The Athenian Disaster in EgyptAuthor(s): Jan M. LibourelSource: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 92, No. 4 (Oct., 1971), pp. 605-615Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/292666 .Accessed: 26/03/2011 13:44

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THE ATHENIAN DISASTER IN EGYPT.

The Athenian campaign in Egypt from 460/59 to 454 B. C., which culminated in the destruction of the Athenian expedition- ary force in the Nile Delta, has been the subject of numerous modern studies. A large number of these investigations have rejected Thucydides' account of the extent of the disaster.' Thu- cydides (I, 104, 109) clearly implies that the Athenians lost nearly two hundred and fifty ships in Egypt, but scholars, be- lieving that a disaster of such magnitude would have had far greater repercussions in the Aegean world, have felt that this figure was too high and have suggested that the actual number of Athenian and allied ships engaged in the Egyptian campaign numbered only about fifty or even forty-the figure given by Ctesias (63-4). It is the purpose of this study to uphold the truth of Thucydides' narrative concerning the extent of the Athenian losses.

According to Thucydides' account (I, 104), after the Libyan king Inarus had brought about the revolt of Egypt from the Persians, he invited the Athenians, who were campaigning at Cyprus with two hundred ships, to help the revolt, and they accepted the invitation and sailed into the Nile Delta and joined the Egyptians in besieging the Persians and their loyal Egyptian followers in that part of Memphis known as the White Castle. At the time of the Athenians' arrival Ctesias (63) records an Athen- ian victory over the Persian fleet, not mentioned in Thucydides. This victory is seemingly confirmed by a fragmentary inscription found on Samos 2 which records a Greek naval victory over the Persians near Memphis. However, if Peek's restoration of this inscription 3 is correct in making the Samian contingent alone

"See: M. O. B. Caspari (Cary), "On the Athenian Expedition of 459-4," C.Q., VII (1913), pp. 198-201. F. A. Adcock, Proo. Camb. Philological Society (1926), pp. 3-5. W. Wallace, "The Egyptian Expedition and the Chronology of the Decade 460-450 B. C.," T. A. P. A., LXVII (1936), pp. 252-60. H. D. Westlake, "Thucydides and the Athenian Disaster in Egypt," C.P., XLV (1950), pp. 209-16. P. Salmon, La Politique Sgyptienne d'Athenes (Brussels, 1965), pp. 90-192.

a R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford, 1969), pp. 76-7.

8W. Peek, "Ein Seegefecht aus den Perserkriegen," Klio, XXXII (1939), pp. 289-306.

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capture fifteen Phoenician triremes, it certainly seems likely that the Greek fleet numbered substantially more than Ctesias' figure of forty.

Diodorus Siculus (XI, 74, 3) makes the Athenians instru- mental in securing the victory in a land battle as well. How- ever, the credibility of Diodorus' account is diminished by the fact that Herodotus fails to mention any Greeks at this battle (Papremis) in his brief reference to it (III, 12, 4), and Dio- dorus' version of the entire Egyptian campaign seems to be especially intended to glorify the Athenians.

The question then remains whether after their initial victory the Athenians withdrew the bulk of their naval forces from Egypt, leaving about forty or fifty ships to carry on the cam-

paign, or whether their entire squadron remained to be de- stroyed in the Persian victory in 454. One important piece of evidence which seems to favor at first sight the hypothesis that most of the fleet was withdrawn is the famous stele recording the casualties of the Erechtheid tribe (the so-called "Nointel Marble ") (I. G., I2, 929). This stele records the names of those of the Erechtheid tribe who fell "in Cyprus, in Egypt, in Phoenicia, in Halieis, in Aegina, at Megara, in the same year." Since all the other battles mentioned appear to be in chrono- logical order, it is to be assumed that the otherwise unknown attack on Phoenicia took place after the invasion of Egypt. Thus it has been suggested that the Athenians either raided the coast of Phoenicia as the main part of their fleet returned from Egypt4 or that the Athenians had split their fleet at

Cyprus, part to raid Phoenicia while the rest went to Egypt, so that the full Athenian fleet of two hundred never was in

Egypt.5 Westlake, however, has countered these arguments by pointing out that the Athenians could have launched raids

against Phoenicia from the Nile Delta, and these ships could either have returned to Egypt or gone back to Greece.6

The threat of a naval attack from Phoenicia could be a sufficient reason for the retention of a large Athenian naval

squadron in Egypt, particularly to guard grain convoys to Athens against Phoenician raids, either by privateers or organ- ized fleets. This would seem to answer Wallace's question,

6Westlake, p. 211.

