The Tale Of How Pericles Consoled A Sailor Frightened By An Eclipse

Pericles (c. 495-429 BCE) was the leading figure in Athens at the start of the Peloponnesian War (c. 431-404 BCE). During the first years of the war, both sides attacked their opponent using the strategy they were most comfortable with—the Spartan-led Peloponnesians invaded enemy territory by land, while the Athenians mobilized their navy and raided the Peloponnesian coast by sea. With this strategy in mind, Pericles gathered 100 Athenian ships and 50 allied vessels, loaded with thousands of heavy infantry and hundreds of bowmen and cavalry. Yet, as Pericles was preparing his forces for war, the cosmos threw in his path one of the most ominous and supernaturally-significant omens known to the ancient world—a solar eclipse. Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE) dated this eclipse to the first year of campaigns in 431 BCE, while the Greek-Roman biographer, Plutarch (c. 50-120 CE), claimed this took place just before Pericles’ second campaign, in 430 BCE, at which time the Athenians tried and failed to besiege the city of Epidaurus.  Whatever the case, Pericles’ navy reportedly witnessed this ominous solar event, and the Athenian leader had to act quickly to keep the morale of his sailors from plummeting.

Thucydides described the eclipse itself, writing “there was an eclipse of the sun after midday. The sun took on the appearance of a crescent and some of the stars became visible before it returned to its normal shape” (History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II, section 28). Plutarch, using whatever sources were at his disposal, wrote about how the eclipse affected the Athenian navy. He wrote, “it happened that the sun was eclipsed, and it grew dark on a sudden, to the affright of all, for this was looked upon as extremely ominous” (Plutarch, Life of Pericles, 35.1). Of the Athenian sailors who were frightened by the event, Pericles’ own flagship steersman displayed some of the worst symptoms; the solar eclipse left him frozen in shock and paralyzed by fear. This stupefied sailor, thankfully, would soon be saved by his captain’s quick thinking and reasoning.

As the story goes, Pericles was able to calm his panicking steersman using a tried-and-true calming method used on all forms of animals, to this day. To snap the sailor back into reality, Pericles used sensory deprivation—specifically blocking the man’s sight. Pericles, it was said, grabbed a nearby cloak and held it in front of the steersman’s eyes. If he was in a particularly dramatic mood, perhaps the Athenian leader tossed the cloak over the sailor’s head, as if it were a birdcage. Once the sight-deprived sailor had begun to calm down, Pericles then began whittling away at the man’s fears through reason, explaining that the solar eclipse, while indeed dramatic, was no more dangerous or ominous than the simple cloak that was before his eyes. Plutarch claimed that this tale, including Pericles’ reasoning, became a favorite story that Athenian philosophers started to teach their students.

Yet, for the Athenians at the time, they likely would have thought that the ill omen of the solar eclipse was justified in their case. The naval expeditions against the Peloponnesus in 431 and 430 BCE were inconclusive, and, even worse, a deadly plague hit Athens in 430 BCE that wiped out a large portion of the city’s population. Pericles, too, died not long after the eclipse, breathing his last in 429 BCE.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Scene from the life of Gelon, painted by Michele Panebianco (1806–1873), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Plutarch’s Lives edited by Charles W. Eliot in the Harvard Classics series. New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1909, 1937.
• History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner and introduced by M. I. Finley. New York: Penguin Classics, 1972. 
• http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Pericles*.html#ref:eclipse_of_Pericles 
• http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Topics/astronomy/_Texts/secondary/journals/The_Observatory/Eclipse_of_Pericles*.html 
• https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsearch/SEsearchmap.php?Ecl=-04300803

The Athenian Catastrophe At Eretria

In 411 BCE, the once-mighty Athens was in a dire state. Two years prior, Athens had lost tens of thousands of lives (including a few of its greatest generals) and over a hundred ships in their ill-fated expedition to Sicily. Now, with Peloponnesian strength growing and Persian interest in the massive Greek civil war increasing, a group of Athenian officers launched a remarkably ill-timed coup. In 411, conspirators in military and political spheres overthrew the Athenian democracy and, through assassination and intimidation, succeeded in setting up a group of oligarchic leaders in Athens, calling themselves the Four Hundred. Yet, the oligarchs underestimated the pro-democracy passion of the Athenian military and also did not take into account the jealousy that would be felt by the lower ranking oligarchs who were unsatisfied with the power they were allotted after the coup. Ultimately, although the Four Hundred did indeed capture Athens, they were bitterly opposed by the Athenian military (which camped at Samos). At the same time, disgruntled and disillusioned oligarchs plotted against their superiors.

