Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/357

339 FLIGHT OF THE ATHENIANS. 33 however, they found a Syracusan detachment befoielund with them, raising a redoubt, and blocking up the ford; nor cojld Nikias pass it without forcing his way through them. He marched straightforward to the Erineus, which he crossed on the same day, and encamped his troops on some high ground on the other side. 1 Except at the ford of the Kakyparis, his march had been all day unobstructed by the enemy ; and he thought it wiser to push hia troops as fast as possible, in order to arrive at some place both of safety and subsistence, without concerning himself about the rear division under Demosthenes. That division, the larger half of the army, started both later and in great disorder. Un- accountable panics and darkness made them part company or miss their way, so that Demosthenes, with all his efforts to keep them together, made little progress, and fell much behind Nikias. He was overtaken by the Syracusans during the forenoon, seem- ingly before he reached the Kakyparis, 2 and at a moment when 1 Thucyd. vii, 80-82. 8 Dr. Arnold (Thucyd. vol. iii, p. 280, copied by Gollcr, ad vii, 81) thinks that the division of Demosthenes reached and passed the river Kakyparis : and was captured between the Kakyparis and the Erineus. But the words of Thucyd. vii, 80, 81, do not sustain this. The division of Nikias was in advance of Demosthenes from the beginning, and gained upon it principally during the early part of the march, before daybreak ; because it was then that the disorder of the division of Demosthenes was the most inconven- ient : see c. 81 u( rr/f VVKTOQ TOTE ZvvETapux&naav, etc. "When Thucydi- des, therefore, says, that " at daybreak they arrived at the sea," (u/ja 6e ry et/) ixj>iKvovvT(u ff T?jv -&a7iaTTav, c. 80,) this cannot be true both of Nikias and of Demosthenes. If the former arrived there at daybreak, the latter can- not have come to the same point till some time after daybreak. Nikias must have been beforehand with Demosthenes when he reached the sea, and considerably more beforehand when lie reached the Kakyparis : more- over, we are expressly told that Nikias did not wait for his colleague, that he thought it for the best to get on as fast as possible with his own division. It appears to me that the words U^IKVOVVTCLI, etc. (c. 80), are not to be understood both of Nikias and Demosthenes, but that they refer back to the word airoif, two or three lines behind : " the Athenians (taLsn generally) reached the sea," no attention being at that moment paid to the difference between the front and the rear divisions. The Athenians might be said, nol improperly, to reach the sea, at the time when the division of Nikiai reached ;