A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

GYLIPPUS. GYLIPPUS. 317
* the line was marked out, and stones were lying Gylippus. Nor yet does much appear in his subalong it ready for the builders, and in parts the sequent successful mission through the island in
wall itself rose, half-completed, above the ground. quest of reinforcements, nor in the first great naval.(Thuc. vi. 93, 104, vii. 1-2.) victory over the new armament,- a glory scarcely. Gylippus passed through the island collecting tarnished bythe slight repulse which he in person
reinforcements on his way, and giving the Syra- -experienced from the enemy's Tyrsenian auxcusans warning of his approach, was met by their iliaries (Thuc. vii. 46, 50, 53). Before the last
whole force. at the rear of.the city, where the broad and decisive sea-fight, Thucydides gives us an adback of Epipolae.slopes upward from its walls dress from his mouth which urges the obvious,to.the point of Labdalum. Mounting this at topics. The command of the ships was taken by
* Euryelus, he came unexpectedly on the Athenian other officers. In the operations succeeding the
works with his forces formed in order of battle. victory he doubtless took part. He commanded in
The Athenians were somewhat confounded; but the pre-occupation of the Athenian route; when,they also drew up for the engagement. Gylippus they in their despair left this their first. course,
commenced his communications with them by and made a night march to the south; the clamours
sending a herald with an offer to allow them to of the multitude accused him of a wish to allow
leave Sicily as they had come within five days' their escape: he joined in the proclamation which
time, a message which was of course scornfully called on the islanders serving in the Athenian
dismissed. But in spite of this assumption, pro- host to come over; with him Demosthenes arranged
bably politic, of a lofty tone, he found his Syra- his terms of surrender; to him Nicias, on'.hearing
cusan forces so deficient in discipline, and so unfit of his colleague's capitulation, made overtures for.for action, that. he moved off into a more open permission to carry his own division safe to
position; and finding himself unmolested, with- Athens; and to him, on the banks of the Asinadrew altogether, and passed the night in the suburb rus, Nicias gave himself up at discretion;. to the
Temenites. On the' morrow he reappeared in full captive general's entreaty that, whatever should be
force before the enemy's works, and under this his own fate, the present butchery might be ended,
feint detached a force, which succeeded in capturing Gylippus acceded by ordering quarter to be given.,the fort of Labdalum, and put the whole garrison Against his wishes, the people' whom he had res-,to the sword..(Thuc..vii. 2,' 3.) cued, put to death the captive'generals,-wishes,
For some days thenceforward he occupied his indeed, which it is likely were prompted in the
men in raising a cross-wall, intended to interfere main by the desire named by Thucydides, of the
with the line of circumvallation. This the Athe- glory of conveying to Sparta such a trophy of his
nians had now brought. still nearer to completion: deeds; yet into whose composition may also have
a night enterprise, made with a view of surprising entered some feelings.of a generous commiseration
a weak part of it, had been detected and baffled; for calamities so wholly unprecedented. (Thuc.
but Nic'ias, in despair, it would seem, of doing any vii. 65-69; 70, 74, 79, 81-86.)'good on the land side, was now employing a great Gylippus brought over his troops in the following
part of his force in the fortification of Plemyrium, summer. Sixteen ships had remained to the end
a point which commanded the entrance of the port. of these one was lost in an engagement with twentyAt length Gylippus, conceiving his men to be seven Athenian galleys, which were lying in wait
sufficiently trained, ventured an attack; but his for them near Leucas; the rest, in a shattered
cavalry, entangled amongst stones and masonry, condition,:made their way to Corinth. (Thuc. viii.
were kept out of action; the enemy maintained 13.)
the superiority of its infantry, and raised a trophy.. To this, the -plain story of the great contempoGylippus;. however, by openly professing the rary historian, inferior authorities add'but little.
fault to have been his own selection of unsuitable Timaeus, in Plutarch (Nic. 19), informs us that
ground, inspired them with courage for a fresh the Syracusans made no account of Gylippus;
attempt. By a wiser choice, and by posting his thinking him, when they had come to know his
horse and his dartmen on the enemy's flank, he character, to be mean and covetous; and at the,now won the Syracusans their first victory. The first'deriding himfor.the long hair and small upper
counterwork was quickly completed; the circum- garment of the Spartan fashion. Yet, says Pluvallation. effectually destroyed;. Epipolae cleared tarch, the same author states elsewhere that so
of the enemy; the city on one side delivered from soon as Gylippus was seen, as though at the sight
siege. Gylippus, having achieved so much, yen- of an owl, birds enough flocked up for the war.
tured to leave his post, and go about the island in (The sight of an owl is said to have the effect of
search of auxiliaries. (Thuc. viL. 4-7.) drawing birds together, and the fact appears to have
His - return in the, spring of B. c. 413 was fol- passed into a proverb.) And this, he adds, is the
lowed by a naval engagement, with the confidence truer account of the two; the whole achievement
required for which he and Hermocrates combined is ascribed to Gylippus,'not. by Thucydides only,
their efforts to inspire the people. On the night but also by Philistus, a native of Syracuse, and eye-.
preceding the day appointed, he himself led out the witness of the whole. Plutarch also speaks of the
whole land force, and with early dawn assaulted party at Syracuse, who were inclined to surrenderi
and carried successively the three forts of Ple- as especially offended by his overbearing Spartan
myrium, most important as the depOt of the Athe- ways; and to such a feeling, he says, when sucnian stores and treasure, a success, therefore, more cess was secure, the whole people began to give
than atoning for the doubtful victory obtained by way, openly insulting him when he made his petithe enemy's fleet (Thuc. vii. 22, 23). The second tion to be allowed to take Nicias and Demosthenes
naval fight, and first naval victory, of the Syra- alive to Sparta.' (Nic. 21,28.) Diodorus (xii. 28),
cusans, the arrival and defeat on Epipolae of the no doubt in perfect independence'of all authorities,
second Athenian armament, offer, in. our accounts of puts in his mouth a long strain of rhetoric, urging
them, no individual features for the biography of the people to a vindictive, unrelenting course, ilt