Under the beating sun of a hot summer's day in 413 BC, within Athens' port city of Piraeus, a small boat lands ashore carrying but one passenger. In need of a haircut, the stranger locates the local barber, who begins to make small talk with the man. The stranger spoke of his expedition and reason for his return as if everyone in Athens was already to know. This one man was not believed at first, but when, slowly, more and more messengers arrived confirming the story, it could be denied no longer. To the barber's utter horror, what the stranger described, and what was relayed to the Archons and people of Athens, was the tale of the city's grand armada - its pride and joy - destined to conquer Sicily, and its horrific fate at the hands of the defenders. Never would Athens have imagined that such a nightmare could befall their city in one fell swoop.
This is the stranger's story, one of war, heroism, confusion and greed - this is the Sicilian Expedition: Athens' greatest disaster.
Check out my previous post on Alcibiades and the preparations for the Sicilian Expedition, 416 - 415 BC
A TRICKED MARCH TO SYRACUSE
[ABOVE: The route of the Athenian navy from Athens to Sicily, arriving in the winter of 415 BC]
In the winter of 415 BC, Athens’ grand armada - consisting at the start of the expedition of 134 trireme warships and over six-thousand soldiers, including 5,100 heavy hoplites - arrived on Sicily, at the North-Western city of Segesta. Despite their enemy having landed on their home soil, the Syracusan’s - Athens’s greatest target for the war - remained rather unfazed. Syracuse’s people insisted to their generals that the army should be lead out of the city to meet the Athenians head on in battle. So unintimidated were they in fact that they would come to commonly taunt their Athenian opposition by asking whether they had come merely to settle a new city alongside their own, hinting at how underprepared and unprofessional their army looked.
[ABOVE: A Doric-style temple, found in the ruins of Segesta, north-western Sicily]
This is what Athens wanted, however. Their plan was to draw the Syracusan’s out of their heavily walled city, into the open plains of Sicily and attack the unprotected city with their fleet under the cover of night. In the meantime, the Athenians sent a man to Syracuse, loyal to Athens but thought of by Syracuse to be sympathetic to them instead. He insisted to Syracuse that since Athens would be camping by the city of Catana, Syracuse should go out, besiege their fortified position and set fire to their docked fleet. After their allies met them in the city, the Syracusan’s agreed to the man’s plan and assembled their army.
Getting word of their approach, the Athenians decamped, boarded their ships and sailed for Syracuse itself, forcing the Syracusan's to turn back to defend their city. The delay in the Syracusan’s return allowed the Athenians to establish themselves atop a fortified position outside of Syracuse; to one side lay houses, woods and a marsh, and to the other was very steep hilly terrain. Cutting down the trees to form a palisade alongside their ships, they proceeded to destroy the nearby bridge over the River Anapus to halt the Syracusan’s.
FIRST BATTLE OF SYRACUSE
[ABOVE: A northward-facing photo of modern-day Syracuse, south-eastern Sicily, with Mount Etna in the background]
[BELOW: Map of ancient Syracuse during the 5th century BC (pink), later expansions shown in orange]
Thereafter, the Syracusan cavalry arrived opposite the Athenian army, followed by their infantry shortly after. The following day, the Athenians and their allies lined up for battle, with their Mantinean and Argive allies on their right wing, and their own Athenian soldiers in the centre. Half the force was formed up eight ranks deep as standard for hoplite warfare, while the rest was formed into a protective hollow square, with light troops protected inside, under orders to move up to aid the other half of the force should they need it. The Syracusan hoplites, meanwhile, formed up eighteen ranks deep, with a total of 1,200 cavalry, compared to Athens’ thirty, on their right wing alongside skirmishers. Across the battlefield, Nicias rallied his Athenian soldiers:
Men, all of us here face the same challenge, so there is no need for a long address. And I think the very strength of our force should build your confidence more than any fine speech could do for a weaker army… We all can have high hopes of victory in the company of so many allies of such quality — especially as our opponents are not picked troops like ourselves but a city militia called out in defence. And what is more they are Sicilians. They may look down on us, but they will not stand up to us: their skill does not match their ambition. I would have you all bear in mind too that we are far from home and the only friendly land nearby is what you can win by your own exertion in battle. So my message to you is the opposite of the exhortation which I am sure the enemy commanders are giving to their own troops. They will be speaking of a battle for their country: but I must remind you that this is not your country, and you must conquer it or else face a difficult retreat, harried by cavalry in great numbers. So remember your own worth, and move confidently to the attack: you have less to fear from the enemy than from the pressure and difficulty of our present situation.
Nicias’s following attack happened so soon for the Syracusans that many of them had to run back from the city they temporarily went back to. Thucydides describes the Syracusan fighting as one with less skill, but great determination. Fighting began with skirmishing troops launching stones and arrows into each other’s line, followed by soothsayer sacrifices and the hoplites lining up in battle formation ready to engage.
