Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy & the Birth of Democracy

by John R. Hale

While Nicias was corresponding with the Assembly at the end of the war’s second year, the Syracusans sent envoys to Sparta. Alcibiades supported their appeal for help. To ensure that the Spartans understood the full extent of Athens’ imperialistic ambitions, Alcibiades revealed the master plan that lay behind the Athenian attack on Syracuse. The Athenians intended first to conquer Sicily and Italy, then cross to the African coast and take Carthage and its empire. The forests of Italy would yield timber for a new and even larger fleet, manned in part by warlike Iberian tribesmen. With this fleet Athens intended to blockade the Peloponnese, defeat the Spartans, and extend their rule throughout the Mediterranean. To prevent these calamities, Alcibiades said, the Spartans should send the Syracusans a general.

  The man chosen for the mission was named Gylippus, a tough disciplinarian with a gift for strategy. He won the trust and respect of the Syracusans by scoring victories on land as soon as he arrived. When Gylippus learned that the Athenians were sending a new fleet, he decided to make a preemptive strike before the reinforcements arrived. During the first two years of the war the Syracusans had not dared to challenge the Athenian navy. Nicias had positioned the fleet on the opposite side of the Great Harbor from the main Athenian military base, at a rocky promontory called Plemmyrium (“Flowing of the Sea”). From there the Athenian ships kept up a blockade of the harbor mouth, protected by a row of three forts against attacks by land. Gylippus was determined to expel the enemy fleet from this advantageous site. He would use the untried Syracusan navy as bait to distract them during his assault.

  Early one morning the Athenians at Plemmyrium were startled to see eighty Syracusan ships rowing boldly toward them from the city’s two harbors. Two years after launching the great armada, the Athenians were facing a naval battle at last. At once they divided their fast triremes so that twenty-five confronted the Syracusan squadron inside the Great Harbor, while thirty-five blocked the entry of the fleet from the Little Harbor on the seaward side. A double battle began, with the outnumbered Athenians fighting on two fronts. Many Athenian soldiers from the forts came down to lend support in case any ships ran aground.

  After the lines clashed, the triremes of the two sides fought each other to a standstill. Little by little the Athenians fell back. Then Syracusan inexperience began to tell. With clear water ahead of them, their ships straggled forward into the gap. Seeing the confusion, the Athenians launched a counterattack and chased the enemy back to the city walls, destroying eleven ships and losing only three of their own. After setting up a trophy on an islet, the Athenian commanders and crews attempted to return to Plemmyrium. They were too late. While they were busy fighting the Syracusan navy, Gylippus and his troops had appeared from the hinterland and taken all three forts.

  Bewildered and disheartened, the victors had no choice but to join the Athenian army in the camp on the western shore. Their casualties had been heavy, and along with the three forts, Gylippus had captured the cruising masts and sails of the fast triremes and most of their naval stores. Money chests had been kept in the forts to pay for supplies, and they too joined the enemy’s windfall. At once the Syracusans sent out squadrons to seek support abroad. In southern Italy they found boats filled with provisions for the Athenian forces and stockpiles of timber on shore that Nicias had been counting on to repair his rotting triremes. The Syracusans destroyed the boats and burned the wood. No naval supplies would reach the Athenians by sea.

  Meanwhile the Great Harbor was becoming the scene of naval battles almost daily. Spurred to new stratagems by the constant warfare, both sides applied all their ingenuity and engineering skills to the naval effort. At Nicias’ orders, Athenian engineers transformed the exposed shore of the main camp into an artificial harbor by driving long wooden stakes into the mud. When this offshore stockade proved insufficient, empty freighters were anchored in a widely spaced line with torpedolike “dolphins” of iron or lead suspended above the gaps. If a Syracusan trireme tried to break through, the heavy metal dolphins would plummet downward, punch holes through their hulls, and sink them.

  The Athenians also converted one of their largest grain freighters into a floating fortress with wooden towers and screens. This behemoth, loaded with archers and dart throwers, was towed across to the city. In a dangerous operation, the Athenians kept up a running fire of missiles in order to cover the work of hired divers, who plunged into the water from small boats. Once under the surface these professionals pulled up or sawed through the wooden stakes that the Syracusans had hoped would protect their own naval station.

