Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC)

by Terry Buckley

  On the next day after his arrival Gylippus set about putting his plan to save Syracuse into operation. First of all, he threatened the Athenian fortifications with his army in order to divert their attention, while a detachment of troops captured the Athenian fort at Labdalum (7.3); second, he started the construction of the third Syracusan counter-wall, which was to run north of the Circle in the direction of the north side of Epipolae (7.4). As the two walls approached, Gylippus decided to attack the Athenian army, but was defeated; he accepted full responsibility for fighting the battle in a narrow space, where he could not make use of his cavalry and javelin-throwers (7.5). Gylippus then led his army out for a second battle, which resulted in the first defeat of the Athenian forces in six battles and the continuation of the counter-wall beyond the Athenian wall (7.6 – S3, see Map 8b). It was essential for Nicias to recapture this Syracusan wall; otherwise the circumvallation could not be completed and the initiative would lie with the Syracusans – one defeat in six was disappointing, but this could be reversed. However, this defeat seemed to confirm Nicias’ fears about the effect of Gylippus’ arrival, who was allowed to complete the counter-wall to Euryelus, thus ensuring access for supplies and the extra troops which he now intended to recruit in the rest of Sicily. The Syracusans’ confidence increased dramatically; so much so that they began to train their naval crews with the intention of challenging the Athenian fleet (7.7). All this brought despondency to Nicias who, at the end of the summer of 414, sent an urgent letter to the Athenians, stressing the dangerous situation he was in, and urging either the recall of the whole expedition or the despatch of substantial reinforcements (7.8–15). The Athenians decided to send out a relief force – Eurymedon at once with ten ships, and Demosthenes in the spring with a larger force (7.16).

  The campaign of 413

  In the spring of 413, the Spartans decided that Athenian breaches of the Peace of Nicias justified their decision to renew the war; they invaded Attica and began to build a permanent fortification at Decelea in order to force the Athenians to fight on two fronts (7.18–19 – see Chapter 20 for a fuller discussion). However, the Athenians were still determined to offer the fullest support to the troops in Syracuse by sending out Demosthenes with 60 Athenian and 5 Chian ships, 1,200 Athenian hoplites and other forces from the islanders (7.20). Gylippus, being a first-class commander and well aware of Demosthenes’ ability, decided that it was imperative to finish off Nicias’ force before the arrival of Demosthenes. The first stage had to be the capture of Plemmyrium. He persuaded the Syracusans to fight a seabattle on the following day, after he had brought his army secretly during the night around to Plemmyrium (7.21–22). The Syracusans launched their attack early in the morning with 80 triremes, which were met by 60 Athenian ships – after an initial success, the Syracusans were defeated owing to their lack of experience. But the Athenian garrisons had gone down to the shore to watch the sea battle which had been anticipated by Gylippus. He swiftly captured the three forts, which contained so much naval equipment, and established control over Plemmyrium (7.23). This was a disastrous blow for the Athenians:

  The capture of Plemmyrium was the greatest and the chief reason for the decline of the Athenian army … and in other respects this event caused confusion and despondency in the army.

  (Thucydides 7.24.3)

  The Syracusans now held both sides of the harbour, and the Athenian navy was hemmed in the Great Harbour by the army camp; even worse, Athenian supply lines were under constant threat from the Syracusan ships blockading the entrance to the harbour. The negligence and carelessness of the Plemmyrium garrisons were symptomatic of Nicias’ failure as the commander-in-chief to instil a sense of purpose and professionalism in his army.

  The second stage of Gylippus’ plan was to defeat Nicias’ navy. The Syracusan ships were redesigned for fighting in the narrow waters of the Great Harbour: their bows were shortened and also strengthened by added timber with the intention of ramming head-on the light bows of the Athenian ships (7.36). Gylippus planned a joint attack by land and by sea to put added pressure on the Athenians. The land forces threatened the Athenian fortifications, while 80 Syracusan ships set sail against 75 Athenian ships. The first day’s fighting proved inconclusive, but on the second day the Syracusan modifications of their prows proved decisive, and they won their first naval victory (7.37–41). The result of this victory convinced the Syracusans of their naval superiority and, together with their confidence in their land army, of their ability to defeat Nicias’ army completely. As they prepared to deliver the final blow on land and at sea, the Syracusans suffered the greatest blow to their morale – the arrival of Demosthenes with 73 ships, 5,000 hoplites and a great force of javelin-throwers, slingers and archers (7.42).

