Having recounted this tale, in substance, to the senate, Andokidês tendered his slaves, both male and female, to be tortured, in order that they might confirm his story that he was in his bed and unable to leave it, on the night when the Hermæ were mutilated. It appears that the torture was actually applied (according to the custom so cruelly frequent at Athens in the case of slaves), and that the senators thus became satisfied of the truth of what Andokidês affirmed. He delivered in twenty-two names of citizens as having been the mutilators of the Hermæ: eighteen of these names, including Euphilêtus and Melêtus, had already been specified in the information of Teukrus; the remaining four, were Panætius, Diakritus, Lysistratus, and Chæredêmus; all of whom fled, the instant their names were mentioned, without waiting the chance of being seized. As soon as the senate heard the story of Andokidês, they proceeded to question Diokleidês over again; who confessed that he had given a false deposition, and begged for mercy, mentioning Alkibiadês the Phegusian—a relative of the commander in Sicily—and Amiantus, as having suborned him to the crime. Both of them fled immediately on this revelation; but Diokleidês was detained, sent before the dikastery for trial, and put to death.[302]

The foregoing is the story which Andokidês, in the oration De Mysteriis, delivered between fifteen and twenty years afterwards, represented himself to have communicated to the senate at this perilous crisis. But it probably is not the story which he really did tell, certainly not that which his enemies represented him as having told: least of all does it communicate the whole truth, or afford any satisfaction to such anxiety and alarm as are described to have been prevalent at the time. Nor does it accord with the brief information of Thucydidês, who tells us that Andokidês impeached himself, along with others, as participant in the mutilation.[303] Among the accomplices against whom he informed, his enemies affirmed that his own nearest relatives were included, though this latter statement is denied by himself. We may be sure, therefore, that the tale which Andokidês really told was something very different from what now stands in his oration. But what it really was we cannot make out; nor should we gain much even if it could be made out, since even at the time, neither Thucydidês nor other intelligent critics could determine how far it was true. The mutilation of the Hermæ remained to them always an unexplained mystery; though they accounted Andokidês the principal organizer.[304]

That which is at once most important and most incontestable, is the effect produced by the revelations of Andokidês, true or false, on the public mind at Athens. He was a young man of rank and wealth in the city, belonging to the sacred family of the Kerykes,—said to trace his pedigree to the hero Odysseus,—and invested on a previous occasion with an important naval command; whereas the preceding informers had been metics and slaves. Moreover, he was making confession of his own guilt. Hence the people received his communications with implicit confidence. They were delighted to have got to the bottom of the terrible mystery: and the public mind subsided from its furious terrors into comparative tranquillity. The citizens again began to think themselves in safety and to resume their habitual confidence in each other, while the hoplites everywhere on guard were allowed to return to their homes.[305] All the prisoners in custody on suspicion, except those against whom Andokidês informed were forthwith released: those who had fled out of apprehension, were allowed to return; while those whom he named as guilty, were tried, convicted, and put to death. Such of them as had already fled, were condemned to death in their absence, and a reward offered for their heads.[306] And though discerning men were not satisfied with the evidence upon which these sentences were pronounced, yet the general public fully believed themselves to have punished the real offenders, and were thus inexpressibly relieved from the depressing sense of unexpiated insult to the gods, as well as of danger to their political constitution from the withdrawal of divine protection.[307] Andokidês himself was pardoned, and was for the time an object, apparently, even of public gratitude, so that his father Leogoras who had been among the parties imprisoned, ventured to indict a senator named Speusippus for illegal proceedings towards him, and obtained an almost unanimous verdict from the dikastery.[308] But the character of a statue-breaker and an informer could never be otherwise than odious at Athens. Andokidês was either banished by the indirect effect of a general disqualifying decree; or at least found that he had made so many enemies, and incurred so much obloquy, by his conduct in this affair, as to make it necessary for him to quit the city. He remained in banishment for many years, and seems never to have got clear of the hatred which his conduct in this nefarious proceeding so well merited.[309]

But the comfort arising out of these disclosures respecting the Hermæ, though genuine and inestimable at the moment, was soon again disturbed. There still remained the various alleged profanations of the Eleusinian mysteries, which had not yet been investigated or brought to atonement; and these were the more sure to be pressed home, and worked with a factitious exaggeration of pious zeal, since the enemies of Alkibiadês were bent upon turning them to his ruin. Among all the ceremonies of Attic religion, there was none more profoundly or universally reverenced than the mysteries of Eleusis, originally enjoined by the goddess Dêmêtêr herself, in her visit to that place, to Eumolpus and the other Eleusinian patriarch, and transmitted as a precious hereditary privilege in their families.[310] Celebrated annually in the month of August or September, under the special care of the basileus, or second archon, these mysteries were attended by vast crowds from Athens as well as from other parts of Greece, presenting to the eye a solemn and imposing spectacle, and striking the imagination still more powerfully by the special initiation which they conferred, under pledge of secrecy, upon pious and predisposed communicants. Even the divulgation in words to the uninitiated, of that which was exhibited to the eye and ear of the assembly in the interior of the Eleusinian temple, was accounted highly criminal: much more the actual mimicry of these ceremonies for the amusement of a convivial party. Moreover, the individuals who held the great sacred offices at Eleusis,—the hierophant, the daduch (torch-bearer), and the keryx, or herald,—which were transmitted by inheritance in the Eumolpidæ and other great families of antiquity and importance, were personally insulted by such proceedings, and vindicated their own dignity at the same time that they invoked punishment on the offenders in the name of Dêmêtêr and Persephonê. The most appalling legends were current among the Athenian public, and repeated on proper occasions even by the hierophant himself, respecting the divine judgments which always overtook such impious men.[311]

When we recollect how highly the Eleusinian mysteries were venerated by Greeks not born in Athens and even by foreigners, we shall not wonder at the violent indignation excited in the Athenian mind by persons who profaned or divulged them; especially at a moment when their religious sensibilities had been so keenly wounded, and so tardily and recently healed, in reference to the Hermæ.[312] It was about this same time[313] that a prosecution was instituted against the Melian philosopher Diagoras for irreligious doctrines. Having left Athens before trial, he was found guilty in his absence, and a reward was offered for his life.