  The Syracusans were not idle. Recognizing their inferior seamanship, they borrowed an innovation from the Corinthians and modified the design of their triremes. To counter Athenian maneuverability, they reinforced the forward sections of their rowing frames with long wooden beams. The Syracusan shipwrights also cut off the slender beaks of the ships’ rams to leave blunt snub noses of solid wood. With these new prows, the Syracusan ships were able to attack the Athenians head on, smashing the vulnerable Athenian rowing frames and putting the upper ranks of oarsmen out of commission. Once an enemy trireme was immobilized, daring Syracusans in small boats dashed in under the oar banks and shot darts upward to wound or kill the defenseless rowers.

  Throughout these operations the tide of victory ran steadily against Nicias and the Athenians. At last the long-awaited reinforcements from Athens arrived, seventy-three triremes packed with men and commanded by Demosthenes and Eurymedon. Still they could not regain the upper hand. Within a few days Demosthenes had managed to lose a nocturnal land battle on the heights northwest of the city. After this failure he abruptly declared that the long and costly expedition should be given up before it ruined Athens altogether. His colleague Eurymedon agreed. The military and naval defeats were serious enough, but now fever was spreading from the nearby marshes through the hot and crowded camp.

  Nicias continued to hint at intelligence reports that a party inside Syracuse would soon open the gates. After wasting many days he finally agreed to the withdrawal, provided that no one held him responsible. As incon spicuously as possible, the crews prepared the ships while the troops loaded gear and supplies on board. The time chosen for the retreat was a night in the middle of the month when the full moon would allow the Athenian steersmen to make their way out of the Great Harbor in safety.

  After sundown on the appointed evening, the Athenians watched the moon rise from the eastern horizon into the sky above the harbor mouth. Two hours before midnight the lunar disk was blotted out by a total eclipse. As darkness covered the Great Harbor, the Athenian troops and rowers saw the event as a warning sent by the gods. Terrified, they refused to embark on their voyage. Unfortunately there was no Pericles among the Athenian commanders to explain the celestial mechanics behind eclipses. Nicias, as devout as any of the men, consulted his diviners. They told him that no action should be taken until the time of the next full moon, thrice nine days away. Full of religious fervor, Nicias postponed the evacuation.

  Long before the month passed, the Syracusan fleet attacked again. In yet another disastrous engagement the Athenians lost many ships, and the general Eurymedon was killed. The Syracusans attempted to destroy the entire Athenian fleet by bringing up an old freighter, packing it with dry brush and resinous pinewood, and setting it alight. Breezes wafted the fire ship toward the huddle of triremes, but with a desperate effort the Athenians fended it off.

  The Syracusans could now cruise at will around the Great Harbor for the first time since the war began. Soon the Athenians observed signs of unusual activity. A mass of old triremes, freighters, and small craft were assembling at the mouth of the harbor. The Syracusans anchored some of these ships and lashed or chained others to their neighbors on either side. Gradually a barrier of ships began to form. The Athenians and their fleet were trapped. In obedience to instructions sent out before the eclipse and never rescinded, Athenian allies had stopped sending provisions to the camp at Syracuse. Even the healthy would soon go
hungry. Nicias and Demosthenes now thought only of escape. They must break through the barrier.

  In the end the Athenians resolved to launch every ship that could still float for a final battle. If victorious, they would force their way to freedom and the open sea. If defeated, they planned to burn their triremes and retreat overland. There were still enough healthy rowers and fighting men to fill 110 triremes. The last task of the Athenian ironworkers was to forge claw-like grappling irons that could snag an enemy ship and prevent it from backing away after ramming. The archers and javelin throwers could then shoot straight into the opposing throng, while Athenian hoplites leaped across for hand-to-hand combat. In these primitive tactics the generals now saw their only hope.

