The great advocate of this expedition was the same Alcibiades who had persuaded the Athenian assembly to make the alliance with Argos. Nicias, who had a long record of distinguished service to Athens both as a soldier and as a diplomat and after whom the Peace of Nicias was named, spoke against the expedition. Thucydides places into his mouth two speeches, one in which he advanced arguments against the expedition - he preferred, with some logic, to concentrate on unsettled affairs such as the suppression of the long-running revolts in the Chalcidice (Thuc. VI 9-15) -; and a second in which he sought to make the Athenians aware of what enormous preparations the Sicilian expedition would entail (Thuc. VI 20-23). Neither speech succeeded in dissuading the Athenians.
Perversely, the Athenian assembly, in fact, appointed Nicias as one of the commanders of the expedition alongside Alcibiades and another man named Lamachus (Thuc. VI 8). Before the expedition began, however, a scandal rocked Athens. All over Athens stood stereotyped images of the god Hermes, so-called herms (see Figure 14.1). They consisted of a square pillar surmounted by the god’s head; but their most prominent feature was an erect phallus protruding from the pillar a little below the god’s face. One morning in 415 the Athenians awoke to find that all over town someone had mutilated their herms. Thucydides says that it was the “faces” which had been mutilated (Thuc. V 27), and one may take that literally (the less common interpretation, though a perfectly defensible one) or as a euphemism. In any case a person (or persons) unknown
Figure 14.1 A herm in front of an altar on an amphora (circa 465 BC). Source: photo Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA / Gift of Landon T. Clay / The Bridgeman Art Library
Had committed a terrible sacrilege. Suspicion, rightly or wrongly, fell on Alcibi-ades, and rumors of another sacrilege committed by him, this time a mocking re-enactment of the Eleusinian Mysteries, surfaced as well (Thuc. VI 28).
He sailed out with the expedition, but before the campaign on Sicily could begin, the Athenians recalled him to Athens to stand trial for impiety. Alcibi-ades, who clearly trusted little in Athenian justice, defected to the Lacedaemonians (Thuc. V 61). Since he knew a great deal about the Athenians’ military capacity generally as well as about the Sicilian expedition specifically, he surely gave the Lacedaemonians much helpful information.
Meanwhile Nicias and Lamachus brought the Athenian army (some 4,000 hoplites supported by a fleet of 100 triremes - Thuc. V 31) to Sicily and began operations against Syracuse. In an initial battle outside of Syracuse in 415, the Athenians were successful, but because of the onset of winter, they withdrew northwards to Naxos and Catane. The vastness of the undertaking was making itself manifest to the commanders who realized that they needed more cavalry and more allies on Sicily itself in order to provision their army (Thuc. VI 62-72). During the winter they did manage to collect cavalry from home and from their allies on the island (Thuc. VI 96 and 98), but the longer they remained, the more of a burden they were to their allies and the more difficult it became to maintain their army.
In the spring of 414, the Athenians after some skirmishing took possession of Epipolae (“The Heights”), some high ground overlooking Syracuse. Skirmishing continued as the Athenians set about erecting a wall around the city in order to besiege it while the Syracusans busily erected a counter-wall (Thuc. VI 94-103). Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians sent aid to Syracuse. The Lacedaemonian commander Gylippus arrived in Sicily with troops and collected additional ones on the island before traveling to Syracuse (Thuc. VII 1-2). On Gylippus’ advice the Syracusans began with the construction of a wall at an angle to the wall which the Athenians were building - such that, if the Syracusans could complete this cross-wall, the Athenians would be unable to complete theirs (Thuc. VII 4). Despite vigorous attacks by the Athenians, Gylippus succeeded in building his wall past the Athenians’ (Thuc. VII 6). There would now be no siege of Syracuse.
Nicias, however, had already begun with the construction of forts on a headland at the entrance to the harbor of Syracuse. He hoped to gain an advantage in naval actions as he slowly despaired of a victory by land (Thuc. VII 4). However, at sea as well matters were growing grim for the Athenians. Ships from Sparta’s allies in mainland Greece were arriving, and the Syracusans themselves were making their own fleet battle-worthy (Thuc. VII 7).
Back in Greece, in the spring of 413, the Lacedaemonians invaded Attica again and this time fortified the town of Decelea, in sight of Athens, and established a permanent base there (Thuc. VII 19). This meant more than the resumption of full-scale warfare in mainland Greece for up until now the chief loss incurred by the Athenians during a Lacedaemonian invasion was the torching of the crop. Annoying as this was, the Athenians could always sow a new one. But now the Lacedaemonians deprived them of access to their livestock. Some 20,000 skilled slaves deserted - a tremendous loss of manpower and as such a severe blow to the Athenian economy (Thuc. VII 27). The fortification of Decelea had brought warfare in Attica to a new level.
In Sicily, meanwhile, both sides were receiving reinforcements from mainland Greece. The Athenians sent some 73 ships and 5,000 hoplites, collected mostly from allies (Thuc. VII 42). Their commander, Demosthenes, correctly realized that the Athenians could not postpone matters any longer. The Syracusans had captured the forts which Nicias had built near the harbor, effectively cutting the Athenians off by sea (Thuc. VII 22-23) (see Figure 14.2). More reinforcements
From Athens would not be forthcoming; and the Syracusans were more easily able to supply themselves. Demosthenes opted for an attack by night on the Syracusan cross-wall, but the Athenians had the worst of it in the fighting (Thuc. VII 42-44).
After this failure Demosthenes wished to evacuate while there was still a chance (Thuc. VII 47), but Nicias, with peculiar stubbornness, refused. Thucydides, who seems to have found Nicias’ refusal out of character - after all, not much earlier Nicias had asked to be relieved of the command (Thuc. VII 15), and he had felt that the expedition was a mistake right from the start -, suggests that Nicias trusted too much in the messages which an allegedly proAthenian faction within Syracuse was sending to him. (As always with a Greek state, Syracuse had its political divisions; and one faction within the city evidently hoped to gain power after an Athenian conquest and was prepared to cooperate with the Athenians.) Thucydides, in any case, characterizes the result not as resolution, but as inertia: the Athenians stayed, but did not do much else (Thuc. VII 48-49).
The situation steadily grew worse for them. In the naval fighting in the Great Harbor of Syracuse the Syracusan fleet was having the better of it (Thuc. VII 51-55); and the Syracusans hit upon the idea of trapping the entire Athenian fleet by closing the entrance to the harbor with a chain of boats. When the Athenians saw this, Nicias realized that everything would now come down to one great battle in the Harbor in which the Athenians would either win or perish. The Athenians brought as many men as possible onto every ship which would still float, some 110 in all, and opened the engagement. Thucydides tells the story of the battle from the point of view of those Athenians who were still on land and were watching the fighting, which went on for a long time without any clear indication of who was winning. But at last the Syracusans gained the victory, and the majority of the Athenians on land gave way to blind panic (Thuc. VII 56, 60, 70-71).
Nicias and Demosthenes attempted to lead out a retreat in the next few days, but the Syracusans harried the retreating troops every step of the way so that the retreat soon became a rout. Casualties under the circumstances were high: some 7,000 or so of the Athenian and allied troops, by Thucydides’ estimation, were imprisoned in stone quarries near Syracuse. Both Nicias and Demosthenes surrendered; the Syracusans had them both put to death. The entire expedition had perished (Thuc. VII 72-87).
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