Probably the privileged sacred families, connected with the mysteries, were foremost in calling for expiation from the state to the majesty of the two offended goddesses, and for punishment on the delinquents.[314] And the enemies of Alkibiadês, personal as well as political, found the opportunity favorable for reviving that charge against him which they had artfully suffered to drop before his departure to Sicily. The matter of fact alleged against him—the mock-celebration of these holy ceremonies—was not only in itself probable, but proved by reasonably good testimony against him and some of his intimate companions. Moreover, the overbearing insolence of demeanor habitual with Alkibiadês, so glaringly at variance with the equal restraints of democracy, enabled his enemies to impute to him not only irreligious acts, but anti-constitutional purposes; an association of ideas which was at this moment the more easily accredited, since his divulgation and parody of the mysteries did not stand alone, but was interpreted in conjunction with the recent mutilation of the Hermæ—as a manifestation of the same anti-patriotic and irreligious feeling, if not part and parcel of the same treasonable scheme. And the alarm on this subject was now renewed by the appearance of a Lacedæmonian army at the isthmus, professing to contemplate some enterprise in conjunction with the Bœotians, a purpose not easy to understand, and presenting every appearance of being a cloak for hostile designs against Athens. So fully was this believed among the Athenians, that they took arms, and remained under arms one whole night in the sacred precinct of the Theseium. No enemy indeed appeared, either without or within; but the conspiracy had only been prevented from breaking out, so they imagined, by the recent inquiries and detection. Moreover, the party in Argos connected with Alkibiadês were just at this time suspected of a plot for the subversion of their own democracy, which still farther aggravated the presumptions against him, while it induced the Athenians to give up to the Argeian democratical government the oligarchical hostages which had been taken from that town a few months before,[315] in order that it might put these hostages to death, whenever it thought fit.

Such incidents materially aided the enemies of Alkibiadês in their unremitting efforts to procure his recall and condemnation. Among them were men very different in station and temper: Thessalus son of Kimon, a man of the highest lineage and of hereditary oligarchical politics, as well as Androklês, a leading demagogue or popular orator. It was the former who preferred against him in the senate the memorable impeachment, which, fortunately for our information, is recorded verbatim.

“Thessalus son of Kimon, of the deme Lakiadæ, hath impeached Alkibiadês son of Kleinias, of the deme Skambônidæ, as guilty of crime in regard to the two goddesses Dêmêtêr and Persephonê, in mimicking the mysteries, and exhibiting them to his companions in his own house, wearing the costume of the hierophant: applying to himself the name of hierophant; to Polytion, that of daduch; to Theodôrus that of herald, and addressing his remaining companions as mysts and epopts; all contrary to the sacred customs and canons, of old established by the Eumolpidæ, the Kerykes, and the Eleusinian priests.”[316]

Similar impeachments being at the same time presented against other citizens now serving in Sicily along with Alkibiadês, the accusers moved that he and the rest might be sent for to come home and take their trial. We may observe that the indictment against him is quite distinct and special, making no allusion to any supposed treasonable or anti-constitutional projects: probably, however, these suspicions were pressed by his enemies in their preliminary speeches, for the purpose of inducing the Athenians to remove him from the command of the army forthwith, and send for him home. For such a step it was indispensable that a strong case should be made out: but the public was at length thoroughly brought round, and the Salaminian trireme was despatched to Sicily to fetch him. Great care however was taken, in sending this summons, to avoid all appearance of prejudgment, or harshness, or menace. The trierarch was forbidden to seize his person, and had instructions to invite him simply to accompany the Salaminian home in his own trireme: so as to avoid the hazard of offending the Argeian and Mantineian allies serving in Sicily, or the army itself.[317]

It was on the return of the Athenian army from their unsuccessful attempt at Kamarina, to their previous quarters at Katana, that they found the Salaminian trireme newly arrived from Athens with this grave requisition against the general. We may be sure that Alkibiadês received private intimation from his friends at Athens, by the same trireme, communicating to him the temper of the people, so that his resolution was speedily taken. Professing to obey, he departed in his own trireme on the voyage homeward, along with the other persons accused, the Salaminian trireme being in company; but as soon as they arrived at Thurii, in coasting along Italy, he and his companions quitted the vessel and disappeared. After a fruitless search on the part of the Salaminian trierarch, the two triremes were obliged to return to Athens without him. Both Alkibiadês and the rest of the accused—one of whom[318] was his own cousin and namesake—were tried, condemned to death on non-appearance, and their property confiscated; while the Eumolpidæ and the other Eleusinian sacred families pronounced him to be accursed by the gods, for his desecration of the mysteries,[319] and recorded the condemnation on a plate of lead.

Probably his disappearance and exile were acceptable to his enemies at Athens: at any rate, they thus made sure of getting rid of him; while had he come back, his condemnation to death, though probable, could not be considered as certain. In considering the conduct of the Athenians towards Alkibiadês, we have to remark, that the people were guilty of no act of injustice. He had committed—at least there was fair reason for believing that he had committed—an act criminal in the estimation of every Greek; the divulgation and profanation of the mysteries. This act—alleged against him in the indictment very distinctly, divested of all supposed ulterior purpose, treasonable or otherwise—was legally punishable at Athens, and was universally accounted guilty in public estimation, as an offence at once against the religious sentiment of the people and against the public safety, by offending the two goddesses, Dêmêtêr and Persephonê, and driving them to withdraw their favor and protection. The same demand for legal punishment would have been supposed to exist in a Christian Catholic country, down to a very recent period of history, if instead of the Eleusinian mysteries we suppose the sacrament of the mass to have been the ceremony ridiculed; though such a proceeding would involve no breach of obligation to secrecy. Nor ought we to judge what would have been the measure of penalty formerly awarded to a person convicted of such an offence, by consulting the tendency of penal legislation during the last sixty years. Even down to the last century it would have been visited with something sharper than the draught of hemlock, which is the worst that could possibly have befallen Alkibiadês at Athens, as we may see by the condemnation and execution of the Chevalier de la Barre at Abbeville, in 1766. The uniform tendency of Christian legislation,[320] down to a recent period, leaves no room for reproaching the Athenians with excessive cruelty in their penal visitation of offences against the religious sentiment. On the contrary, the Athenians are distinguished for comparative mildness and tolerance, as we shall find various opportunities for remarking.