In was at this time, while the Athenian military was in rebellion against the oligarchic government, and while the Athenian people were terrorized by the thoughts of government informants and assassins, that a reported fleet of forty-eight Peloponnesian ships sailed past Athens. The enemy fleet continued along the shoreline of Attica, heading up to the Gulf of Euboea and eventually anchoring in Oropus, on the southern coast of the gulf. The Athenians rightly feared that the Peloponnesian fleet would cut off their access to Euboea and could inspire revolts against Athens in the region. The fear was so powerful that the rival oligarchic factions worked together to mobilize ships to drive off the Peloponnesians. Yet, since the proper Athenian military refused to acknowledge the oligarchs, the city of Athens could only manage to mobilize thirty-eight ships, manned by inadequately-trained sailors and undistinguished officers, and sent them off without much in the way of rations.

The Athenian fleet of thirty-eight ships pursued the Peloponnesians into the Gulf of Euboea. As the Peloponnesians had anchored on the southern shore, the Athenians instead sailed to the north and stopped at the Euboean city of Eretria. With no food onboard their ships and no supply-line set up, the Athenian sailors disembarked and wandered through Eretria in search of food. According to the historian and Athenian general, Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE), the Eretrians had all of their food stockpiled inland, far away from the coast. Yet, the locals began cooking and serving this food for the Athenians in houses near the inland storehouses.

Although the Eretrian picnic for the Athenian sailors may have seemed friendly, it was all a calculated trap. After Athens suffered its catastrophe in Sicily, many cities under Athenian authority reached out to the Peloponnesians for support in potential rebellions against Athens. Eretria was evidently one such city that wanted to be free from Athenian control. Unfortunately for the Athenian sailors, the Eretrians had been in contact with the Peloponnesian fleet in Oropus and had coordinated a plan on what to do if the Athenians should drop anchor at Eretria. With everything going as planned, the Eretrians somehow signaled to the Peloponnesians, perhaps with smoke from their cooking fires, indicating to the fleet in Oropus that the Athenians were distracted and away from their ships. Seeing this signal, the Peloponnesian fleet set sail and crossed over to the harbor of Eretria before the Athenians ever realized that their foes were on the move.

When the Athenian commander, a certain Thymochares, finally saw that the Peloponnesians were just outside the harbor, he pulled his sailors away from their meals and herded them frantically back to the ships. The surprised and unprepared Athenian fleet sailed out to meet the Peloponnesians and were said to have held their ground for some time. Yet, the Athenian defenses eventually began to give way, and then shattered completely. The defeated sailors fled in at least three directions: some toward a nearby Athenian fort in Euboea, others toward Chalcis, and a third group unfortunately returned to Eretria. By this point, however, the Eretrians were no longer pretending to be friendly, and they slaughtered the unfortunate Athenians who fled back to the city.

According to Thucydides, the Athenian oligarch fleet lost at least twenty-two of their thirty-six ships in the disastrous sea battle at Eretria. In the aftermath of the battle, nearly all of the Euboean cities rebelled against Athens. Yet, the disaster did have one benefit for Athens—it was ammunition that lesser members of the oligarchy could use against the leading oligarchs. Before the end of 411 BCE, the so-called Four Hundred was overthrown and was replaced by the more inclusive Five Thousand, which could be joined by any Athenian man who had the means to purchase a full set of heavy infantry hoplite gear. The Five Thousand became more democratic through reform and eventually gained the approval of the Athenian military, reuniting the city of Athens with its armed forces.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Triremes depicted in Ship: The New Student's Reference Work, v. 4, 1914, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• History of the Peloponnesian War (Book VIII) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner and introduced by M. I. Finley. New York: Penguin Classics, 1972.    
• https://www.britannica.com/event/Peloponnesian-War
• https://www.ancient.eu/Peloponnesian_War/
• https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/peloponnesian-war
• https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/thymochares-e1213040
• https://www.ancient.eu/Alcibiades/
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alcibiades-Athenian-politician-and-general

