History of the Peloponnesian War

Now Gylippus, when he saw the ships of the enemy being defeated and driven ashore at a point beyond the stockades and their own camp, wishing to destroy the men as they landed, and also that the Syracusans might more easily tow the ships away from a shore that would be friendly to them, came down to the causeway[*](A quay which ran along by the swamp Lysimeleia toward the Athenian camp.) with part of his army to assist them.

The Tyrrhenians, however, who were guarding the causeway for the Athenians, saw these troops rushing to the attack in disorder and went out against them, and falling upon the first comers put them to flight and drove them into the marsh called Lysimeleia.

But afterwards, when a larger force of the Syracusans and their allies had now arrived, the Athenian troops also went out against them and, fearing for their ships, engaged in battle with the enemy, whom they defeated and pursued, killing a few hoplites; and as for the ships, they saved most of them and assembled them at their camp, but eighteen were captured by the Syracusans and their allies and their crews slain to a man.

Against the ships also that remained the Syracusans, wishing to set them afire, turned loose an old merchant-ship which they had filled with faggots and pine-wood, after casting fire into it, the wind being in the direction of the Athenians. And the Athenians, alarmed for their ships, devised in their turn means for hindering and quenching the flames, and having stopped the fire and prevented the ship from coming near, escaped the danger.

After this the Syracusans set up a trophy, both for the sea-fight and for the cutting off of the hoplites at the wall—the engagement in which they had captured the horses;[*](cf. 7.51.2.) and the Athenians set up a trophy for the fight in which the Tyrrhenians drove the Syracusan infantry into the marsh, and also for their own victory with the main body of the army.

The victory of the Syracusans having now proved decisive by sea also—for before this they had always been afraid of the new fleet that had come with Demosthenes—the Athenians were in utter despondency. Great had been their miscalculation, and far greater still was their regret at having made the expedition. For of all the cities with which they had gone to war, these alone were at that time similar in character to their own, democratic in constitution like themselves, and strong in ships, cavalry and size.

And so, finding themselves unable either to bring about a change in their form of government,[*](It was the usual policy of Athens to overthrow oligarchies and establish democracies as a means of extending their empire; but this resource was not open to them in democratic Syracuse.) and thus introduce among them that element of discord by which they might have brought them over to the Athenian side, or to subdue them by means of a military force that was greatly superior, and having failed in most of their undertakings, they had even before this been at their wits' end, and now that they had suffered defeat even with their fleet, a thing that they could never have anticipated, they were in far greater perplexity still.

The Syracusans, on the other hand, began at once to sail fearlessly about the harbour and determined to close up the entrance to it, in order that the Athenians might no longer be able, even if they wished, to sail out unobserved.

For the Syracusans were no longer concerned with merely saving themselves, but also with preventing the Athenians from being saved, thinking, as indeed was the case, that in the present circumstances their own position was much superior, and that if they could defeat the Athenians and their allies both by land and by sea the achievement would appear a glorious one for them in the eyes of the Hellenes. All the other Hellenes, they reflected, would immediately be either liberated from subjection or relieved from fear, since the military forces that would remain to the Athenians would not be strong enough to sustain the war that would afterwards be brought against them; and they themselves, being regarded as the authors of all this, would be greatly admired not only by the world at large but also by posterity.

And indeed the struggle was a worthy one, both in these respects and because they were showing themselves superior, not to the Athenians only, but to their numerous allies as well, and that too not standing alone but associated with the friends who had come to their aid, thus taking their place as leaders along with the Corinthians and Lacedaemonians, having also given their own city to bear the brunt of the danger and taken a great step forward in sea-power.

Indeed, a larger number of nations than ever before had gathered together at this one city, if one except the vast throng of those who in this war rallied to the support of the city of Athens and the city of the Lacedaemonians.