Now in reviewing the conduct of the Athenians towards Alkibiadês, we must consider, that this violation of the mysteries, of which he was indicted in good legal form, was an action for which he really deserved punishment, if any one deserved it. Even his enemies did not fabricate this charge, or impute it to him falsely; though they were guilty of insidious and unprincipled manœuvres to exasperate the public mind against him. Their machinations begin with the mutilation of the Hermæ; an act of new and unparalleled wickedness, to which historians of Greece seldom do justice. It was not, like the violations of the mysteries, a piece of indecent pastime committed within four walls, and never intended to become known. It was an outrage essentially public, planned and executed by conspirators for the deliberate purpose of lacerating the religious mind of Athens, and turning the prevalent terror and distraction to political profit. Thus much is certain; though we cannot be sure who the conspirators were, nor what was their exact or special purpose. That the destruction of Alkibiadês was one of the direct purposes of the conspirators, is highly probable. But his enemies, even if they were not among the original authors, at least took upon themselves half the guilt of the proceeding, by making it the basis of treacherous machinations against his person. How their scheme, which was originally contrived to destroy him before the expedition departed, at first failed, was then artfully dropped, and at length effectually revived, after a long train of calumny against the absent general, has been already recounted. It is among the darkest chapters of Athenian political history, indicating, on the part of the people, strong religious excitability, without any injustice towards Alkibiadês; but indicating, on the part of his enemies, as well as of the Hermokopids generally, a depth of wicked contrivance rarely paralleled in political warfare. It is to these men, not to the people, that Alkibiadês owes his expulsion, aided indeed by the effect of his own previous character. In regard to the Hermæ, the Athenians condemned to death—after and by consequence of the deposition of Andokidês—a small number of men who may perhaps have been innocent victims, but whom they sincerely believed to be guilty; and whose death not only tranquillized comparatively the public mind, but served as the only means of rescue to a far larger number of prisoners confined on suspicion. In regard to Alkibiadês, they came to no collective resolution, except that of recalling him to take his trial, a resolution implying no wrong in those who voted for it, whatever may be the guilt of those who proposed and prepared it by perfidious means.[321]

In order to appreciate the desperate hatred with which the exile Alkibiadês afterwards revenged himself on his countrymen, it has been necessary to explain to what extent he had just ground of complaint against them. On being informed that they had condemned him to death in his absence, he is said to have exclaimed: “I shall show them that I am alive.” He fully redeemed his word.[322]

The recall and consequent banishment of Alkibiadês was mischievous to Athens in several ways. It transferred to the enemy’s camp an angry exile, to make known her weak points, and to rouse the sluggishness of Sparta. It offended a portion of the Sicilian armament, most of all probably the Argeians and Mantineians, and slackened their zeal in the cause.[323] And what was worst of all, it left the armament altogether under the paralyzing command of Nikias. For Lamachus, though still equal in nominal authority, and now invested with the command of one-half instead of one-third of the army, appears to have had no real influence except in the field.

Nikias now proceeded to execute that scheme which he had first suggested, to sail round from Katana to Selinus and Egesta, with the view of investigating the quarrel between the two as well as the financial means of the latter. Passing through the strait and along the north coast of the island, he first touched at Himera, where admittance was refused to him; he next captured a Sikanian maritime town named Hykkara, together with many prisoners; among them the celebrated courtezan Laïs, then a very young girl.[324] Having handed over this place to the Egestæans, Nikias went in person to inspect their city and condition; but could obtain no more money than the thirty talents which had been before announced on the second visit of the commissioners. He then restored the prisoners from Hykkara to their Sikanian countrymen, receiving a ransom of one hundred and twenty talents,[325] and conducted the Athenian land-force across the centre of the island, through the territory of the friendly Sikels to Katana; making an attack in his way upon the hostile Sikel town of Hybla, in which he was repulsed. At Katana he was rejoined by his naval force.

It was now seemingly about the middle of October, and three months had elapsed since the arrival of the Athenian armament at Rhegium; during which period they had achieved nothing except the acquisition of Naxus and Katana as allies—unless we are to reckon the insignificant capture of Hykkara. But Naxus and Katana, as Chalkidic cities, had been counted upon beforehand even by Nikias; together with Rhegium, which had been found reluctant, to his great disappointment. What is still worse, in reference to the character of the general, not only nothing serious had been achieved, but nothing serious had been attempted. The precious moment pointed out by Lamachus for action, when the terrific menace of the recent untried armament was at its maximum, and preparation as well as confidence was wanting at Syracuse, had been irreparably wasted. Every day the preparations of the Syracusans improved and their fears diminished; the invader, whom they had looked upon as so formidable, turned out both hesitating and timorous,[326] and when he had disappeared out of their sight to Hykkara and Egesta, still more when he assailed in vain the insignificant Sikel post of Hybla, their minds underwent a reaction from dismay to extreme confidence. The mass of Syracusan citizens, now reinforced by allies from Selinus and other cities, called upon their generals to lead to the attack of the Athenian position at Katana, since the Athenians did not dare to approach Syracuse; while Syracusan horsemen even went so far as to insult the Athenians in their camp, riding up to ask if they were come to settle as peaceable citizens in the island, instead of restoring the Leontines. Such unexpected humiliation, acting probably on the feelings of the soldiers, at length shamed Nikias out of his inaction, and compelled him to strike a blow for the maintenance of his own reputation. He devised a stratagem for approaching Syracuse in such a manner as to elude the opposition of the Syracusan cavalry, informing himself as to the ground near the city, through some exiles serving along with him.[327]

He despatched to Syracuse a Katanæan citizen, in his heart attached to Athens, yet apparently neutral and on good terms with the other side, as bearer of a pretended message and proposition from the friends of Syracuse at Katana. Many of the Athenian soldiers, so the message ran, were in the habit of passing the night within the walls, apart from their camp and arms. It would be easy for the Syracusans by a vigorous attack at daybreak, to surprise them thus unprepared and dispersed; while the philo-Syracusan party at Katana promised to aid, by closing the gates, assailing the Athenians within, and setting fire to the ships. A numerous body of Katanæans, they added, were eager to coöperate in the plan now proposed.

This communication, reaching the Syracusan generals at a moment when they were themselves elate and disposed to an aggressive movement, found such incautious credence, that they sent back the messenger to Katana with cordial assent and agreement for a precise day. Accordingly, a day or two before, the entire Syracusan force was marched out towards Katana, and encamped for the night on the river Symæthus, in the Leontine territory, within about eight miles of Katana. But Nikias, with whom the whole proceeding originated, choosing this same day to put on shipboard his army, together with his Sikel allies present, sailed by night southward along the coast, rounding the island of Ortygia, into the Great Harbor of Syracuse. Arrived thither by break of day, he disembarked his troops unopposed south of the mouth of the Anâpus, in the interior of the Great Harbor, near the hamlet which stretched towards the temple of Zeus Olympius. Having broken down the neighboring bridge, where the Helôrine road crossed the Anâpus, he took up a position protected by various embarrassing obstacles,—houses, walls, trees, and standing water, besides the steep ground of the Olympieion itself on his left wing; so that he could choose his own time for fighting, and was out of the attack of the Syracusan horse. For the protection of his ships on the shore, he provided a palisade work by cutting down the neighboring trees; and even took precautions for his rear by throwing up a hasty fence of wood and stones touching the shore at the inner bay called Daskon. He had full leisure for such defensive works, since the enemy within the walls made no attempt to disturb him, while the Syracusan horse only discovered his manœuvre on arriving before the lines at Katana; and though they lost no time in returning, the march back was a long one.[328] Such was the confidence of the Syracusans, however, that even after so long a march, they offered battle forthwith; but as Nikias did not quit his position, they retreated, to take up their night-station on the other side of the Helôrine road, probably a road bordered on each side by walls.