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' Wallace, p. 259. Caspari, p. 200.

THE ATHENIAN DISASTER IN EGYPT.

" What possible use could be made of two hundred triremes for six years on the Nile ?" 7

A major argument in favor of the theory that the Athenians withdrew most of their fleet from Egypt has been that the Athenians would not have been capable of engaging the Pelo- ponnesian fleets at Cecryphalia and Aegina (Thuc., I, 105, 1-2) with two hundred ships absent in Egypt.8 However, if we make the common assumption that at this time the Athenian and allied fleet numbered three hundred ships,9 we shall see that the Peloponnesians could not possibly have dared engage the Athen- ians if the latter could have mobilized two hundred and fifty or more ships against them. On the other hand, if the Athenians had only about one hundred ships at their disposal, the com- batants would have been quite evenly matched. A study of the known figures of Peloponnesian fleets from the Persian to the Archidamian War shows that on only one occasion were the Peloponnesians able to launch a fleet of much more than one hundred ships. Thus, at Artemisium the Peloponnesian con- tingents, exclusive of the Megarians, who at the time of Ce- cryphalia and Aegina were Athenian allies, numbered as fol- lows (Hdt., VIII, 1):

Corinth 40 Aegina 18 Sicyon 12 Lacedaemon 10 Epidaurus 8 Troezen 5

total 93

For Salamis the figures are similar (Hdt., VIII, 43):

Corinth 40 Lacedaemon 16 Sicyon 15

7Wallace, p. 252. 8 Caspari, p. 200. Adcock, p. 4. 9 See the discussion and references in Salmon, pp. 134-9.

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Epidaurus 10 Troezen 5 Hermione 3 Aegina 30 (at the battle site [Hdt.,

---- VIII, 46, 1]) total 119

At Leucimme (Thuc., I, 27) the fleet is much smaller. The Corinthians man only thirty ships. The cities of the Argolid furnish eight, and Cephallenia, the Leucadians, and Ambraciotes furnish a total of twenty-one ships. It seems unlikely that these states on the west coast of Greece were present in as great force against the Athenians at Cecryphalia or Aegina. The largest Peloponnesian naval force recorded during this period is that which fought at the battle of Sybota (Thuc., I, 46). This was primarily due to the fact that the Corinthians manned the abnormally high number of ninety ships, but they were able to fit out this total only after an extensive and protracted ship- building and recruiting program (Thuc., I, 31, 1). Also, they were reinforced by an unusually large number of ships from their allies on the west coast of Greece so that the entire fleet of the Corinthians and their allies was one hundred and fifty strong. This total does, however, include twelve Megarian ships.

In the Archidamian war, the Peloponnesians launched a fleet of one hundred ships against Zacynthus in the summer of 430 (Thuc., II, 66). Again, this total would have included a large number of allies from the west coast-Eleans, Leucadians, and Ambraciotes. In the battles against Phormio in the Corinthian gulf in the summer of 429 (Thuc., II, 83-92) the totals are much smaller. In the first encounter the Corinthians and their allies number forty-seven ships. In the second battle, which also in- cluded a number of contingents from the allies on the west coast of Greece, this total was increased to seventy-seven. In the sum- mer of 427 the Peloponnesian squadron dispatched to Lesbos was only forty-two in number (Thuc., III, 26), and the Pelopon- nesian fleet at Pylos was sixty strong (Thuc., IV, 8).

In conclusion, it may be seen that at no time were the Pelo- ponnesians capable of raising a fleet which could challenge an enemy with over two hundred ships. We may assume that the Corinthian fleet ordinarily amounted to about forty ships, the

608

THE ATHENIAN DISASTER IN EGYPT.

Aeginetan thirty, and that the Sicyonians, the cities of the Argo- lid, and the states on the west coast would have furnished a grand total of no more than forty ships at Cecryphalia and Aegina. It is doubtful if the Spartans, still involved at Ithome, could have made more than a token contribution to the fleet at these battles. Thus, the Athenians were confronted at Cecry- phalia and Aegina by no more than 110 or 120 ships. The will- ingness of the Peloponnesians to engage in battle is explained by the fact that two hundred of the Athenian and allied ships were in Egypt, and so they had to fight only about a hundred Athenian ships. The loss of seventy ships at Aegina completely smashed the naval power of the Peloponnesian League and may account for their lack of activity after the final Athenian catas- trophe in Egypt.

