Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/311

293 CAPTURE OF PLEMMYRIUM 205 among the army. The Syracusans were now masters of the mouth of the harbor on both sides, so that not a single storeship could enter without a convoy and a battle. What was of not less detri- ment, the Athenian fleet was now forced to take station under the fortified lines of its own land-force, and was thus cramped up on a small space in the innermost portion of the Great Harbor, be- tween the city -wall and the river Anapus ; the Syracusans being masters everywhere else, with full communication between their posts all round, hemming in the Athenian position both by sea and by land. To the Syracusans, on the contrary, the result of the recent battle proved every way encouraging ; not merely from the valuable acquisition of Plemmyrium, but even from the sea-fight itself, which had indeed turned out to be a defeat, but which promised at first to be a victory, had they not thrown away the chance by their own disorder. It removed all superstitious fear of Athenian nautical superiority ; while their position was so much improved by having acquired the command of the mouth of the harbor, that they began even to assume the aggressive at sea. They detached a squadron of twelve triremes to the coast of Italy, for the purpose of intercepting some merchant vessels coming with a supply of money to the Athenians. So little fear was there of an enemy at sea, that these vessels seem to have been coming without convoy, and were for the most part destroyed by the Syracusans, together with a stock of ship-timber which the Athenians had collected near Kaulonia. In touching at Lokri, on their return, they took aboard a company of Thespian hoplites who had made their way thither in a transport. They were also fortunate enough to escape the squadron of twenty triremes which Nikias detached to lie in wait for them near Megara, with the loss of one ship, however, including her crew. 1 One of this Syracusan squadron had gone forward from Italy with envoys to Peloponnesus, to communicate the favorable news of the capture of Plemmyrium, and to accelerate as much as possible, the operations against Attica, in order that no reinforce- ments might be sent from thence. At the same time, other envoys went from Syracuse not merely Syracusans, but also 1 ThucyJ- vii, 25.