On the next morning, Nikias marched out of his position and formed his troops in order of battle, in two divisions, each eight deep. His front division was intended to attack; his rear division—in hollow square, with the baggage in the middle—was held in reserve near the camp, to lend aid where aid might be wanted; cavalry there was none. The Syracusan hoplites, seemingly far more numerous than his, presented the levy in mass of the city, without any selection; they were ranged in the deeper order of sixteen, alongside of their Selinuntine allies. On the right wing were posted their horsemen, the best part of their force, not less than twelve hundred in number; together with two hundred horsemen from Gela, twenty from Kamarina, about fifty bowmen, and a company of darters. The hoplites, though full of courage, had little training; and their array, never precisely kept, was on this occasion farther disturbed by the immediate vicinity of the city. Some had gone in to see their families; others, hurrying out to join, found the battle already begun, and took rank wherever they could.[329]

Thucydidês, in describing this battle, gives us, according to his practice, a statement of the motives and feelings which animated the combatants on both sides, and which furnished a theme for the brief harangue of Nikias. This appears surprising to one accustomed to modern warfare, where the soldier is under the influence simply of professional honor and disgrace, without any thought of the cause for which he is fighting. In ancient times, such a motive was only one among many others, which, according to the circumstances of the case, contributed to elevate or depress the soldier’s mind at the eve of action. Nikias adverted to the recognized military preëminence of chosen Argeians, Mantineians, and Athenians, as compared to the Syracusan levy in mass, who were full of belief in their own superiority,—this is a striking confession of the deplorable change which had been wrought by his own delay,—but who would come short in actual conflict, from want of discipline.[330] Moreover, he reminded them that they were far away from home, and that defeat would render them victims, one and all, of the Syracusan cavalry. He little thought, nor did his prophets forewarn him, that such a calamity, serious as it would have been, was even desirable for Athens, since it would have saved her from the far more overwhelming disasters which will be found to sadden the coming chapters of this history.

While the customary sacrifices were being performed, the slingers and bowmen on both sides became engaged in skirmishing. But presently the trumpets sounded, and Nikias ordered his first division of hoplites to charge at once rapidly, before the Syracusans expected it. Judging from his previous backwardness, they never imagined that he would be the first to give orders for charging; nor was it until they saw the Athenian line actually advancing towards them that they lifted their own arms from the ground and came forward to give the meeting. The shock was bravely encountered on both sides, and for some time the battle continued hand to hand with undecided result. There happened to supervene a violent storm of rain, with thunder and lightning, which alarmed the Syracusans, who construed it as an unfavorable augury, while to the more practised Athenian hoplites, it seemed a mere phenomenon of the season,[331] so that they still farther astonished the Syracusans by the unabated confidence with which they continued the fight. At length the Syracusan army was broken, dispersed, and fled; first, before the Argeians on the right, next, before the Athenians in the centre. The victors pursued as far as was safe and practicable, without disordering their ranks: for the Syracusan cavalry, which had not yet been engaged, checked all who pressed forward, and enabled their own infantry to retire in safety behind the Helôrine road.[332]

So little were the Syracusans dispirited with this defeat, that they did not retire within their city until they had sent an adequate detachment to guard the neighboring temple and sacred precinct of the Olympian Zeus, wherein there was much deposited wealth, which they feared that the Athenians might seize. Nikias, however, without approaching the sacred ground, contented himself with occupying the field of battle, burnt his own dead, and stripped the arms from the dead of the enemy. The Syracusans and their allies lost two hundred and fifty men, the Athenians fifty.[333]

On the morrow, having granted to the Syracusans their dead bodies for burial, and collected the ashes of his own dead, Nikias reëmbarked his troops, put to sea, and sailed back to his former station at Katana. He conceived it impossible, without cavalry and a farther stock of money, to maintain his position near Syracuse or to prosecute immediate operations of siege or blockade. And as the winter was now approaching, he determined to take up winter quarters at Katana; though considering the mild winter at Syracuse, and the danger of marsh fever near the Great Harbor in summer, the change of season might well be regarded as a questionable gain. But he proposed to employ the interval in sending to Athens for cavalry and money, as well as in procuring the like reinforcements from his Sicilian allies, whose numbers he calculated now on increasing by the accession of new cities after his recent victory, and to get together magazines of every kind for beginning the siege of Syracuse in the spring. Despatching a trireme to Athens with these requisitions, he sailed with his forces to Messênê, within which there was a favorable party who gave hopes of opening the gates to him. Such a correspondence had already been commenced before the departure of Alkibiadês: but it was the first act of revenge which the departing general took on his country, to betray the proceedings to the philo-Syracusan party in Messênê. Accordingly, these latter, watching their opportunity, rose in arms before the arrival of Nikias, put to death their chief antagonists, and held the town by force against the Athenians; who after a fruitless delay of thirteen days, with scanty supplies and under stormy weather, were forced to return to Naxos, where they established a palisaded camp and station, and went into winter quarters.[334]

The recent stratagem of Nikias, followed by the movement into the harbor of Syracuse, and the battle, had been ably planned and executed. It served to show the courage and discipline of the army, as well as to keep up the spirits of the soldiers themselves, and to obviate those feelings of disappointment which the previous inefficiency of the armament tended to arouse. But as to other results, the victory was barren; we may even say, positively mischievous, since it imparted a momentary stimulus which served as an excuse to Nikias for the three months of total inaction which followed, and since it neither weakened nor humiliated the Syracusans, but gave them a salutary lesson which they turned to account while Nikias was in his winter quarters. His apathy during these first eight months after the arrival of the expedition at Rhegium (from July 415 B.C. to March 414 B.C.), was the most deplorable of all calamities to his army, his country, and himself. Abundant proofs of this will be seen in the coming events: at present, we have only to turn back to his own predictions and recommendations. All the difficulties and dangers to be surmounted in Sicily had been foreseen by himself and impressed upon the Athenians: in the first instance, as grounds against undertaking the expedition; but the Athenians, though unfortunately not allowing them to avail in that capacity, fully admitted their reality, and authorized him to demand whatever force was necessary to overcome them.[335] He had thus been allowed to bring with him a force calculated upon his own ideas, together with supplies and implements for besieging; yet when arrived, he seems only anxious to avoid exposing that force in any serious enterprise, and to find an excuse for conducting it back to Athens. That Syracuse was the grand enemy, and that the capital point of the enterprise was the siege of that city, was a truth familiar to himself as well as every man at Athens:[336] upon the formidable cavalry of the Syracusans, Nikias had himself insisted, in the preliminary debates. Yet, after four months of mere trifling, and pretence of action so as to evade dealing with the real difficulty, the existence of this cavalry is made an excuse for a farther postponement of four months until reinforcements can be obtained from Athens. To all the intrinsic dangers of the case, predicted by Nikias himself with proper discernment, was thus superadded the aggravated danger of his own factitious delay; frittering away the first impression of his armament, giving the Syracusans leisure to enlarge their fortifications, and allowing the Peloponnesians time to interfere against Attica as well as to succor Sicily. It was the unhappy weakness of this commander to shrink from decisive resolutions of every kind, and at any rate to postpone them until the necessity became imminent: the consequence of which was,—to use an expression of the Corinthian envoy before the Peloponnesian war in censuring the dilatory policy of Sparta,—that never acting, yet always seeming about to act, he found his enemy in double force instead of single, at the moment of actual conflict.[337]

