CHAPTER LVII.

SICILIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE EXTINCTION OF THE GELONIAN DYNASTY.

In the preceding chapters, I have brought down the general history of

the Peloponnesian war to the time immediately preceding the memorable

Athenian expedition against Syracuse, which changed the whole face

of the war. At this period, and for some time to come, the history

of the Peloponnesian Greeks becomes intimately blended with that of

the Sicilian Greeks. But hitherto the connection between the two has

been merely occasional, and of little reciprocal effect: so that I

have thought it for the convenience of the reader to keep the two

streams entirely separate, omitting the proceedings of Athens in

Sicily during the first ten years of the war. I now proceed to fill

up this blank: to recount as much as can be made out of Sicilian

events during the interval between 461-416 B.C., and to assign the

successive steps whereby the Athenians entangled themselves in

ambitious projects against Syracuse, until they at length came to

stake the larger portion of their force upon that fatal hazard.

The extinction of the Gelonian dynasty at Syracuse,[168] followed by

the expulsion or retirement of all the other despots throughout the

island, left the various Grecian cities to reorganize themselves in

free and self-constituted governments. Unfortunately, our memorials

respecting this revolution are miserably scanty; but there is

enough to indicate that it was something much more than a change

from single-headed to popular government. It included, farther,

transfers on the largest scale both of inhabitants and of property.

The preceding despots had sent many old citizens into exile,

transplanted others from one part of Sicily to another, and provided

settlements for numerous emigrants and mercenaries devoted to their

interest. Of these proceedings much was reversed, when the dynasties

were overthrown, so that the personal and proprietary revolution

was more complicated and perplexing than the political. After a

period of severe commotion, an accommodation was concluded, whereby

the adherents of the expelled dynasty were planted partly in the

territory of Messêne, partly in the reëstablished city of Kamarina in

the eastern portion of the southern coast, bordering on Syracuse.[169]

[168] See above, vol. v, ch. xliii, pp. 204-239, for the history

of these events. I now take up the thread from that chapter.

[169] Mr. Mitford, in the spirit which is usual with him, while

enlarging upon the suffering occasioned by this extensive

revolution both of inhabitants and of property throughout Sicily,

takes no notice of the cause in which it originated, namely,

the number of foreign mercenaries whom the Gelonian dynasty had

brought in and enrolled as new citizens (Gelon alone having

brought in ten thousand, Diodor. xi, 72), and the number of

exiles whom they had banished and dispossessed.

I will here notice only one of his misrepresentations respecting

the events of this period, because it is definite as well as

important (vol. iv, p. 9, chap. xviii, sect. 1).

“But thus (he says) in every little state, lands were left to

become public property, or to be assigned to new individual

owners. _Everywhere, then, that favorite measure of democracy,

the equal division of the lands of the state, was resolved upon_:

a measure impossible to be perfectly executed; impossible to be

maintained as executed; and of very doubtful advantage, if it

could be perfectly executed and perfectly maintained.”

Again, sect. iii, p. 23, he speaks of “that incomplete and

iniquitous partition of lands,” etc.

Now, upon this we may remark:—

1. The _equal division of the lands_ of the state, here affirmed

by Mr. Mitford, is a pure fancy of his own. He has no authority

for it whatever. Diodorus says (xi, 76) κατεκληρούχησαν τὴν

χώραν, etc.; and again (xi, 86) he speaks of τὸν ἀναδασμὸν

τῆς χώρας: the _redivision_ of the territory; but respecting

_equality of division_, not one word does he say. Nor can

any principle of division in this case be less probable than

equality; for one of the great motives of the redivision was

to provide for those exiles who had been dispossessed by the

Gelonian dynasty: and these men would receive lots, greater or

less, on the ground of compensation for loss, greater or less as

it might have been. Besides, immediately after the redivision, we

find rich and poor mentioned, just as before (xi, 86).

2. Next, Mr. Mitford calls “the equal division of all the lands

of the state” the _favorite measure of democracy_. This is an

assertion not less incorrect. Not a single democracy in Greece,

so far as my knowledge extends, can be produced, in which such

equal partition is ever known to have been carried into effect.

In the Athenian democracy, especially, not only there existed

constantly great inequality of landed property, but the oath

annually taken by the popular heliastic judges had a special

clause, protesting emphatically against _redivision of the land

or extinction of debts_.

But though peace was thus reëstablished, these large mutations

of inhabitants first begun by the despots,—and the incoherent

mixture of races, religious institutions, dialects, etc., which

was brought about unavoidably during the process,—left throughout

Sicily a feeling of local instability, very different from the long

traditional tenures in Peloponnesus and Attica, and numbered by

foreign enemies among the elements of its weakness.[170] The wonder

indeed rather is, that such real and powerful causes of disorder were

soon so efficaciously controlled by the popular governments, that the

half century now approaching was decidedly the most prosperous and

undisturbed period in the history of the island.

[170] Thucyd. vi, 17.

The southern coast of Sicily was occupied, beginning from the

westward by Selinus, Agrigentum, Gela, and Kamarina. Then came

Syracuse, possessing the southeastern cape, and the southern portion

of the eastern coast: next, on the eastern coast, Leontini, Katana,

and Naxos: Messênê, on the strait adjoining Italy. The centre of the

island, and even much of the northern coast, was occupied by the

non-Hellenic Sikels and Sikans: on this coast, Himera was the only

Grecian city. Between Himera and Cape Lilybæum, the western corner

of the island was occupied by the non-Hellenic cities of Egesta and

Eryx, and by the Carthaginian seaports, of which Panormus (Palermo)

was the principal.

Of these various Grecian cities, all independent, Syracuse was the

first in power, Agrigentum the second. The causes above noticed,

disturbing the first commencement of popular governments in all of

them, were most powerfully operative at Syracuse. We do not know

the particulars of the democratical constitution which was there

established, but its stability was threatened by more than one

ambitious pretender, eager to seize the sceptre of Gelo and Hiero.

The most prominent among these pretenders was Tyndarion, who employed

a considerable fortune in distributing largesses and procuring

partisans among the poor. His political designs were at length so

openly manifested, that he was brought to trial, condemned, and put

to death; yet not without an abortive insurrection of his partisans

to rescue him. After several leading citizens had tried, and failed

in a similar manner, the people thought it expedient to pass a law

similar to the Athenian ostracism, authorizing the infliction of

temporary preventive banishment.[171] Under this law several powerful

citizens were actually and speedily banished; and such was the abuse

of the new engine, by the political parties in the city, that men

of conspicuous position are said to have become afraid of meddling

with public affairs. Thus put in practice, the institution is said

to have given rise to new political contentions not less violent

than those which it checked, insomuch that the Syracusans found

themselves obliged to repeal the law not long after its introduction.

We should have been glad to learn some particulars concerning this

political experiment, beyond the meagre abstract given by Diodorus,

and especially to know the precautionary securities by which the

application of the ostracizing sentence was restrained at Syracuse.

Perhaps no care was taken to copy the checks and formalities

provided by Kleisthenês at Athens. Yet under all circumstances, the

institution, though tutelary, if reserved for its proper emergencies,

was eminently open to abuse, so that we have no reason to wonder

that abuse occurred, especially at a period of great violence and

discord. The wonder rather is, that it was so little abused at Athens.

[171] Diodor. xi, 86, 87. The institution at Syracuse was called

the _petalism_; because, in taking the votes, the name of the

citizen intended to be banished was written upon a leaf of olive,

instead of a shell or potsherd.

