Chapter 17

Meanwhile the vanguard under Nicias, in total ignorance of the fate which had befallen their comrades, marched steadily forwards, and crossing the river Erineus, encamped for the night on a neighbouring hill. Here they were found next morning by Gylippus and the Syracusans, who informed them that Demosthenes and his men had surrendered, and called upon them to do the same. Doubting their good faith, Nicias obtained a truce, while he sent a horseman to ascertain the facts; and even when he had learnt the truth from his messenger, he still tried to parley, offering, in the name of the Athenian state, to defray the whole cost of the war, and to give hostages for payment, at the rate of an Athenian citizen for each talent, on condition that he and his men were allowed to go. But the Syracusans were in no mood to listen to such proposals, even if Nicias had spoken with full authority from Athens. Bare life they would grant, but no more, and as the Athenians refused to yield on these terms, they closed in upon them, and the cruel, hopeless struggle began again, and continued until evening. The wretched Athenians lay down supperless to snatch a few hours of rest, intending, when all was quiet, to steal away under cover of darkness. But when they rose at dead of night, and prepared to march, a shout from the Syracusan camp warned them that the enemy were on the alert, and they were compelled to return to their comfortless bivouac. Three hundred, however, persisted in their intention, and forcing their way through the Syracusan lines, gained for themselves a brief respite from capture.

A whole week had now elapsed since the ill-fated army left its quarters on the shores of the Great Harbour, and a few thousand starving and weary men were all that remained of that great host. At dawn on the eighth day Nicias gave the word to march, and they pressed on eagerly towards the Assinarus, a stream of some size, with high and precipitous banks, not more than two miles distant from their last halting-place. They had still some faint hope of making good their escape, if they could but cross the river. So they fought their way onwards, through the swarming ranks of the Syracusans, who closed them in on all sides, and thrust them together into one solid mass. There was life, there was freedom a little way beyond,--or, if that hope proved futile, at any rate there was water; and every fibre in their bodies ached and burned with intolerable thirst. They reached the river; both banks were already lined by the Syracusan horse, who had ridden on before, and stood guarding the ford: but there was no stopping the wild rush of that maddened, desperate multitude. Down the steep bank they plunged, trampling on one another, and flung themselves open-mouthed upon the stream, with one thought, one wish, overpowering every other impulse,--to drink, and then to die. Some fell upon the spears of their comrades, and perished, others slipped on the floating baggage, lost their foothold, and were swept away by the flood. Yet still they poured on, by hundreds and by thousands, drawn by the same longing, and thrust downwards by the weight of those behind, until the whole riverbed was filled with a huddled, surging mob of furious men, who drank, and still drank, or fought with one another to reach the water. All this time an iron storm of missiles rained down upon them from the thronging hosts of their enemies on the banks above, while some, in the midst of their draught, were pierced by the spears of the Peloponnesians, who followed them into the river, and slew them at close quarters. The water grew red with blood, and foul from the trampling of so many feet, but the thirsty multitude still came crowding in, and drank with avidity of the polluted stream.

For a long time the slaughter raged unchecked, and the river-bed was choked with heaps of slain. A few, who escaped from the river, were pursued and cut down by the Syracusan horse. Nicias had held out until the last moment; but when he perceived that all was lost, his men being powerless either to fight or fly, he made his way to Gylippus, and implored him to stop the useless carnage. "I surrender myself," he said, "to you and the Spartans. Do with me as you please, but put an end to this butchery of defenceless men." Gylippus gave the necessary order, and the word was passed round to kill no more, but take captive those who survived. The order was obeyed, though slowly and with reluctance, and the work of capture began. But few of those taken in the river ever found their way into the public gaol, where Demosthenes was now lying, with the six thousand who had surrendered on the day before. For, as there had been no regular capitulation, large numbers of the prisoners were secretly conveyed away by the Syracusans, who afterwards sold them into slavery for their own profit. As for the three hundred who had broken out of camp on the previous night, they were presently brought in by a party of cavalry despatched in pursuit.

When the first transports of joy and triumph were over, an assembly was called to decide on the fate of the two Athenian generals, and of those state prisoners, some seven thousand in number, who were the sole visible remnant of two great armies. Then arose a strange conflict of motives. The first who put forward his claims was Gylippus, to whose genius and energy the victorious issue of the struggle was mainly due. As a reward for his services, he asked that Nicias and Demosthenes should be left to his disposal, for he wished to have the honour of carrying home with him these famous captains, one the greatest friend, the other the greatest enemy of Sparta. But the general voice of the assembly was strongly against him. Nothing but the blood of the two principal offenders could satisfy the vengeance of the Syracusans, and those who had intrigued with Nicias were anxious to put him out of the way, in fear lest he should betray them. Moreover the Corinthian allies of Syracuse, who for some reason had a special grudge against Nicias, demanded his immediate execution. In vain Hermocrates pleaded the cause of mercy, [Footnote: Plutarch, _Nicias_, c. 28.] and urged his fellow-citizens to make a generous use of their victory. Sentence of death was passed, and these two eminent Athenians, so different in character and achievement, were united in their end.

Far worse was the doom pronounced on the six thousand men of Demosthenes, and the thousand more who were brought to Syracuse after the massacre at the Assinarus. They were condemned to confinement in the stone quarries, deep pits surrounded by high walls of cliff, under the south-eastern edge of Epipolae. Penned together in these roofless dungeons, they were exposed to the fierce heat of the sun by day, and to the bitter cold of the autumn nights, and having scarcely room to move, they were unable to preserve common decency, or common cleanliness. Many died of their wounds, or of the diseases engendered by exposure, and their bodies were left unburied, a sight of horror and a source of infection to the survivors. To these frightful miseries were added a perpetual burning thirst, and the lingering torture of slow starvation, for each man received as his daily allowance a poor half pint of water, and a mere pittance of food, just enough to avoid breaking the letter of the conditions which Demosthenes had made for his troops. In this state they were left without relief for ten long weeks; then all except the Athenians themselves, and their allies from the Greek cities of Sicily and Italy, were taken out and sold as slaves.

EPILOGUE

Such was the end of the Sicilian Expedition, which ultimately decided the issue of the Peloponnesian War. Forsaking the wise counsels of their greatest statesman, and carried away by the mad sophistry of Alcibiades, the Athenians had committed themselves, heart and soul, to a wild game of hazard, in which they had little to win, and everything to lose. By this act of desperate folly they brought on themselves an overwhelming disaster, from which it was impossible for them wholly to recover. With wonderful vitality they rallied from the blow, and struggled on for nine years more, against the whole power of Peloponnesus, and their own revolted allies, backed by the influence and the gold of Persia. They gained great victories, and under prudent leaders they might still have been saved from the worst consequences of their defeat in Sicily. But at every favourable crisis they wantonly flung away the advantage they had gained, and abandoned themselves to blind guides, who led them further and further on the road to ruin.

The history of Thucydides ends abruptly in the twenty-first year of the war, and for an account of the closing scenes we have to go to the pages of Xenophon. It will be convenient, therefore, to bring our narrative to a close at the point which we have reached, for any attempt even to sketch the events of this confused and troubled period would carry us far beyond the limits of the present volume. And so for the present we take leave of the Athenians, in the hour of their decline. Their light is burning dim, and yet darker days are awaiting them in the future. But they are still great and illustrious, as the chief guardians of those spiritual treasures which are our choicest heritage from the past.