The Ravaging Of Mycalessus By Mercenaries During The Peloponnesian War

In 413 BCE, Demosthenes led an army of over 5,000 Athenian and allied forces to Sicily in order to reinforce a preexisting siege of Syracuse. A certain band of around 1,300 tardy Thracian mercenaries was meant to be sailing with that army, but when the swords-for-hire arrived in Athens, they found that Demosthenes had already sailed away. The jobless Thracians then renewed the offer of their military services to the city of Athens, which at that time was plagued by the presence of a nearby Spartan stronghold that had recently been built at Decelea, in the Athenian heartland of Attica. Although the Thracians were helpful in countering Peloponnesian raids, the Athenians decided that the mercenary company was too expensive to keep around. Athens eventually forced the Thracians to leave, but as they headed home to Thrace, the mercenaries were paid for one last job.

Athens tasked the homeward-bound Thracian mercenaries with the job of spreading chaos in the Spartan-aligned regions of Greece as they traveled back to Thrace.  To help with this mission, the Athenians apparently gave the Thracians an advisor (or possibly a general), as well as a fleet of transport ships. The Thracians sailed these transports along the coast of Greece, intending to sail into the Euboean Gulf, but they took a detour to raid Tanagra, on the borderland between Attica and Boeotia. After rushing back to their ships with the plunder, the mercenaries passed through the Euripus Strait between Euboea and mainland Greece, continuing to sail along the Boeotian shoreline.

Yet, before the Thracians sailed too far from the Euripus Strait, they disembarked on Boeotian soil and began marching inland. For unknown reasons, but perhaps on direction from their Athenian advisor, the Thracians continued marching inland until they reached an uninformed and poorly defended city called Mycalessus. It was a settlement seemingly devoted to farming, with little else of note except a few modest shrines and a large school for boys. Perhaps the city also catered to travelers, for there was a sizable temple of Hermes located only two miles away from the town. As Mycalessus was well inland and not a power player in the region, the people there had unfortunately let their guard down. The city was ill-protected by an inadequate garrison, and, although the city did have walls, the defensive features of the settlement were dilapidated and crumbling. Unfortunately, as the city also apparently had little in the way of scouts or patrols, Mycalessus left its gates wide open and it walls virtually undefended. The city remained in this sorry state as the army of Thracian mercenaries marched ever closer.

Eventually, the mercenaries arrived at the aforementioned temple of Hermes, which lay about two miles out from the city. Even then, the city of Mycalessus apparently still had no knowledge of the danger they were in. The mercenaries spent the night camped by the temple, but once daybreak arrived, they quickly rushed across the two mile stretch to the city and assaulted the unprepared people of Mycalessus. When the mercenaries attacked, the gates were still open, the wall still had gaps, and the garrison of the city was still understaffed. The Athenian general and historian, Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE), wrote of this event in his History of the Peloponnesian War and his account infers that the city fell without a battle—the mercenaries were able to break in and immediately begin pillaging.

For no stated reason, the mercenary army’s occupation of Mycalessus became a bloodbath. According to Thucydides, “The Thracians burst into Mycalessus, sacked the houses and temples, and butchered the inhabitants, sparing neither the young nor the old, but methodically killing everyone they met, women and children alike, and even the farm animals and every living thing they saw” (History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VII, section 29). As happened with the city’s temples and houses, the boys’ school of Mycalessus was also invaded, and all of the schoolchildren who had gone to class that morning were reportedly massacred by the mercenaries. Thucydides’ sympathy for the city is palpable in his writing. He stated: “Mycalessus lost a considerable part of its population. It was a small city, but in the disaster just described its people suffered calamities as pitiable as any which took place during the war” (History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VII, section 30).