[ABOVE: A Greek tetradrachm (equivalent to four drachma) depicting the nymph Arethusa (obverse) and a quadriga (chariot pulled by four horses), from c.415 - 405 BC, Syracuse]
As rain, thunder and lightning poured down, the two lines hit each other hard, with no side gaining an immediate advantage. Athens’s Argive right-wing soon gained an advantage over the startled Syracusan left, causing the Syracusan centre then right to break and follow suit. There was no large pursuit, since the unengaged heavy Syracusan cavalry remained ready to pounce, as the Syracusan army fell back into the city, and to the nearby Olympieium temple to guard its rich treasures. Around 260 Syracusan and fifty Athenian soldiers fell in total. Nicias’s army sailed back north to Catana to acquire more cavalry.
WINTER PREPARATIONS
Following their first defeat, Syracuse called an assembly. Hermocrates came forward to speak. He was a man described as highly intelligent and very battle-hardened. Hermocrates argued that their defeat was only due to poor organisation and preparation; a lot of their army was not professional, many soldiers arrived late and the battle began sooner than expected. They still had superior cavalry and a large walled city to fall back on - they still, arguably, had the advantage. He also argued the army had too many commanders - too many differing points of authority - and should the army be commanded under a more streamlined structure, they’d have a better chance. Accepting his view, Syracuse elected three generals to command the army: Hermocrates, Heracleides and Sicanus.
[ABOVE: Hermocrates of Syracuse, as depicted in Domenico lo Faso Pietrasanta's "Biography of the Illustrious Men of Sicily: Adorned with their Respective Portraits, Volume 4", 1821]
Meanwhile, having sailed to Catana, Athens planned to capture Messana, in the very north-east of Sicily. However, Alcibiades, on his way into self-exile towards Sparta, had coincided with the pro-Syracusan party in Messana and warned them of Athens’s intentions there, allowing the city time to muster a defence. Short on supplies there, the Athenians instead made their way south to Naxos, just north of Catana, setting up fortifications while sending one trireme back to Athens to ask for cavalry reinforcements to arrive by spring.
In the winter, Syracuse constructed a second wall adjoining the city to rid the chance of them in turn being walled off and planting wooden stakes into the coastline to prevent Athenian landings. Further forces were sent out to raid the countryside and prevent Athens from collecting resources. Hermocrates even tried to persuade the city of Camarina against siding with the Athenians as they had planned, but delegations from both sides convinced the Camarinaeans to support neither side.
ENVOYS
Those Athenians stationed at Naxos, meanwhile, attempted to win over the Sicels. Many of these were subject to Syracuse and never keen on revolting against them. Many further inland, however, remained more independent in nature and joined the Athenians, supplying them with funds while the other Sicels were forced into compliance by the Athenians. Moving their fortifications further south from Catana to Naxos, Athens sent further envoys to Carthage, and to Etruria in northern Italy, to hopefully obtain some friendship and supplies, and across Sicily to ask for cavalry reinforcements.
[ABOVE; Ethnographic map of ancient Sicily prior to the arrival of Greek colonisers, c.11th century BC]
ALCIBIADES IN SPARTA
[ABOVE: A Renaissance-era engraving of Alcibiades by Agostino Veneziano, Venice, 16th century]
Syracuse performed similar actions, asking their Italic and mainland Greek allies - namely Sparta and Corinth - to ask for aid, to which Corinth immediately accepted. Envoys sent to Sparta happened to meet with envoys under and including Alcibiades, invited personally by Sparta. Sparta’s authorities were not keen on sending military aid, but Alcibiades spoke in opposition to this, convincing them to fortify themselves closer to home to better be able to aid Syracuse, assembling and sending a force to Sicily under the command of Gylippus.
SUMMER MANOEUVRES
By the start of Spring 414 BC, the Athenians had landed their navy from Catana to Megara, just outside of Syracuse, ravaging the land before attempting to take over a fortified Syracusan encampment. Failing so, their fleet instead sailed up the River Terias to conduct further raids inland before heading back to Catana. After raiding further settlements in the region, they were met with their reinforcing cavalry from Athens - 250 in total, as well as thirty mounted archers and three-hundred silver talents.
[ABOVE: Map of ancient Sicily, depicting Greek and Punic/Carthaginian settlements]
SIEGE OF SYRACUSE
In the same summer as an earthquake lead to a failed Spartan campaign into Argive territory took place, the Athenians, with bolstered cavalry numbers, began their preparations to wall off Syracuse. High grounds just to the north of the city, called Epipolae, would give the Athenians a great advantage in their task, so Syracuse made it a priority to block off all passages leading to Epipolae. Epipolae lead down to Syracuse via a steep hill, and was walled on all other sides by steep cliff-like edges. Guarding the passage up to Epipolae were six-hundred Syracusan hoplites lead by Diomilus.