Great, indeed, must have been the disappointment of the Athenians, when, after having sent forth in the month of June, an expedition of unparalleled efficiency, they receive in the month of November a despatch to acquaint them that the general has accomplished little except one indecisive victory; and that he has not even attempted anything serious, nor can do so unless they send him farther cavalry and money. Yet the only answer which they made was, to grant and provide for this demand without any public expression of discontent or disappointment against him.[338] And this is the more to be noted, since the removal of Alkibiadês afforded an inviting and even valuable opportunity for proposing to send out a fresh colleague in his room. If there were no complaints raised against Nikias at Athens, so neither are we informed of any such, even among his own soldiers in Sicily, though their disappointment must have been yet greater than that of their countrymen at home, considering the expectations with which they had come out. We may remember that the delay of a few days at Eion, under perfectly justifiable circumstances, and while awaiting the arrival of reinforcements actually sent for, raised the loudest murmurs against Kleon in his expedition against Amphipolis, from the hoplites in his own army.[339] The contrast is instructive, and will appear yet more instructive as we advance forward.

Meanwhile the Syracusans were profiting by the lesson of their recent defeat. In the next public assembly which ensued, Hermokratês addressed them in the mingled tone of encouragement and admonition. He praised their bravery, while he deprecated their want of tactics and discipline. Considering the great superiority of the enemy in this last respect, he regarded the recent battle as giving good promise for the future; and he appealed with satisfaction to the precautions taken by Nikias in fortifying his camp, as well as to his speedy retreat after the battle. He pressed them to diminish the excessive number of fifteen generals, whom they had hitherto been accustomed to nominate to the command; to reduce the number to three, conferring upon them at the same time fuller powers than had been before enjoyed, and swearing a solemn oath to leave them unfettered in the exercise of such powers; lastly, to enjoin upon these generals the most strenuous efforts, during the coming winter, for training and arming the whole population. Accordingly Hermokratês himself, with Herakleidês and Sikanus, were named to the command. Ambassadors were sent both to Sparta and to Corinth, for the purpose of entreating assistance in Sicily, as well as of prevailing on the Peloponnesians to recommence a direct attack against Attica;[340] so as at least to prevent the Athenians from sending farther reinforcements to Nikias, and perhaps even to bring about the recall of his army.

But by far the most important measure which marked the nomination of the new generals, was, the enlargement of the line of fortifications at Syracuse. They constructed a new wall, inclosing an additional space and covering both their inner and their outer city to the westward, reaching from the outer sea to the Great Harbor, across the whole space fronting the rising slope of the hill of Epipolæ, and stretching far enough westward to inclose the sacred precinct of Apollo Temenites. This was intended as a precaution, in order that if Nikias, resuming operations in the spring, should beat them in the field and confine them to their walls, he might, nevertheless, be prevented from carrying a wall of circumvallation from sea to sea without covering a great additional extent of ground.[341] Besides this, the Syracusans fitted up and garrisoned the deserted town of Megara, on the coast to the north of Syracuse; they established a regular fortification and garrison in the Olympieion or temple of Zeus Olympius, which they had already garrisoned after the recent battle with Nikias; and they planted stakes in the sea to obstruct the convenient landing-places. All these precautions were useful to them; and we may even say that the new outlying fortification, inclosing the Temenites, proved their salvation in the coming siege, by so lengthening the circumvallation necessary for the Athenians to construct, that Gylippus had time to arrive before it was finished. But there was one farther precaution which the Syracusans omitted at this moment, when it was open to them without any hindrance, to occupy and fortify the Euryâlus, or the summit of the hill of Epipolæ. Had they done this now, probably the Athenians could never have made progress with their lines of circumvallation: but they did not think of it until too late, as we shall presently see.

Nevertheless it is important to remark, in reference to the general scheme of Athenian operations in Sicily, that if Nikias had adopted the plan originally recommended by Lamachus, or if he had begun his permanent besieging operations against Syracuse in the summer or autumn of 415 B.C., instead of postponing them, as he actually did, to the spring of 414 B.C., he would have found none of these additional defences to contend against, and the line of circumvallation necessary for his purpose would have been shorter and easier. Besides these permanent and irreparable disadvantages, his winter’s inaction at Naxos drew upon him the farther insult, that the Syracusans marched to his former quarters at Katana and burned the tents which they found standing, ravaging at the same time the neighboring fields.[342]

Kamarina maintained an equivocal policy which made both parties hope to gain it; and in the course of this winter the Athenian envoy Euphêmus with others was sent thither to propose a renewal of that alliance, between the city and Athens, which had been concluded ten years before. Hermokratês the Syracusan went to counteract his object; and both of them, according to Grecian custom, were admitted to address the public assembly.