Fortunately for the survivors of Mycalessus, the city of Thebes had a competent intelligence network and learned of the attack quickly. A respected Boeotian commander named Scriphondas mobilized the forces of Thebes and rushed to the aid of Mycalessus. The Thebans caught the mercenaries unawares and unprepared. Some Thracians were still pillaging in the city at the time, while the majority were back out in the field. Upon the arrival of the Boeotians, the mercenaries apparently abandoned any of their comrades still inside the city and began an orderly withdrawal back toward their ships. The main contingent of Thracians was able to escape to the coast by carefully alternating between advance and retreat against the pursuing Thebans. Any mercenaries still inside the city, however, were said to have been killed by the newly arrived Boeotians forces.

When the embattled Thracian mercenaries reached the sea, a problem quickly developed. The Thebans had chased the mercenaries to the coast and the Thracians had not been able to fully embark on the ships before Boeotian archers forced the transports to sail out of arrow range. Many mercenaries found themselves stranded and some were either slain on the beach or drowned as they tried to swim to the transports. Although the majority of the mercenaries had escaped, a reported 250 Thracians died during the Theban counter-attack at Mycalessus or on the beach. The casualties of the Theban relief force was much lighter, with twenty men reported dead. Unfortunately, the leader of the Theban army, Scriphondas, was among the dead.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Scene depicting Aphrodite saving Aeneas, Etruscan black-figure amphora, ca. 480 BC. Martin-von-Wagner-Museum, L 793, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner and introduced by M. I. Finley. New York: Penguin Classics, 1972.

General Demosthenes’ Night Of Madness At Syracuse

In 413 BCE, Demosthenes sailed to Sicily and arrived at the outskirts of Syracuse with around seventy-three ships and thousands of troops to reinforce the Athenian camp that was besieging the city. The fresh troops and ships were much appreciated, as the Syracusans had recently captured three Athenian forts, and ships from Syracuse had even forced the Athenian expedition fleet to retreat during a later sea battle. The Athenians had always considered themselves to be unbeatable at sea, so the naval defeat was extremely troubling. Yet, the arrival of Demosthenes with his ships and men gave the Athenians a much-needed boost in morale.

Demosthenes shared the command of the Athenian expeditionary force with two other generals, Eurymedon and Nicias. Now that the expedition force was replenished, the three generals decided that it was time to attack Syracuse. After assessing the local geography, Demosthenes decided that the best way to defeat Syracuse’s defenses was to occupy Epipolae, an elevated plateau that was defended by several Syracusan camps and forts, as well as a wall. First, the Athenians tried a direct attack, marching out with siege engines to capture the wall, but the engines were burned and the assault made little progress. Thwarted, Demosthenes began to think of an alternative way to capture Epipolae. As one of the most creative and unorthodox generals in the Athenian military, Demosthenes was adept at planning unusual and surprising methods of attack. During his career, Demosthenes’ creative style of leadership had led to miraculous victories; yet, his ideas were also known to sometimes go horribly awry.

Ultimately, Demosthenes decided to try a stealth attack after dark. Around midnight, Demosthenes led his army in a roundabout path and climbed up onto the plateau from the west. The Athenians successfully arrived at the first fort of Epipolae without having been discovered. With the first step complete, Demosthenes then attacked the unprepared Syracusans, catching the garrison inside completely off guard. The Athenian forces quickly defeated the surprised warriors and captured the fortification. The battle for the fort was a complete Athenian victory, yet the overarching battle for Epipolae was about to take a dramatic turn.

Although the Athenians had successfully taken the first fort of the plateau, survivors from the defeated garrison and the noise of battle had alerted the defenders of Syracuse to the attack. Waves of Syracusans began rushing toward the fort, and the first defenders to arrive were approximately 600 warriors from one of the other forward camps on the plateau. It was a sizable force, but not enough to defeat the army that Demosthenes had led into battle. The Athenians rushed against the new arrivals and easily cut them down. As the band of 600 Syracusans gave way, the Athenians pursued them deeper into Epipolae. Yet, in their pursuit, the Athenians began to lose their cohesion and discipline, a troubling occurrence for any battle, but especially deadly at night. Consequently, the Athenian forces were in a haphazard formation when the fully-mobilized army from Syracuse arrived to assist the forts and defend Epipolae.