Meanwhile the Athenian fleet made it to less than a mile away from Syracuse, setting up their fortifications before the infantry charged straight for Epipolae. Rushed into a fight, Diomilus and his six-hundred hoplites engaged the Athenian infantry after a three mile run, weakening their charge and engagement and leading to their defeat outside the city walls. Three-hundred Syracusans, including Diomilus, were killed, and the Athenians returned to their fortifications.
THE WALLS
During the siege and the fighting, the Athenians were keen in attempting to encircle Syracuse with a wall in order to starve the city of outside supplies. They also wanted their walls to extend to Syracuse’s harbour in order to gain its resources and safe access to the sea. Aware of these intentions, Syracuse in turn attempted to build a series of their own walls to prevent Athens’s from encircling the city. Guard units were stationed in order to prevent the Athenians from damaging these constructions. Athens countered their ability by mining sapping tunnels underground to disrupt and redirect the city’s underground water supplies in order to funnel them towards themselves. Another large section of the Athenian army - some three-hundred men - even raided a Syracusan encampment and destroyed a section of wall, before being cut down.
[ABOVE: Map of the siege of Syracuse, 414 - 413 BC, depicting the Athenian walls (purple) and Syracusan/Spartan walls (red)]
Eventually, Athens’s walls to the harbour were complete. They sent their navy and their men from Epipolae to more level ground further south by the River Terias, surprising the Syracusans again and causing their army to rush towards the bridge to meet them. The picked three-hundred Athenian hoplites rushed for this bridge to slow their advance. By the time they were cut down, Syracuse was able to regroup and smash the Athenian right wing, causing Lamachus to reinforce this with troops from his left. In this manoeuvre, Lamachus and many of his personal guard found themselves in a ditch, isolated and swiftly cut down during the melee, as the Syracusans withdrew back into Syracuse.
Nicias was left back at Epipolae with a portion of the army due to him falling ill, and when Syracusan forces bore down on the camp at Epipolae, expecting it to be empty, they too were cut down. With the death of Lamachus - and of course the abandonment of Alcibiades - Nicias was left in sole command of the entire Athenian army.
GYLIPPUS AND THE SPARTAN REINFORCEMENTS
Meanwhile, Gylippus and his Spartan-Corinthian reinforcements were sailing off the coast of Italy, ready to arrive in Sicily. False reports of Syracuse now being completely walled off caused him to land his fleet on the mainland. From the city of Taras, a Spartan colony city, envoys were sent across Italy, to no avail, and his fleet was caught in a harsh storm. Getting word of this fleet, Nicias thought it no more than a raiding party sent to disrupt the Athenian navy at best, and posted no watch guard to keep an eye on it for now.
GYLIPPUS IN SYRACUSE
Learning that Syracuse had not yet been fully walled off by Nicias’s army, Gylippus now saw his opportunity to assist Syracuse with his reinforcements. Debate raged between himself and his second-in-command, Pythen, as to whether to sail directly to Syracuse’s harbour along Sicily’s east coast, or sail to northern Sicily to Himera, collect reinforcements and march east, to which the north route was decided upon. Nicias had sent four ships to intercept the Spartan navy, but too late. Landing at Himera and calling on local reinforcements, Gylippus’ land force now consisted of seven-hundred of his own sailors and marines armed as hoplites, a thousand hoplites and light infantry from Himera, a thousand troops from Sicel, and a smattering of other light troops and cavalry. They now marched for Syracuse.
[ABOVE: A Lakonian black-figure cup depicting a Greek hippeus / horseman by the unknown "Rider Painter", c.550 - 530 BC]
One Spartan ship had been sent ahead to reassure the distressed defenders that reinforcements were swiftly on their way. Taking heart, Syracuse took their entire army to meet up with Gylippus’s men, joining them and lining up for battle facing the Athenian wall constructors, just before they could finish the final part of their wall down to the great harbour. Their prompt arrival caught the Athenians off guard and the construction was never finished - Syracuse thus came very close to being completely walled off and defeated. With the two armies meeting each other on more level ground shortly after, Syracuse sent Nicias heralds stating that they would let them leave Sicily peacefully under a five day truce. Ignored, Syracuse instead stationed the bulk of their army outside Athens’s walls, taking detachments to instead raid and capture several small Athenian forts and triremes, to great success.
[ABOVE: Depiction of an ancient Greek trireme from the U.S. Military Academy's Department of History, by F. Mitchell, 1984]
As Athens finally completed their harbour wall, Syracuse was already underway constructing a wall from the northern part of their city up to Epipolae, which would stop Athens from circumvolving the city entirely. Seeing Gylippus’s forces now hindering his own prospects on land, Nicias now decided to capture and fortify the peninsula known as Plemmyrium, a headland opposite Syracuse which jutted out into the great harbour to narrow its entrance. Securing this would hinder Syracusan supplies from coming in and secure Nicias’s own. Three forts were now constructed at Plemmyrium, housing the bulk of Athens’s supplies and their fleet. This turned out to be a major mistake; resources in the region were scarce, and any attempt to collect more were met with Syracuse’s cavalry. On top of that, Corinth was sending twenty further ships in reinforcement to this region and they would be arriving soon.