Hermokratês began by denouncing the views, designs, and past history of Athens. He did not, he said, fear her power, provided the Sicilian cities were united and true to each other: even against Syracuse alone, the hasty retreat of the Athenians after the recent battle had shown how little they confided in their own strength. What he did fear, was, the delusive promises and insinuations of Athens, tending to disunite the island, and to paralyze all joint resistance. Every one knew that her purpose in this expedition was to subjugate all Sicily,—that Leontini and Egesta served merely as convenient pretences to put forward,—and that she could have no sincere sympathy for Chalkidians in Sicily, when she herself held in slavery the Chalkidians in Eubœa. It was, in truth, nothing else but an extension of the same scheme of rapacious ambition, whereby she had reduced her Ionian allies and kinsmen to their present wretched slavery, now threatened against Sicily. The Sicilians could not too speedily show her that they were no Ionians, made to be transferred from one master to another, but autonomous Dorians from the centre of autonomy, Peloponnesus. It would be madness to forfeit this honorable position through jealousy or lukewarmness among themselves. Let not the Kamarinæans imagine that Athens was striking her blow at Syracuse alone: they were themselves next neighbors of Syracuse, and would be the first victims if she were conquered. They might wish, from apprehension or envy, to see the superior power of Syracuse humbled, but this could not happen without endangering their own existence. They ought to do for her what they would have asked her to do if the Athenians had invaded Kamarina, instead of lending merely nominal aid, as they had hitherto done. Their former alliance with Athens was for purposes of mutual defence, not binding them to aid her in schemes of pure aggression. To hold aloof, give fair words to both parties, and leave Syracuse to fight the battle of Sicily single-handed, was as unjust as it was dishonorable. If she came off victor in the struggle, she would take care that the Kamarinæans should be no gainers by such a policy. The state of affairs was so plain, that he (Hermokratês) could not pretend to enlighten them: but he solemnly appealed to their sentiments of common blood and lineage. The Dorians of Syracuse were assailed by their eternal enemies the Ionians, and ought not to be now betrayed by their own brother Dorians of Kamarina.[343]

Euphêmus, in reply, explained the proceedings of Athens in reference to her empire, and vindicated her against the charges of Hermokratês. Though addressing a Dorian assembly, he did not fear to take his start from the position laid down by Hermokratês, that Ionians were the natural enemies of Dorians. Under this feeling Athens, as an Ionian city, had looked about to strengthen herself against the supremacy of her powerful Dorian neighbors in Peloponnesus. Finding herself after the repulse of the Persian king at the head of those Ionians and other Greeks who had just revolted from him, she had made use of her position as well as of her superior navy to shake off the illegitimate ascendency of Sparta. Her empire was justified by regard for her own safety against Sparta, as well as by the immense superiority of her maritime efforts in the rescue of Greece from the Persians. Even in reference to her allies, she had good ground for reducing them to subjection, because they had made themselves the instruments and auxiliaries of the Persian king in his attempt to conquer her. Prudential views for assured safety to herself had thus led her to the acquisition of her present empire, and the same views now brought her to Sicily. He was prepared to show that the interests of Kamarina were in full accordance with those of Athens. The main purpose of Athens in Sicily was to prevent her Sicilian enemies from sending aid to her Peloponnesian enemies, to accomplish which, powerful Sicilian allies were indispensable to her. To enfeeble or subjugate her Sicilian allies would be folly: if she did this, they would not serve her purpose of keeping the Syracusans employed in their own island. Hence her desire to reëstablish the expatriated Leontines, powerful and free, though she retained the Chalkidians in Eubœa as subjects. Near home, she wanted nothing but subjects, disarmed and tribute-paying, while in Sicily, she required independent and efficient allies; so that the double conduct, which Hermokratês reproached as inconsistent, proceeded from one and the same root of public prudence. Pursuant to that motive, Athens dealt differently with her different allies, according to the circumstances of each. Thus, she respected the autonomy of Chios and Methymna, and maintained equal relations with other islanders near Peloponnesus; and such were the relations which she now wished to establish in Sicily.

No: it was Syracuse, not Athens, whom the Kamarinæans and other Sicilians had really ground to fear. Syracuse was aiming at the acquisition of imperial sway over the island; and that which she had already done towards the Leontines showed what she was prepared to do when the time came, against Kamarina and others. It was under this apprehension that the Kamarinæans had formerly invited Athens into Sicily: it would be alike unjust and impolitic were they now to repudiate her aid, for she could accomplish nothing without them; if they did so on the present occasion, they would repent it hereafter when exposed to the hostility of a constant encroaching neighbor, and when Athenian auxiliaries could not again be had. He repelled the imputations which Hermokratês had cast upon Athens, but the Kamarinæans were not sitting as judges or censors upon her merits. It was for them to consider whether that meddlesome disposition, with which Athens was reproached, was not highly beneficial as the terror of oppressors, and the shield of weaker states, throughout Greece. He now tendered it to the Kamarinæans as their only security against Syracuse; calling upon them, instead of living in perpetual fear of her aggression, to seize the present opportunity of attacking her on an equal footing, jointly with Athens.[344]

In these two remarkable speeches, we find Hermokratês renewing substantially the same line of counsel as he had taken up ten years before at the congress of Gela, to settle all Sicilian differences at home, and above all things to keep out the intervention of Athens; who if she once got footing in Sicily, would never rest until she reduced all the cities successively. This was the natural point of view for a Syracusan politician; but by no means equally natural, nor equally conclusive, for an inhabitant of one of the secondary Sicilian cities, especially of the conterminous Kamarina. And the oration of Euphêmus is an able pleading to demonstrate that the Kamarinæans had far more to fear from Syracuse than from Athens. His arguments to this point are at least highly plausible, if not convincing: but he seems to lay himself open to attack from the opposite quarter. If Athens cannot hope to gain any subjects in Sicily, what motive has she for interfering? This Euphêmus meets by contending that if she does not interfere, the Syracusans and their allies will come across and render assistance to the enemies of Athens in Peloponnesus. It is manifest, however, that under the actual circumstances of the time, Athens could have no real fears of this nature, and that her real motives for meddling in Sicily were those of hope and encroachment, not of self-defence. But it shows how little likely such hopes were to be realized, and therefore how ill-advised the whole plan of interference in Sicily was,—that the Athenian envoy could say to the Kamarinæans, in the same strain as Nikias had spoken at Athens when combating the wisdom of the expedition: “Such is the distance of Sicily from Athens, and such the difficulty of guarding cities of great force and ample territory combined, that if we wished to hold you Sicilians as subjects, we should be unable to do it: we can only retain you as free and powerful allies.”[345] What Nikias said at Athens to dissuade his countrymen from the enterprise, under sincere conviction, Euphêmus repeated at Kamarina for the purpose of conciliating that city; probably, without believing it himself, yet the anticipation was not on that account the less true and reasonable.

