen who were not included in the rolls provided by Thucydides would have included a variety of personnel that could fill various roles from laborers to light-armed fighters (Strauss 2007: 229). The one military element in which the Athenians were weak was cavalry. The limited number of horses (thirty) in the fleet suggests they planned to secure more in Sicily, but there were no cavalrymen in Thucydides’s catalog and he later reports that there were none present (6.64.1). Lack of cavalry would be a recurrent problem throughout the campaign. Given the resources available to Athens through its population and empire during this period, the force is surprisingly small.
Later Athens added to the initial force with an array of reinforcements. In spring 414 they dispatched 250 cavalrymen and another 30 mounted archers along with cash to purchase horses. Since Thucydides does not state that any ships joined the fleet they probably returned to Athens (6.94.5). About a year later, Eurymedon arrived with ten more ships and silver, but no new troops (7.16). When Demosthenes arrived later in the year he brought with him some seventy-three ships, 5,000 hoplites (1,200 Athenians), and numerous light-armed troops (7.42.1). The total number of men may seem small for an invasion of Sicily, but it was a significant commitment of resources and it confirms that they had planned to use diplomacy extensively to meet their ends.
Athens was not solely dependent on the soldiers it brought along. Additional manpower would be found among Athens’s allies in Sicily—Leontini, Zankle, Catana, and Egesta, as well as some of the Sicel settlements. They had probably counted on military support from some of the Greek cities in southern Italy, but such hopes turned out to be largely misplaced with the exception, eventually, of Thurii and Metapontum (7.57). Local allies were also critical for providing cavalry. In 414, the cities of Egesta, Zankle, Sicel, and some other allies provided cavalry and horses to the Athenian force (6.98). Additional manpower for labor could be found among sailors, craftsmen, traders, and camp followers in the various ships that tagged along as well as among allies.
The Syracusans were ill-prepared for the coming invasion. The Syracusan leadership was disunited. The lack of agreement on whether the Athenians were even approaching is a key theme of Thucydides’s account of a debate at Syracuse (6.32–41). Only when Athens was obviously present and intent on military action did the Syracusans finally agree to appoint generals and take what measures were necessary (6.41; Diod. 13.4). Sources do not detail the extent of such preparations, but they must have included mustering all available men and material (Plut. Nic. 14.4).
The city’s own resources were similarly mixed in quality and quantity. Ortygia, the original settlement of Syracuse, was on a peninsula protected by walls (Gomme-Andrewes-Dover 4: 471). Syracuse maintained no regular vigilance against attack, thinking Sicily was secure (6.32–36). Although it has occasionally been asserted that the Syracusans had no fleet in 415 (Kagan 1981: 220), they must have had some ships. Thucydides makes no mention of the number of Syracusan warships when the Athenians arrived, but he includes in the Syracusan debate discussion of manning ships and sending a force against the Athenians (6.32–34) and it is unlikely that the eighty ships launched in 414 (7.22) were built over the prior winter. As for infantry, no source provides any specific numbers. Although Syracuse’s hoplites and military leadership were inexperienced in comparison to the Athenians and their allies, the city was large and wealthy and could draw on considerable manpower and resources (Scheidel 2003: 131–5).
Syracuse had other potential sources of manpower. Various local allies including Gela, Selinus, Camarina, Himera, and some allied Sicel communities could provide additional manpower and cavalry (Diod. 13.1–2). The numerous recruiting missions undertaken by the Syracusans and their allies demonstrate the importance of this reserve (6.72.2–73, 76–81, 88.6–8, 7.1.3–5, 21.1, 32–33.1, 46, 50.1–2). Although Syracuse necessarily could not count on assistance from Greece, it had maintained a relationship with its metropolis, Corinth, and could request aid from the Peloponnesian League. The Peace in Greece and Alcibiades’s encouragement after he defected led to the dispatch of small numbers of men and ships from Sparta, Corinth, Leucas, and Ambracia after the Athenian arrival (6.91.4, 104.1, 7.1–2). In Thucydides’s catalog (7.58) there are more than thirteen cities and peoples allied with Syracuse in this fight. These reinforcements, especially those from Greece, were key to Syracuse’s survival.
After assembling in Corcyra, the Athenian flotilla sailed west. The fleet split into three groups in order to avoid the logistical demands such a large force would create (6.42; Krentz 2007: 153–4). Despite the extra ships hauling provisions, the flotilla had to make several stops along the southern Italian coastline. These stops were intended to provide individual ships with opportunities to acquire water and buy necessities, but as it turned out most of the coastal cities would provide nothing more than a place to pull up their ships and gather water (6.44; Diod. 13.3.4). The weakness of Athenian intelligence emerged at Rhegium where the three divisions met again. Although the Athenians had expected their former allies to welcome them and provide assistance, the city provided a marketplace outside its walls, but no support of any kind, preferring not to take sides (6.44). Simultaneously, the generals learned that the Egestaeans, through a clever ruse, had deceived the Athenians over the available resources to fund the expedition (6.46; Kallet 2001: 69–79). According to Thucydides, it was this news that drove the generals to meet and discuss the strategy to be followed in Sicily (6.47).
