What if the Athenian expedition to Sicily had succeeded?
In 413 BC the great Athenian expedition was destroyed before Syracuse, and the defeat turned the Peloponnesian War. What if Syracuse had opened its gates instead?
What actually happened
In summer 415 BC, in the middle of a Peloponnesian War only paused by the Peace of Nicias, Athens sent a great expedition to Sicily. According to Thucydides it numbered 134 triremes and 5,100 hoplites. The pretext was helping the allied city of Egesta, but what moved the assembly was the dream of breaking Syracuse, the largest Dorian city of Sicily, and winning the whole island. The generals were three: the cautious Nicias, the young and ambitious Alcibiades, and the veteran Lamachus.
Just before the fleet sailed, Herms all over Athens were mutilated in a single night, and Alcibiades, recalled on a charge of sacrilege, fled to Sparta. He advised the Spartans to send a general to Syracuse and to fortify Decelea in Attica. In 414 BC the Athenians seized the plateau of Epipolae behind Syracuse and almost completed a wall encircling the city; Lamachus was killed in this fighting. Then the Spartan Gylippus arrived and began building a counter-wall across the Athenian line.
In 413 BC Demosthenes came with a relief fleet of 73 triremes, but a night attack on Epipolae failed in confusion. On the night the withdrawal was decided there was an eclipse of the moon, and Nicias, following the soothsayers, delayed the departure; meanwhile the fleet was trapped and broken in the Great Harbour. The army fleeing overland was caught at the river Assinarus, Nicias and Demosthenes were executed, and 7,000 prisoners were shut in the quarries of Syracuse. The same spring Sparta fortified Decelea.
The turning point
The expedition came close to success at least twice. Thucydides writes that just before Gylippus arrived, the Syracusans were about to hold an assembly on ending the war; it was at that moment that the Corinthian Gongylus brought word that help was coming. The second time was Demosthenes' night attack, when the Athenians reached the top of the plateau before losing their order in the dark. Thucydides records that the first to stand against them were the Boeotians.
Many argue, though, that the defeat was not mere bad luck. Thucydides himself put the failure down less to a faulty plan than to the home city's failure to support its army and to quarrels among the leaders. Modern historians such as Donald Kagan count Nicias's hesitation and the recall of Alcibiades as decisive mistakes. Others doubt that Athens, even with Syracuse taken, could have ruled a large island across the sea for long, or avoided a clash with Carthage.
The world that might have been
In Crown & Plough the alternative reads: in summer 413 BC, ten days after Demosthenes' relief fleet arrived, the Syracusan wall on Epipolae fell to a night attack. Gylippus was killed, and starving Syracuse opened the gates of Ortygia. Sicily's grain and ships became Athens', and Sparta gave up its plan to fortify Decelea. In the game Syracuse becomes a vassal of Athens, the Athenian army grows and the Spartan army shrinks.
The game's altered world then runs like this. The next year the Ionian allies' plotting fades, and the Persian satrap Tissaphernes sends the Spartan envoys home empty-handed. In 411 BC Athens recalls Alcibiades, and in 409, when Carthage lands at Selinus, it clashes for the first time with an Athens that holds Sicily. In 406 the two powers divide the island along the river Halycus, and in 405 Sparta sues for a peace recognising Athens' empire of the sea. The Carthaginian attack on Selinus did in fact happen in 409 BC.
A world where Athens won is a strange world even for Athens. In the game, in 399 BC the seventy-year-old Socrates is still questioning young men in the Agora, because no one ever wrote the indictment that put him on trial. Instead Athens reaches into Boeotia: after a fight at Tanagra in 393 it draws the Boeotian League into alliance, and in 382 it sets up an Athenian-style democracy and garrison in Thebes. Athens, the loser of the Peloponnesian War, becomes this time the master of Greece.
Ripples through time
This turning point rewrites the later ones of the Classical Greece era wholesale. In a world where Athens holds Syracuse, Thebes never gets its chance to break Sparta, so the turning point at Leuctra never opens, and Cyrus's revolt and Cunaxa also go differently, so the turning point at Cunaxa does not occur either.
Macedon still rises. In the game Philip still becomes king in 359 BC, but this world's Philip grew up as a hostage not in Thebes but in Athens, learning from Iphicrates' light infantry. In real history Philip was a hostage in Thebes after Leuctra and saw Epaminondas's army at close quarters.
Play this turning point
Start in the Classical Greece era (431 BC), or choose the scenario The Night of the Herms, which begins as Alcibiades in 415 BC, the year the expedition sails. As Alcibiades, resisting the recall and staying with the expedition, or being acquitted at your trial and coming back, pushes towards the expedition's victory; crossing to Sparta and recommending Gylippus and Decelea pushes towards real history. You also meet this turning point in the scenario Son of the Cadmea, which begins as a Boeotian noble.
In the Currents of History story The Peloponnesian War, siding with Athens and the Delian League pushes for the expedition's success, and siding with the Peloponnesian League pushes for the real outcome. In 414 BC, on the Athenian side you can volunteer for Demosthenes' relief fleet or pay to fit out a trireme; on the other side you can join the 300 Boeotians bound for Syracuse. The odds are set by weighing the strength of Athens against Syracuse, Sparta and Corinth, and if Athens has already fallen the turning point does not open.
Play this turning point → Start the scenario “The Night of the Herms” →
Questions and answers
How large was the Sicilian Expedition?
According to Thucydides, the first expedition of 415 BC had 134 triremes and 5,100 hoplites, plus archers and light troops, and in 413 Demosthenes brought 73 more triremes. Counting the rowers, tens of thousands crossed to Sicily, and most of them never came back.
Why did Nicias delay the withdrawal?
On the night set for the withdrawal at the end of August 413 BC there was an eclipse of the moon, and Nicias, as the soothsayers advised, decided to wait 27 days. Meanwhile the Syracusans blocked the mouth of the Great Harbour, and the Athenian fleet failed to break out.
Did the failure in Sicily make Athens lose straight away?
No. Athens rebuilt its fleet and fought for nine more years, even winning sea battles such as Cyzicus. But revolts of the Ionian allies and Persian support for Sparta followed, and after losing its fleet at Aegospotami in 405 BC Athens surrendered in 404.
Sources and further reading
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, books 6–7; Plutarch, Lives of Nicias and Alcibiades. Modern accounts: Donald Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition; Peter Green, Armada from Athens.