Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/339

 ATHENIAN I LEET AT PYLUS. 31 from the delay of the reinforcement sent to Phormio in some desultory operations on the coast of Krete. The fleet accord- ingly passed by Pylus without stopping : but a terrible storm drove them back and forced them to seek shelter in the very harbor which Demosthenes had fixed upon, the only harbor anywhere near. That officer took advantage of this acci- dent to renew his proposition, which however appeared to the commanders chimerical : there were plenty of desert capes round Peloponnesus, they said, if he chose to waste the resources of the city in occupying them,i nor were they at all moved by his reasons in reply. Finding himself thus unsuccessful, Demos- thenes presumed upon the undefined permission granted to him by the Athenian people, to address himself first to the soldiers, last of all to the taxiarchs, or inferior officers, and to persuade them to second his project, even against the will of the command- ers. Much inconvenience might well have arisen from such clashing of authority : but it happened that both the soldiers and the taxiarchs took the same view of the case as their command- ers, and refused compliance : nor can we be surprised at such reluctance, when we reflect upon the seeming improbability of being able to maintain such a post against the great real, and still greater supposed, superiority of Lacedaemonian land-force. It happened, however, that the fleet was detained there for some days by stormy weather ; so that the soldiers, having nothing to do, were seized with the spontaneous impulse of occupying them- selves with the fortification, and crowded around to execute it with all the emulation of eager volunteers. Having contem- plated nothing of the kind on starting from Athens, they had neither tools for cutting stone, nor hods for carrying mortar: 2 accordingly, they were compelled to build their wall by collecting such pieces of rock or stones as they found, and putting them together as each happened to fit in : whenever mortar was needed, they brought it up on their backs bent inwards, with hands joined behind them to prevent it from slipping away. Such deficiencies were made up, however, partly by the unbounded 1 Thucyd. iv, 3. The account, alike meagre and inaccurate, given by Diodorus, of these interesting events in Pylus and Sphakteria, will be foind in Diodor. xii, 61-G4 * Thucyd ir, *.