Although the ostracism, or petalism, at Syracuse was speedily

discontinued, it may probably have left a salutary impression behind,

as far as we can judge from the fact that new pretenders to despotism

are not hereafter mentioned. The republic increases in wealth, and

manifests an energetic action in foreign affairs. The Syracusan

admiral Phaӱllus was despatched with a powerful fleet to repress the

piracies of the Tyrrhenian maritime towns, and after ravaging the

island of Elba, returned home, under the suspicion of having been

bought off by bribes from the enemy; on which accusation he was tried

and banished, a second fleet of sixty triremes under Apellês being

sent to the same regions. The new admiral not only plundered many

parts of the Tyrrhenian coast, but also carried his ravages into the

island of Corsica, at that time a Tyrrhenian possession, and reduced

the island of Elba completely. His return was signalized by a large

number of captives and a rich booty.[172]

[172] Diodor. xi. 87, 88.

Meanwhile the great antecedent revolutions, among the Grecian cities

in Sicily had raised a new spirit among the Sikels of the interior,

and inspired the Sikel prince Duketius, a man of spirit and ability,

with large ideas of aggrandizement. Many exiled Greeks having

probably sought service with him, it was either by their suggestion,

or from having himself caught the spirit of Hellenic improvement,

that he commenced the plan of bringing the petty Sikel communities

into something like city life and collective coöperation. Having

acquired glory by the capture of the Grecian town of Morgantina, he

induced all the Sikel communities, with the exception of Hybla, to

enter into a sort of federative compact. Next, in order to obtain a

central point for the new organization, he transferred his own little

town from the hill-top, called Menæ, down to a convenient spot of the

neighboring plain, near to the sacred precinct of the gods called

Paliki.[173] As the veneration paid to these gods, determined in

part by the striking volcanic manifestations in the neighborhood,

rendered this plain a suitable point of attraction for Sikels

generally, Duketius was enabled to establish a considerable new city

of Palikê, with walls of large circumference, and an ample range of

adjacent land which he distributed among a numerous Sikel population,

probably with some Greeks intermingled.

[173] Diodor. xi, 78, 88, 90. The proceeding of Duketius is

illustrated by the description of Dardanus in the Iliad, xx, 216:—

Κτίσσε δὲ Δαρδανίην, ἐπεὶ οὔπω Ἴλιος ἱρὴ

Ἐν πεδίῳ πεπόλιστο, πόλις μερόπων ἀνθρώπων,

Ἀλλ’ ἔθ’ ὑπωρείας ᾤκουν πολυπιδάκου Ἴδης.

Compare Plato, de Legg. iii, pp. 681, 682.

The powerful position which Duketius had thus acquired is attested

by the aggressive character of his measures, intended gradually

to recover a portion at least of that ground which the Greeks had

appropriated at the expense of the indigenous population. The Sikel

town of Ennesia had been seized by the Hieronian Greeks expelled from

Ætna, and had received from them the name of Ætna:[174] Duketius

now found means to reconquer it, after ensnaring by stratagem the

leading magistrate. He was next bold enough to invade the territory

of the Agrigentines, and to besiege one of their country garrisons

called Motyum. We are impressed with a high idea of his power, when

we learn that the Agrigentines, while marching to relieve the place,

thought it necessary to invoke aid from the Syracusans, who sent to

them a force under Bolkon. Over this united force Duketius gained a

victory, in consequence of the treason or cowardice of Bolkon, as

the Syracusans believed, insomuch that they condemned him to death.

In the succeeding year, however, the good fortune of the Sikel

prince changed. The united army of these two powerful cities raised

the blockade of Motyum, completely defeated him in the field, and

dispersed all his forces. Finding himself deserted by his comrades

and even on the point of being betrayed, he took the desperate

resolution of casting himself upon the mercy of the Syracusans. He

rode off by night to the gates of Syracuse, entered the city unknown,

and sat down as a suppliant on the altar in the agora, surrendering

himself together with all his territory. A spectacle thus unexpected

brought together a crowd of Syracuse citizens, exciting in them

the strongest emotions: and when the magistrates convened the

assembly for the purpose of deciding his fate, the voice of mercy

was found paramount, in spite of the contrary recommendations of

some of the political leaders. The most respected among the elder

citizens—earnestly recommending mild treatment towards a foe thus

fallen and suppliant, coupled with scrupulous regard not to bring

upon the city the avenging hand of Nemesis—found their appeal to the

generous sentiment of the people welcomed by one unanimous cry of

“Save the suppliant.”[175] Duketius, withdrawn from the altar, was

sent off to Corinth, under his engagement to live there quietly for

the future; the Syracusans providing for his comfortable maintenance.

[174] Diodor. xi, 76.

[175] Diodor. xi, 91, 92. Ὁ δὲ δῆμος ὥσπερ τινὶ μιᾷ φωνῇ σώζειν

ἅπαντες ἐβόων τὸν ἱκέτην.

Amidst the cruelty habitual in ancient warfare, this remarkable

incident excites mingled surprise and admiration. Doubtless the

lenient impulse of the people mainly arose from their seeing Duketius

actually before them in suppliant posture at their altar, instead

of being called upon to determine his fate in his absence,—just as

the Athenian people were in like manner moved by the actual sight of

the captive Dorieus, and induced to spare his life, on an occasion

which will be hereafter recounted.[176] If in some instances the

assembled people, obeying the usual vehemence of multitudinous

sentiment, carried severities to excess,—so, in other cases, as well

as in this, the appeal to their humane impulses will be found to have

triumphed over prudential regard for future security. Such was the

fruit which the Syracusans reaped for sparing Duketius, who, after

residing a year or two at Corinth, violated his parole. Pretending

to have received an order from the oracle, he assembled a number of

colonists, whom he conducted into Sicily to found a city at Kalê Aktê

on the northern coast belonging to the Sikels. We cannot doubt that

when the Syracusans found in what manner their lenity was requited,

the speakers who had recommended severe treatment would take great

credit on the score of superior foresight.[177]

[176] Xenophon, Hellen. i, 5, 19; Pausanias, vi, 7, 2.

[177] Mr. Mitford recounts as follows the return of Duketius

to Sicily: “The Syracusan chiefs brought back Duketius from

Corinth, apparently to make him instrumental to their own views

for advancing the power of their commonwealth. They permitted,

or rather encouraged him to establish a colony of mixed people,

Greeks and Sicels, at Calé Acté, on the northern coast of the

island,” (ch. xviii, sect. i, vol. iv, p. 13.)

The statement that “the Syracusans brought back Duketius, or

encouraged him to come back, or to found the colony of Kalê

Aktê,” is a complete departure from Diodorus on the part of

Mr. Mitford; who transforms a breach of parole on the part of

the Sikel _prince_ into an ambitious manœuvre on the part of

Syracusan _democracy_. The words of Diodorus, the only authority

in the case, are as follows (xii, 8): Οὗτος δὲ (Duketius)

ὀλίγον χρόνον μείνας ἐν τῇ Κορίνθῳ, ~τὰς ὁμολογίας ἔλυσε~, καὶ

προσποιησάμενος χρησμὸν ὑπὸ τῶν θεῶν ἑαυτῷ δεδόσθαι, κτίσαι τὴν

Καλὴν Ἀκτὴν ἐν Σικελίᾳ, κατέπλευσεν εἰς τὴν νῆσον μετὰ πολλῶν

οἰκητόρων· συνεπελάβοντο δὲ καὶ τῶν Σικελῶν τινες, ἐν οἷς ἦν

καὶ Ἀρχωνίδης, ὁ τῶν Ἑρβιταίων δυναστεύων. Οὗτος μὲν οὖν περὶ

τὸν οἰκισμὸν τῆς Καλῆς Ἀκτῆς ἐγίνετο· Ἀκραγαντῖνοι δὲ, ἅμα μὲν

φθονοῦντες τοῖς Συρακοσίοις, ἅμα δ’ ἐγκαλοῦντες αὐτοῖς ὅτι

Δουκέτιον ὄντα κοινὸν πολέμιον ~διέσωσαν ἄνευ τῆς Ἀκραγαντίνων

γνώμης~, πόλεμον ἐξήνεγκαν τοῖς Συρακοσίοις.