  If Thucydides’ account of Demosthenes’ assessment of the Syracusan campaign is accepted, he was highly critical of Nicias’ generalship:

  Demosthenes, seeing the situation before him, decided that he could not waste time nor suffer the same things as Nicias had. For Nicias had caused terror when he first arrived, but when he did not attack the Syracusans at once and wintered in Catana, he became an object of contempt. In addition, Gylippus had stolen a march on him by coming from the Peloponnese with an army, which the Syracusans would not have sent for if Nicias had attacked at once, because, thinking that they had sufficient troops, they would not have realized that they were inferior and would have been blockaded by walls so that, even if they had sent for help then, it would have been much less effective.

  (Thucydides 7.42.3)

  However, it is difficult to believe that Thucydides obtained first-hand evidence of Demosthenes’ views, as the general was soon to be executed by the Syracusans. Therefore it would appear that the above quotation records Thucydides’ own opinion, and reinforces his earlier implicit approval of Lamachus’ original plan and his judgement that it had the greatest chance of success (6.49). Nevertheless, knowledge of Demosthenes’ dynamic and decisive generalship in the Archidamian War (see Chapter 19) and of his immediate all-out attempt to seize the Syracusan third counter-wall strongly suggests that he shared the same view as Thucydides as to the root cause of the Athenian difficulties at Syracuse: Nicias’ inability to prosecute the war energetically. He also totally approved of Lamachus’ original strategy of an instant attack, while the enemy was in a state of terror and despair at the size of the new force. With his practised eye, he knew that the key to success had to be the capture of the Syracusan third counter-wall, which would allow the Athenians to complete the circumvallation of Syracuse and starve it into surrender:

  He thought that this was the quickest way to end the war. For he would either be successful and capture Syracuse, or he would lead away the army and not wear down the Athenian forces on campaign there nor the resources of the whole state.

  (Thucydides 7.42.5)

  Demosthenes’ attempt to capture the Syracusan counter-wall at night ended in confusion and failure (7.42–45). This defeat brought an end to the Athenian aims of the conquest of Syracuse and Sicily; they were replaced by the aim of survival. The final harrowing days of failed sea-battles, of the attempt to escape by land to Catana, of the slaughter at the river Assinarus and of Demosthenes’ and Nicias’ executions are described so dramatically, it is reasonable to believe that Thucydides was greatly influenced by tragedy in his presentation of these events (7.46–87). Thucydides summarized the Sicilian expedition as follows:

  This was the greatest event to have happened in the war and, as it seems to me, the greatest that we know about in Greek history – to the winners the most splendid of victories, to the losers the most disastrous of defeats, for they were totally defeated in every respect and endured the greatest sufferings – they experienced utter ruin, as the saying goes, with the loss of their army, navy and everything. Only a few from the many returned home.

  (Thucydides 7.87.5–6)

  The causes of the Athenian defeat

  Thucydid
es’ long and detailed account of the Sicilian expedition in Books 6 and 7 reveals his own thinking that the expedition was a mistake, because it was the biggest departure from Pericles’ defensive strategy. Pericles had advised the Athenians not to extend the Empire while at war (2.65.7), and both Nicias and Thucydides himself (a great admirer of Pericles) recognized that the 421 Peace of Nicias was a ‘hollow peace’ and that a state of war existed in truth from 421 to 414/3. It is probably for this reason that Thucydides underestimated the fact that the expedition had every chance of achieving military success, and that the chronic disunity of Sicily was a significant factor in the Athenians’ favour. Instead, he emphasized the Athenian ignorance of the size of the island and its inhabitants and of the scale of the war to be fought there (6.1), even though alliances with Sicilian states stretched back to the 440s and military campaigns had been undertaken continually from 427–424.