Unorganized and surrounded by the dark of night, the Athenians reportedly bumbled into a band of Boeotians who, along with other Spartan-aligned Greeks, were fighting on the side of Syracuse. The Boeotians entered the battlefield with discipline and attacked as a whole against the jagged Athenian lines. The shock of the Boeotian charge sent the Athenians into a panic, and, to Demosthenes’ horror, his army began to scatter into the night.

Instead of conquering Epipolae, Demosthenes now had to gather his shattered army and herd them back to camp. It was reportedly a scene of utter confusion. Many Athenians, after running off, became lost in the dark—some were said to have run straight off the plateau cliffs. Others called out to humanoid shadows in the dark, asking for watchwords. Yet, before long, the Syracusans learned the Athenian watchword and used it to lure lost stragglers to captivity or death. Some stranded warriors from the Athenian side even tried singing battle songs and other tunes that were native to their homelands. Nevertheless, such eerie songs emanating from the darkness only added to the confusion, especially when the songs of friend and foe sounded similar.

Eventually, Demosthenes and the majority of his army escaped and safely returned to camp. Yet, many were missing. Apparently, the portion of the Athenian army that fared the worst was the new arrivals that had recently sailed in with Demosthenes. As they had not yet learned the local landscape, they were the most prone to losing their way in the Sicilian countryside or falling off a cliff in the dark of night.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Darkened version of “Heroes of the Battle of Marathon”, painted by Georges Marie Rochegrosse (1859–1938), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner and introduced by M. I. Finley. New York: Penguin Classics, 1972.

A Coastal Food Market Helped Syracuse Win A Sea Battle Against Athens

An Athenian coalition fleet of around 130 warships, accompanied by an army of over 7,000 men, arrived in Sicily in 415 BCE. That year, the Athenians were able to talk or cajole a few Sicilian cities into joining their side (most importantly Naxos and Catana). They also won a small land battle against the army of Syracuse, Athens’ main target in the region. It was a good start for Athens, yet the defeat suffered by the Syracusan army inspired the city of Syracuse to improve the training of its warriors and to modify the ships used by the navy. As the war in Sicily escalated over the next few years, the ability for Syracuse to adapt and innovate eventually led to their victory. Interestingly, one such advantageous feat of Syracusan ingenuity was to set up a food fair on the beach of their Great Harbor.

By 413 BCE, the Athenian coalition had been camped for a year or two outside of Syracuse. It all began as a war of walls, with Athens trying to besiege Syracuse with impromptu barricades, while the Syracusans frantically set up counter-walls to thwart the plans of the Athenians. As Syracuse was not completely cut off from the outside world, the number of defenders in the city continued to increase as more allies from Sicily and the Peloponnesus slipped past the Athenian lines and entered the city. In the final leg of the siege, there were reportedly tens of thousands of warriors committed to the battle on both sides. Although the besiegers and the besieged were at a stalemate for much of the siege, the year 413 saw a dramatic shift in the balance of power.

The shift in power was largely due to Syracuse’s efforts to build a competent navy. After Syracuse gathered and manned around eighty warships, it sent out its fleet against the Athenians. In that sea battle, the Syracusans were eventually forced to retreat. Yet, the ships were able to distract the Athenians long enough for the land forces of Syracuse (led by the Spartan general, Gylippus) to rush out and capture three forts from the besiegers. The battle was considered a great success, as, not only had they captured the fortresses, but the fleet had also proved that it could hold its own against Athens, and, with more training, practice and modifications, they could even beat the Athenians at sea. Learning from the battle, the crafty shipwrights of Syracuse reinforced the sides and prows of their ships, and also developed new ramming beaks for the front of the ships. When the next confrontation between the Athenian and Syracusan fleets occurred, Syracuse had refitted at least eighty ships with these modifications.