WAR AIMS
Before approaching the generals’ conference at Rhegium further it is useful to review the war aims reported by sources. The directive given to the generals by the first Athenian assembly included three parts: relieving Egesta, restoring Leontini, and also “taking measures in Sicily in a manner they think best for Athens,” (6.8.2). After the city selected the expedition’s commanders in the second assembly, it also granted them authority to “act as they think best” (6.26.1). The directives issued by the second assembly are very nearly those of the first. These directives are not the only things reported as the city’s aims. After a long preface on the size and diversity of Greek settlements in Sicily, but before narrating the assemblies that authorized the expedition, Thucydides asserts that Athens’s “true intent” was “conquest of the entire island” (6.6.1, 8.4; Diod. 13.2.6, in rough agreement). Thucydides apparently based his assertion more on his observation of events than on anything explicit in his report of the assemblies. Thucydides’s assertion has led to a heated debate that shows no sign of easing. Regardless of whether one accepts that the ambiguous orders originating in the assemblies were hiding Athens’s “true intent,” it is clear that the mission carried from the beginning a vague mandate that left much discretion to the commanders on the scene (Thucydides’s statement [6.6.1] regarding Athenian intent has evoked considerable debate; see Lazenby [2004: 132–6] for discussion).
The conference convened by the generals at Rhegium demonstrates the ambiguity of Athenian aims and the commanders’ plans. Although the funds originally promised by the Egestaeans were no longer available, the generals declined to abandon the expedition and now planned accordingly (6.44). Nicias proposed they sail to Selinus to assist Egesta by force or by treaty and demand the originally promised funds. He also called for a show of force as they sailed down the coast, and if no easy opportunity to assist Leontini appeared they should return to Athens (6.47). Alcibiades took a more aggressive stance, calling for diplomatic maneuvers in Sicily to secure support followed by attacking Syracuse and Selinus unless they came to terms with Athens’s allies (6.48). Lamachus made the most aggressive proposal. He proposed an immediate surprise attack on Syracuse, arguing that such an attack could win over allies and intimidate their primary opponent on the island (6.49). According to Thucydides, having made his opinion known, Lamachus then supported Alcibiades’s proposal. The reported debate conforms to what we know about mixed commands (Hamel 1998: 94–9). While Nicias’s proposal was prudent and focused on the basic directive from the assembly, Alcibiades’s plan conformed no less to the assembly’s orders. In fact, even Lamachus’s proposal would conform to the orders issued by the Athenian assembly. The orders were so vague that they permitted the commanders to undertake nearly anything in Sicily; under such circumstances there were many ways of achieving failure.
Syracusan war aims were more limited. In relation to Sicily as a whole, Syracuse expected to maintain its dominant position. The city had contended with an Athenian campaign in the previous decade, but this had not turned out to be a long-term threat to Syracusan dominance.3 The Syracusans, once they realized the Athenian expedition was genuine, only had to maintain their independence in order to succeed. While such a strategy was easier than Athens’s aims, it was not without difficulty. Syracuse was a democracy and there is no reason to assume that it was any less divided in its decision making than any other democracy. As events would prove, maintaining independence was complicated by the lack of strong leadership and Athenian attempts to turn the city from within.
Figure 27.1 Syracuse and environs. From S. Hornblower, A commentary on Thucydides. Vol. 3. Books 5.25–8.109. Oxford, 2008, by permission. Slightly adapted by L. L. Brice.
ATHENS ON THE INITIATIVE
Following the conference at Rhegium, the generals began to implement Alcibiades’s strategy of diplomacy, but with mixed results. They were unsuccessful in Messana, Camarina, and initially in Catana too, but found Naxos a willing ally (6.50.1). Later, when the generals were invited to speak in Catana, the army infiltrated the city during Alcibiades’s speech, obliging the city to ally with the Athenians and provide a base of operations (6.51). The manner in which the Athenians turned Catana demonstrates how effective and valuable subterfuge could be as a strategy. Several forays into Syracuse’s harbor and territory during this period achieved nothing (6.50.2–5, 52). The turning of Catana was a positive step, but overall the generals achieved little. They had found only two Sicilian cities willing to be allies and had even found themselves rejected by cities they had expected to welcome them.
On conclusion of this diplomatic activity, the Salaminia, one of the official ships of state, arrived with orders for Alcibiades to return to Athens for trial. The charges rose out of several religiously provocative incidents that had occurred in Athens before the fleet sailed, but which had been under investigation since then.4 Alcibiades departed in his own ship along with the Salaminia, but on the voyage back he jumped ship in Thurii and later defected to Sparta where he did plenty of damage to the expedition (6.61.6–7, 88.9–93; Diod. 13.5.2–4, 7.1). Alcibiades’s departure left the expedition short of its most vigorous proponent.
