The Sicilian Expedition was an Athenian military campaign in Sicily from 415 to 413BC during the Peloponnesian War. It pitted Athens and its allies against Syracuse, supported by Sparta and Corinth. The expedition ended in a devastating defeat for the Athenians and severely weakened their position in the war.
The expedition was hampered from the outset by uncertainty over its objectives and command structure. Political manoeuvring in Athens expanded an originally modest force of twenty ships into a massive armada, while the expedition's principal advocate, Alcibiades, was recalled to Athens to stand trial before the fleet had even reached Sicily. Despite these setbacks, the Athenians achieved early successes. Syracuse, the most powerful state in Sicily, responded slowly to the threat and was nearly surrounded and besieged before the arrival of reinforcements under the Spartan general Gylippus, who galvanised the city's resistance. Thereafter, the Athenians gradually lost the initiative. Although a large reinforcing armada from Athens briefly restored their advantage, a disastrous assault on a strategic high point and a series of crippling naval defeats undermined both their military effectiveness and morale. A final attempt to evacuate the army failed, and nearly the entire expeditionary force was killed, captured, or sold into slavery.
The consequences of the defeat were immense. Two hundred ships and thousands of soldiers, a significant portion of Athens' military resources, were lost in a single campaign. The disaster encouraged Athens' enemies in mainland Greece and Persia to intensify their efforts against the city, while revolts broke out among Athenian allies in the Aegean. Some historians regard the expedition's failure as the turning point of the war, although Athens continued fighting for another decade. Thucydides observed that contemporaries were astonished not that Athens eventually lost the war, but that it was able to continue fighting for so long after suffering such catastrophic losses. Although Athens rebuilt much of its fleet, the loss of experienced soldiers and sailors proved far more difficult to replace.
Background
Athens and Sicily Although Athens had never involved itself deeply in Sicilian affairs, it had ties there before the onset of the Peloponnesian War, dating back to at least the mid-5th century BC.Scholars dispute the dating of a treaty with Segesta; 458/457 BC, 434/433 BC and 418/417 BC are among the suggested dates. A treaty with Leontini was renewed in 433/432 BC, and thus originated some time previously, probably between 460 and 439. Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, 154–54 and Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, 159–60. To small Sicilian cities, Athens was a potential counter to the powerful city of Syracuse, which was strong enough to potentially dominate the island. Syracuse, like Sparta and its Peloponnesian allies, was a Dorian city, while most of Athens's allies on the island were Ionian.Kagan, The Archidamian War, 265 Another source of conflict was the close relationship of Syracuse and other Dorian cities of the west to Athens's great commercial rival, Corinth. To the Athenians, Sicily was a threat—an unencumbered Syracuse might send grain or other aid to the Peloponnesians—as well as a venue for possible conquests.Fine, The Ancient Greeks, 476. See also Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 3.86.
In 427 BC, Athens had sent twenty ships, under the command of Laches, in response to an appeal for help from Leontini.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 3.86 That expedition, operating from a base at Rhegium, remained in the area for several years, fighting alongside Athens's local allies against the Syracusans and their allies, without achieving any dramatic successes.Fine, The Ancient Greeks, 476–78. In 425, the Athenians planned to reinforce their contingent with an additional forty triremes, but that fleet never reached Sicily, as it became caught up in the pivotal Battle of Pylos on the way there.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 4.1–9 By the time that fleet reached Sicily in late summer, Athens's Sicilian allies had grown weary of stalemated warfare, and agreed to negotiate with Syracuse and its allies. At the Congress of Gela, the Sicilian cities made peace on the basis of "Sicily for the Sicilians", and the Athenian fleet left for home.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 4.65
State of the war In 415, Athens and Sparta had been formally at peace since 421, when the Peace of Nicias had brought the Archidamian War to a close. The terms of that peace, however, had never been fulfilled; Sparta had never surrendered Amphipolis to Athens, as required by the treaty, and in return the Athenians had held Pylos. More recently, Athenian and Spartan troops had fought at the Battle of Mantinea in 418, with Athens supporting Argos, Mantinea, and other Peloponnesian cities in an attempt to establish a stable anti-Spartan alliance in the Peloponnese. That attempt, largely orchestrated by the Athenian nobleman Alcibiades, would have destroyed Sparta's control over the Peloponnesian League had it succeeded.Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, 133. Alcibiades rebounded politically from this defeat, and was elected as a general in the spring of 417.Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, 143. Control of Athens' foreign policy remained divided between a "peace party" (or pro-Spartan party) led by Nicias, and a "war party" led by Alcibiades.Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, 146–47. In 417 BC, an ostracism was held at Athens, but the Alcibiades and Nicias combined their forces to ensure the exile of the minor politician Hyperbolus, since neither of them could be sure exiling the other.