But the return of this energetic enemy was not the only mischief

which the Syracusans suffered. Their resolution to spare Duketius

had been adopted without the concurrence of the Agrigentines, who

had helped to conquer him; and the latter, when they saw him again

in the island, and again formidable, were so indignant that they

declared war against Syracuse. A standing jealousy prevailed between

these two great cities, the first and second powers in Sicily. War

actually broke out between them, wherein other Greek cities took

part. After lasting some time, with various acts of hostility, and

especially a serious defeat of the Agrigentines at the river Himera,

these latter solicited and obtained peace.[178] The discord between

the two cities, however, had left leisure to Duketius to found the

city of Kalê Aktê, and to make some progress in reëstablishing his

ascendency over the Sikels, in which operation he was overtaken by

death. He probably left no successor to carry on his plans, so that

the Syracusans, pressing their attacks vigorously, reduced many of

the Sikel townships in the island, regaining his former conquest,

Morgantinê, and subduing even the strong position and town called

Trinakia,[179] after a brave and desperate resistance on the part of

the inhabitants.

[178] Diodor. xii, 8.

[179] Diodor. xii, 29. For the reconquest of Morgantinê, see

Thucyd. iv, 65.

Respecting this town of Trinakia, known only from the passage

of Diodorus here, Paulmier (as cited in Wesseling’s note), as

well as Mannert (Geographie der Griechen und Römer, b. x, ch.

xv, p. 446), intimate some skepticism; which I share so far as

to believe that Diodorus has greatly overrated its magnitude and

importance.

Nor can it be true, as Diodorus affirms, that Trinakia was _the

only_ Sikel township remaining unsubdued by the Syracusans, and

that, after conquering that place, they had subdued them all.

We know that there were no inconsiderable number of independent

Sikels, at the time of the Athenian invasion of Sicily (Thucyd.

vi, 88; vii, 2).

By this large accession both of subjects and of tribute, combined

with her recent victory over Agrigentum, Syracuse was elevated to

the height of power, and began to indulge schemes for extending

her ascendency throughout the island: with which view her horsemen

were doubled in number, and one hundred new triremes were

constructed.[180] Whether any, or what, steps were taken to realize

her designs our historian does not tell us. But the position of

Sicily remains the same at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war:

Syracuse, the first city as to power, indulging in ambitious dreams,

if not in ambitious aggressions; Agrigentum, a jealous second, and

almost a rival; the remaining Grecian states maintaining their

independence, yet not without mistrust and apprehension.

[180] Diodor. xii, 30.

Though the particular phenomena of this period, however, have not

come to our knowledge, we see enough to prove that it was one of

great prosperity for Sicily. The wealth, commerce, and public

monuments of Agrigentum, especially appear to have even surpassed

those of the Syracusans. Her trade with Carthage and the African

coast was both extensive and profitable; for at this time neither

the vine nor the olive were much cultivated in Libya, and the

Carthaginians derived their wine and oil from the southern territory

of Sicily,[181] particularly that of Agrigentum. The temples of the

city, among which that of Olympic Zeus stood foremost, were on the

grandest scale of magnificence, surpassing everything of the kind

in Sicily. The population of the city, free as well as slave, was

very great: the number of rich men keeping chariots and competing

for the prize at the Olympic games was renowned, not less than the

accumulation of works of art, statues and pictures,[182] with

manifold insignia of ornament and luxury. All this is particularly

brought to our notice because of the frightful catastrophe which

desolated Agrigentum in 406 B.C. from the hands of the Carthaginians.

It was in the interval which we are now describing that this

prosperity was accumulated; doubtless not in Agrigentum alone, but

more or less throughout all the Grecian cities of the island.

[181] Diodor. xiii, 81.

[182] Diodor. xiii. 82, 83, 90.

Nor was it only in material prosperity that they were distinguished.

At this time, the intellectual movement in some of the Italian and

Sicilian towns was very considerable. The inconsiderable town of Elea

in the gulf of Poseidonia nourished two of the greatest speculative

philosophers in Greece, Parmenidês and Zeno. Empedoklês of Agrigentum

was hardly less eminent in the same department, yet combining with

it a political and practical efficiency. The popular character of

the Sicilian governments stimulated the cultivation of rhetorical

studies, wherein not only Empedoklês and Pôlus at Agrigentum, but

Tisias and Korax at Syracuse, and still more, Gorgias at Leontini,

acquired great reputation.[183] The constitution established at

Agrigentum after the dispossession of the Theronian dynasty was at

first not thoroughly democratical, the principal authority residing

in a large Senate of One Thousand members. We are told even that an

ambitious club of citizens were aiming at the reëstablishment of

a despotism, when Empedoklês, availing himself of wealth and high

position, took the lead in a popular opposition; so as not only

to defeat this intrigue, but also to put down the Senate of One

Thousand, and render the government completely democratical. His

influence over the people was enhanced by the vein of mysticism, and

pretence to miraculous or divine endowments, which accompanied his

philosophical speculations, in a manner similar to Pythagoras.[184]

The same combination of rhetoric with physical speculation appears

also in Gorgias of Leontini, whose celebrity as a teacher throughout

Greece was both greater and earlier than that of any one else. It

was a similar demand for popular speaking in the assembly and the

judicatures which gave encouragement to the rhetorical teachers

Tisias and Korax at Syracuse.

[183] See Aristotle as cited by Cicero, Brut. c. 12; Plato,

Phædr. p. 267, c. 113, 114; Dionys. Halic. Judicium de Isocrate,

p. 534 R. and Epist. ii, ad Ammæum, p. 792; also Quintilian,

iii, 1, 125. According to Cicero (de Inventione, ii, 2), the

treatises of these ancient rhetoricians, “usque a principe illo

et inventore Tisiâ,” had been superseded by Aristotle, who had

collected them carefully, “nominatim,” and had improved upon

their expositions. Dionysius laments that they had been so

superseded (Epist. ad Ammæ. p. 722).

[184] Diogen. Laërt. viii, 64-71; Seyfert, Akragas und

sein Gebiet, sect. ii, p. 70; Ritter, Geschichte der Alten

Philosophie, vol. i. ch. vi, p. 533, _seqq._

In this state of material prosperity, popular politics, and

intellectual activity, the Sicilian towns were found at the breaking

out of the great struggle between Athens and the Peloponnesian

confederacy in 431 B.C. In that struggle the Italian and Sicilian

Greeks had no direct concern, nor anything to fear from the ambition

of Athens; who, though she had founded Thurii in 443 B.C., appears

to have never aimed at any political ascendency even over that town,

much less anywhere else on the coast. But the Sicilian Greeks, though

forming a system apart in their own island, from which it suited the

dominant policy of Syracuse to exclude all foreign interference,[185]

were yet connected, by sympathy, and on one side even by alliances,

with the two main streams of Hellenic politics. Among the allies

of Sparta were numbered all or most of the Dorian cities of

Sicily,—Syracuse, Kamarina, Gela, Agrigentum, Selinus, perhaps

Himera and Messênê,—together with Lokri and Tarentum in Italy: among

the allies of Athens, perhaps the Chalkidic or Ionic Rhegium in

Italy.[186] Whether the Ionic cities in Sicily—Naxos, Katana, and

Leontini—were at this time united with Athens by any special treaty,

is very doubtful. But if we examine the state of politics prior to

the breaking out of the war, it will be found that the connection of

the Sicilian cities on both sides with Central Greece was rather one

of sympathy and tendency than of pronounced obligation and action.

The Dorian Sicilians, though doubtless sharing the antipathy of the

Peloponnesian Dorians to Athens, had never been called upon for any

coöperation with Sparta; nor had the Ionic Sicilians yet learned

to look to Athens for protection against their powerful neighbor

Syracuse.