Gylippus continued constructing his wall up to Epipolae. Constant fighting ensued as both walls were being constructed, with Gylippus taking responsibility for the ensuing defeats as he said he was holding back Syracuse’s excellent cavalry. In the next engagement, Gylippus moved his hoplites further from the wall, placing his skirmishers and cavalry in open space facing the Athenian army’s left flank, charging into their exposed wing. This engagement broke the entire wing and drove it right back to the rest of Nicias’s army. That night, Syracuse was able to construct their wall past Athens’s, completely cutting off any chance of walling off Syracuse. The tides of the war had now shifted greatly against Nicias.
[ABOVE: The Altıkulaç Sarcophagus, depicting a mercenary peltast (left) supporting a Persian horseman (centre) attacking a Greek psiloi skirmisher (right), early 4th century BC]
The twenty reinforcing Corinthian ships arrived in the great harbour, while Gylippus went out into Sicily again to ask for further reinforcements. Seeing the situation rapidly shift, Nicias began sending far more detailed reports back to Athens, asking for further reinforcements, and halting all offensive actions against Syracuse as his army took up far more defensible stances. With this, the summer of 414 BC came to a close.
MAINLAND ON-GOINGS
NICIAS’S LETTER TO ATHENS
Come winter, Nicias’s envoys and letter arrived in Athens. Their response was not to relieve him of command, but to send two more commanders, Menandrus and Euthydemus, to relieve Nicias of the burden of sole command, as well as reinforcing ships and troops. As a second-in-command, Athens also sent Demosthenes to Sicily, veteran commander of the Aetolian Campaign, the battles of Pylos and Sphacteria, and the battle of Megara. Eurymedon was immediately sent to Sicily with ten vessels and 120 silver talents to assure Nicias that further help was on the way, while a further twenty ships were sent around the coast of the Peloponnese to guard against Peloponnesian reinforcements.
[ABOVE: Demosthenes, as depicted in "Young Peoples' Cyclopaedia of Persons and Places" by Polyeuktos, 1881]
PELOPONNESIAN PREPARATIONS
Knowing their reinforcements had provided excellent assistance in Sicily, Corinth grew in confidence. The Sicilian-based envoys who arrived at Corinth ask for further reinforcements, to which they responded with twenty-five warships to counter Athens’s Peloponnesian-based fleet, while Sparta themselves prepared through the winter into 413 BC for a large invasion of Attica, under the advice of Alcibiades. Sparta saw Athens now as a much weaker target, with large-scale warfare now in two theatres. Athens’s recent military transgressions near Argos gave Sparta cause to believe that they had too greatly transgressed the Peace of Nicias, encouraging them back into full-scale war in the mainland.
DECELEIA, AND THE GULF OF CORINTH
In the Spring of 413 BC, the king of Sparta, Archidamus’s son Agis II, invaded Attica. Ravaging the land, they fortified the Athenian Deme of Decelea, in full view of the city itself. Various Peloponnesian allies sent hundreds of hoplites and several ships in reinforcements to attack the Peloponnesian-based Athenian fleet. Agis’s fort in Decelea caused severe disruptions to Athens; the defection of around twenty-thousand Athenian slaves ensued, and there was much loss in life, food and livestock, including horses, hindering the chance of any more cavalry reinforcements to Nicias over in Sicily.
[ABOVE: The Demes of ancient Athens since the reforms of Kleisthenes, 5th century BC. Deceleia is located in the north of the Mesogala deme (green)]
Day by day, Athens began to look more like a military outpost instead of a thriving city, as the citizens themselves were called up on to stay alert of attacks during the night, while supplies from the Euboean side of Attica had to make their way around the peninsula to fuel the city in order to bypass enemy vessels.
A large battle inside the Gulf of Corinth would ensue in the summer, with twenty-five Corinthian ships facing off against thirty-three Athenian ships, resulting in three Corinthian ships being destroyed and seven Athenian ships being taken out of commission. With this undecided fight, both sides claimed victory.
With a war on two fronts, Athens was determined to keep up their efforts both at home and in Sicily, despite their failings and shortcomings. By now, Athens was facing bankruptcy. In desperation, and as revenues were failing, a five percent seaborne traffic tax was placed on all members of the Delian League. Athens even had to send away a force of over one-thousand Thracian mercenaries who had arrived in Greece to aid Demosthenes due to the expenses maintaining this force would cost.
PLEMMYRIUM
Meanwhile, Gylippus arrived back at Syracuse with what reinforcements he could muster. He told Syracuse to ready the largest fleet they could assemble, ready for an all-out naval attack. Hermocrates supported this, noting that there was nothing particularly special about Athens’s sea power compared to themselves. When the fleet was ready, Gylippus and Hermocrates assembled their forces together under the cover of night. Thirty-five triremes sailed directly form the great harbour, forty-five from the little harbour, combining together to form an eighty vessel strong armada to attack the Athenians at Plemmyrium from two sides.
