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42.
In the meantime, while the Syracusans were
preparing for a second attack upon both elements, Demosthenes and Eurymedon
arrived with the succors from Athens, consisting of about seventy-three
ships, including the foreigners; nearly five thousand heavy infantry, Athenian and allied; a large number of darters, Hellenic and barbarian, and slingers and archers
and everything else upon a corresponding scale.
[2]
The Syracusans and their allies were for the moment not a little dismayed
at the idea that there was to be no term or ending to their dangers, seeing,
in spite of the fortification of Decelea, a new army arrive nearly equal to
the former, and the power of Athens proving so great in every quarter.
On the other hand, the first Athenian armament regained a certain
confidence in the midst of its misfortunes.
[3]
Demosthenes, seeing how matters stood, felt that he could not drag on and
fare as Nicias had done, who by wintering in Catana instead of at once
attacking Syracuse had allowed the terror of his first arrival to evaporate
in contempt, and had given time to Gylippus to arrive with a force from
Peloponnese, which the Syracusans would never have sent for if he had
attacked immediately; for they fancied that they were a match for him by themselves, and would
not have discovered their inferiority until they were already invested, and
even if they then sent for succors, they would no longer have been equally
able to profit by their arrival.
Recollecting this, and well aware that it was now on the first day after
his arrival that he like Nicias was most formidable to the enemy,
Demosthenes determined to lose no time in drawing the utmost profit from the
consternation at the moment inspired by his army;
[4]
and seeing that the counter wall of the Syracusans, which hindered the
Athenians from investing them, was a single one, and that he who should
become master of the way up to Epipolae, and afterwards of the camp there,
would find no difficulty in taking it, as no one would even wait for his
attack, made all haste to attempt the enterprise.
[5]
This he took to be the shortest way of ending the war, as he would either
succeed and take Syracuse, or would lead back the armament instead of
frittering away the lives of the Athenians engaged in the expedition and the
resources of the country at large.
[6]
First therefore the Athenians went out and
laid waste the lands of the Syracusans about the Anapus and carried all
before them as at first by land and by sea, the Syracusans not offering to
oppose them upon either element, unless it were with their cavalry and
darters from the Olympieum.
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References (33 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(8):
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus, 513-862
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Philoctetes, 407
- W. W. How, J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, 8.101
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 2, 2.2
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 2, 2.36
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 6, 6.18
- T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8, 8.25
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5, 5.74
- Cross-references to this page
(5):
- Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, THE VERB: VOICES
- William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter III
- William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter IV
- Smith's Bio, Demo'sthenes
- Smith's Bio, Eury'medon
- Cross-references in notes to this page
(2):
- Polybius, Histories, General Remarks on Timaeus as an Historian
- Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Thuc. 6.49
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(18):
- LSJ, ἄν
- LSJ, ἀνάβα^σις
- LSJ, ἀποχράω
- LSJ, ξεν-ικός
- LSJ, διαπολέμ-ησις
- LSJ, διαχειμάζω
- LSJ, ἕτερος
- LSJ, ἐπικρα^τ-έω
- LSJ, ἐπιτίθημι
- LSJ, κατά-πληξις
- LSJ, ὅ τι
- LSJ, παντα^χόσε
- LSJ, πέρα^ς
- LSJ, σύν
- LSJ, σύντομ-ος
- LSJ, τάχος
- LSJ, τρίβω
- LSJ, ὑπερορ-άω
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