The Kamarinæans felt the force of both speeches, from Hermokratês and Euphêmus. Their inclinations carried them towards the Athenians, yet not without a certain misgiving in case Athens should prove completely successful. Towards the Syracusans, on the contrary, they entertained nothing but unqualified apprehension, and jealousy of very ancient date; and even now their great fear was, of probable suffering, if the Syracusans succeeded against Athens without their coöperation. In this dilemma, they thought it safest to give an evasive answer, of friendly sentiment towards both parties, but refusal of aid to either; hoping thus to avoid an inexpiable breach, whichever way the ultimate success might turn.[346]

For a city comparatively weak and situated like Kamarina, such was perhaps the least hazardous policy. In December, 415 B.C., no human being could venture to predict how the struggle between Nikias and the Syracusans in the coming year would turn out; nor were the Kamarinæans prompted by any hearty feeling to take the extreme chances with either party. Matters had borne a different aspect, indeed, in the preceding month of July 415 B.C., when the Athenians first arrived. Had the vigorous policy urged by Lamachus been then followed up, the Athenians would always have appeared likely to succeed, if, indeed, they had not already become conquerors of Syracuse; so that waverers like the Kamarinæans would have remained attached to them from policy. The best way to obtain allies, Lamachus had contended, was, to be prompt and decisive in action, and to strike at the capital point at once, while the intimidating effect of their arrival was fresh. Of the value of his advice, an emphatic illustration is afforded by the conduct of Kamarina.[347]

Throughout the rest of the winter, Nikias did little or nothing. He merely despatched envoys for the purpose of conciliating the Sikels in the interior, where the autonomous Sikels, who dwelt in the central regions of the island, for the most part declared in his favor,—especially the powerful Sikel prince Archônidês,—sending provisions and even money to the camp at Naxos. Against some refractory tribes, Nikias sent detachments for purposes of compulsion; while the Syracusans on their part did the like to counteract him. Such Sikel tribes as had become dependents of Syracuse, stood aloof from the struggle. As the spring approached, Nikias transferred his position from Naxos to Katana, reëstablishing that camp which the Syracusans had destroyed.[348]

He farther sent a trireme to Carthage, to invite coöperation from that city; and a second to the Tyrrhenian maritime cities on the southern coast of Italy, some of whom had proffered to him their services, as ancient enemies of Syracuse, and now realized their promises. From Carthage nothing was obtained; why, we do not know; for we shall find the Carthaginians, six years hence, invading Sicily with prodigious forces; and if they entertained any such intentions, it would seem that the presence of Nikias in Sicily must have presented the most convenient moment for executing them. To the Sikels, Egestæans, and all the other allies of Athens, Nikias sent orders for bricks, iron bars, clamps, and everything suitable for the wall of circumvallation, which was to be commenced with the first burst of spring.

While such preparations were going on in Sicily, debates of portentous promise took place at Sparta. Immediately after the battle near the Olympieion, and the retreat of Nikias into winter quarters, the Syracusans had despatched envoys to Peloponnesus to solicit reinforcements. Here, again, we are compelled to notice the lamentable consequences arising out of the inaction of Nikias. Had he commenced the siege of Syracuse on his first arrival, it may be doubted whether any such envoys would have been sent to Peloponnesus at all; at any rate, they would not have arrived in time to produce decisive effects.[349] After exerting what influence they could upon the Italian Greeks in their voyage, the Syracusan envoys reached Corinth, where they found the warmest reception and obtained promises of speedy succor. The Corinthians furnished envoys of their own to accompany them to Sparta, and to back their request for Lacedæmonian aid.

They found at the congress at Sparta another advocate upon whom they could not reasonably have counted, Alkibiadês. That exile had crossed over from Thurii to the Eleian port of Kyllênê in Peloponnesus in a merchant-vessel,[350] and now appeared at Sparta on special invitation and safe-conduct from the Lacedæmonians; of whom he was at first vehemently afraid, in consequence of having raised against them that Peloponnesian combination which had given them so much trouble before the battle of Mantineia. He now appeared, too, burning with hostility against his country, and eager to inflict upon her all the mischief in his power. Having been the chief evil genius to plunge her, mainly for selfish ends of his own, into this ill-starred venture, he was now about to do his best to turn it into her irreparable ruin. His fiery stimulus, and unmeasured exaggerations, supplied what was wanting in Corinthian and Syracusan eloquence, and inflamed the tardy good-will of the Spartan ephors into comparative decision and activity.[351] His harangue in the Spartan congress is given to us by Thucydidês, who may possibly have heard it, as he was then himself in exile. Like the earlier speech which he puts into the mouth of Alkibiadês at Athens, it is characteristic in a high degree; and interesting in another point of view as the latest composed speech of any length which we find in his history. I give here the substance, without professing to translate the words.

“First, I must address you, Lacedæmonians, respecting the prejudices current against me personally, before I can hope to find a fair hearing on public matters. You know it was I, who renewed my public connection with Sparta, after my ancestors before me had quarrelled with you and renounced it. Moreover, I assiduously cultivated your favor on all points, especially by attentions to your prisoners at Athens: but while I was showing all this zeal towards you, you took the opportunity of the peace which you made with Athens to employ my enemies as your agents, thus strengthening their hands, and dishonoring me. It was this conduct of yours which drove me to unite with the Argeians and Mantineians; nor ought you to be angry with me for mischief which you thus drew upon yourselves. Probably some of you hate me too, without any good reason, as a forward partisan of democracy. My family were always opposed to the Peisistratid despots; and as all opposition to a reigning dynasty takes the name of The People, so from that time forward we continued to act as leaders of the people.[352] Moreover, our established constitution was a democracy, so that I had no choice but to obey, though I did my best to maintain a moderate line of political conduct in the midst of the reigning license. 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. Personally, I have better reason than any one else to rail against it, if one could say anything new about such confessed folly; but I did not think it safe to change the government, while you were standing by as enemies.

“So much as to myself personally: I shall now talk to you about the business of the meeting, and tell you something more than you yet know. Our purpose in sailing from Athens, was, first to conquer the Sicilian Greeks; next, the Italian Greeks; afterwards, to make an attempt on the Carthaginian empire and on Carthage herself. If all or most of this succeeded, we were then to attack Peloponnesus. We intended to bring to this enterprise the entire power of the Sicilian and Italian Greeks, besides large numbers of Iberian and other warlike barbaric mercenaries, together with many new triremes built from the abundant forests of Italy, and large supplies both of treasure and provision. We could thus blockade Peloponnesus all round with our fleet, and at the same time assail it with our land-force; and we calculated, by taking some towns by storm and occupying others as permanent fortified positions, that we should easily conquer the whole peninsula, and then become undisputed masters of Greece. 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; and the danger which I have described will be soon upon you.

“It is not therefore simply for the safety of Sicily,—it is for the safety of Peloponnesus,—that I now urge you to send across, forthwith, a fleet with an army of hoplites as rowers; and what I consider still more important than an army, a Spartan general to take the supreme command. Moreover, you must also carry on declared and vigorous war against Athens here, that the Syracusans may be encouraged to hold out, and that Athens may be in no condition to send additional reinforcements thither. You must farther fortify and permanently garrison Dekeleia in Attica:[354] that is the contingency which the Athenians have always been most afraid of, and which therefore you may know to be your best policy. You will thus get into your own hands the live and dead stock of Attica, interrupt the working of the silver mines at Laureion, deprive the Athenians of their profits from judicial fines as well as of their landed revenue, and dispose the subject-allies to withhold their tribute.