Dispatch of the expedition Appeal from Segesta The peace established in Sicily at the Congress of Gela did not last long. Shortly after the Congress, Syracuse intervened in an episode of civil strife between the democratic and oligarchic parties in Leontini, supporting the oligarchs. Before too long, the prospect of foreign domination had united the Leontinians, and the two parties united in war against Syracuse.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 5.4. See also Diodorus Siculus, Library 12.54 Athens had sent an emissary to Sicily in 422 to sound out the possibility of renewing the war against Syracuse, but achieved nothing.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 5.4 In 416, however, a second Sicilian conflict provided the invitation Athens had sought in 422. The city of Segesta—an Athenian ally in the 420s—went to war against Selinus and, after losing an initial battle, sent to Athens for help.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 6.6 In order to win the Athenians' support, the Segestaeans claimed that they were capable of funding much of the cost of sending a fleet, offering 60 talents of uncoined silver up front, and tricking Athenian ambassadors into believing that the city was more prosperous than it actually was, by making sure that the ambassadors saw all their golden and other valuable objects in a way as if these were just part of what they had.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 6.8Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 6.46
The debate At Athens, the Segestan ambassadors presented their case for intervention to the assembly, where debate over the proposal quickly divided along traditional factional lines. The assembly eventually approved an expedition composed of sixty triremes, without hoplite accompaniment, commanded by Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus. Thucydides reports that Nicias had been appointed against his preference, but offers no further detail regarding that debate.
Five days after that first debate, a second assembly was held to arrange the logistics of the expedition. There, Nicias attempted to persuade the assembly to overturn its previous decision regarding whether to send an expedition at all.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 6.9 Over the course of several speeches, Nicias raised a series of different arguments against the expedition. He reminded the Athenians that they would be leaving powerful enemies behind them if they sent a force to Sicily, and warned that they would be opening hostilities with enemies too difficult and numerous to conquer and rule. Nicias also attacked Alcibiades's credibility, claiming that he and his allies were inexperienced and self-aggrandizing young men eager to lead Athens into war for their own ends.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 6.10–14
In response, Alcibiades dismissed the attack on himself by pointing to the good he had done for Athens as a private citizen and public leader. He rebutted Nicias's warnings about the plan for the expedition by reminding the Athenians of their obligation to their Sicilian allies, appealing to the enterprising spirit that had won Athens her empire, and pointing out that many states on Sicily would support Athens in her operations there.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 6.16–18
The assembly was clearly leaning towards Alcibiades's side, so Nicias, judging them unlikely to cancel the expedition if he argued against it directly, chose a different tactic. He described the wealth and power of the Sicilian cities Athens would be challenging, and stated that a larger expedition than previously approved would be required, expecting that the prospect of approving such a massive expenditure would prove unappealing to the citizenry.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 6.20–24 Contrary to Nicias's plan, the assembly enthusiastically embraced his proposal, and passed a motion allowing the generals to arrange for a force of over 100 ships and 5,000 hoplites.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 6.25–26 Nicias's ploy had failed badly. His misreading of the assembly had altered the strategic situation; whereas the loss of 60 ships would have been painful but bearable, the loss of the larger force would be catastrophic. According to Donald Kagan, "Without Nicias' intervention there would have been an Athenian expedition against Sicily in 415, but there could not have been a disaster."Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, 191.
Destruction of the hermai
After lengthy preparations, the fleet was ready to sail. The night before they were to leave, someone destroyed many of the hermai—the stone markers representing Hermes, placed around the city for good luck. This event was taken very seriously by the Athenian people as it was considered a bad omen for the expedition, as well as evidence of a revolutionary conspiracy to overthrow the government. According to Plutarch, Androcles, a political enemy of Alcibiades, used false witness to claim that Alcibiades and his friends were responsible. Alcibiades volunteered to be put on trial under penalty of death in order to prove his innocence (wanting to avoid his enemies charging him, in his absence, with more false information), but this request was denied.
He was otherwise extremely popular and had the support of the entire army; he had also gained the support of Argos and Mantinea during the preparations. He was not charged, and the fleet sailed the next day. His opponents, however, waited for Alcibiades to set sail before they leveled the charges against him. This was because the army, his main source of support, would be absent, and his supporters would be outnumbered when the votes were cast.
Reaction in Syracuse