[185] Thucyd. iv. 61-64. This is the tenor of the speech

delivered by Hermokratês at the congress of Gela in the eighth

year of the Peloponnesian war. His language is remarkable: he

calls all non-Sicilian Greeks ἀλλοφύλους.

[186] The inscription in Boeckh’s Corpus Inscriptt. (No. 74,

part i, p. 112) relating to the alliance between Athens and

Rhegium, conveys little certain information. Boeckh refers it

to a covenant concluded in the archonship of Apseudês at Athens

(Olymp. 86, 4, B.C. 433-432, the year before the Peloponnesian

war), renewing an alliance which was even then of old date. But

it appears to me that the supposition of a renewal is only his

own conjecture; and even the name of the archon, _Apseudês_,

which he has restored by a plausible conjecture, can hardly be

considered as certain.

If we could believe the story in Justin iv, 3, Rhegium must have

ceased to be Ionic before the Peloponnesian war. He states,

that in a sedition at Rhegium, one of the parties called in

auxiliaries from Himera. These Himeræan exiles having first

destroyed the enemies against whom they were invoked, next

massacred the friends who had invoked them: “ausi facinus nulli

tyranno comparandum.” They married the Rhegine women, and seized

the city for themselves.

I do not know what to make of this story, which neither appears

noticed in Thucydidês, nor seems to consist with what he does

tell us.

It was the memorable quarrel between Corinth and Korkyra, and

the intervention of Athens in that quarrel (B.C. 433-432), which

brought the Sicilian parties one step nearer to coöperation in the

Peloponnesian quarrel, in two different ways; first, by exciting

the most violent anti-Athenian war spirit in Corinth, with whom

the Sicilian Dorians held their chief commerce and sympathy,—next,

by providing a basis for the action of Athenian maritime force in

Italy and Sicily, which would have been impracticable without an

established footing in Korkyra. But Plutarch—whom most historians

have followed—is mistaken, and is contradicted by Thucydidês, when

he ascribes to the Athenians at this time ambitious projects in

Sicily of the nature of those which they came to conceive seven

or eight years afterwards. At the outbreak, and for some years

before the outbreak, of the war, the policy of Athens was purely

conservative, and that of her enemies aggressive, as I have shown

in a former chapter. At that moment, Sparta and Corinth anticipated

large assistance from the Sicilian Dorians, in ships of war, in

money, and in provisions; while the value of Korkyra as an ally

of Athens consisted in affording facilities for obstructing such

reinforcements, far more than from any anticipated conquests.[187]

[187] Thucyd. i, 36.

In the spring of 431 B.C., the Spartans, then organizing their first

invasion of Attica, and full of hope that Athens would be crushed

in one or two campaigns, contemplated the building of a vast fleet

of five hundred ships of war among the confederacy. A considerable

portion of this charge was imposed upon the Italian and Sicilian

Dorians, and a contribution in money besides; with instructions to

refrain from any immediate declaration against Athens until their

fleet should be ready.[188] Of such expected succor, indeed, little

was ever realized in any way; in ships, nothing at all. But the

expectations and orders of Sparta, show that here as elsewhere

she was then on the offensive, and Athens only on the defensive.

Probably the Corinthians had encouraged the expectation of ample

reinforcements from Syracuse and the neighboring towns, a hope which

must have contributed largely to the confidence with which they

began the struggle. What were the causes which prevented it from

being realized, we are not distinctly told; and we find Hermokratês

the Syracusan reproaching his countrymen fifteen years afterwards,

immediately before the great Athenian expedition against Syracuse,

with their antecedent apathy.[189] But it is easy to see, that as the

Sicilian Greeks had no direct interest in the contest,—neither wrongs

to avenge, nor dangers to apprehend, from Athens,—nor any habit of

obeying requisitions from Sparta, so they might naturally content

themselves with expressions of sympathy and promises of aid in case

of need, without taxing themselves to the enormous extent which it

pleased Sparta to impose, for purposes both aggressive and purely

Peloponnesian. Perhaps the leading men in Syracuse, from attachment

to Corinth, may have sought to act upon the order. But no similar

motive would be found operative either at Agrigentum or at Gela or

Selinus.

[188] Thucyd. ii, 7. Καὶ Λακεδαιμονίοις μὲν, πρὸς ταῖς αὐτοῦ

ὑπαρχούσαις, ἐξ Ἰταλίας καὶ Σικελίας τοῖς τἀκείνων ἑλομένοις,

ναῦς ἐπετάχθησαν ποιεῖσθαι κατὰ μέγεθος τῶν πόλεων, ὡς ἐς τὸν

πάντα ἀριθμὸν πεντακοσίων νεῶν ἐσόμενον, etc.

Respecting the construction of this perplexing passage, read the

notes of Dr. Arnold, Poppo, and Göller: compare Poppo, ad Thucyd.

vol. i, ch. xv, p. 181.

I agree with Dr. Arnold and Göller in rejecting the construction

of αὐτοῦ with ἐξ Ἰταλίας καὶ Σικελίας, in the sense of “those

ships which were in Peloponnesus from Italy and Sicily.” This

would be untrue in point of fact, as they observe: there were no

Sicilian ships of war in Peloponnesus.

Nevertheless I think, differing from them, that αὐτοῦ is not

a pronoun referring to ἐξ Ἰταλίας καὶ Σικελίας, but is used

in contrast with those words, and really means, “in or about

Peloponnesus.” It was contemplated that new ships should be built

in Sicily and Italy, of sufficient number to make the total

fleet of the Lacedæmonian confederacy, including the triremes

already in Peloponnesus, equal to five hundred sail. But it

was never contemplated that the triremes in Italy and Sicily

_alone_ should amount to five hundred sail, as Dr. Arnold, in my

judgment, erroneously imagines. Five hundred sail for the entire

confederacy would be a prodigious total: five hundred sail for

Sicily and Italy alone, would be incredible.

To construe the sentence as it stands now, putting aside the

conjecture of νῆες instead of ναῦς, or ἐπετάχθη instead of

ἐπετάχθησαν, which would make it run smoothly, we must admit the

supposition of a break or double construction, such as sometimes

occurs in Thucydidês. The sentence begins with one form of

construction and concludes with another. We must suppose, with

Göller, that αἱ πόλεις understood as the nominative case to

ἐπετάχθησαν. The dative cases (Λακεδαιμονίοις—ἑλομένοις) are to

be considered, I apprehend, as governed by νῆες ἐπετάχθησαν: that

is, these dative cases belong to the first form of construction,

which Thucydidês has not carried out. The sentence is begun as if

νῆες ἐπετάχθησαν were intended to follow.

[189] Thucyd. vi, 34: compare iii, 86.

Though the order was not executed, however, there can be little

doubt that it was publicly announced and threatened, thus becoming

known to the Ionic cities in Sicily as well as to Athens; and that

it weighed materially in determining the latter afterwards to

assist those cities, when they sent to invoke her aid. Instead of

despatching their forces to Peloponnesus, where they had nothing

to gain, the Sicilian Dorians preferred attacking the Ionic cities

in their own island, whose territory they might have reasonable

hopes of conquering and appropriating,—Naxos, Katana, and Leontini.

