Few incidents throughout the whole siege of Syracuse appear so unaccountable as the fact, that the proceedings and march of Gylippus, from his landing at Himera to the moment of his entering the town, were accomplished without the smallest resistance on the part of Nikias. After this instant, the besiegers pass from incontestable superiority in the field, and apparent certainty of prospective capture of the city, to a state of inferiority, not only excluding all hope of capture, but even sinking, step by step, into absolute ruin. Yet Nikias had remained with his eyes shut and his hands tied, not making the least effort to obstruct so fatal a consummation. After having despised Gylippus, in his voyage along the coast of Italy, as a freebooter with four ships, he now despises him not less at the head of an army marching from Himera. If he was taken unawares, as he really appears to have been,[393] the fault was altogether his own, and the ignorance such as we must almost call voluntary. For the approach of Gylippus must have been well known to him beforehand. He must have learned from the four ships which he sent to Rhegium, that Gylippus had already touched thither in passing through the strait, on his way to Himera. He must therefore have been well aware, that the purpose was to attempt the relief of Syracuse by an army from the interior; and his correspondence among the Sikel tribes must have placed him in cognizance of the equipment going on at Himera. Moreover, when we recollect that Gylippus reached that place without either troops or arms; that he had to obtain forces not merely from Himera, but also from Selinus and Gela, as well as to sound the Sikel towns, not all of them friendly; lastly, that he had to march all across the island, partly through hostile territory, it is impossible to allow less interval than a fortnight or three weeks between his landing at Himera and his arrival at Epipolæ. Farther, Nikias must have learned, through his intelligence in the interior of Syracuse, the important revolution which had taken place in Syracusan opinion through the arrival of Goggylus, even before the landing of Gylippus in Sicily was known. He was apprized, from that moment, that he had to take measures, not only against renewed obstinate hostility within the town, but against a fresh invading enemy without. Lastly, that enemy had first to march all across Sicily, during which march he might have been embarrassed and perhaps defeated,[394] and could then approach Syracuse only by one road, over the high ground of Euryâlus in the Athenian rear, through passes few in number, easy to defend, by which Nikias had himself first approached, and through which he had only got by a well-laid plan of surprise. Yet Nikias leaves these passes unoccupied and undefended; he takes not a single new precaution; the relieving army enters Syracuse as it were over a broad and free plain.