Athens responded, sending twenty-five ships to do battle with the thirty-five Syracusan ships, and the rest of their navy to the forty-five. Struggle ensued outside the mouth of the great harbour. Athenian forces at Plemmyrium moved down to the coast to watch the naval battle take place, causing Gylippus to capitalise and attack the three Athenian forts at first light. Starting with the largest fort then moving in to capture the other two, all captured with great ease. One fort was demolished and the other two were refortified following their capture. These forts contained several goods, including weapons and armour, money and, most vitally, food. The goods of forty triremes were completely taken by Syracuse, including three entire triremes. This was the first of many major defeats for Athens in Sicily, and it would set the scene for the rest to come as Athens now had no stored supplies and no way of importing any more as the Syracusan navy.
[ABOVE: A Riace Bronze, statue depicting a 5th century Greek infantryman, now held in the National Archaeological Museum of Magna Graecia, Reggio, Italy]
As the Athenian garrisons were retreating, Hermocrates was struggling at sea against the Athenian navy; their initial engagement proved successful, breaking through the Athenian ship line and into the harbour, but advancing in in disarray and being caught out of formation, causing a Syracusan defeat in the harbour. Eleven of Hermocrates’s ships were disabled and most of their crew were killed, and three more were taken prisoner, while Athens themselves only lost three ships.
Following this, Syracuse sent out a dozen ships to intercept more Athenian vessels, with one being sent to the Greek mainland to urge further prosecutions of the Peloponnesian War. The other eleven Syracusan ships intercepted an Athenian supply fleet, allowing further Corinthian reinforcements to pass through safely and arrive in Sicily.
Further aid had been provided to Syracuse after envoys from there were sent around Sicily. In response, Nicias told his Sicilian allies to be on the lookout for these approaching enemy. Ambushes were laid down, and some eight-hundred allies heading for Syracuse were killed, and fifteen-hundred captured. However, five-hundred hoplites and six-hundred skirmishers and archers made it, as well as five triremes, four-hundred skirmishers and two-hundred horsemen. By this point, with so many forces mustered against Athens, nearly the entire island - aside from neutral Agrigentum - had sided with Syracuse.
BATTLE IN THE GREAT HARBOUR
Meanwhile, Syracuse’s large fleet was ready. Alterations had been made to the vessels; the prows (the angled front of a ship) were shortened and strengthened, since their last naval engagement with Athens resulted in many of their own ships being taken out of commission when the prows were damaged, and since ancient naval warfare relied heavily on head-on ramming, this was crucial. Athens’s navies strength lay in their light ship’s slender design allowing them to quickly manoeuvre their enemy and encircle them in order to hit them in the flanks. Syracuse’s goal was to entice Athens into a battle inside the great harbour, where the narrow space would negate Athens’s speed and manoeuvrability advantages. Where Syracuse’s admiral was once scorned for his in-manoeuvrability, this would now work to his advantage.
[ABOVE: The bronze front ram of a Greek trireme, now held in the Pireaus Museum, Piraeus, Athens]
Confident in themselves, Gylippus’s land force and the Syracusan navy, some eighty vessels strong, launched a coordinated attack against the Athenians. Gylippus attacked the section of Athenian wall which faced Syracuse, while the navy’s attack caught Athens’s seventy-five ships completely by surprise. The day’s fighting was marked with constant hit and run tactics with skirmishing in between and during. Fighting was largely indecisive, yet more Athenian ships and soldiers fell overall. Syracuse remained quiet the following day, giving no clear indication as to their next manoeuvres. Nicias ordered the day be occupied with repairs being made to the ships.
The next day, similar fighting ensued, giving similar results. When, however, many Syracusan sailors disembarked, the Athenian took this as a sign of withdrawal. What was actually occurring was the Syracusan's had been convinced by Corinth to send for food from the city market to be brought down to the shore for the army to eat from. When several ships charged into the great harbour in a rushed disarray, the Syracusan sailors by then had reembarked and ambushed the ships. This caused the rest of the unengaged Athenian fleet to rush into the harbour to aid, giving the idle Syracusan navy its perfect opportunity to use its bulky stability to its upmost advantage. Their modded shortened rams sheered off several outriggers and oars, and the skirmishers and marines on board inflicted even more heavy damage to Athenian personnel. In the pursuit, two Syracusan ships were captured and destroyed, but this was compared to seven disabled Athenian ships atop several more damaged, with the crews being captured or killed.
The Athenians were in serious trouble.
DEMOSTHENES
As Syracuse prepared for another round of fighting, Demosthenes arrived with his reinforcements. Thucydides pus their numbers at around five-thousand hoplites, on top of a large contingent of Greek and non-Greek javelinmen and skirmishers. To Syracuse, it seemed as Athens had unlimited manpower. Demosthenes assessed Syracuse’s counter wall, and how it was only a mere single wall, Demosthenes decided that it would be easily taken if the approach up to Epipolae were secured. This was very much his all or nothing decision - either this would work, or the entire expedition would fail.