  The issue about the reason for the expedition’s failure should have been clear-cut from Thucydides’ detailed narrative of Books 6 and 7: he makes it abundantly clear that the serious military errors of Nicias were the chief reason for the defeat of the Athenian forces; and this judgement of Nicias’ poor leadership is reinforced by Thucydides’ strongly implied support for Lamachus’ plan of action (6.49) and his ‘reporting’ of Demosthenes’ damning critique of Nicias’ conduct of the campaign (7.42). However, Thucydides’ analysis of the failure of the Sicilian expedition has been complicated by his own statement in his review of the Athenians’ achievements under Pericles and their failure under his successors:

  Many mistakes were made, as you would expect in a great city with an empire to govern, including the Sicilian expedition, which was not so much an error of judgement about the enemy, but the failure of those at home to take the right decisions (prosphora) for the forces overseas; through their private intrigues for the leadership of the people, they weakened the army in the field and brought confusion to Athens’ policy by their disputes.

  (Thucydides 2.65.11)

  It seems certain that Thucydides wrote these words after the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 and some time after the composition of Books 6 and 7. Thucydides, in this quotation, accepts that the expedition could have been victorious, but assigns the responsibility for its failure, not to Nicias and his military blunders, but to ‘those at home’. It would seem that Thucydides, writing after 404, had changed his mind about Alcibiades’ military ability which he displayed so successfully in the years 411–407 during the Ionian War (see Chapter 22) on behalf of the Athenians, and had decided that Alcibiades’ recall and condemnation was the crucial factor in the defeat of the Sicilian expedition by removing Athens’ most talented general. Therefore, it was his political enemies at home who should bear the brunt of the blame for making the wrong decision to recall him – they had put their own personal ambitions of leading the ‘demos’ before the needs and the good of the state.

  The evidence of Books 6 and 7 is overwhelming: poor generalship and military blunders should be accepted as the main cause of failure. Although there is a case that ‘those at home’ should be blamed for the quarrels over the Mutilation of the Hermae affair and the lack of wisdom in sending out Alcibiades with a charge over his head, this was not decisive. It must be remembered that Alcibiades’ plan of campaign (6.48), which advocated diplomacy before any attack on Syracuse, was also lacking in vigour and contributed to the delay in the siege of Syracuse. His recommendations to the Spartans after his desertion undoubtedly did damage to the Athenians, but Decelea was not fortified for another year when Nicias’ forces were already in a state of desperation; and if Nicias had built the circumvallation in 415, as Lamachus and Demosthenes believed to be the correct strategy, Alcibiades’ advice about the despatch of Gylippus would have been too late to save Syracuse (see 7.42.3 above). In fact, ‘those at home’ are hardly mentioned after Alcibiades’ condemnation, having granted full powers to the generals to conduct the campaign (6.8); they also sent out with speed all the reinforcements that Nicias requested, without complaint or criticism. Perhaps, in the final analysis, the blame for this ill-conceived expedition should be directed at Alcibiades, not for his advice to the Spartans, but for his arguments in the Athenian Assembly which were so utterly persuasive in convincing the Athenians that there was little risk:

  Our ships will guarantee our safety whether we remain, if things go well, or go away. For we will be masters of the sea even against all the Sicilians put together.

  (Thucydides 6.18.5)

  Bibliography

  Andrewes, A. CAH vol. 5, 2nd., edn, ch. 10.

  Ferguson, W. S. CAH vol. 5, ch. 10.

  Gomme, A. W., Andrewes, A. and Dover, K. J. A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, Books V.25–VII, (esp. pp. 313–16, 419–21).

  Hornblower, S. The Greek World 479–323 BC, ch. 12.

  Kagan, D. The Archidamian War, chs 6 and 9.

  Powell, A. Athens and Sparta, ch. 5.

  de Ste. Croix, G. E. M. The Origins of the Peloponnesian War, ch. VI.iii.

  Westlake, H. D. Essays on the Greek Historians and Greek History, ch. 6.