The generals continued to pursue diplomacy, but now turned to Egesta. Splitting the force, they moved along the north coast. According to Thucydides (6.62.1), the goal was to get available funds from Egesta and investigate the conflict with Selinus, but since they did not need the entire force to complete this goal it is probable they had other intentions including intimidating the cities along the coast, chastising enemies, and encouraging would-be allies to join (Hornblower 3: 457–61). Although they secured no additional allies and Nicias achieved little in his visit to Egesta, they successfully captured the Sicanian city of Hyccara, an enemy of Egesta, and enslaved the population. The fleet returned to Catana where the sale of the slaves brought in 120 talents. The army, for which there was no longer space in the ships, marched overland through Sicel territory, attacking the city of Hybla, but “failed to capture it” (6.62.2–5; Diod. 13.6.1–2).
Late in 415 the Athenian force finally struck at Syracuse. After luring Syracusan forces toward Catana with some false intelligence, the Athenians sailed south, landing unopposed and establishing a beachhead on the Great Harbor’s shore south of the Anapus River (6.63–66). Despite knowing standard methods for protecting a harbor (7.25.3), the Syracusans had taken no effort to protect the Great Harbor. Evidently they did not take seriously the chance of an Athenian attack.
Thucydides provides an account of the first full-scale battle (6.67–70). The Athenian generals broke their army into two parts arrayed in front of their palisade. The advance line was eight ranks deep with the Mantineans and Argives on the right wing, Athenian forces in the center, and the other allies on the left wing. The other half of the Athenian force was a reserve (epitaktoi) in a box-like formation (plaision) with the baggage and carriers occupying the center. The Syracusan forces, including allies from Selinus, Gela, and Camarina, lined up sixteen deep (6.67). After a speech by Nicias the battle began with light-armed troops of both sides but these accomplished little. Then with a trumpet and sacrifices the hoplite lines advanced and engaged. At first neither side gained an advantage, but eventually the Athenian and Argive experience won the day as they pushed back the Syracusan line, which finally broke and ran. Only the presence of Syracusan cavalry kept the Athenians from pursuing, but they did set up a trophy. The next day, after exchanging their dead, the Athenians, concluding they were unprepared for a siege, sailed back to Catana (6.69–71; Diod. 13.4–6).
Several observations can be drawn from this first fight. Thucydides presents the fight as a hoplite engagement, as would be expected in this Greek context, and he provides good details such as the steps involved in engagement and Nicias’s use of a reserve force (Lazenby 2004: 143; Wheeler 2007: 203–4). Thucydides also makes clear that the Syracusans were numerous, supported by allies, and just as brave as the Athenians. They were, however, inexperienced (6.69.1). Syracusan cavalry also made a difference in the overall outcome of the day’s engagement; its success highlighted the Athenian deficiency in cavalry.
The Athenian withdrawal seems initially to have been ridiculous given their success, but as Thucydides explained, it was based on the late season and the lack of cavalry, money, allies, and supplies (6.71.2). To hold Nicias responsible for the success or the failure to follow it up is unreasonable. While the Athenians had waited until late in the year to attack, the sequence of events to that point did not seem to have offered opportunity for movement against Syracuse. Thucydides’s emphasis on Nicias probably has more to do with later events than with any responsibility for Athenian success or delay. At this point Lamachus was still present and other than Plutarch’s treatment (Nic. 14.4, 15.1) there is little reason to suppose that Nicias was making all the decisions himself (Hamel 1998: 94–9).
Both sides were busy during the winter of 415/414. The Athenians sent to Athens for cavalry and cash. They tried and failed to bring Messana, Camarina, Carthage, and Etruria over as allies, but they were more successful at securing Sicel allies (6.74, 82–88.2). The Syracusans sent representatives to Corinth and Sparta for assistance and tried to secure Camarina and the southern Italian cities as allies (6.72.2–73, 76–81, 88.6–8). They also built defenses including setting stakes in the harbor, building fortifications at strategic points, and setting up a wall across the Epipolai (the heights) northwest of Syracuse proper to enlarge the city size in the event of a siege (6.75, 7.25.3). The extended wall would make the city more difficult to circumvallate and could resist a siege (Gomme-Andrewes-Dover 4:471–3; Lazenby 2004: 144–5). Each side received the assistance they requested. Corinth committed ships and Sparta, spurred by Corinth and Alcibiades, appointed Gylippus to go to Syracuse and aid in the city’s defense (6.88.7–93.3). Athens committed money and cavalry to aid their expedition (6.88.6, 93.4).
After the mixed results of the previous year, 414 started well for the Athenian generals. Following raids on Megara Hyblaea and the Sicel towns of Kentoripa, Inessa, and Hybla, the reinforcements from Athens arrived: 250 cavalrymen without horses, thirty mounted archers (also without horses), and three hundred talents of silver (6.94; ML 77. ll. 73–74). With these additional funds, horses could now be purchased. A little later, after maneuvering to Trogilus (just north of Syracuse) unnoticed, they launched a successful surprise attack from the north on Epipolai that permitted the Athenians to set up a fort at Labdalon on the steep northern edge of the heights (6.96–97). Soon afterward they seized a point called “the Fig Tree” (Syke) on the heights of Epipolai between Labdalon and the Great Harbor and constructed a fort there that Thucydides referred to as “the Circle” (kuklos).5 Despite having created an elite unit of 600 before the surprise attack, the Syracusan hoplites were in disarray during these encounters and only the cavalry provided any resistance (6.97–98).
