He realized that his first priority was to regain control of Epipolae and started work on a new counterwall. After a couple of sharp engagements, the Syracusans succeeded in cutting across the Athenian rampart with one of their own. At last, even if the Athenians won battles, the city was safe from complete encirclement. Meanwhile reinforcements arrived to strengthen the defenders. The Athenians found that they were outnumbered and the prospect of victory suddenly receded.
Nicias saw that every day which passed brought new strength to the enemy and increased his own difficulties. He was especially worried about the state of the fleet; the ships were waterlogged and the rowers were no longer in peak condition. He himself had contracted a kidney disease and was in poor physical shape. The strain of sole command after the death of Lamachus was telling on him. He wrote a letter to the ecclesia in which he explained the situation. “We thought we were the besiegers, but in fact have become the besieged.”
He reported that the time had come either to recall the expedition or to send out another fleet and army as big as the first. Also because of his illness he asked to be allowed to resign his command and for a replacement commander to be appointed. Nicias hoped that his dispatch would persuade the ecclesia to recall the entire expedition, but, once again, he was to be disappointed by its bellicosity.
The failure in Sicily was a shock to the democracy, but when offered double or quits it instinctively doubled. Another vast expeditionary force was assembled and Nicias was not relieved of his command. He had always been known for being lucky, and sooner or later, it was felt, fate would relent and turn in his direction. His incompetence and lack of enthusiasm were overlooked. However, two new generals, Eurymedon and the hero of Pylos, Demosthenes, were appointed to join him.
The balance of power was changing. In the summer of 414 Athens brought the peace to a clear and explicit end by raiding Laconia, Sparta’s homeland, but surprisingly lost a sea battle in the Corinthian Gulf. The Spartans at last felt free to resume hostilities and it was in the following spring that, as we have seen, they fortified Decelea.
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Meanwhile in the Great Harbor, Nicias’s fleet lost a sea fight with the inexperienced Syracusans, whose army captured the fort and supply depot at Plemmyrion.
No longer was the Athenian trireme invulnerable. The situation was becoming decidedly uncomfortable, for Nicias and his men were in some danger of being trapped.
In July 413 there was a massive case of déjà vu. A second superbly equipped fleet, almost as large as the first one, set sail from Piraeus, bound for Sicily. Under the command of Demosthenes, seventy-three warships carried five thousand hoplites as well as three thousand javelin throwers, archers, and slingers. On this occasion the historians did not record crowds of enthusiastic onlookers, and those who were present must have had mixed feelings about the future.
However, the impression the armada made on the Syracusans when it was sighted off the Great Harbor was one of unmixed horror. Plutarch describes the scene.
The flash of armor, the vivid colors of the ships’ ensigns and the cacophony of boatswains and flute-players marking time for the rowers made for a spectacular display, which dismayed the enemy. As was only to be expected, the Syracusans were plunged into despair. They saw ahead of them no end to their troubles except futile suffering and a purposeless loss of life.
Demosthenes knew that in fact the visual glamour of the new fleet was misleading. It was a good example of psyops, a mind game designed to influence the enemy by the use of selective information. It did not reveal the grim reality. Demosthenes studied the Athenian campaign so far and concluded that, unless the Athenians regained control of Epipolae and fully invested the city, Syracuse would never be defeated.
This was more easily said than done. Gylippus had ensured strong defenses on the heights and Demosthenes’ first attempt to capture the counterwall came to nothing. Seeing that any assault by daylight was bound to fail, he planned a daring night raid.
One midnight in early August Demosthenes led about ten thousand hoplites and the same number of light-armed skirmishers up the steep ascent to Epipolae. The moon had not yet risen and the Athenians surprised the Syracusan garrison and captured their fort. Some of the garrison were killed, but the rest escaped and spread word of the Athenian attack. The elite Epipolae guard rushed out to meet the enemy, but they too were quickly routed.
The Athenians pressed on, eager not to lose momentum before they reached their objectives. Some began immediately to tear down the counterwall. Gylippus, taken entirely by surprise, arrived with his troops from outworks, but the Athenians pushed them back.
Then something went wrong. The Athenians assumed that victory was theirs and began to lose cohesion. They encountered a band of tough Boeotians, who had crossed seas to come to Syracuse’s aid, and for the first time that night the Athenians were thrown back.
There was now a bright moon, but while figures could be discerned in outline they were not recognizable. Also, the defeated hoplites had no clear idea where they were. Large numbers of soldiers of both sides were crowded together on the plateau and it was hard to tell who was friend and who was foe. Soldiers still climbing up onto Epipolae received no orders when they arrived and collided with their retreating compatriots. The noise was confusing, with different groups singing their paeans, or hymns of thanksgiving, at the tops of their voices and shouting out their watchwords.
Thucydides writes:
After once being thrown into confusion, the Athenians ended by colliding with each other in many parts of the field, friend against friend and citizen against citizen. They not only created panic among themselves, but actually came to blows and could only be parted with difficulty.
Many men lost their lives trying to escape from Epipolae; the descent was narrow and a good number threw themselves down from the cliffs. By the time day dawned, some two and a half thousand Athenian infantry were dead.
Night fighting was always a dangerous tactic in ancient warfare. Even in daylight a battlefield was a mystifying place and most soldiers knew only what was going on in their immediate vicinity. Preliminary surprise could often be achieved, but if a nocturnal engagement lasted for any length of time soldiers could easily lose their bearings. Communication between the high command and the rank and file was usually out of the question.
Demosthenes was a talented general, but as we saw earlier in his career over-optimism could make him careless. He was unfamiliar with the terrain (although Nicias could have explained it to him in detail) and failed to make his orders absolutely clear. He ought to have established way stations to manage the flow of traffic or some other reliable system of information exchange.
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There was no point deploring the past. A council of war was held the following day to discuss what to do now—not only in the light of the defeat, but also the army’s catastrophically low morale. The camp was situated in marshy ground and many men were ill.
Demosthenes saw, correctly, that the campaign was lost and advised an immediate withdrawal while Athens still had mastery of the seas. He told the meeting: “It is better for Athens for us to fight against those who are building fortifications at Decelea in Attica than against the Syracusans, who can no longer be conquered easily.”
Nicias disagreed. He accepted that the expedition was in grave danger, but he had private sources of information in Syracuse which suggested that the enemy was in an even worse way. He was sure that the ecclesia in Athens would disapprove of a withdrawal and refused to lead the army away from Sicily. Privately, he was in two minds, but he feared an angry demos and knew that it would punish failure. He said he would prefer death at the hands of an enemy to an unjust condemnation by his fellow-citizens. Demosthenes and Eurymedon could have outvoted Nicias, but they let their senior colleague have his way.