Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/289

271 AND STATION AT PLEMMTRIUM. 27 ir. which it had set sail fifteen months before, from the harbor of Peiraeus. The erection of the new forts at Plemmyrium, while by with drawing the Athenian forces it left Gylippus unopposed in the prosecution of his counter-wall, at the same time emboldened him by the manifest decline of hope which it implied. Day after day he brought out his Syracusans in battle-array, planting them near the Athenian lines ; but the Athenians showed no disposition tc attack. At length he took advantage of what he thought a favorable opportunity to make the attack himself; but the ground was so hemmed in by various walls the Athenian fortified lines on one side, the Syracusan front or Temenitic fortification on another, and the counter-wall now in course of construction on a third that his cavalry and darters had no space to act. Accord- ingly, the Syracusan hoplites, having to fight without these aux- iliaries, were beaten and driven back with loss, the Corinthian Goggylus being among the slain. 1 On the next day, Gylippus had the prudence to take the blame of this defeat upon himself. It was all owing to his mistake, he publicly confessed, in having made choice of a confined space wherein neither cavalry nor darters could avail. lie would presently give them another op- portunity, in a fairer field, and he exhorted them to show their inbred superiority, as Dorians and Peloponnesians, by chasing these lonians with their rabble of islanders out of Sicily. Accord- ingly, after no long time, he again brought them up in order of battle ; taking care, however, to keep in the open space, beyond the extremity of the walls and fortifications. On this occasion, Nikias did not decline the combat, but marched out into the open space to meet him. He probably felt encour- aged by the result of the recent action ; but there was a farther and more pressing motive. The counter-wall of intersection, which the Syracusans were constructing, was on the point of cut- ting the Athenian line of circumvallation, so that it was essential for Nikias to attack without delay, unless he formally abnegated all farther hope of successful siege. Nor could the army endure, in spite of M^e-rcd fortune, irrevocably to shut themselves out from such huj.-e, witLout one struggle more. Both armies were . vii, 5; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 19.