The “Circle” became the hub from which the Athenians began building a stone and wood wall of circumvallation to the north and south to cut Syracuse from the rest of Sicily. The masons in the original flotilla and the small blocks they started making late in 415 (88.6) indicate that this had always been a strategy. The combination of the wall and Athenian naval superiority was intended to result in the eventual fall of Syracuse, although treachery would be faster and was another available option (see also Seaman this volume, 642–56). Circumvallation was the height of siege warfare in the late fifth century; it was slow and expensive, but successful if prosecuted steadily (Strauss 2007: 237–47). At this point, the Syracusans gave up fighting head-on against the Athenian hoplites and started a counter wall perpendicular to the route of the Athenian wall south of the Circle. The Athenians broke pipes bringing extra water into the city, but since the spring of Arethusa was in the city the Syracusans could not be reduced by this measure. After the Syracusans had made progress on their first counter wall, a picked force of three hundred Athenians were able to capture the first counter wall and destroy it (6.99–101). Soon afterward the Athenians began building the wall south of the “Circle” and the Syracusans responded with a new counter wall across this line too. The Athenians successfully assaulted this wall also, but in the fight Lamachus was killed (6.101.6; Plut. Nic. 18.3). A sudden Syracusan assault on the “Circle” was stopped only by the quick intervention of Nicias who was convalescing there and by the appearance of the Athenian fleet in the Great Harbor. The Athenians were then finally able to establish a beachhead with stockade on the shore of the Great Harbor (6.102–103).
It must have appeared to many participants that now with the Athenian forces concentrated the campaign must come to a successful Athenian conclusion. The double circumvallation walls south to the harbor would be completed without any further intervention by Syracuse. Supplies now came in from Italy and several new allies joined them, including some Sicels and three penteconters from Etruria. The Syracusans despaired of success and began to debate their options. As a result, they opened peace negotiations with Nicias and deposed their generals (6.103). Nicias, whom Diodorus calls a proxenus of Syracuse (13.27.3), may have planned turning the city through treachery. It had worked in Catana and there is no reason to think it would not work again (7.48.2–3, 49.1; Plut.Nic. 21.3, 22.4; Green 1970: 4–5; Ellis 1979: 59; Trevett 1995; contra Grant 1974: 87). Unknown to the Syracusans, Gylippus and the Corinthian commander Pythen were delayed in Leucas. After leaving with four triremes ahead of their small force of thirteen ships, they sailed west but were further delayed by negotiations and weather in Tarentum. Nicias learned of their approach but given the small size of the force dismissed them as unimportant and initially took no action (6.104).
SYRACUSE SEIZES THE INITIATIVE
In the spring of 414, Gylippus and the Corinthians arrived in Sicily and immediately began working to turn the tide against Athens. Having learned in Locri that Syracuse was still accessible, they landed in Himera with four ships, the crews of which provided them the seven hundred or so sailors and marines they would lead to Syracuse. There they acquired Himera as an active ally to supply arms for their men and additional forces and sent word to Selinus, Gela, and some of the Sicel settlements to send troops. These answered positively and quickly so that when they departed Himera they led a force of around three thousand men and three hundred cavalry (7.1; Diod. 13.7.7). Even as Gylippus departed Himera one of the Corinthian ships that had remained behind in Leucas arrived in Syracuse. According to Thucydides, they found the Syracusans on the verge of voting to make peace, but they were able to stop them from proceeding and restored the city’s spirits (7.2.1). Although contemporaries could not know it yet, Thucydides makes clear these arrivals were the turning point of the Sicilian campaign (Kern 1989).
Gylippus, finding the circumvallation of Syracuse now nearing completion, took up command of the land forces and pursued an aggressive posture. South of the “Circle” the wall was nearly complete and some parts to the north were already finished with stones set out for the parts still incomplete. He marched onto Epipolai in battle line and joined up with the Syracusan forces, but after offering peace and being spurned Gylippus did not engage because he found his forces unready for combat (7.2.3–3.3). The next day, shielded by a line of battle, he captured the Athenian fort at Labdalon. The Syracusans also captured a ship that had been blockading the Little Harbor. They then began building a new counter wall (the third) that was to cross Epipolai east to west and stop the Athenian circumvallation (7.3.3–4.3). During all of this activity Nicias seems to have taken a passive approach on land and sea.
After these initial successes Gylippus kept up the pressure on the Athenians with assaults on their wall north of the “Circle” (7.4.1–3). Concerned about supplies and the naval position, Nicias fortified Plemmyrion, the headland at the southern mouth of the Great Harbor, and moved part of the base camp there. This new site was less satisfactory because water and forage were less easily accessible, but it certainly seemed a secure base for resupply from sea. Syracusan cavalry used Olympieion as a cavalry base and harassed anyone who foraged outside Athenian-controlled areas (7.4.4–6). Back on Epipolai, Gylippus kept deploying daily for combat and pushed his men to continue the counter wall, even using the stones previously set out by the Athenians. Once when he tried an unsuccessful attack between the Syracusan winter wall and the Athenian circumvallation, he lost, perhaps because his cavalry could not assist. When Nicias realized the counter wall was going to cut his circumvallation he finally took the offensive, but Gylippus, arrayed in a position where his cavalry could participate, defeated him, and thus carried the Syracusan wall across the Athenian circumvallation route (7.5.2–6). Once the counter wall was pushed across the route of the Athenian wall Nicias had to capture it if he was to complete his investment of the city, but because of Gylippus’s consistent harassment Nicias had to employ his forces defensively, guarding what he had built instead of attacking. The Syracusans continued extending their counter wall to the east through the rest of 414 and into 413.