NIGHT BATTLE
Starting with a typical raid of the local countryside, Demosthenes had siege equipment constructed to attempt a breach of the Syracusan counter-walls. When these were set ablaze, and after all Athenian counter-attacks were repulsed, he set straight with his army to march on and secure Epipolae. Gathering enough supplies for five days, Demosthenes did not wish to march straight up during the day time, so set out with provisions, extra weapons and supplies during the night. He was accompanied by Eurymedon, but Nicias was left in place with his forces. Undetected, Demosthenes’s men were able to take a fort and kill several Syracusan’s, with some escaping to relay what had happened to Syracuse’s three other camps. When Syracuse’s elite six-hundred hoplites were sent in to repulse Demosthenes, they were sent back with little trouble. Even Gylippus and his men struggled to deal enough damage to Demosthenes’s force. Roused by their victories, Demosthenes’s men rushed closer towards the summit of Epipolae.
[ABOVE: Modern reconstruction of a Greek phalanx formation]
THE GREAT MASSACRE
What happened next in the rushed confusion of Demosthenes’s army in the dark was sheer confusion; amidst fighting between various Greeks, many of Demosthenes’ soldiers confused their own allies for the enemy, since many of the forces Demosthenes brought over from Athens’s various allies spoke the same Doric Greek dialect as Syracuse. With only moonlight highlighting men's silhouettes, many of Demosthenes’s soldiers began, in panic and blindness, attacking and killing their own allies.
In situations like this, where it is more difficult distinguishing friend from foe compared to other battles, sides usually have passwords to tell each other apart. In their panic, Demosthenes’ soldiers revealed their own password to the Syracusan’s, who used this opportunity to essentially sneak through the Athenian's lines repeating the password, using it as cover to then stab their enemy in the back. In short, Athens was killing their own allies, and Syracuse was avoiding their own bloodshed and killing the Athenians. The Athenian's only route for survival was the one, now heavily guarded path up to Epipolae they traversed in the first place, or for many the easier route of simply jumping off the steep hillsides to their quicker, painless deaths. Many made it safely back to camp, while any stragglers were killed at dawn by Syracusan cavalry.
[ABOVE: "Destruction of the Athenian Army at Syracuse", from "The Story of the Greatest Nations, from the Dawn of History to the Twentieth Century" by John Steeple Davis, 1900]
This titanic success allowed Syracuse to send for further reinforcements. Syracuse themselves asked the city of Agrigentum, then currently undergoing their own revolution, if they would join them in the war, while Gylippus was sent around Sicily to ask for reinforcements from anyone, with the goal of taking the Athenian walls.
DELAYED WITHDRAWAL
Athens’s situation could not have been worse. A war council was called to discuss simply how to survive. Disease was now spreading through their ranks, given how supplies were dwindling and their camps had to be built on marshy terrain. Demosthenes argued that, since the arrival of the second fleet, they still had naval superiority, and should use it to make an immediate retreat back to Greece. Nicias agreed, but refrained from voicing his opinion of the weakened Athenians, and as the one Athenian with the most intel on Syracuse and having had the most experience in Sicily, he retained some hope for this desperate situation; if a siege could be maintained and if the Athenian navy could keep up a good port blockade, all while Syracuse would financially struggle with blockades and mercenary upkeeps, there might be a chance at redemption and victory. Atop of this, he knew that his empty return to Athens would cause the end of his career, and perhaps his life, so took up the view that he would rather die trying in Sicily than die, or even live, as a failure back home. Nicias thus voted to stay.
Demosthenes was willing to compromise by simply moving their base of operations in Sicily away from Syracuse north to other pro-Athenian cities. Eurymedon agreed. This disagreement resulted in a lot of quarrelling, but not a lot of action, and so their movement - whether north or back home - was delayed. All the while, Gylippus arrived back in Syracuse with further reinforcements, and the combined army now prepared another attack against what was left of the Athenian forts. With mounting pressure, Nicias eventually caved, and word was passed through the Athenian army that a complete withdrawal was now underway.
Unfortunately for the Athenians, the Syracusan’s and Spartans knew that they now wished to retreat.
LAST BATTLES IN THE GREAT HARBOUR
Syracuse took the Athenian decision to withdraw as their admittance of total failure both at land and sea. Their goal was to force the Athenians into a quick naval battle while they held the advantage and morals. Eventually, their forces attacked the Athenian walls, and any forces that came to meet them were quickly despatched.
The following day, seventy-six Syracusan ships sailed out to meet the Athenian navy of eighty-six vessels. Eurymedon commanded the Athenian right wing and attempted an encirclement, but in doing so he overextended his line, just in time for the Syracusan’s centre to defeat the Athenian centre, and turn left to defeat Eurymedon’s wing, boxing his force into a bay in the harbour where he and his men were killed and their ships destroyed. The rest of the Athenian navy was defeated and driven ashore beyond the extent of their forts and walls. As they landed safely on the coast, Gylippus was waiting with his land forces to kill the sailors. These Syracusan's were eventually chased off by the Athenian’s various allies, but the damage had already been done.