In 456, most probably, the Persians invaded Egypt with a huge force, raised the siege of Memphis, and drove the Greeks into the "island" of Prosopis in the Nile Delta (Thuc., I, 109, 4; Diodorus, XI, 77, 1-2), where they were besieged by the Persians. Ctesias (64) gives a very different version, in which the Egyptians, accompanied by six thousand Greeks, flee into a "fortified city in Egypt," called "Byblos," otherwise unknown.'0 If we prefer the accounts of Thucydides and Dio- dorus to the unreliable Ctesias, the Athenians were blockaded for eighteen months in the "island," which is formed by two branches of the river joined together by a canal. Finally, the Persians, unable to force a passage of the river in the face of the Athenian ships, succeeded in diverting the water from the canal, thereby stranding the enemy ships, and were thus able to invade the island (Thuc., I, 109, 4-110, 1; Diodorus, XI, 77, 2). At this point the narratives of Thucydides and Diodorus diverge widely. Thucydides says that most of the Greeks perished, and only a few escaped into Cyrene (I, 110, 1). Diodorus, on the other hand, gives a much more detailed version, the main pur- pose of which is to glorify the steadfast courage of the Athen- ians. In this account, after the Persians have crossed into the Prosopis, the cowardly Egyptians, whose presence is not men- tioned by Thucydides, desert their Athenian allies and defect to

1 A. Momigliano, "La Spedizione ateniese in Egitto," Aegyptus, X (1929), p. 203.

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JAN M. LIBOUREL.

the Persians. The Athenians thereupon burn their ships and draw themselves up in readiness. The Persian commanders, however, are unwilling to join battle with such courageous and desperate men, and so they make terms with the Athenians and allow them to depart in peace. The Athenians then march to

Cyrene and so return to their native land (Diodorus, XI, 77, 3-5). This account bears a suspicious similarity to the events which took place after the battle of Cunaxa. In Ctesias also terms are made which allow the Greeks to depart in peace, but this is violated by the Persian queen-mother Amestris, who executes some of the Greek leaders (65-7).

Salmon believes that there is no fundamental difference be- tween the accounts of Thucydides and Diodorus.11 He takes Thucydides' words: Kat 6Xtyol a7rO 7ro XXv 7ropevotvLo Sta rTrj< At,iv'r es Kvpvrvrv e'OWOr7aav, ol 8e 7rAeirot a7rwrXovro, to mean that most of

the Greeks perished "dans la penible traversee du desert

libyque." The two accounts do not seem reconcilable, however. The whole point of Diodorus' version is that the Greeks were saved by their courage and discipline, and he concludes, Kao S a

r7-s A,lpr l' J Kvpfvrqv a7TrEAEvrET avoavcrav 7rapaso'$oc ,Es v 7rarptSa. In other words, Diodorus is stressing that the Greeks were pre- served, not that most of them perished on the march to Cyrene. Furthermore, to agree with Salmon's interpretation, Thucydides' text should read Kal o6LIyotL aro rwv 7roXXv 7rop?VOLEv()v K. T. X.

Thucydides' Greek clearly seems to indicate that the "few" in question are the survivors of the capture of the Prosopis and not of the march across the Libyan desert.

The siege of the Prosopis is of the greatest importance in

determining the size of the Greek forces active in Egypt at the time of the disaster. It must be remembered that this "island " was an extensive tract of territory. According to Herodotus

(II, 41, 5) it had a circumference of nine axolvot or about sixty- seven miles. The same area in 1947 supported a population of well over a million.'2 If the "reductionist" hypothesis is ac-

cepted, we are forced to suppose that forty Greek ships with a

complement of about eight thousand men, only a small minority of whom were hoplites, were able to defend a seventy mile

Salmon, p. 178. 12 H. Kees, Ancient Egypt, ed. T. G. H. James (Chicago, 1961), p. 189.

