George Grote

“ The revolt of Chios, speedily proclaimed, filled every man at Athens with dismay. It was the most fearful symptom, as well as the heaviest aggravation, of their fallen condition; especially as there was every reason to apprehend that the example of this first and greatest among the allies would be soon followed by the rest. The Athenians had no fleet or force even to attempt its reconquest: but they now felt the full importance of that reserve of one thousand talents, which Perikles had set aside in the first year of the war against the special emergency of a hostile fleet approaching Peiræus. ”

“ Accepting the expedition, therefore, as the pronounced fiat of the people, he reminded them that the cities which they were about to attack, especially Syracuse and Selinus, were powerful, populous, free: well prepared in every way with hoplites, horsemen, light-armed troops, ships of war, plenty of horses to mount their cavalry, and abundant corn at home. At best, Athens could hope for no other allies in Sicily except Naxus and Katana, from their kindred with the Leontines. It was no mere fleet, therefore, which could cope with enemies like these on their own soil. ”

“ It was thus that Nikias, quite contrary to his own purpose, not only imparted to the enterprise a gigantic magnitude which its projectors had never contemplated, but threw into it the whole soul of Athens, and roused a burst of ardor beyond all former example. Every man present, old as well as young, rich and poor, of all classes and professions, was eager to put down his name for personal service. Some were tempted by the love of gain, others by the curiosity of seeing so distant a region, others again by the pride and supposed safety of enlisting in so irresistible an armament. ”

“ It was to extinguish the entire power of Athens, and liberate the half of Greece from dependence; for Athens could never be expected to survive so terrific a loss as that of the entire double armament before Syracuse. [472] The Syracusans exulted in the thought that this great achievement would be theirs, that their city was the field, and their navy the chief instrument of victory: a lasting source of glory to them, not merely in the eyes of contemporaries, but even in those of posterity. ”

“ If we are amazed at the insolent carelessness with which Nikias disdained the commonest precautions for repelling the foreknown approach, by sea, of an enemy formidable even single-handed, what are we to say of that unaccountable blindness which led him to neglect the same enemy when coming at the head of a relieving army, and to omit the most obvious means of defence in a crisis upon which his future fate turned? ”

“ Partaking as you do freely in the benefits of that empire, do not now betray it to these Sicilians and Corinthians whom you have so often beaten. For such of you as are Athenians, I again remind you that Athens has neither fresh triremes, nor fresh hoplites, to replace those now here. Unless you are now victorious, her enemies near home will find her defenceless; and our countrymen there will become slaves to Sparta, as you will to Syracuse. ”

“ When we find Thucydidês, after narrating so much improvidence and mismanagement on the grand scale, still keeping attention fixed on the private morality and decorum of Nikias, as if it constituted the main feature of his character, we can understand how the Athenian people originally came both to over-estimate this unfortunate leader, and continued over-estimating him with tenacious fidelity even after glaring proof of his incapacity. Never in the political history of Athens did the people make so fatal a mistake in placing their confidence. ”

“ But do not trust the Spartans: they, the most sensitive of all men to the reputation of superiority, are lying in wait to play you a trick in order to repair their own dishonor: their oligarchical machinations against you demand all your vigilance, and leave you no leisure to think of these foreigners at Egesta. Having just recovered ourselves somewhat from the pressure of disease and war, we ought to reserve this newly-acquired strength for our own purposes, instead of wasting it upon the treacherous assurances of desperate exiles from Sicily. ”

“ The whole life of Alkibiadês attests how faintly the sentiment of obligation, public or private, ever got footing in his mind; how much the ends which he pursued were dictated by overbearing vanity and love of aggrandizement. In the later part of life, Sokratês was marked out to public hatred by his enemies, as having been the teacher of Alkibiadês and Kritias. And if we could be so unjust as to judge of the morality of the teacher by that of these two pupils, we should certainly rank him among the worst of the Athenian sophists. ”

“ You thus hear the whole scheme of our expedition from the man who knows it best; and you may depend on it that the remaining generals will execute all this, if they can. Nothing but your intervention can hinder them. If, indeed, the Sicilian Greeks were all united, they might hold out; but the Syracusans standing alone cannot, beaten as they already have been in a general action, and blocked up as they are by sea. If Syracuse falls into the hands of the Athenians, all Sicily and all Italy will share the same fate ”

“ In a democracy, these functions, one and all, find their proper place. But oligarchy, though imposing on the multitude a full participation in all hazards, is not content even with an exorbitant share in the public advantages, but grasps and monopolizes the whole for itself. [279] This is just what you young and powerful men are aiming at, though you will never be able to keep it permanently in a city such as Syracuse. ”

“ When we recollect the true political wisdom with which Periklês had advised his countrymen to maintain strenuously their existing empire, but by no means to grasp at any new acquisitions while they had powerful enemies in Peloponnesus, we shall appreciate by contrast the feverish system of never-ending aggression inculcated by Alkibiadês, and the destructive principles which he lays down, that Athens must forever be engaged in new conquests, on pain of forfeiting her existing empire and tearing herself to pieces by internal discord. ”

“ It was not my family, but others, who in former times as well as now, led the people into the worst courses, those same men who sent me into exile. I always acted as leader, not of a party, but of the entire city; thinking it right to uphold that constitution in which Athens had enjoyed her grandeur and freedom, and which I found already existing. [353] For as to democracy, all we Athenians of common sense well knew its real character. ”

“ My exhibitions at Athens, too, choregic and others, are naturally viewed with jealousy by my rivals here; but in the eyes of strangers they are evidences of power. Such so-called folly is by no means useless, when a man at his own cost serves the city as well as himself. Nor is it unjust, when a man has an exalted opinion of himself, that he should not conduct himself towards others as if he were their equal; for the man in misfortune finds no one to bear a share of it. ”

“ We have to remark here, as on former occasions of revolts among the dependent allies of Athens, that the general population of the allied city manifests no previous discontent, nor any spontaneous disposition to revolt. The powerful men of the island—those who, if the government was democratical, formed the oligarchical minority, but who formed the government itself, if oligarchical—conspire and bring in the Peloponnesian force, unknown to the body of the citizens, and thus leave to the latter no free choice. ”

“ Yet while the presence of so large an Athenian fleet at Rhegium would produce considerable effect upon the Syracusan mind, the triumphant promise of Athenian affairs, and the astonishing humiliation of Sparta during the months immediately following the capture of Sphakteria, probably struck much deeper. In the spring of the eighth year of the war, Athens was not only in possession of the Spartan prisoners, but also of Pylos and Kythêra, so that a rising among the Helots appeared noway improbable. She was in the full swing of hope, while her discouraged enemies were all thrown on the defensive. ”

“ I brought together the most powerful states in Peloponnesus without any serious cost or hazard to you, and made the Lacedæmonians peril their all at Mantineia on the fortune of one day: a peril so great, that, though victorious, they have not even yet regained their steady belief in their own strength. ”