[ABOVE: Cross-section of a trireme, showing the three banks of oarsmen, from "The Athenian Trireme and the War at Sea" drawing by Jean Taillardat, 1968]
Their great victories allowed Syracuse to focus on chasing down what remained of the Athenians, giving them no quarter. Expecting great prizes from the rest of Greece and Sicily for the capture of the aggressors, Syracuse planned to block Athens’s possible routes of escape by blocking the harbour’s mouth with boats broadside.
Trapped and with dwindling supplies, Demosthenes abandoned the current Athenian walls and set about constructing one final set of walls to enclave the ships to house remaining supplies and troops, ready to head north to Catana. Should they be successful at sea against Syracuse’s navy, this plan would continue. If not, they would travel by foot to the nearest friendly state and hope to make their way home from there. In total, a hundred and ten ships were manned with sailors and skirmishers alike. Seeing the Athenian ships readying for a fight, Gylippus did the same with his navy.
Making the opening battle move was Demosthenes. Spotting a gap in the Syracusan-Spartan line guarding the harbour mouth, many of his ships made straight for it, but any that broke through were surrounded by Syracusan ships lining the rim of the harbour. With two-hundred ships crammed into such a small area, direct rams were not common, in place of accidental collisions when one ship attempted to escape the attack of another, while skirmishers loosed their missiles and marines fought in melee.
[ABOVE: The Lenormant Relief, c.410 BC, showing Athenian rowers in a trireme, found in 1852]
Meanwhile on land, the two land armies were watching from the shore. Athenians were shouting encouragement to their naval comrades - their ability to return home depended upon their navy after all. With such a confused battle ensuing, one man could be rejoicing while another soldier on the same side watching another ship would have been shouting in despair. In the end, however, the Syracusan navy triumphed, with the Athenians too bottled in, confused, desperate and panicked to operate to their fullest extent.
Almost the entire navy was wiped out within the great harbour of Syracuse, and the army was now completely stranded on Sicily. Some turned to their walls for defence and provisions, while others rushed forward to defend their ships, leaving hundreds others to panic for their own safety. Thucydides describes these moments of panic as the greatest ever experienced by an Athenian army. Nicias and Demosthenes were the only ones still willing to try another attempt at breaking through the Syracusan ship's line to make their escape - their sailors and any surviving crew and army were too dismayed and broken to follow them. The only option for what small portion of the Athenians remained was a retreat by land through Sicily.
WITHDRAWAL AND DEFEAT
Hermocrates was aware of the danger of a sizeable number of hostile men potentially settling in Sicily. He therefore argued that the nearby roads and passes should be barricaded and guarded. Although the city was celebrating their victory and undergoing a religious festival, Hermocrates was able to carry out his own attack himself with his own troops, and devised a plan; Hermocrates sent forward to Nicias’s camp an advanced cavalry contingent disguised as allies to Athens - who still had informants within Syracuse - telling them that they were advising Nicias not to make a nighttime retreat as the roads would be guarded at those late times. Buying the rouse, the Athenians remained in camp for the night, all while Hermocrates's army surrounded the camp, captured the remaining beached Athenian ships.
[ABOVE: The route of Nicias and Demosthenes while escaping Syracuse, 413 BC]
The next morning, three days following the calamitous defeat in the great harbour, the Athenian army marched out of their camp at dawn. Leaving behind their unburied dead in full view of their own army, a total of no more than forty-thousand combatants and non-combatants alike began to shuffle through Sicily like refugees. Nicias and Demosthenes did their best to encourage the men, who marched now under check by their commanders in a hollow square formation, with soldiers protecting the supplies and non-combatants in the middle, with Nicias’ division upfront followed by Demosthenes’.
Reaching the River Anapus, they were met with a force of Syracusan's lying in wait. This force was routed, but was followed by constant hit-and-run attacks from cavalry and skirmishers, who were able to escape retaliation. These attacks greatly slowed the Athenian advance, allowing the Syracusan forces time to build fortifications further up the road uphill to blockade the Athenians. A following, larger Syracusan raid forced the Athenians back to their previous camp further down the road. Supplies to this camp were gained through foraging, and this source was cut off by the quick Syracusan cavalry making it impossible to leave the camp.
[ABOVE: "Retreat of the Athenians from Syracuse", depicting the last battle of the Athenians in Sicily, 413 BC]
The following day, the Athenians made for the fortified hill the Syracusan's were waiting for them on. Met with prepared heavy infantry defending a wall, and under constant bombardment from skirmishers, as well as demoralising thunder and rain, the Athenians made yet another retreat back to some nearby plains, camping there. Days of constant hit-and-run attacks eventually dwindled the army, convincing Nicias and Demosthenes to instead turn and head towards the sea. Marching at night, confusion and sheer panic blinded the army, as Nicias and Demosthenes’ respective forces split from each other. Demosthenes’ army was eventually caught, surrounded by Syracusan cavalry and run down from all sides and swarmed with missile volleys.