These cities doubtless sympathized with Athens in her struggle

against Sparta; yet, far from being strong enough to assist her

or to threaten their Dorian neighbors, they were unable to defend

themselves without Athenian aid. They were assisted by the Dorian

city of Kamarina, which was afraid of her powerful border city

Syracuse, and by Rhegium in Italy; while Lokri in Italy, the bitter

enemy of Rhegium, sided with Syracuse against them. In the fifth

summer of the war, finding themselves blockaded by sea and confined

to their walls, they sent to Athens, both to entreat succor, as

allies[190] and Ionians, and to represent that, if Syracuse succeeded

in crushing them, she and the other Dorians in Sicily would forthwith

send over the positive aid which the Peloponnesians had so long been

invoking. The eminent rhetor Gorgias of Leontini, whose peculiar

style of speaking is said to have been new to the Athenian assembly,

and to have produced a powerful effect, was at the head of this

embassy. It is certain that this rhetor procured for himself numerous

pupils and large gains, not merely in Athens but in many other towns

of Central Greece,[191] though it is exaggeration to ascribe to his

pleading the success of the present application.

[190] Thucyd. vi, 86.

[191] Thucyd. iii, 86; Diodor. xii, 53; Plato, Hipp. Maj. p. 282,

B. It is remarkable that Thucydidês, though he is said, with much

probability, to have been among the pupils of Gorgias, makes no

mention of that rhetor personally as among the envoys. Diodorus

probably copied from Ephorus, the pupil of Isokratês. Among the

writers of the Isokratean school, the persons of distinguished

rhetors, and their supposed political efficiency, counted for

much more than in the estimation of Thucydidês. Pausanias (vi,

17, 3) speaks of Tisias also as having been among the envoys in

this celebrated legation.

Now the Athenians had a real interest as well in protecting these

Ionic Sicilians from being conquered by the Dorians in the island,

as in obstructing the transport of Sicilian corn to Peloponnesus:

and they sent twenty triremes under Lachês and Charœadês, with

instructions, while accomplishing these objects, to ascertain the

possibility of going beyond the defensive, and making conquests.

Taking station at Rhegium, Lachês did something towards rescuing

the Ionic cities in part from their maritime blockade, and even

undertook an abortive expedition against the Lipari isles, which

were in alliance with Syracuse.[192] Throughout the ensuing year,

he pressed the war in the neighborhood of Rhegium and Messênê, his

colleague Charœadês being slain. Attacking Mylæ in the Messenian

territory, he was fortunate enough to gain so decisive an advantage

over the troops of Messênê, that that city itself capitulated to him,

gave hostages, and enrolled itself as ally of Athens and the Ionic

cities.[193] He also contracted an alliance with the non-Hellenic

city of Egesta, in the northwest portion of Sicily, and he invaded

the territory of Lokri, capturing one of the country forts on the

river Halex:[194] after which, in a second debarkation, he defeated

a Lokrian detachment under Proxenus. But he was unsuccessful in an

expedition into the interior of Sicily against Inêssus. This was a

native Sikel township, held in coercion by a Syracusan garrison in

the acropolis; which the Athenians vainly attempted to storm, being

repulsed with loss.[195] Lachês concluded his operations in the

autumn by an ineffective incursion on the territory of Himera and on

the Lipari isles. On returning to Rhegium at the beginning of the

ensuing year (B.C. 425), he found Pythodôrus already arrived from

Athens to supersede him.[196]

[192] Thucyd. iii, 88; Diodor. xii, 54.

[193] Thucyd. iii, 90; vi, 6.

[194] Thucyd. iii, 99.

[195] Thucyd. iii, 103.

[196] Thucyd. iii, 115.

That officer had come as the forerunner of a more considerable

expedition, intended to arrive in the spring, under Eurymedon and

Sophoklês, who were to command in conjunction with himself. The Ionic

cities in Sicily, finding the squadron under Lachês insufficient to

render them a match for their enemies at sea, had been emboldened

to send a second embassy to Athens, with request for farther

reinforcements, at the same time making increased efforts to enlarge

their own naval force. It happened that at this moment the Athenians

had no special employment elsewhere for their fleet, which they

desired to keep in constant practice. They accordingly resolved to

send to Sicily forty additional triremes, in full hopes of bringing

the contest to a speedy close.[197]

[197] Thucyd. iii, 115.

Early in the ensuing spring, Eurymedon and Sophoklês started from

Athens for Sicily in command of this squadron, with instructions to

afford relief at Korkyra in their way, and with Demosthenês on board

to act on the coast of Peloponnesus. It was this fleet which, in

conjunction with the land-forces under the command of Kleon, making a

descent almost by accident on the Laconian coast at Pylos, achieved

for Athens the most signal success of the whole war, the capture

of the Lacedæmonian hoplites in Sphakteria.[198] But the fleet was

so long occupied, first in the blockade of that island, next in

operations at Korkyra, that it did not reach Sicily until about the

month of September.[199]

[198] See the preceding vol. vi, ch. lii.

[199] Thucyd. iv, 48.

Such delay, eminently advantageous for Athens generally, was fatal

to her hopes of success in Sicily during the whole summer. For

Pythodôrus, acting only with the fleet previously commanded by Lachês

at Rhegium, was not merely defeated in a descent upon Lokri, but

experienced a more irreparable loss by the revolt of Messênê, which

had surrendered to Lachês a few months before; and which, together

with Rhegium, had given to the Athenians the command of the strait.

Apprized of the coming Athenian fleet, the Syracusans were anxious to

deprive them of this important base of operations against the island;

and a fleet of twenty sail—half Syracusan, half Lokrian—was enabled

by the concurrence of a party in Messênê to seize the town. It would

appear that the Athenian fleet was then at Rhegium, but that town was

at the same time threatened by the entrance of the entire land-force

of Lokri, together with a body of Rhegine exiles: these latter were

even not without hopes of obtaining admission by means of a favorable

party in the town. Though such hopes were disappointed, yet the

diversion prevented all succor from Rhegium to Messênê. The latter

town now served as a harbor for the fleet hostile to Athens,[200]

which was speedily reinforced to more than thirty sail, and began

maritime operations forthwith, in hopes of crushing the Athenians

and capturing Rhegium, before Eurymedon should arrive. But the

Athenians, though they had only sixteen triremes together with eight

others from Rhegium, gained a decided victory, in an action brought

on accidentally for the possession of a merchantman sailing through

the strait. They put the enemy’s ships to flight, and drove them

to seek refuge, some under protection of the Syracusan land-force

at Cape Pelôrus near Messênê, others under the Lokrian force near

Rhegium, each as they best could, with the loss of one trireme.[201]

This defeat so broke up the scheme of Lokrian operations against

the latter place, that their land-force retired from the Rhegine

territory, while the whole defeated squadron was reunited on the

opposite coast under Cape Pelôrus. Here the ships were moored close

on shore under the protection of the land-force, when the Athenians

and Rhegines came up to attack them; but without success, and even

with the loss of one trireme, which the men on shore contrived to

seize and detain by a grappling-iron; her crew escaping by swimming

to the vessels of their comrades. Having repulsed the enemy, the

Syracusans got aboard, and rowed close along-shore, partly aided by

tow-ropes, to the harbor of Messênê, in which transit they were again

attacked, but the Athenians were a second time beaten off with the

loss of another ship. Their superior seamanship was of no avail in

this along-shore fighting.[202]

[200] Thucyd. iii, 115; iv, 1.

[201] Thucyd. iv, 24. Καὶ νικηθέντες ὑπὸ τῶν Ἀθηναίων διὰ τάχους

ἀπέπλευσαν, ὡς ἕκαστοι ἔτυχον, ἐς τὰ οἰκεῖα στρατόπεδα, τό τε ἐν

τῇ Μεσσήνῃ καὶ ἐν τῷ Ῥηγίῳ, μίαν ναῦν ἀπολέσαντες, etc.

I concur in Dr. Arnold’s explanation of this passage, yet

conceiving that the words ὡς ἕκαστοι ἔτυχον designate the flight

as disorderly, insomuch that _all_ the Lokrian ships did not get

back to the Lokrian station, nor _all_ the Syracusan ships to the

Syracusan station: but each separate ship fled to either one or

the other, as it best could.