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THE ATHENIAN DISASTER IN EGYPT.

perimeter against overwhelming enemy forces for eighteen months. The probability of such an occurrence hardly calls for comment. Even if it had taken place, would it not have been celebrated in song and oratory as a feat greater than Thermo- pylae, one to be set alongside Marathon and Plataea? Even if it is granted that the Greeks were reinforced by Egyptian and Libyan troops, although these are not mentioned in Thucydides, in all narratives it is implied that the Greeks furnished most of the naval strength. Thus, Thucydides clearly implies that the Nile was not under the control of the rebels until the arrival of the Athenian fleet (Thuc., I, 104, 2). Although Diodorus' figure of three hundred for the Persian fleet (XI, 77, 1) may be imaginary, it is certain that the Persians must have had large naval forces at their disposal, and it is hard to see how forty or fifty ships could have proved such a formidable obstacle that the large Persian fleet could not have forced a crossing some- where in a seventy-mile stretch of river sometime during the eighteen-month period.

Again, why was the Athenian relief force (Thuc., I, 110, 4) of fifty ships so small and so late in coming? Salmon and others 13 have argued that the Athenians could not relieve the Egyptian expedition because of the demands of the war in continental Greece. This is unconvincing. The only important operation we know of during this period after the battle of Oenophyta (457) is the raid of Tolmides (probably 456), and this seems hardly more "urgent" than the relief of the Egyptian expedition, if indeed Tolmides' raid took place after the expeditionary force in Egypt had been blockaded in the Prosopis. On the other hand, if we accept the evidence of Thucydides, the inaction of the Athenians in failing to relieve the Egyptian expedition is much more understandable. The Athenians had two hundred ships in Egypt and a large number of fighting men, and they still controlled a sizable tract of Egyptian territory. Thus, there could well have been a most reasonable expectation at Athens that this great force could either fight its way out, if necessary, or, better yet, turn the setback into victory by defeating the Persians.

Further, if we accept the "reductionist " hypothesis, why did

1' Salmon, p. 172 and the accompanying references.

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JAN M. LIBOUREL.

the Athenians, if they had two hundred and fifty or more ships at their disposal, choose to send only fifty ships to extricate their force in the Prosopis? It must have been obvious that the mission, which involved sailing a considerable length up- river through enemy-held territory, would be a hazardous one. Besides, why send only fifty ships when this would mean that, even when combined with the ships in the Prosopis, they would still be heavily outnumbered by the Persian fleet? The ordinary number for an Athenian squadron operating in the Eastern Mediterranean was two hundred (Thuc., I, 104, 2; 112, 2). Such a force would have made raising the siege of the Prosopis much easier and safer. If, on the other hand, we accept the figure of two hundred for the Athenian and allied ships blockaded in the Prosopis, these problems disappear. The Athenians sent a relief force of only fifty because they could not afford to send any more, and they probably thought that the fleet of two hundred ships, reinforced by fifty more, could fight its way out.

There remains the problem of the fifty rplpL 88OxoL0 com- prising the relief force destroyed by the Mendesian Mouth of the Nile (Thuc., I, 110, 4). The term 8SaSoXo0 ordinarily means "relief " or "replacement" rather than " reinforcement.' 14

However, as Westlake points out, "The situation clearly de- manded that the fleet should be extricated from its present dangers, known and suspected, and not that any of it should be replaced, an operation likely to be hazardous and unlikely to be profitable." 15 On the other hand, there is some evidence for the use of 8aS8oxo to mean "reinforcements" in Herodotus. Thus, in Herodotus' account of the preliminaries of the battle of Plataea the Megarians, hard pressed by the Persian cavalry attacks, request 8aSUXovS rTs radtL from the Greek commanders, and three hundred Athenian troops are sent for this purpose (Hdt., IX, 21). Now since the Megarians at Plataea numbered three thousand (Hdt., IX, 28, 6), it is obvious that they could not have been replaced at the point of heaviest fighting by only one-tenth their number, and so Herodotus must have meant that they were sent either as reinforcements or as replace- ments for those of the Megarians who had fallen. Thus, Thucy- dides may also mean that the TrpLtpet 8tad'oXo were sent either

"5 Westlake, pp. 213-14.

612

14 Westlake, p. 213.

THE ATHENIAN DISASTER IN EGYPT.

as reinforcements or as replacements for just part of the fleet, possibly those ships destroyed in the Persian victory which drove the Greeks into the Prosopis. It may have been the intention of the Athenians to bring the fleet back up to its full strength of two hundred and then attempt to break out of the Prosopis. In any case, it is hardly credible that the Athenians would send fifty ships actually to replace a like number in their precarious situation in the Prosopis.