In addition to the improved ships, the Syracusans also brought a secret weapon to the battle—a food market. Apparently, food vendors, innkeepers, and anyone else in the city who knew how to cook, were all ushered down to the beach to set up stalls on a protected stretch of beach in Syracuse’s harbor. In effect, it was ancient fast food.

With the food stalls set up on the beach, the Syracusan fleet sailed out to attack the Athenian ships in the morning. After doing some damage, the ships of Syracuse withdrew to the beach in order to have a quick mid-day meal provided by the vendors who had set up shop by the water.  According to the historian Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE), the Athenians had thought that the Syracusan fleet would not return until the next day. Nevertheless, the sailors of Syracuse, reinvigorated by food and refreshments offered by the citizens on the beach, immediately hopped back onto their ships and embarked on a second attack against the Athenian fleet that very same day. The quick reappearance of the Syracusan fleet reportedly caught the Athenians by surprise. The sailors of Athens were able to scramble to their ships and meet the enemy in battle, but the combination of a surprise attack with Syracuse’s naval improvements ultimately led to a Syracusan victory. It was the first time that Syracuse had won a sea battle against Athens during the war. Syracuse continued to ride that momentum and by the end of 413, they would completely devastate the Athenian fleet and destroy the Athens’ expeditionary force in Sicily.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Sale of bread at a market stall, from a fresco in Pompeii, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• History of the Peloponnesian War (Book IV) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner and introduced by M. I. Finley. New York: Penguin Classics, 1972.  

The Peculiar Gift-Giving Habits Of Cyrus The Younger

Cyrus the Younger (c. 423-401 BCE) was the powerful and ambitious son of King Darius II (r. 423-404 BCE) of Persia. Despite Cyrus’ youth, King Darius II entrusted him with governing the regions of Lydia, Cappadocia and Phrygia in 408 or 407 BCE. Once appointed, Cyrus helped the Peloponnesians win the Peloponnesian War against Athens (ended 404 BCE), and he later raised an army in 401 BCE for an unsuccessful rebellion against his brother, King Artaxerxes II (r. 404-358 BCE). Cyrus was killed in the resulting battle against his brother at Cunaxa, Babylonia, and two historians (Xenophon and Ctesias) were present to record the event from the viewpoints of both sides of the conflict.

Cyrus seems to have been the type of person who was either loved or hated and accounts about him by his contemporary peers reflect that divide. Ctesias, a Greek man who hailed from the Anatolian city of Cnidus, was a doctor for Artaxerxes II, as well as a historian of Persia and India. He unflatteringly described Cyrus the Younger as a disloyal and treasonous villain. On the other side of the spectrum, the historian and philosopher Xenophon, who served as a mercenary in Cyrus’ army, glowingly portrayed the rebel prince as a just and generous man who would do anything for his friends.

It is in Xenophon’s list of Cyrus’ noble qualities that we discover one of the late prince’s intriguing habits. Cyrus the Younger was reportedly an incessant gift-giver. While many of his gifts were the usual presents of money, gilded weaponry or fine clothing, Cyrus’ closest friends could expect to receive less-commonplace gifts arriving on their doorstep. Apparently, if Cyrus had a particularly delightful meal, he had an interesting habit of sending out leftovers from his table to close friends, and a personal letter or message from the prince often accompanied such deliveries. According to Xenophon, you never knew what the prince might randomly send—an already-opened bottle of fine wine, a half-eaten portion of goose, and even a chunk from a loaf of bread were listed by Xenophon as being sent by Cyrus the Younger to various friends. The letters accompanying the delivered morsels reportedly read something like, “Cyrus enjoyed this, and he would like you to have a taste of it too” or “Cyrus has not come across a nicer wine than this for a long time, so he has sent it to you with the request that you drink it up today along with your best friends” (Xenophon, Anabasis Kyrou, Book I, chapter 9). Xenophon, unfortunately, did not mention if the recipients of these royal table-scraps found the gifts entertaining or condescending.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Esther Denouncing Haman, painted by Ernest Normand (1857–1923), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Anabasis Kyrou (The Expedition/Upcountry March of Cyrus) by Xenophon and translated by Robin Waterfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cyrus-the-Younger 
• https://www.livius.org/articles/person/cyrus-the-younger/ 
• http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cyrus-vi-younger 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Xenophon 
• https://www.ancient.eu/xenophon/ 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ctesias  