Demosthenes’ Sicilian allies were offered peace and free passage back to their homes by Syracuse, should they surrender. The entire force - some six-thousand strong by now - surrendered. Demosthenes among them was taken as a prisoner of war and sent to Syracuse in chains, all while Nicias reached their River Erineus, before his army too was caught up to. Telling them what had just happened to Demosthenes, Nicias offered reimbursement for all damage done during the expedition, but this was of course turned down, and his army met the same fate as Demosthenes’.
[ABOVE: "Destruction of the Athenian Army in Sicily", from "The Illustrated History of the World", published c.1881 - 1884]
Of the Athenian army, three-hundred blindly fought their way through enemy lines and escaped, while the rest were left to be slaughtered. Any who escaped attempted to cross nearby River Assinarus, but were caught up in a mass, desperate stampede of their own troops attempting to escape, falling on their spears or being killed by locally waiting Syracusan troops. It was said that the entire river ran dark red with blood. With this, Nicias had no choice but to follow Demosthenes’ way and surrender. Very few of Nicias’ detachment survived the Syracusan slaughter to surrender - thousands had died.
THE ARMY AND GENERAL'S FATES
In Syracuse, the Athenian prisoners - around seven-thousand in total - were dispersed; some were sent off as slaves to the mines. Left in squalid, hot conditions, many died of disease and starvation, while others died shortly after as corpses began to spread disease. The marks of their pickaxes can still be seen at the limestone site today. Any who survived were sold into slavery, branded like cattle with the image of a horse on their foreheads. Other prisoners simply had their throats slit. Many would come to earn their freedoms after working for enough time, and very few escaped. Among these executed were none other than Nicias and Demosthenes.
The two commander’s deaths would have been avoided had Gylippus, noting how well the Peace of Nicias had served Sparta, got word of his intentions to the Syracusan's sooner, who cried out against his proposal. Following his death, Nicias’ name would come to be kept as a holiday in Syracuse. According to historian Timaeus, however, Demosthenes and Nicias chose to end their own lives. However they met their end, their bodies were thrown outside the city gates for public spectacle. Nicias’ own shield was supposedly kept in Syracuse on display, wrapped and embroidered with purple and golden materials.
This was the utter Athenian disaster in Sicily: ten-thousand hoplites, around two-thousand skirmishers and light infantry, a thousand cavalry and over two-hundred triremes were completely annihilated in under two years. Of all the calamities suffered throughout the Peloponnesian War - to both Athenians and Spartans alike - none compared to this: the entire armada, the pride and boastful joy of Athens, alongside several of their most competent leaders, now lay dead, all while the lands of Attica were besieged and fortified by enemy troops. Thucydides sums the whole ordeal thusly:
The victors earned the most brilliant of successes, the vanquished the most calamitous of defeats.
Any lucky select few who managed to escape Sicily were able to row back to Athens and Port Piraeus. There, they were able to relay their accounts of what had just unfolded to ordinary folks alike, including the first of many who told of these events to a barber he made small talk with, who would further relay the message to the politicians. This Peace of Nicias was, if anything, suppose to help Athens, and Sparta, recoup their losses and regain their strength, but Sicily did anything but that for Athens.
Worse still, the war was not yet over. Athens would find themselves clashing with their Peloponnesian foes for a further decade, and a far greater force than any Greek state was about to re-enter the Greek theatre of war; the still mightily vast and wealthy empire of Persia had been watching the Greeks slaughter each other closely, and were ready to make their strategic move, intent on capitalising on the needs of others to do whatever was necessary to win…
NEXT POST: THE SPARTAN-PERSIAN ALLIANCE, 413 - 411 BC: The Aegean Revolution
Coming soon...
SOURCES
- Thucydides, "The Peloponnesian War", Books 6.63 - 7.87
- Diodorus Siculus, "Library of History", Book XIII.1 - 33
- Plutarch, "Lives: Nicias"
- Polyaenus, "Stratagems of War", chapters 39, 42, 43
- John Julius Norwich, "Sicily", chapter 1
YOUTUBE LINKS
(I do NOT own these videos)
"The Sicilian Expedition - Complete Documentary" by "Ancient History Guy"
"Ancient Greek History - Part 8 of the Peloponnesian War - 24" by "Historyden"
"Ancient Greek History - Part 9 of the Peloponnesian War - 25" by "Historyden"
"Ancient Greek History - Part 10 of the Peloponnesian War - 26" by "Historyden"
"Destruction of the Athenian Fleet - Greatest Military Disaster of Antiquity" by "Kings and Generals"
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MY ANCIENT PERSIAN HISTORY BLOG PAGE
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