prepared to sail out from the camp at a given signal. All was at
last ready, and they were on the point of sailing away, when an
eclipse of the moon, which was then at the full, took place. Most of
the Athenians, deeply impressed by this occurrence, now urged the
generals to wait; and Nicias, who was somewhat over-addicted to
divination and practices of that kind, refused from that moment even
to take the question of departure into consideration, until they had
waited the thrice nine days prescribed by the soothsayers.
The besiegers were thus condemned to stay in the country; and the
Syracusans, getting wind of what had happened, became more eager
than ever to press the Athenians, who had now themselves
acknowledged that they were no longer their superiors either by sea or
by land, as otherwise they would never have planned to sail away.
Besides which the Syracusans did not wish them to settle in any
other part of Sicily, where they would be more difficult to deal with,
but desired to force them to fight at sea as quickly as possible, in a
position favourable to themselves. Accordingly they manned their ships
and practised for as many days as they thought sufficient. When the
moment arrived they assaulted on the first day the Athenian lines, and
upon a small force of heavy infantry and horse sallying out against
them by certain gates, cut off some of the former and routed and
pursued them to the lines, where, as the entrance was narrow, the
Athenians lost seventy horses and some few of the heavy infantry.
Drawing off their troops for this day, on the next the Syracusans
went out with a fleet of seventy-six sail, and at the same time
advanced with their land forces against the lines. The Athenians put
out to meet them with eighty-six ships, came to close quarters, and
engaged. The Syracusans and their allies first defeated the Athenian
centre, and then caught Eurymedon, the commander of the right wing,
who was sailing out from the line more towards the land in order to
surround the enemy, in the hollow and recess of the harbour, and
killed him and destroyed the ships accompanying him; after which
they now chased the whole Athenian fleet before them and drove them
ashore.
Gylippus seeing the enemy's fleet defeated and carried ashore beyond
their stockades and camp, ran down to the breakwater with some of
his troops, in order to cut off the men as they landed and make it
easier for the Syracusans to tow off the vessels by the shore being
friendly ground. The Tyrrhenians who guarded this point for the
Athenians, seeing them come on in disorder, advanced out against
them and attacked and routed their van, hurling it into the marsh of
Lysimeleia. Afterwards the Syracusan and allied troops arrived in
greater numbers, and the Athenians fearing for their ships came up
also to the rescue and engaged them, and defeated and pursued them
to some distance and killed a few of their heavy infantry. They
succeeded in rescuing most of their ships and brought them down by
their camp; eighteen however were taken by the Syracusans and their
allies, and all the men killed. The rest the enemy tried to burn by
means of an old merchantman which they filled with faggots and
pine-wood, set on fire, and let drift down the wind which blew full on
the Athenians. The Athenians, however, alarmed for their ships,
contrived means for stopping it and putting it out, and checking the
flames and the nearer approach of the merchantman, thus escaped the
danger.
After this the Syracusans set up a trophy for the sea-fight and
for the heavy infantry whom they had cut off up at the lines, where
they took the horses; and the Athenians for the rout of the foot
driven by the Tyrrhenians into the marsh, and for their own victory
with the rest of the army.
The Syracusans had now gained a decisive victory at sea, where until
now they had feared the reinforcement brought by Demosthenes, and
deep, in consequence, was the despondency of the Athenians, and
great their disappointment, and greater still their regret for
having come on the expedition. These were the only cities that they