Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/286

268 268 HISTORY OF GREECE. - allowed to march quietly into Syracuse, the Athenian double wal; of circuravallation, between the southern cliff of Epipoloe and the Great Harbor, eight stadia long, was all but completed : a few yards only of the end close to the harbor were wanting. But Gylippus cared not to interrupt its completion. He aimed at higher objects, and he knew, what Nikias, unhappily, never fell and never lived to learn, the immense advantage of turning to active account that first impression and full tide of confidence which his arrival had just infused into the Syracusans. Hardly had he accomplished his junction with them, when he marshalled the united force in order of battle, and marched up to the lines of the Athenians. Amazed as they were, and struck dumb by his unexpected arrival, they too formed in battle order, and awaited his approach. His first proceeding marked how much the odds of the game were changed. He sent a herald to tender to them a five days' armistice, on condition that they should col- lect their effects and withdraw from the island. Nikiar disdained to return any reply to this insulting proposal ; but his conduct showed how much Tie felt, as well as Gylippus, that the tide was now turned. For when the Spartan commander, perceiving now for the first time the disorderly trim of his Syracusan hoplites, thought fit to retreat into more open ground farther removed from the walls, probably in order that he might have a better field for his cavalry, Nikias declined to follow him, and remained in posi- tion close to his own fortifications. 1 This was tantamount to a confession of inferiority in the field. It was a virtual abandon- ment of the capture of Syracuse, a tacit admission that the Athenians could hope for nothing better in the end than the humiliating offer which the herald had just made to them. So it seems to have been felt by both parties ; for from this time forward, the Syracusans become and continue aggressors, the Athenians remaining always on the defensive, except for one brief instant after the arrival of Demosthenes. After drawing off his troops and keeping them encamped for that night on the Temenite cliff, seemingly within the added for- tified inclosure of Syracuse, Gylippus brought tlnm out again the next morning, and marshalled them in front of the Athenian 1 Thucyd. vii, 3.