  22

  PERSIAN INTERVENTION IN THE IONIAN WAR, 413– 404

  In the spring of 413, possibly as the result of Alcibiades’ advice (Thucydides 6.91.6 – all references in this chapter are to Thucydides, unless otherwise stated), the Spartans, under King Agis, invaded Attica and occupied Decelea, a fortified outpost equidistant from Athens and Boeotia (7.27): thus this phase of the Peloponnesian War (413–404) is often referred to as the Decelean War. The Athenians’ attacks on the east coast of Laconia in 414 (6.105.2), the constant raiding from Athenian-held Pylos (7.18), and the Athenian refusal to submit these issues to arbitration convinced the Spartans that the Athenians had clearly broken the terms of the Peace of Nicias, and that they were justified in renewing the war (7.18). This permanent occupation of Decelea caused many problems for the Athenians:

  It did great damage to the Athenians and, by its destruction of property and the loss of men, was one of the chief causes of the decline in Athenian power.

  (Thucydides 7.27.3)

  The invasions in the Archidamian War had only been short affairs, the longest being 40 days, but now the Athenians were permanently deprived of most of Attica; the revenue from the silver mines was lost; 20,000 slaves escaped – the majority being skilled workmen and vital for the Athenian economy; the food supplies from Euboea had to be brought in by the more expensive sea route; and, finally, there was the constant, exhausting guard-duty by day and night (7.27–28).

  However, this strand of Spartan strategy, for all its debilitating effects on the Athenians, was insufficient to win the war as King Agis of Sparta so astutely observed as late as 410:

  Agis, seeing from Decelea many corn ships sailing into the Piraeus, said that it was useless for his troops to cut off the Athenians from their land, which had been done for some time now, unless some one were to seize the places from where the grain kept coming in by sea.

  (Xenophon, Hellenica 1.1.35)

  The Spartans had to be far more adventurous and challenge the Athe-nians at sea in Ionia, and especially in the Hellespont: only by breaking up the Athenians’ sea empire, on which they depended for revenue, and by preventing grain from the Hellespont reaching the beleaguered Athenians could the Spartans win the war. Previously, in the Archidamian War, there was little hope of this owing to the strength of the Athenian navy and a lack of finance for the maintenance of a fleet, and it was probably for this reason (as well as the desire to get back the captured Spartiates) that Brasidas’ strategy in his Thraceward campaign of 424–422 was not sufficiently supported by the authorities in Sparta (see Chapter 19). The destruction of the Athenian fleet in Sicily in 413, however, had fulfilled one of the two preconditions for potential Spartan success in Ionia; the other – sufficient finance to pay the crews of a fleet that was large enough to wrest power from the
Athenians in the Aegean – required the full involvement of the one power that had the wealth and the desire to destroy the Athenian Empire: Persia. Persia’s financial help to the Spartans, fitful at first but more committed later, gave the Spartans the means to wage war with the Athenians in Ionia: hence ‘Ionian War’ is the alternative name for the war from 413–404. However, it is essential to see how the Persians were gradually drawn into the Peloponnesian War from the beginning and why the King of Persia chose to support the Spartans in the Ionian War.

  Persia and the Greeks, 431–414

  The Greeks on both sides had already in the Archidamian War (431–421) thought about gaining the support of Persia. King Archidamus, in his speech to the Spartans in 432, had advised the acquisition of new allies who could supply Sparta with a navy and finance, strongly hinting at Persia (1.82.1). In 431, both sides planned to send embassies to Persia (2.7.1); and in 430 a Peloponnesian embassy on the way to the King of Persia to request money and military support was handed over by the son of Sitalces, a ruler in Thrace, to the Athenians who executed these ambassadors (2.67; Her-odotus 7.137). The Persians themselves were not averse to taking advantage of the Greeks when at war with each other. Pissouthnes was the ‘satrap’ (provincial governor) of the Persian province in south-western Asia Minor with his capital at Sardis. The ‘satraps’ would normally refer to the King all major matters of policy that involved his prestige or wealth, but they do seem to have had considerable independence and freedom of action. Pissouthnes had already intervened and helped the Samian oligarchs at the time of its revolt in 440 (1.115) – a clear breach of the Peace of Callias. In 430, Itamenes, a subordinate of Pissouthnes, had helped the pro-Persian faction in Colophon to seize power and revolt from Athens; and when the Colophonian exiles at Notium clashed with each other, Pissouthnes sent mercenaries to help his supporters in Notium (3.34).