The Athenian land forces were not the only part of the expedition to be in trouble. In addition to the noncombatants who had been brought along and had little to do once Nicias stopped building the siege walls, the naval forces also suffered. The fleet had been maintaining a blockade since the force moved south from Catana in the spring (7.3.5, 12.2–13.1). The problem with such a strategy is that the ships could only be pulled out of the water for maintenance if taken to Catana or Naxos. But in doing so Nicias lost the use of both the ships and their crews, and all the while the ships were deteriorating from water damage and wear (Morrison et al. 2000: 151–2; Harrison 2003). Moreover, the crews suffered from fatigue and from cavalry raids while foraging; when the ships shifted to Plemmyrion the Syracusan cavalry kept them close to camp. Nicias cited desertions of sailors and slaves as well as other personnel issues as regular and major problems (7.13.2–14.3). Evidence that there were naval problems showed up in the earlier capture of a ship in the blockade (7.3.5) and then at the end of fighting in 414, the rest of the Corinthian, Ambraciot, and Leucadian ships (twelve in all) arrived, having slipped past both the Athenian force sent to intercept them and the blockade (7.7.1). By the end of 414 the Athenian ships were no better off than the land force.
Both sides then made preparations for the winter lull and the following spring. Now that campaigning was over for the season, Gylippus went out into Sicily seeking additional reinforcements and new allies. A delegation of Syracusans and Corinthians sailed east to request additional support from Sparta and Corinth. Increasingly confident of their fortunes, the Syracusans undertook naval preparations by manning a fleet and beginning training, probably under Corinthian direction (7.7). Meanwhile, Nicias committed himself to a defensive strategy and decided to avoid unnecessary risks (7.8). He sent messengers to Athens with a letter summarizing the weakness of his position and requesting either recall or reinforcements before the following spring. The letter specifically points out both the deterioration of the fleet (waterlogged ships) and his own declining health (kidney disease?; 7.8, 10–15). By the end of 414 both sides may have sensed a turning of the tide.
Despite the demands of conflict in Greece, the Athenians and the Peloponnesians responded readily to the requests for assistance. The Athenians responded to Nicias’s letter by committing a new force. They first sent two men to act as commanders (Menander and Euthydemus) until the new generals arrived and then chose two new generals, Eurymedon and Demosthenes, to join Nicias.6 Of these two colleagues Eurymedon departed earliest, at the winter solstice, with ten ships and 120 talents. They also sent twenty ships to Naupactus to stop reinforcements from going to Sicily (7.16.2–17.2). Demosthenes was to depart in spring. By the time he arrived in Sicily he would have seventy-three ships, with five thousand hoplites (1,200 Athenian), and numerous light-armed troops (7.17.2, 19, 42.1; Diod. 13.11.1–2).
When Demosthenes embarked for Sicily in spring 413 the Peace of Nicias was a dead letter. The Athenians had raided the eastern Peloponnesian coast in summer 414 and the Spartans, having refused to submit to arbitration, declared the Peace to have been violated by Athens. Sparta now invaded Attica and established a permanent garrison at Decelea (6.105; 7.18–19.2). Ongoing operations in Sicily had made the Peace one in name only. Now in winter 414/413 Thucydides provides a formal end to the Peace.
The Syracusan force received reinforcements from the Peloponnese and Sicily. Sparta sent out six hundred hoplites drawn from among the helots and neodamodeis. Other members of the league contributed hoplites too: three hundred Boeotians, five hundred from Corinth and Arcadia, and two hundred Sicyonians. The men rode out in merchant ships screened by the Corinthian fleet across from Naupactus (7.17.4, 19.3–5). Gylippus raised a force in Sicily, but Thucydides does not provide details (7.21.1). Even though his reinforcements from Greece would not arrive for weeks he had reason to be optimistic.
Knowing from defections that the Athenians had sent for reinforcements, Gylippus vigorously opened the campaigning season of 413 by initiating a sea-and-land assault on the Athenian fortifications at Plemmyrion. The Syracusans mustered thirty-five triremes in the Great Harbor and brought forty-five more around from the Little Harbor. The Athenians met these with sixty triremes, twenty of which stayed in the Great Harbor, the rest attacking as the Syracusans entered the harbor. Initially, the Syracusans fared well, but when the ships from the Little Harbor broke into the Great Harbor they became entangled and the Athenians successfully counterattacked, losing only three ships, the Syracusans eleven. While Athenian ships may have been in poor repair (originally they had 134 triremes), Athenian experience made the difference (7.21.2–23).