  Nicias would remain on shore with a fighting force to defend the camp. As for the thousands of sick and wounded, nothing could save them now. Whether the escape went by sea or by land, they would be abandoned. After speeches, prayers, and sacrifices, Demosthenes launched all that was left of the armada and rowed straight for the barrier. The triremes had not reached it before a hundred Syracusan ships descended on them from all corners of the Great Harbor. As the enemy swarmed in, the Athenians saw that hides had been stretched over the prows and forward sections of their ships. Spies had carried word of the Athenian grappling irons to the Syracusan commanders, who had devised this method of shielding the woodwork of their vessels. Any “iron hands” cast from an Athenian ship would bounce harmlessly off the hides.

  The leading Athenian triremes managed to smash their way through the Syracusans and reach the barrier. Desperately the men attempted to cut the cables that secured the moored ships. Before they could hack through, the full force of the enemy took them from the rear. To save themselves, the Athenians had no choice but to turn and fight. In a hail of missiles the Syracusans pushed the Athenians away from the barrier. When thirty Athenian triremes had been lost, the remainder broke away from the enemy and fled for their own shore. So broken were the Athenians that they did not even send a herald to ask permission to pick up their dead and dying.

  Only the two generals still clung to the idea of a naval victory. Determining that even with their losses the Athenians outnumbered the enemy, Demosthenes and Nicias ordered their exhausted and demoralized men back on board to renew the battle. At this the crews mutinied. Powerless to oppose the rebellious mob, the generals yielded. The evacuation overland would start after sundown, under cover of darkness.

  At that crucial hour, cause for hope unexpectedly reached the camp. From the city came the sounds of wild revelry. Songs and shouting echoed across the water. The Syracusans, almost to the last man, were celebrating their victory. With the enemy distracted or drunk, the Athenians could expect to make their escape unopposed and march overland to friendly territory. Unfortunately, one Syracusan remained sober. He was Hermocrates, the patriot who had led the resistance from the start. He was well aware that the Athenians might slip from their grasp that night and tried but failed to put an end to the drinking and dancing. A man of mêtis, Hermocrates hit upon a stratagem to keep the Athenians from escaping. Themistocles had once used a false report to lure the Persian fleet into the strait at Salamis. Perhaps the Athenians themselves could be tricked in the same way.

  Extricating a few Syracusan horsemen from the riotous party, Hermocrates instructed them to carry a message to the Athenian camp masquerading as Nicias’ covert sympathizers from the city. When these horsemen drew within hailing distance of the Athenian sentries, they called out a warning from the darkness. The Syracusan victory feast, they said, was only a sham. The main Syracusan force had in fact slipped out of the city and was waiting in ambush along the road. They would attack as soon as the Athenians left the safety of their palisade. Having delivered Hermocrates’ message, the horsemen turned and vanished into the night.

  Too exhausted to think clearly, Nicias and Demosthenes made the fatal mistake of postponing the retreat yet again. Their credulity sealed their doom. When the Athenians finally broke camp two days later, the Syracusans had sobered up and were waiting for them in deadly earnest. The long line of retreating Athenians met enemies at every pass and ford. They had little food or water, and the thousands of rowers did not even have weapons. The Syracusans, mounted or on foot, harried and hounded them along like a pack of wolves around a herd. Many Athenians had already been slaughtered by the time the generals surrendered to save the lives of the rest.

  A few Athenians got away into the countryside to become bandits. Most were marched back to the city as prisoners. The democratic Syracusans convened an assembly to decide their fate. Shouting down the objections of Hermocrates, Gylippus, and the other leaders, the vengeful Syracusans demanded the blood of the two Athenian generals. Nicias and Demosthenes were butchered, and their bodies were dumped outside the city gates. The seven thousand remaining captives were penned up in the city’s famous limestone quarries. These vast pits had been excavated in a hillside next to the theater of Syracuse. The theater had been inaugurated fifty years earlier by Aeschylus himself with a performance of Persians. It was a bitter irony that a place that once celebrated Athenian liberty and naval victory should have adjoined a prison for the defeated remnant of Athens’ imperial navy.

  The prisoners’ daily rations were a pint of meal and half a pint of water. As the months passed they died of exposure, hunger, and sickness. Contagion spread from the rotting corpses, which were soon heaped up on all sides. By midwinter the Syracusans began to remove some prisoners. A few who knew by heart the latest songs of Euripides came to the notice of young Syracusans, who released these lucky ones to sing at drinking parties. Most of the Athenians were kept in the quarries for eight months. After that any who survived were taken out, branded, and sold as slaves.