“None of you ought to think the worse of me because I make this vigorous onset upon my country in conjunction with her enemies, I who once passed for a patriot.[355] Nor ought you to mistrust my assurances, as coming from the reckless passion of an exile. The worst enemies of Athens are not those who make open war like you, but those who drive her best friends into hostility. I loved my country,[356] while I was secure as a citizen; I love her no more, now that I am wronged. In fact, I do not conceive myself to be assailing a country still mine; I am rather trying to win back a country now lost to me. The real patriot is not he, who, having unjustly lost his country, acquiesces in patience, but he whose ardor makes him try every means to regain her.

“Employ me without fear, Lacedæmonians, in any service of danger or suffering; the more harm I did you formerly as an enemy, the more good I can now do you as a friend. But above all, do not shrink back from instant operations both in Sicily and in Attica, upon which so much depends. You will thus put down the power of Athens, present as well as future; you will dwell yourselves in safety; and you will become the leaders of undivided Hellas, by free consent and without force.”[357]

Enormous consequences turned upon this speech, no less masterly in reference to the purpose and the audience, than infamous as an indication of the character of the speaker. If its contents became known at Athens, as they probably did, the enemies of Alkibiadês would be supplied with a justification of their most violent political attacks. That imputation which they had taken so much pains to fasten upon him, citing in proof of it alike his profligate expenditure, overbearing insolence, and derision of the religious ceremonies of the state,[358]—that he detested the democracy in his heart, submitted to it only from necessity, and was watching for the first safe opportunity of subverting it,—appears here in his own language as matter of avowal and boast. The sentence of condemnation against him would now be unanimously approved, even by those who at the time had deprecated it; and the people would be more firmly persuaded than before of the reality of the association between irreligious manifestations and treasonable designs. Doubtless the inferences so drawn from the speech would be unsound, because it represented, not the actual past sentiments of Alkibiadês, but those to which he now found it convenient to lay claim. As far as so very selfish a politician could be said to have any preference, democracy was, in some respects, more convenient to him than oligarchy. Though offensive to his taste, it held out larger prospects to his love of show, his adventurous ambition, and his rapacity for foreign plunder; while under an oligarchy, the jealous restraints and repulses imposed on him by a few equals, would be perhaps more galling to his temper than those arising from the whole people.[359] He takes credit in his speech for moderation, as opposed to the standing license of democracy. But this is a pretence absurd even to extravagance, and which Athenians of all parties would have listened to with astonishment. Such license as that of Alkibiadês had never been seen at Athens; and it was the adventurous instincts of the democracy towards foreign conquest, combined with their imperfect apprehension of the limits and conditions under which alone their empire could be permanently maintained, which he stimulated up to the highest point, and then made use of for his own power and profit. As against himself, he had reason for accusing his political enemies of unworthy manœuvres, and even of gross political wickedness, if they were authors or accomplices—as seems probable of some—in the mutilation of the Hermæ. But most certainly, their public advice to the commonwealth was far less mischievous than his. And if we are to strike the balance of personal political merit between Alkibiadês and his enemies, we must take into the comparison his fraud upon the simplicity of the Lacedæmonian envoys, recounted in the last chapter but one of this History.

If, then, that portion of the speech of Alkibiadês, wherein he touches upon Athenian politics and his own past conduct, is not to be taken as historical evidence, just as little can we trust the following portion in which he professes to describe the real purposes of Athens in her Sicilian expedition. That any such vast designs as those which he announces were ever really contemplated even by himself and his immediate friends, is very improbable; that they were contemplated by the Athenian public, by the armament, or by Nikias, is utterly incredible. The tardiness and timid movements of the armament—during the first eight months after arriving at Rhegium—recommended by Nikias, partially admitted even by Alkibiadês, opposed only by the unavailing wisdom of Lamachus, and not strongly censured when known at Athens, conspire to prove that their minds were not at first fully made up even to the siege of Syracuse; that they counted on alliances and money in Sicily which they did not find; and that those who sailed from Athens with large hopes of brilliant and easy conquest were soon taught to see the reality with different eyes. If Alkibiadês had himself conceived at Athens the designs which he professed to reveal in his speech at Sparta, there can be no doubt that he would have espoused the scheme of Lamachus, or rather would have originated it himself. We find him, indeed, in his speech delivered at Athens before the determination to sail, holding out hopes that by means of conquests in Sicily, Athens might become mistress of all Greece. But this is there put as an alternative and as a favorable possibility, is noticed only in one place, without expansion or amplification, and shows that the speaker did not reckon upon finding any such expectations prevalent among his hearers. Alkibiadês could not have ventured to promise, in his discourse at Athens, the results which he afterwards talked of at Sparta as having been actually contemplated,—Sicily, Italy, Carthage, Iberian mercenaries, etc., all ending in a blockading fleet large enough to gird round Peloponnesus.[360] Had he put forth such promises, the charge of juvenile folly which Nikias urged against him would probably have been believed by every one. His speech at Sparta, though it has passed with some as a fragment of true Grecian history, is in truth little better than a gigantic romance dressed up to alarm his audience.[361]

Intended for this purpose, it was eminently suitable and effective. The Lacedæmonians had already been partly moved by the representations from Corinth and Syracuse, and were even prepared to send envoys to the latter place with encouragement to hold out against Athens. But the Peace of Nikias and the alliance succeeding it, still subsisted between Athens and Sparta. It had indeed been partially and indirectly violated in many ways, but both the contracting parties still considered it as subsisting, nor would either of them yet consent to break their oaths openly and avowedly. For this reason—as well as from the distance of Sicily, great even in the estimation of the more nautical Athenians—the ephors could not yet make up their minds to despatch thither any positive aid. It was exactly in this point of hesitation between the will and the deed that the energetic and vindictive exile from Athens found them. His flaming picture of the danger impending,—brought home to their own doors, and appearing to proceed from the best informed of all witnesses,—overcame their reluctance at once; while he at the same time pointed out the precise steps whereby their interference would be rendered of most avail. The transfer of Alkibiadês to Sparta thus reverses the superiority of force between the two contending chiefs of Greece: “Momentumque fuit mutatus Curio rerum.”[362] He had not yet shown his power of doing his country good, as we shall find him hereafter engaged, during the later years of the war: his first achievements were but too successful in doing her harm.