sian armies
weakened both the resources and the morale of the Athenians, and
the crowding of the inhabitants into the city resulted in frightful
mortality from the plague. At the same time the naval expeditions
sent out to harry the coast of the Peloponnesus accomplished nothing
of real advantage.

In 421 a truce was agreed upon between Athens and Sparta, which
was to last fifty years. Both sides were sorely weakened by the
protracted struggle and neither had gained any real advantage over
the other. Without waiting to recuperate from the losses of the
war, Athens embarked in 415 on an ambitious plan of conquering
Syracuse, and gaining all of Sicily as an Athenian colony. In the
event of success Athens would have a western outpost for the eventual
control of the Mediterranean, as she already had an eastern outpost
in Ionia, which gave her control of the AEgean.

In the light of the event it is customary to refer to this expedition
as the climax of folly, and yet it is clear that if the commander
in chief had not wasted time in interminable delays the Athenians
might easily have won their objective. At first the Syracusans felt
hopeless because of the large army and fleet dispatched against
them, and the great naval prestige of their enemy, but as delay
succeeded delay, assistance arrived from Corinth and Sparta, and
the besieged citizens took heart. The siege dragged on for the
greater part of two years, with the offensive gradually slipping
from the Athenians to the Syracusans, till finally the invaders
found their troops besieged on shore and their ships bottled up
in the harbor by a line of galleys anchored across the entrance.
The Syracusans knew that they were no match for the Athenians on
the open sea, but with a fleet crowded into a harbor with no room
for maneuvering, the problem was not essentially different from
that of fighting on land. They built a fleet of ships with specially
strengthened bows for ramming and erected catapults for throwing
heavy stones on the decks of the enemy. Meanwhile, the Athenian
ships had deteriorated from lack of opportunity to refit and their
crews had been heavily reduced by disease. In a pitched battle
between the two fleets in the harbor, the Athenians were worsted.
Shortly after as the Athenians were attempting to break through
the barrier and escape, they were again attacked by the Syracusans.
There was no room for maneuvering; the Athenian ships were jammed
together in a