Although the Athenians won at sea, the battle on land went differently. During the previous night, Gylippus led his land forces closer to the forts so that while the Athenians were watching the battle in the harbor he attacked, capturing all three of their forts, meeting little resistance. They captured some personnel, three ships, and took much matériel including, grain, ship tackle, and personal property. They then garrisoned and strengthened two of the forts and dismantled the third. While each side’s morale responded in accordance with their fortunes, the capture of Plemmyrion was much more important than the loss at sea. In addition to the captured supplies, the Syracusans now hemmed in the Athenian camp entirely on land and had broken the blockade, meaning that ships delivering Athenian supplies would have to fight to get into the Great Harbor (7.23–24).
Following the battle, naval activity continued on several fronts. The Syracusans responded by sending a ship to the Peloponnesus to speed up the reinforcements. Also, a small squadron (eleven ships) sailed north where they intercepted and burned Athenian supplies and took on board some Thespian hoplites en route from the Peloponnese, before returning to Syracuse with the loss of only one ship (7.25.1–4). Activity in the Great Harbor sheds light on naval siege tactics as the two sides vied for dominance. The Syracusans had driven pilings into the harbor to protect their ships at dock. The Athenians tried to undermine the Syracusan defenses by pulling up, snapping off, or sawing through the pilings, using a huge boat equipped with towers and shields as well as divers. This strategy was among several employed by both sides, but not elaborated by Thucydides (7.25.3–9).
Both sides continued to secure their allies. Several delegations went out from Syracuse to the Sicilian cities to convey good news, dispel any negative rumors concerning the first naval engagement, and request additional manpower with which to crush the Athenian forces before their reinforcements arrived. Due to an ambush by Sicels, only 1,500 men and one envoy made it to Syracuse where they arrived simultaneously with Camarinean and Geloan soldiers and sailors (7.32–33.1). Meanwhile, Demosthenes made his slow way to Sicily. He was unable to stop the Peloponnesian reinforcements from reaching Syracuse, but he picked up various allied troops, mostly light-armed, in various ports along the way in Greece and Italy (7.26, 31, 33.3–6, 35).
The second battle of the year was another land and sea engagement. The Syracusans had been practicing and building their confidence. The strategy they proposed took advantage of their strengths and the limited space in the Great Harbor—ramming bow-on-bow. They had followed the example of the Corinthians, adjusting and strengthening their prows for this uncommon ramming tactic. Such a strategy was well-suited to the weakness of the light Athenian ships, but even more to the closed space of the Great Harbor (7.36; Morrison et al. 2000: 163–7). Walls on land and pilings in the sea protected the Athenian camp and beach, but since the successful capture of Plemmyrion the Syracusans controlled access to the harbor and much of the coastline inside so the Athenian ships had limited options in the event of trouble at sea. Both sides in the naval battle were evenly matched: seventy-five Athenian ships defending against the eighty attacking them. Simultaneously, Gylippus attacked the Athenian walls with a force from the city and from Olympieion. The first two days were inconclusive, though Nicias succeeded in anchoring some ships in order to shield the Athenian stockade and provide cover for ships in trouble. On the third day, after a ruse in which they tricked the Athenians into thinking they were breaking for the day, the Syracusans were able to win by combining head-on ramming with javelin men stationed on decks and in smaller craft sailing up to the triremes and throwing through the oar ports (7.37–41; Lazenby 2004: 155). The close quarters inside the harbor made all the difference. Although they sank fewer than ten ships, the Syracusans won and seemingly had now taken the initiative at sea away from the Athenians.
Syracuse’s elation was short-lived, however. According to Thucydides, at exactly this moment Demosthenes and Eurymedon arrived with some seventy-three ships and five thousand hoplites (7.42.1). Once he surveyed the situation and consulted with his colleagues, Demosthenes decided to recover the initiative through swift action and selected as his target the Syracusan counter wall that had stopped Nicias (7.42.3–5; Diod. 13.11.3; Plut. Nic. 21). He initially attempted to use siege engines (probably battering rams) but the Syracusans set these on fire. After this attempt failed, the Athenian commanders agreed on a night assault (7.42.4–43.2; Diod. 13.11.3). This was a high-risk strategy born of impatience (so Roisman 1993: 56–63). The Athenian attack on Epipolai started well: the fort at Euryelos was captured quickly and the Athenians pushed on, taking part of the counter wall and dismantling it. But in taking the Euryelos fort, some of the guards escaped and raised the alarm among the special unit of 600 advance guards as well as the three Syracusan and allied outworks (proteichismata) on Epipolai.7 The elite unit arrived on the scene first, but the Athenians, led by Demosthenes, defeated them handily. Then Gylippus and the other three detachments showed up. The Syracusans and their allies began to hold, slowing the advance of fresh Athenian forces now approaching the Euryelos. On the heights the confusion increased as more Syracusan forces arrived, defending ground they knew against an enemy fighting in the dark on confined, unfamiliar ground with poor communications. The attack was entirely repulsed and the Athenians surrendered the heights with much loss of equipment and life. The next day Syracusan cavalry mopped up Athenian stragglers (7.43–45; Diod. 13.11.3–6).