  No one escaped to carry word home. Athens knew nothing of the disaster until one day a stranger from overseas arrived at the Piraeus and sought out a barbershop. Once in the barber’s chair and engaged in the inevitable chatter, the traveler began to speak about the catastrophe in Sicily as if it were already well known everywhere. The barber, horror struck, abandoned his customer and darted out into the street. He ran all the way from the Piraeus to Athens. There he found the archons sitting in the Agora and told them what he had heard.

  The officials violently denied the possibility of such a disaster, until more messengers arrived bearing the same tale. Unbelievably, the magnificent fleet launched with such fanfare from the Piraeus, as well as all the ships and men sent afterward as reinforcements, had perished to the last dispatch boat. In their fury and grief the Athenians looked for scapegoats. At first they laid the blame on Alcibiades or Nicias or the oracle-mongers. But in the final reckoning they could blame only themselves. Those whom the Assembly sent to conquer Syracuse had paid with their lives for the folly and hubris of Athens.

  Part Four

  CATASTROPHE

  What I should wish is that you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she really is, and should fall in love with her. When you realize her greatness, then reflect that what made her great was men with a spirit of adventure, men who knew their duty, men who were ashamed to fall below a certain standard. If they ever failed in an enterprise, they made up their minds that at any rate the city should not find their courage lacking to her, and they gave to her the best contribution that they could. They gave their lives.

  —Pericles to the Athenians

  CHAPTER 14

  The Rogue’s Return [412-407 B.C.]

  Let him come! Let him come! Do not stop the ship of many oars that carries him, until he makes his way home to the city.

  —Sophocles

  AFTER THE DISASTER AT SYRACUSE MOST GREEKS EXPECTED universal rebellion among Athens’ allies and the fall of Athens itself soon afterward. Pleasant anticipations warmed the Spartans through the winter months as they waited for the start of the next campaigning season. But nothing turned out as they had imagined. The troublesome Athenian democracy declined to accept t
he destiny that seemed so inevitable to everybody else. And by a strange twist of fate, the leading role in Athens’ recovery was to be played by that traitorous and evil genius of the Sicilian expedition, Alcibiades.

  For two years he had lived among the Spartans, doing his best to wreak vengeance on the Athenians. Alcibiades knew Athens well, and he used his knowledge to hurt his native city more deeply than any stranger could have done. The Spartans were mere tools in his campaign for revenge. Thanks to the success of his counsels, Alcibiades stood high in their regard, but what had really won their respect was his total adaptation to Spartan ways: a regimen of black broth, daily exercise, and hard living. He had embraced the simple life of a Spartan warrior as if born to it. So complete was the transformation that his contemporaries likened him to a chameleon. Biding his time, Alcibiades awaited the overthrow of his political enemies and his triumphant return to Athens. As the playwright Aeschylus put it in one of his tragedies, “Men in exile feed on dreams.”

  The prestige of Athenian democracy suffered with the failure of the Sicilian expedition, but Alcibiades and the rest of the Greeks overestimated the disaster’s impact. In this supreme crisis the Assembly rallied swiftly. Timber was found and new ships built. To retrench, the Athenians called in the triremes and troops from distant outposts. Messengers were sent to Athenian garrisons in allied cities, warning them that the Spartans could back oligarchic coups. All these steps were taken over the winter. When the historian Thucydides recorded the people’s energetic response, he observed that democracies are always at their best when things seem at their worst.

  Even before the Sicilian expedition ended, the Athenians had begun to seek a more just relationship with their maritime allies. On their own initiative they ended the annual demand for tribute, the most hated practice of their imperial rule. Instead they collected a five percent tax on all maritime commerce. The new system was more directly tied to the benefits conferred by Athenian rule of the sea, and it actually brought in more money than the annual tribute payments. Above all, the Assembly tacitly renounced the terrible practice of enforcing imperial rule through the wholesale killing of defeated populations. Athens was rewarded for its reforms by the loyal adherence of most cities in the empire.