[202] Thucyd. iv, 25. ἀποσιμωσάντων ἐκείνων καὶ προεμβαλόντων.

I do not distinctly understand the nautical movement which

is expressed by ἀποσιμωσάντων, in spite of the notes of the

commentators. And I cannot but doubt the correctness of Dr.

Arnold’s explanation, when he says “The Syracusans, on a sudden,

threw off their towing-ropes, made their way to the open sea by

a lateral movement, and thus became the assailants,” etc. The

open sea was what the Athenians required, in order to obtain the

benefit of their superior seamanship.

The Athenian fleet was now suddenly withdrawn in order to prevent an

intended movement in Kamarina, where a philo-Syracusan party under

Archias threatened revolt: and the Messenian forces, thus left free,

invaded the territory of their neighbor, the Chalkidic city of Naxos,

sending their fleet round to the mouth of the Akesinês near that

city. They were ravaging the lands, and were preparing to storm the

town, when a considerable body of the indigenous Sikels were seen

descending the neighboring hills to succor the Naxians: upon which

the latter, elate with the sight, and mistaking the new comers for

their Grecian brethren from Leontini, rushed out of the gates and

made a vigorous sally at a moment when their enemies were unprepared.

The Messenians were completely defeated, with the loss of no less

than one thousand men, and with a still greater loss sustained in

their retreat home from the pursuit of the Sikels. Their fleet

went back also to Messênê, from whence such of the ships as were

not Messenian returned home. So much was the city weakened by its

recent defeat, that a Lokrian garrison was sent for its protection

under Demomelês, while the Leontines and Naxians, together with

the Athenian squadron on returning from Kamarina, attacked it by

land and sea in this moment of distress. A well-timed sally of the

Messenians and Lokrians, however, dispersed the Leontine land-force;

but the Athenian force, landing from their ships, attacked the

assailants while in the disorder of pursuit, and drove them back

within the walls. The scheme against Messênê, however, had now

become impracticable, so that the Athenians crossed the strait to

Rhegium.[203]

[203] Thucyd. iv, 25.

Thus indecisive was the result of operations in Sicily, during the

first half of the seventh year of the Peloponnesian war: nor does it

appear that the Athenians undertook anything considerable during the

autumnal half, though the full fleet under Eurymedon had then joined

Pythodôrus.[204] 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. Hence the Sicilian Dorians, intimidated by a state of

affairs so different from that in which they had begun the war three

years before, were now eager to bring about a pacification in their

island.[205] The Dorian city of Kamarina, which had hitherto acted

along with the Ionic or Chalkidic cities, was the first to make a

separate accommodation with its neighboring city of Gela; at which

latter place deputies were invited to attend from all the cities in

the island, with a view to the conclusion of peace.[206]

[204] Thucyd. iv, 48.

[205] Compare a similar remark made by the Syracusan Hermokratês,

nine years afterwards, when the great Athenian expedition against

Syracuse was on its way, respecting the increased disposition

to union among the Sicilian cities, produced by common fear of

Athens (Thucyd. vi, 33).

[206] Thucyd. iv, 58.

This congress met in the spring of 424 B.C., when Syracuse, the most

powerful city in Sicily, took the lead in urging the common interest

which all had in the conclusion of peace. The Syracusan Hermokratês,

chief adviser of this policy in his native city, now appeared to

vindicate and enforce it in the congress. He was a well-born, brave,

and able man, clear-sighted in regard to the foreign interests of his

country; but at the same time of pronounced oligarchical sentiments,

mistrusted by the people, seemingly with good reason, in regard to

their internal constitution. The speech which Thucydidês places

in his mouth, on the present occasion, sets forth emphatically

the necessity of keeping Sicily at all cost free from foreign

intervention, and of settling at home all differences which might

arise between the various Sicilian cities. Hermokratês impressed upon

his hearers that the aggressive schemes of Athens, now the greatest

power in Greece, were directed against all Sicily, and threatened

all cities alike, Ionians not less than Dorians. If they enfeebled

one another by internal quarrels, and then invited the Athenians

as arbitrators, the result would be ruin and slavery to all. The

Athenians were but too ready to encroach everywhere, even without

invitation: they had now come, with a zeal outrunning all obligation,

under pretence of aiding the Chalkidic cities who had never aided

them, but in the real hope of achieving conquest for themselves. The

Chalkidic cities must not rely upon their Ionic kindred for security

against evil designs on the part of Athens: as Sicilians, they had a

paramount interest in upholding the independence of the island. If

possible, they ought to maintain undisturbed peace; but if that were

impossible, it was essential at least to confine the war to Sicily,

apart from any foreign intruders. Complaints should be exchanged,

and injuries redressed, by all, in a spirit of mutual forbearance;

of which Syracuse—the first city in the island, and best able to

sustain the brunt of war—was prepared to set the example, without

that foolish over-valuation of favorable chances so ruinous even to

first-rate powers, and with full sense of the uncertainty of the

future. Let them all feel that they were neighbors, inhabitants of

the same island, and called by the common name of Sikeliots; and

let them all with one accord repel the intrusion of aliens in their

affairs, whether as open assailants or as treacherous mediators.[207]

[207] See the speech of Hermokratês, Thucyd. iv, 59-64. One

expression in this speech indicates that it was composed by

Thucydidês many years after its proper date, subsequently to the

great expedition of the Athenians against Syracuse in 415 B.C.;

though I doubt not that Thucydidês collected the memoranda for it

at the time.

Hermokratês says: “The Athenians are now near us with _a few

ships_, lying in wait for our blunders,”—οἱ δύναμιν ἔχοντες

μεγίστην τῶν Ἑλλήνων τάς τε ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν τηροῦσιν, ~ὀλίγαις

ναυσὶ παρόντες~, etc. (iv, 60).

Now the fleet under the command of Eurymedon and his colleagues

at Rhegium included all or most of the ships which had acted

at Sphakteria and Korkyra, together with those which had been

previously at the strait of Messina under Pythodôrus. It could

not have been less than fifty sail, and may possibly have been

sixty sail. It is hardly conceivable that any Greek, speaking in

the early spring of 424 B.C., should have alluded to this as a

_small_ fleet: assuredly, Hermokratês would not thus allude to

it, since it was for the interest of his argument to exaggerate

rather than extenuate, the formidable manifestations of Athens.

But Thucydidês, composing the speech after the great Athenian

expedition of 415 B.C., so much more numerous and commanding

in every respect, might not unnaturally represent the fleet

of Eurymedon as “a few ships,” when he tacitly compared the

two. This is the only way that I know, of explaining such an

expression.

The Scholiast observes that some of the copies in his time

omitted the words ὀλίγαις ναυσὶ: probably they noticed the

contradiction which I have remarked; and the passage _may_

certainly be construed without those words.

This harangue from Hermokratês, and the earnest dispositions of

Syracuse for peace, found general sympathy among the Sicilian cities,

Ionic as well as Doric. All of them doubtless suffered by the war,

and the Ionic cities, who had solicited the intervention of the

Athenians as protectors against Syracuse, conceived from the evident

uneasiness of the latter a fair assurance of her pacific demeanor

for the future. Accordingly, the peace was accepted by all the

belligerent parties, each retaining what they possessed, except that

the Syracusans agreed to cede Morgantinê to Kamarina, on receipt of

a fixed sum of money.[208] The Ionic cities stipulated that Athens

should be included in the pacification; a condition agreed to by all,

except the Epizephyrian Lokrians.[209] They then acquainted Eurymedon

and his colleagues with the terms; inviting them to accede to the

pacification in the name of Athens, and then to withdraw their fleet

from Sicily. Nor had these generals any choice but to close with the

proposition. Athens thus was placed on terms of peace with all the

Sicilian cities, with liberty of access reciprocally to any single

ship of war, but no armed force to cross the sea between Sicily and

Peloponnesus. Eurymedon then sailed with his fleet home.[210]

[208] Thucyd. iv, 65. We learn from Polybius (Fragm. xii, 22,

23, one of the Excerpta recently published by Maii, from the

Cod. Vatic.) that Timæus had in his twenty-first book described

the congress of Gela at considerable length, and had composed an

elaborate speech for Hermokratês: which speech Polybius condemns,

as a piece of empty declamation.