It is of some interest that the Athenian relief squadron landed near the Mendesian Mouth of the Nile. However, the assump- tion that they were going to sail up the Mendesian branch cannot be proven from Thucydides' text. Westlake suggests that they hoped to reach the Prosopis undetected by using this branch of the Nile,l' but it seems hard to believe that the Athenian commanders actually expected to sail with a squadron of fifty ships a hundred miles upriver without coming to the enemy's attention. A more likely hypothesis is that the Athenians be- lieved that most of the Delta was in friendly hands. This would also account for the fact that the Athenian squadron was evi- dently off its guard and easily assaulted by both land and sea. We know that Inarus' confederate Amyrtaeus was able to con- tinue resistance against the Persians in the salt marshes in the northern part of the Delta for at least another four years (Thuc., I, 110, 2; 112, 3), and so it is likely that the Athenians may have expected much of the Delta to be under the control of the friendly Egyptian rebels. If indeed the Athenians expected that the banks of the Mendesian branch were under the control of their Egyptian allies, their choice of this somewhat circuitous route to the Prosopis becomes more reasonable.

It is possible, then, that after the Persians had won their initial victory in 456 and raised the siege of Memphis, both the Greek and native Egyptian forces withdrew to the north. Then, while most of the Persian forces were tied down blockading the Greeks in the Prosopis, the Egyptians used this opportunity to overrun much of the Delta. Upon the fall of the Prosopis, how- ever, the Egyptians were forced to withdraw to the most defen- sible position in the marshes, abandoning most of the Delta. Shortly thereafter the luckless Athenian relief squardon arrived,

1' Westlake, p. 216, n. 35.

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still believing that the Prosopis was under siege (Thuc., I, 110, 4) and, thinking that they were in friendly, Egyptian-held territory, they thus fell easy prey to the Persian attack.

If the Athenian disaster in Egypt was indeed of the magnitude suggested by Thucydides' account, there remains the problem of why so great a disaster did not produce more important consequences, such as occurred after the disaster in Sicily. It should be remembered, however, that Athens was in a much stronger position, both militarily and politically, in relation to her allies and enemies than after the Sicilian disaster. Thus, in 454 Athens still controlled her land empire. She had not suf- fered manpower losses from anything like the plague, and she was virtually immune to invasion by land through her control of the Megarid. Also, we have seen how the combined Pelo- ponnesian fleet must have been destroyed at Aegina, and the naval power of the Peloponnesians was further weakened by the surrender of Aegina (Thuc., I, 108, 4). So the Pelopon- nesians may have conceded control of the sea to Athens, ne- glected to rebuild their fleets, and thus were unprepared for the news of the destruction of most of the Athenian fleet. Further, Athens was in a stronger position in relation to her allies. Rather than in attempting to enslave a free Greek city, they had met this disaster in carrying on a patriotic Hellenic war

against the Mede. This consideration, as well as a desire to

pull together to avert a new invasion by the Persian-Phoenician fleet, may have prevented wholesale defections of the allies. Besides, the earlier Athenian coercion against the allies, as in the cases of Naxos and Thasos, could be justified on the basis of the continuing war against Persia, and it is doubtful if at this time the Delian League was so evidently an Athenian empire as it was after the Thirty Years' Peace, the inauguration of Pericles' building program, and the suppression of the revolts of Euboea, Samos, and Byzantium. Another possibility in ac-

counting for the lack of repercussions in the Aegean area is that

Sparta still may have had sufficient panhellenic feeling to render her unwilling to make common cause with the Mede against her former ally. This possibility is suggested by the failure of the

attempt of the king's legate Megabazus to bribe the Spartans into invading Attica during the fighting in Egypt (Thuc., I, 109, 2-3).

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A possible cause for the lack of a Persian counter-offensive is that the Persians may still have been busy in Egypt. Thucy- dides' account (I, 110, 2) leaves the reader with the impres- sion that Amyrtaeus' resistance in the marshes of the Delta was a sort of guerilla warfare, which he was enabled to carry out through the size of the marshes. However, Thucydides does also mention that the martial qualities of the natives of that region helped prolong Amyrtaeus' stand, and Herodotus' state- ment, 'Ivapw ye Kal 'AMAvpraiov ovSaLuol Kw IIEpaas KaKCL 7rw eo pya- aavro (III, 15, 3), seems to indicate that Amyrtaeus inflicted heavy losses on the Persians. Also, as previously mentioned, he was able to hold out for at least four years. Thus, his con- tinued resistance may have prevented a Persian attack on the

Aegean area. JAN M. LIBOUREL.

TEXAS " TECH" UNIVERSITY.