In the immediate aftermath, both sides reassessed their situation and responded accordingly. Syracusan morale was high. They immediately sought further reinforcements from their allies in Sicily. This initiative was extremely successful and Gylippus brought in both Sicilians and some Peloponnesian troops who had gotten lost on the way (7.46, 50.1–2). Now that they had an enlarged force and confidence they resumed the offensive.
The Athenian response was tempered. Their morale sank as the army suffered from the defeat and poor conditions in camp. Demosthenes proposed an evacuation to Athens, but the failed night assault had undermined his influence. Nicias now asserted himself, perhaps with Eurymedon’s support, determined to continue the fight. His decision may reflect fear of the Athenian assembly should he return home unsuccessful, or he may have hoped still to take Syracuse by treachery as allies within the city encouraged him it might still fall from within (7.47–49; Plut. Nic. 21.3, 22.4). When the Athenians learned that the Syracusans were preparing a new offensive, they decided to evacuate, only to be stopped in their tracks by a lunar eclipse. Whether it was piety or superstition, the Athenians remained in place for twenty-seven days in accordance with the seers’ (theiasmoi) advice (7.50.3–4; Diod. 13.12.6). Perhaps Nicias was at fault for being excessively religious, as most ancient sources find (Gomme-Andrewes-Dover 4: 428–9; Hornblower 3: 642–4), but he was not the only one who reacted this way and the Athenians had reason to believe they might hold out until the period was complete. It is too easy to forget that although this delay appears in hindsight to make the end of the expedition inevitable, at no point yet would contemporaries have seen the outcome as predictable.
It should be no surprise that the final phase of the expedition began with a naval battle. The Syracusans, full of confidence and hoping to keep the fight in narrow waters, sent their seventy-six ships against the Athenians’ eighty-six ships while also attacking by land. Despite some mixed success on land the Athenians came off worse, losing numerous ships and crews as well as another general, Eurymedon. Afterward, the Syracusans tried to burn the Athenian fleet with a fire ship, but this failed (7.51–54). This attempt was followed by a blockade with ships of all sorts anchored in line across the harbor mouth. The Athenians responded by consolidating their camp and then manning every available craft and setting as many troops as possible on board. This engagement, which Thucydides reports included nearly two hundred ships, was more similar to a land battle than a typical naval battle because the tight space and number of ships restricted movement. After much effort on both sides, the Syracusans won and recovered the wrecked and grounded ships. The Athenians were in such a state of shock they did not even recover their dead (7.59.2–72.2; Krentz 2007: 173–6). With escape by sea closed, the Athenians saw that their only escape route was by land. While their invasion was effectively over, the Athenians still retained the capacity to do much damage in retreat.
The expedition that had begun in 415 with such a grand send off in Athens concluded in 413 with a tortuous retreat and pursuit. A Syracusan ruse delayed the Athenian departure by two days after the final battle in the harbor. Some forty thousand men abandoned their camp leaving the wounded and sick to fend for themselves (Devoto 2002; Hornblower 3: 1061–6). Because the Syracusans knew the direction the Athenians must take, they were able to send out forces to intercept the fugitive force. During the retreat the Athenians had to deal with blocked passes, infantry skirmishes, and harassing cavalry. The cavalry not only attacked the flanks, but also kept the fugitives hemmed in so that they could not forage for food and water. Circumstances were so bad that Nicias and Demosthenes divided the army into two parts and went south toward the coast in the hopes of faring better and tried to escape from harassment by marching at night. This strategy led to the groups getting further separated so that the Syracusans were able to surround, attack, and capture each group in turn over several days. Demosthenes’s group, the slower one, was trapped and surrendered under terms. Nicias’s men made better progress, but his group also was cut down and captured after not being permitted to make terms (7.75–86; Devoto 2002). By any measure, the retreat was a catastrophe.
Thucydides’s tally of prisoners revealed the deadliness of the Syracusan pursuit. He includes “at least seven thousand” out of the original fugitive force (7.87.4; Diod. 13.19.1–4; Devoto 2002: 67–8). Syracuse kept some of the captives in a stone quarry until they perished, while others were enslaved when captured or after serving time in the quarries. Nicias and Demosthenes were both executed despite surrendering under terms. Some men escaped and made their way back to Athens with news, but this number was small in comparison to the number that had set out. Back in Athens, the news was received with surprise, anger, and despair (7.87–8.1; Plut. Nic. 29). Despite the immense losses, the war did not end in the near term.
ERRORS AND MISCALCULATIONS
Many mistakes were made, such that the difficulty is not finding errors, but in not dismissing the entire expedition as an error from beginning to end. Certainly, that was Thucydides’s conclusion, who blamed especially those at home for not properly supporting those in the field (2.65.4). Since the city sent more ships, men, and money out in 413, it is unlikely that Thucydides’s most pointed criticism is aimed at Athens’s material support. Rather, he seems to be criticizing the recall of Alcibiades since as a result he defected and advised Sparta on Syracuse and the war in general.8 Even if one accepts that most Athenians in 416/415 saw the campaign as a potential success, it was certainly contrary to Pericles’s advice to avoid expanding the empire in the middle of the war (1.144.1) and there were those like Nicias who saw it as an error and said so (6.8.3–4).