[209] Thucyd. v, 5.

[210] Thucyd. vi, 13-52.

On reaching Athens, however, he and his colleagues were received

by the people with much displeasure. He himself was fined, and his

colleagues Sophoklês and Pythodôrus banished, on the charge of having

been bribed to quit Sicily, at a time when the fleet—so the Athenians

believed—was strong enough to have made important conquests. Why the

three colleagues were differently treated we are not informed.[211]

This sentence was harsh and unmerited; for it does not seem that

Eurymedon had it in his power to prevent the Ionic cities from

concluding peace, while it is certain that without them he could have

achieved nothing serious. All that seems unexplained in his conduct,

as recounted by Thucydidês, is, that his arrival at Rhegium with

the entire fleet in September, 425 B.C., does not seem to have been

attended with any increased vigor or success, in the prosecution

of the war. But the Athenians—besides an undue depreciation of

the Sicilian cities, which we shall find fatally misleading them

hereafter—were at this moment at the maximum of extravagant hopes,

counting upon new triumphs everywhere, impatient of disappointment,

and careless of proportion between the means intrusted to, and the

objects expected from, their commanders. Such unmeasured confidence

was painfully corrected in the course of a few months, by the battle

of Delium and the losses in Thrace. But at the present moment,

it was probably not less astonishing than grievous to the three

generals, who had all left Athens prior to the success in Sphakteria.

[211] Thucyd. iv, 65.

The Ionic cities in Sicily were soon made to feel that they had been

premature in sending away the Athenians. Dispute between Leontini

and Syracuse, the same cause which had occasioned the invocation

of Athens three years before, broke out afresh soon after the

pacification of Gela. The democratical government of Leontini came

to the resolution of strengthening their city by the enrolment of

many new citizens; and a redivision of the territorial property of

the state was projected in order to provide lots of land for these

new-comers. But the aristocracy of the town upon whom the necessity

would thus be imposed of parting with a portion of their lands,

forestalled the project, seemingly before it was even formally

decided, by entering into a treasonable correspondence with Syracuse,

bringing in a Syracusan army, and expelling the Demos.[212] While

these exiles found shelter as they could in other cities, the rich

Leontines deserted and dismantled their own city, transferred their

residence to Syracuse, and were enrolled as Syracusan citizens. To

them the operation was exceedingly profitable, since they became

masters of the properties of the exiled Demos in addition to their

own. Presently, however, some of them, dissatisfied with their

residence in Syracuse, returned to the abandoned city, and fitted up

a portion of it called Phokeis, together with a neighboring strong

post called Brikinnies. Here, after being joined by a considerable

number of the exiled Demos, they contrived to hold out for some

time against the efforts of the Syracusans to expel them from their

fortifications.

[212] Thucyd. v, 4. Λεοντῖνοι γὰρ, ἀπελθόντων Ἀθηναίων ἐκ

Σικελίας μετὰ τὴν ξύμβασιν, πολίτας τε ἐπεγράψαντο πολλοὺς, καὶ

ὁ δῆμος τὴν γῆν ἐπενόει ἀναδάσασθαι. Οἱ δὲ δυνατοὶ αἰσθόμενοι

Συρακοσίους τε ἐπάγονται καὶ ἐκβάλλουσι τὸν δῆμον. Καὶ οἱ μὲν

ἐπλανήθησαν ὡς ἕκαστοι, etc.

Upon this Dr. Arnold observes: “The principle on which this

ἀναδασμὸς γῆς was redemanded, was this; that every citizen was

entitled to his portion, κλῆρος, of the land of the state, and

that the admission of new citizens rendered a redivision of

the property of the state a matter at once of necessity and of

justice. It is not probable that in any case the actual κλῆροι

(properties) of the old citizens were required to be shared

with the new members of the state; but only, as at Rome, the

ager publicus, or land still remaining to the state itself,

and not apportioned out to individuals. This land, however,

being beneficially enjoyed by numbers of the old citizens,

either as common pasture, or as being farmed by different

individuals on very advantageous terms, a division of it among

the newly-admitted citizens, although not, strictly speaking,

a spoliation of private property, was yet a serious shock to

a great mass of existing interests, and was therefore always

regarded as a revolutionary measure.”

I transcribe this note of Dr. Arnold rather from its intrinsic

worth than from any belief that analogy of agrarian relations

existed between Rome and Leontini. The ager publicus at Rome was

the product of successive conquests from foreign enemies of the

city: there may, indeed, have been originally a similar ager

publicus in the peculiar domain of Rome itself, anterior to all

conquests; but this must at any rate have been very small, and

had probably been all absorbed and assigned in private property

before the agrarian disputes began.

We cannot suppose that the Leontines had any ager publicus

acquired by conquest, nor are we entitled to presume that they

had any at all, capable of being divided. Most probably the lots

for the new citizens were to be provided out of private property.

But unfortunately we are not told how, nor on what principles and

conditions. Of what class of men were the new emigrants? Were

they individuals altogether poor, having nothing but their hands

to work with; or did they bring with them any amount of funds,

to begin their settlement on the fertile and tempting plain of

Leontini? (compare Thucyd. i, 27, and Plato de Legib. v, p. 744,

A.) If the latter, we have no reason to imagine that they would

be allowed to acquire their new lots gratuitously. Existing

proprietors would be forced to sell at a fixed price, but not

to yield their properties without compensation. I have already

noticed, that to a small self-working proprietor, who had no

slaves, it was almost essential that his land should be near the

city; and provided this were insured, it might be a good bargain

for a new resident having some money, but no land elsewhere, to

come in and buy.

We have no means of answering these questions: but the few words

of Thucydidês do not present this measure as revolutionary, or

as intended against the rich, or for the benefit of the poor.

It was proposed, on public grounds, to strengthen the city by

the acquisition of new citizens. This might be wise policy,

in the close neighborhood of a doubtful and superior city,

like Syracuse; though we cannot judge of the policy of the

measure without knowing more. But most assuredly Mr. Mitford’s

representation can be noway justified from Thucydidês: “Time and

circumstances had greatly altered the state of property in all

the Sicilian commonwealths, since _that incomplete and iniquitous

partition of lands_, which had been made, on the general

establishment of democratical government, after the expulsion of

the family of Gelon. In other cities, the poor rested under their

lot; but in Leontini, they were warm in project _for a fresh and

equal partition_; and to strengthen themselves against the party

of the wealthy, they carried, in the general assembly, a decree

for associating a number of new citizens.” (Mitford, H. G. ch.

xviii, sect. ii, vol. iv, p. 23.)

I have already remarked, in a previous note, that Mr. Mitford

has misrepresented the redivision of lands which took place

after the expulsion of the Gelonian dynasty. That redivision had

not been upon the principle of equal lots: it is not therefore

correct to assert, as Mr. Mitford does, that the present

movement at Leontini arose from the innovation made by time and

circumstances in that equal division: as little is it correct to

say, that the poor at Leontini now desired “a fresh and equal

partition.” Thucydidês says _not one word about equal partition_.

He puts forward the enrolment of new citizens as the substantive

and primary resolution, actually taken by the Leontines; the

redivision of the lands, as a measure consequent and subsidiary

to this, and as yet existing only in project (ἐπενόει). Mr.

Mitford states the fresh and equal division to have been the real

object of desire, and the enrolment of new citizens to have been

proposed with a view to attain it. His representation is greatly

at variance with that of Thucydidês.