The Dawn Sea Battle At Syme After A Surprise Storm

The Athenian expedition to Sicily was destroyed in 413 BCE, leaving Athens militarily weakened and extremely demoralized. Sparta and its Peloponnesian allies hoped to exploit Athens’ moment of vulnerability by sending out Peloponnesian fleets and armies to inspire revolts among cities in the Athenian Empire. The Peloponnesians, encouraged by Persian support, first began by promising aid to cities in or around Ionia, including Miletus, Clazomenae, Mitylene and Cnidus, as well as islands such as Chios, Lesbos and eventually Rhodes. A Spartan admiral (nauarch) named Astyochus was appointed as supreme commander of the Peloponnesian naval forces and tasked with organizing the new overseas operations. Unfortunately, he quickly proved himself to be the stereotypical slow and overcautious Spartan. Although Sparta received a line of eager ambassadors from cities ready to rebel against Athens, Admiral Astyochus seemed unwilling or unable to intercept Athenian fleets heading toward Ionia or to adequately protect the rebel cities when the Athenian forces arrived to crush the rebellions.

Eventually, Sparta appointed a council of eleven officers to advise (and, if needed, overthrow) the sluggish admiral. If the council agreed unanimously, they had the power to remove Astyochus from office. These officers set sail for Ionia independently from the rest of the Peloponnesian fleet and eventually anchored at the city of Caunus. Interestingly, it was while Astyochus was sailing with his fleet of sixty-seven ships along the coast of Anatolia to meet with this oversight counsel that the admiral won one of his few victories at sea.

After raiding Cos and then stopping by the allied city of Cnidus, Astyochus learned that a fleet of twenty Athenian ships was patrolling through the islands off the coast of southwest Anatolia, searching for the Spartans officers who had just sailed to Caunus. Astyochus, upon hearing this news, decided to sail with his fleet into a dark and cloudy night, reportedly in hopes of catching the Athenians by surprise. Yet, a skeptic might also say he wanted to avoid his enemies in the cloudy darkness. Whatever the case, Astyochus continued on his journey and sailed toward the island of Syme in the middle of the night. During this nighttime journey, the clouds condensed into a storm and scattered Astyochus’ fleet. The separated ships became lost in the darkness, and, by morning, several fragments of the Peloponnesian fleet found themselves alone in the sea.

As luck would have it, the Athenian patrol happened to also reach Syme that very morning. The Athenians spotted a small group of Peloponnesian ships and, not seeing any other hostile vessels close by, decided to immediately attack. Yet, the storm had not scattered the Peloponnesian fleet too far apart. When the sounds of sailors shouting and hulls clashing began to emanate from Syme, the other individual ships of the Peloponnesian fleet began making their way toward the noise of battle. Astyochus’ scattered sailors closed in on Syme from all directions, eventually surrounding the horrified Athenians in a tightening ring of hulls. As more and more of the sixty-seven Peloponnesian ships arrived at the site of the battle, the Athenians decided it was time to detach themselves from the fray and sail away. The majority of the Athenians did successfully flee, but six ships were lost during the battle or in the escape.

After his unplanned victory at Syme, Astyochus met up with his council of advisors at Caunus and continued on with his overcautious methods at sea. As more and more rebel cities fell or faced difficulties in the absence of effective aid, the Peloponnesian forces began to grow ever more mutinous toward their admiral. Astyochus was removed from his command before the end of 411 BCE and replaced with Mindarus.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (19th-century depiction of the Athenian Navy from the Peloponnesian War, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• History of the Peloponnesian War (Book VIII) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner and introduced by M. I. Finley. New York: Penguin Classics, 1972. 
• http://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-893

