History of the Peloponnesian War

When Gylippus saw the enemy's ships defeated, and carried beyond the stockades and their own station, wishing to cut off the men that were landing from them, and that the Syracusans might more easily tow off the vessels, through the land being in possession of their friends, he ran down to meet them at the break-water with some part of his army.

The Tyrrhenians (for it was they who were keeping guard at this point) seeing them coming on in disorder, advanced towards them, and fell upon and routed their van, and drove them into what was called the marsh of Lysimelea.

Afterwards, when the force of the Syracusans and their allies had now come up in greater numbers, the Athenians also advanced against them, being afraid for their ships, and entered into action with them, and defeated and pursued them to some distance, killing a few heavy-armed. They saved also the greater part of their own ships, and brought them together alongside their station; eighteen of them, however, the Syracusans and their allies captured, and put all the men to the sword.

Wishing also to burn the rest of them, they filled an old merchantman with faggots and pine-wood, and having thrown fire into it, and the wind blowing right on the Athenians, they let the vessel drift towards them. The Athenians, alarmed for their ships, contrived, on the other hand, means for checking and extinguishing it; and having stopped the flames and the near approach of the merchantman, they thus escaped the danger.

After this, the Syracusans erected a trophy, both for their sea-fight, and for the interception of the heavy-armed above, at the wall, where they als took the horses; while the Athenians did the same for the rout of those of the infantry whom the Tyrrhenians drove into the marsh, and for that which they themselves effected with the rest of their army.

When the victory had now been so decisive on the side of the Syracusans, even at sea, (for before this they were afraid of the ships newly come with Demosthenes,) the Athenians were in a state of utter despondency; and great was their disappointment, but far greater still their regret, for having made the expedition. For these were the only states they had hitherto attacked with institutions similar to their own, and living under a democracy like themselves;

possessing, too, ships, and horses, and greatness: and as they were not able either to introduce any change, as regarded their government, to create dissension among them, by which they might have been brought over, nor to effect that by means of their forces, (though [*](κρείσσους.] I have taken this as a nominative case, with Arnold and others, rather than as an accusative, as Poppo is inclined to do in his larger edition; because the superiority of the Athenian forces at the beginning of their operations is quite evident from many other passages, even besides those referred to in Arnold's note; and the use of the participle ἐπελθόντεςat the beginning of the section is more suitable to the commencement of the siege, than to the later period of it, when the Syracusans could with truth be said to be superior to their assailants. Besides, ὄντες is found after κρείσσους in three of the MSS. With regard to the construction of ἐκ παρασκευῆς, it seems to depend upon προσάγεσθαι understood from the preceding προσήγοντο, as Bloomfield observes in the note to his translation.) they were far superior,) but had failed in most of their attempts, they were even before this event in perplexity; and after they were defeated even at sea, which they could never have expected, they were far more so still.

The Syracusans, on the other hand, immediately began to sail without fear along the harbour, and determined to close up its mouth, that the Athenians might not in future sail out, even if they wished it, unobserved by them.

For they were no longer attending to their own preservation merely, but also to the prevention of the enemy's escape; thinking (as was the fact) that with their present resources their own cause was decidedly the stronger; and that if they could conquer the Athenians and their allies both by land and sea, the victory would appear a glorious one for them in the eyes of the Greeks. For of the rest of the Greeks some in that case were straight way liberated, and others released from fear, (as the remaining power of the Athenians would no longer be able to bear the war that would afterwards be waged against them;) while they themselves also, being regarded as the authors of this, would be greatly admired, both by the rest of the world, and by posterity.

And the contest was indeed worth encountering, both on these grounds, and because they were winning the victory, not only over the Athenians, but over the other numerous allies also; and, again, not winning it by themselves, but also in company with those who had joined in assisting them; having taken the lead, too, with the Corinthians and Lacedaemonians, and given their own city to stand the first brunt of the danger, and paved the way, in great measure, for their naval success.

For the greatest number of nations met together at this single city, excepting the whole sum of the confederates assembled, during the war, at the city of Athens or of Lacedaemon.