The selection of three generals, especially those with such opposed views, was likely to create problems. Nicias and Alcibiades took opposite positions in the assembly debates and disliked each other personally. Although some historians have seen this split command as the campaign’s fundamental flaw (Hanson 2005: 206), the appointment of multiple generals was not unusual, nor that they must agree with the policy they were appointed to direct (Hamel 1998: 14–23). None of the three seems to have had more authority and once they reached the west, the generals debated policy and appeared to work together as should be expected (6.44.4–49). That such collegial command was normal during the expedition is shown in 413 by Demosthenes’s efforts to gain the assent of the other generals before assaulting Epipolai (7.43.1) and they continued to work together until they separated while on retreat (Hamel 1998: 94–9). The command structure was not as much of a mistake as historians sometimes have assumed, but that does not absolve individual commanders of responsibility.
One serious miscalculation was diplomatic intelligence. Despite dispatch of envoys, the Egestaeans successfully tricked the Athenians into expecting adequate financial support. Athenian commanders anticipated that a number of communities in southern Italy would provide significant material and military assistance, but such aid failed to materialize and in the end only Thurii and Metapontum contributed men. Even in Sicily the Athenians were seemingly surprised by their quiet reception at Messana and Camarina as well as, initially, at Catana. Thucydides’s repeated references to participants (in Greece, Sicily, and en route) responding to fresh information argues that there were networks of military intelligence and that information moved quickly. Nicias, for example, evidently had effective intelligence in and from Syracuse, which nearly proved decisive before Gylippus’s arrival. In the end, however, it may also have worked against Athenian interests as it delayed their retreat (cf. Russell 1999).
There were a number of military errors, most of which were made after Alcibiades’s recall. There is little point in trying to set them in order of significance since each contributed to ultimate failure. The failure to address the cavalry deficiency earlier was an error. Transporting enough horses was impractical, but the Athenians did not bring any cavalrymen in the initial flotilla. Nicias’s initial delay at the end of 415 was unfortunate and Demosthenes criticized it (7.42.3), but it is important to remember that the strategy originally agreed upon was not Lamachus’s but Alcibiades’s plan. The plan to besiege Syracuse was consistent with prior Athenian practice, but it was not prosecuted vigorously enough after the initial success. Nicias defeated the first two counter walls, but seems to have lost his spirit after Gylippus succeeded in throwing the third across his path. That the third counter wall was only a single wall (haploos, 7.42.4) suggests that it was weak and Demosthenes’s focus on it was correct. The failure of the Athenian assembly to withdraw Nicias in 414/413 after receiving his letter is surprising. The extent to which the Athenians underestimated Syracusan naval resistance contributed to the series of difficulties in 413. Splitting forces on retreat was expected given the situation; the outcome was likely to have been the same regardless. It was Nicias’s and Demosthenes’s failure to withdraw after the death of Eurymedon in 413 that was the ultimate failure.
Most of these errors, taken singly, would not have resulted in failure of the campaign. The error in not acquiring horses earlier, for example, could have been overcome. Some miscalculations, like the Egestian ruse or the failure to fight their way out of the Great Harbor, were specific to this campaign. Other problems, including poor intelligence, lethargic leadership, and overextension, are typical of war in all periods and can always be lethal. It was a concatenation of errors that overwhelmed the Athenian efforts.
OUTCOMES
Syracuse came out of the campaign strong and confident of its position in Sicily. According to Diodorus, the most complete source for the aftermath in Syracuse, the Syracusans won much wealth and material from the end of the campaign. They gave Gylippus and his men rewards from the spoils, but surprisingly perhaps they apparently did not award Gylippus any special honors. They also dispatched a force of thirty-five triremes commanded by Hermocrates, who had played no small part in the city’s defense, to aid the Peloponnesians against Athens. Finally, the Syracusans reformed their constitution making it even more democratic (Diod. 13.34.4).
The Peloponnesians, especially Gylippus, enjoyed limited gains from the victory at Syracuse. In addition to receiving no special honors in Syracuse, Gylippus was not honored in Sparta after his return, although that would have been consistent with Spartan attitudes. He also does not appear to have ever won another major independent command and when he was banished from Sparta in 402 he was serving under Lysander (Plut. Lys. 16.1–17; Diod. 13.106.8–9; Westlake 1968: 284–9). Ostensibly Alcibiades advised the Spartans on how to prosecute the war, but they failed to pursue new opportunities with sufficient vigor. The Spartans also failed to capitalize on Syracusan assistance, whether because they did not want to grant Syracuse a share of the glory or for some unknown reason. Sparta acted as if the victory in the west had never occurred.
The most surprising outcome of this expedition is not its failure, which was immense, but the fact that it did not lead to the immediate or even short-term end of the war. In less than three years campaigning against Syracuse, Athens and its allies lost more than forty thousand men (soldiers, sailors, and support personnel), more than two hundred ships, some five hundred talents of silver, and a great deal of goodwill and prestige. Despite the horrendous losses, Athens continued fighting for nearly ten more years. Alcibiades returned to Athens triumphantly in 407 and the war dragged on. Athens found the expedition devastating but not terminal. The extent to which it led directly to the eventual defeat of the city remains a topic for debate.
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