The Embarrassing Way An Athenian Fleet Broke Into The Sicilian City of Catana

In 415 BCE, Athens and its allies launched an expedition to Sicily reportedly consisting of over 130 warships, plus more than 100 smaller supply boats. Accompanying the sailors was a combined force of over 7,000 hoplite infantry, skirmishers and even some cavalry. When the expeditionary force reached Italy and Sicily, it met with a cold reception. The Italian cities were extremely suspicious of the Athenians, and they usually gave the expedition members some water and allowed the fleet to anchor offshore, but no more—after this brief show of hospitality, most Italian cities barred their gates and manned their walls. Of all the coastal cities in Italy, Rhegium behaved the friendliest toward the Athenians. It was near that city that the Athenians set up their first prolonged expedition camp. Rhegium also opened up a temporary market from which the Athenians could buy supplies, but like the rest of the Italian cities, they refused to let the foreigners inside their walls.

After resting up near Rhegium, the expedition force turned its gaze to the true target of the campaign—Sicily, especially the city-states of Selinus and Syracuse. The three generals in charge, Alcibiades, Nicias and Lamachus, had differing views on how to make their approach. In the end, Alcibiades convinced his comrades that recruiting Sicilian cities to the Athenian cause was the best first step. Following Alcibiades’ plan, Athenian ships sailed from Rhegium toward Sicily. Yet, just like in Italy, the local city-states gave the newcomers a cold reception. Messina, the city that Athens most wanted to have as an ally, refused to align with the expedition and closed their gates, although they did open up a market for trade. The city of Catana also refused to allow the Athenians inside their walls and told the fleet to keep sailing. Only Naxos allowed the expedition to freely enter their city.

Before long, the Athenian fleet encountered the powerful city of Syracuse. Here, the Athenians laid out the conditions that had to be met to avoid war. The main demand was that swaths of land be returned to Athens’ ally, Leontini. With the ultimatum delivered, the diplomats took a tour of the city and did reconnaissance work. After assessing Syracuse’s strength, the Athenian fleet began backtracking toward the camp at Rhegium, where some of their ships had stayed behind.

When the expedition force returned to Catana, they found the city slightly more willing to negotiate. The leaders of Catana reportedly invited the leading generals of the expedition to come inside the city and talk things over. This offer was accepted and the generals entered the city (presumably with some bodyguards), but left their ships and men nervously waiting outside the walls.

The Athenian generals walked into an interesting situation, to say the least. The city was in a state of disrepair, and even its walls and gates were poorly maintained. Moreover, the leaders of Catana were apparently very unpopular with their people and unrest was on the rise. With their city crumbling and their political power waning, perhaps the local leading party was willing to align with the expedition to maintain power. Alas, we will never know, for the arranged one-on-one meeting between the generals and the ruling party of Catana never occurred.

Not long after the generals had entered the city, the loitering Athenian fleet began to feel restless. Thucydides (460-400 BCE), the main historian of the period, did not provide a motive for the army’s behavior, but it is possible that they feared their leaders were walking into a trap. Otherwise, maybe the Athenians were just fed up with so many Italian and Sicilian cities closing their gates against the expedition. Whatever the case, large numbers of Athenian warriors began gathering by the walls of the city. There, the expeditionary forces saw what their generals had witnessed earlier—the city defenses were in a horrible state. Incredibly, the Athenians were reportedly able to simply push their way through the city gates without using any siege weaponry.

Once the unruly Athenian warriors had broken into the city, they found their generals were safe. In fact, Alcibiades was reportedly giving a speech to the assembled masses of the city when the worried Athenians broke down the front gate. When the generals were found safe and sound, the Athenian forces calmed down and, according to Thucydides, many decided to awkwardly “stroll about in the market-place” (History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VI, section 51).

With Athenian forces suddenly appearing in the city, the leaders of  Catana decided to flee. Alcibiades’ speech to the masses must have been well-received, for the people of Catana agreed to an alliance with Athens and decided to allow (or did not resist) the expeditionary force to build a new camp for their Sicilian campaign near the city.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Black-Figure amphora depicting Achilles and Ajax playing a board game overseen by Athena, c. 510 BCE, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• History of the Peloponnesian War (Book IV) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner and introduced by M. I. Finley. New York: Penguin Classics, 1972.