Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/294

276 276 HISTORY OT GRKECK. attack and storm their counter-wall. And things have come to such a pass, that we, who profess to besiege others, are ourselves rather the party besieged, by land at least, since the cavalry leave us scarce any liberty of motion. Farther, the enemy have sent envoys to Peloponnesus to obtain reinforcements, while Gylippus in person is going round the Sicilian cities, trying to stir up to action such of them as are now neutral, and to get, from the rest, additional naval and military supplies. For it is their determination, as I understand, not merely to assail our lines on shore with their land-force, but also to attack us by sea with their ships. " Be not shocked when I tell you, that they intend to become aggressors even at sea. They know well, that our fleet was at first in high condition, with dry ships 1 and excellent crews ; but now the ships have rotted, from remaining too long at sea, and the crews are ruined. Nor have we the means of hauling our ships ashore to refit, since the enemy's fleet, equal or superior in numbers, always appears on the point of attacking us. "We see them in constant practice, and they can choose their own moment for attack. Moreover, they can keep their ships high and dry more than we can ; for they are not engaged in maintaining watch upon others ; while to us, who are obliged to retain all our fleet on guard, nothing less than prodigious superiority of number could insure the like facility. And were we to relax ever so little in our vigilance, we should no longer be sure of our sup- plies, which we bring in even now with difficulty close under their walls. " Our crews, too, have been and are still wasting away from various causes. Among the seamen who are our own citizens, many, in going to a distance for wood, for water, or for pillage, are cut off by the Syracusan cavalry. Such of them as are slaves, desert, now that our superiority is gone, and that we have come to equal chances with our enemy ; while the foreigners whom we pressed into our service, make off straight to some of the neighboring cities; and those who came, tempted by high 1 It seems, that in Greek ship-building, moist and unseasoned wood was preferred, from the facility of bending it into the proper shape (TneopUra* tas, Hist. Plant, v, 7, 4).