The new enrolment of citizens, projected by the Leontine democracy,

seems to date during the year succeeding the pacification of Gela,

and was probably intended to place the city in a more defensible

position in case of renewed attacks from Syracuse, thus compensating

for the departure of the Athenian auxiliaries. The Leontine Demos,

in exile and suffering, doubtless bitterly repenting that they had

concurred in dismissing these auxiliaries, sent envoys to Athens with

complaints, and renewed prayers for help.[213]

[213] Justin (iv, 4) surrounds the Sicilian envoys at Athens with

all the insignia of misery and humiliation, while addressing the

Athenian assembly: “Sordidâ veste, capillo barbâque promissis, et

omni squaloris habitu ad misericordiam commovendam conquisito,

concionem deformes adeunt.”

But Athens was then too much pressed to attend to their call; her

defeat at Delium and her losses in Thrace had been followed by

the truce for one year; and even during that truce, she had been

called upon for strenuous efforts in Thrace to check the progress

of Brasidas. After the expiration of that truce, she sent Phæax and

two colleagues to Sicily (B.C. 422) with the modest force of two

triremes. He was directed to try and organize an anti-Syracusan

party in the island, for the purpose of reëstablishing the Leontine

Demos. In passing along the coast of Italy, he concluded amicable

relations with some of the Grecian cities, especially with Lokri,

which had hitherto stood aloof from Athens; and his first addresses

in Sicily appeared to promise success. His representations of danger

from Syracusan ambition were well received both at Kamarina and

Agrigentum. For on the one hand, that universal terror of Athens,

which had dictated the pacification of Gela, had now disappeared;

while on the other hand, the proceeding of Syracuse in regard

to Leontini was well calculated to excite alarm. We see by that

proceeding that sympathy between democracies in different towns was

not universal: the Syracusan democracy had joined with the Leontine

aristocracy to expel the Demos, just as the despot Gelon had combined

with the aristocracy of Megara and Eubœa, sixty years before, and

had sold the Demos of those towns into slavery. The birthplace of

the famous rhetor Gorgias was struck out of the list of inhabited

cities; its temples were deserted; and its territory had become

a part of Syracuse. All these were circumstances so powerfully

affecting Grecian imagination, that the Kamarinæans, neighbors of

Syracuse on the other side, might well fear lest the like unjust

conquest, expulsion, and absorption, should soon overtake them.

Agrigentum, though without any similar fear, was disposed from

policy, and jealousy of Syracuse, to second the views of Phæax. But

when the latter proceeded to Gela, in order to procure the adhesion

of that city in addition to the other two, he found himself met by

so resolute an opposition that his whole scheme was frustrated, nor

did he think it advisable even to open his case at Selinus or Himera.

In returning, he crossed the interior of the island through the

territory of the Sikels to Katana, passing in his way by Brikinnies,

where the Leontine Demos were still maintaining a precarious

existence. Having encouraged them to hold out by assurances of aid,

he proceeded on his homeward voyage. In the strait of Messina, he

struck upon some vessels conveying a body of expelled Lokrians from

Messênê to Lokri. The Lokrians had got possession of Messênê after

the pacification of Gela, by means of an internal sedition; but

after holding it some time, they were now driven out by a second

revolution. Phæax, being under agreement with Lokri, passed by these

vessels without any act of hostility.[214]

[214] Thucyd. v, 4, 5.

The Leontine exiles at Brikinnies, however, received no benefit from

his assurances, and appear soon afterwards to have been completely

expelled. Nevertheless, Athens was noway disposed, for a considerable

time, to operations in Sicily. A few months after the visit of

Phæax to that island, came the Peace of Nikias: the consequences

of that peace occupied her whole attention in Peloponnesus, while

the ambition of Alkibiadês carried her on for three years in

intra-Peloponnesian projects and coöperation with Argos against

Sparta. It was only in the year 417 B.C., when these projects

had proved abortive, that she had leisure to turn her attention

elsewhere. During that year, Nikias had contemplated an expedition

against Amphipolis in conjunction with Perdikkas, whose desertion

frustrated the scheme. The year 416 B.C. was that in which Mêlos was

besieged and taken.

Meanwhile the Syracusans had cleared and appropriated all the

territory of Leontini, which city now existed only in the talk

and hopes of its exiles. Of these latter a portion seem to have

continued at Athens, pressing their entreaties for aid, which began

to obtain some attention about the year 417 B.C., when another

incident happened to strengthen their chance of success. A quarrel

broke out between the neighboring cities of Selinus (Hellenic) and

Egesta (non-Hellenic) in the western corner of Sicily; partly about

a piece of land on the river which divided the two territories,

partly about some alleged wrong in cases of internuptial connection.

The Selinuntines, not satisfied with their own strength, obtained

assistance from the Syracusans their allies, and thus reduced

Egesta to considerable straits by land as well as by sea.[215] Now

the Egestæans had allied themselves with Lachês ten years before,

during the first expedition sent by the Athenians to Sicily; upon

the strength of which alliance they sent to Athens, to solicit her

intervention for their defence, after having in vain applied both

to Agrigentum and to Carthage. It may seem singular that Carthage

did not at this time readily embrace the pretext for interference,

considering that, ten years afterwards, she interfered with such

destructive effect against Selinus. At this time, however, the fear

of Athens and her formidable navy appears to have been felt even at

Carthage,[216] thus protecting the Sicilian Greeks against the most

dangerous of their neighbors.

[215] Thucyd. vi, 6; Diodor. xii, 82. The statement of

Diodorus—that the Egestæans applied not merely to Agrigentum

but also to Syracuse—is highly improbable. The war which he

mentions as having taken place some years before between Egesta

and Lilybæum (xi, 86) in 454 B.C., may probably have been a war

between Egesta and Selinus.

[216] Thucyd. vi, 34.

The Egestæan envoys reached Athens in the spring of 416 B.C.,

at a time when the Athenians had no immediate project to occupy

their thoughts, except the enterprise against Mêlos, which could

not be either long or doubtful. Though urgent in setting forth

the necessities of their position, they at the same time did not

appear, like the Leontines, as mere helpless suppliants, addressing

themselves to Athenian compassion. They rested their appeal chiefly

on grounds of policy. The Syracusans, having already extinguished

one ally of Athens (Leontini), were now hard pressing upon a second

(Egesta), and would thus successively subdue them all: as soon as

this was completed, there would be nothing left in Sicily except an

omnipotent Dorian combination, allied to Peloponnesus both by race

and descent, and sure to lend effective aid in putting down Athens

herself. It was therefore essential for Athens to forestall this

coming danger by interfering forthwith to uphold her remaining allies

against the encroachments of Syracuse. If she would send a naval

expedition adequate to the rescue of Egesta, the Egestæans themselves

engaged to provide ample funds for the prosecution of the war.[217]

[217] Thucyd. vi, 6; Diodor. xii, 83.

Such representations from the envoys, and fears of Syracusan

aggrandizement as a source of strength to Peloponnesus, worked along

with the prayers of the Leontines in rekindling the appetite of

Athens for extending her power in Sicily. The impression made upon

the Athenian public, favorable from the first, was wound up to a

still higher pitch by renewed discussion. The envoys were repeatedly

heard in the public assembly,[218] together with those citizens who

supported their propositions. At the head of these was Alkibiadês,

who aspired to the command of the intended expedition, tempting alike

to his love of glory, of adventure, and of personal gain. But it is

plain from these renewed discussions that at first the disposition of

the people was by no means decided, much less unanimous, and that a

considerable party sustained Nikias in a prudential opposition. Even

at last, the resolution adopted was not one of positive consent, but

a mean term such as perhaps Nikias himself could not resist. Special

envoys were despatched to Egesta, partly to ascertain the means of

the town to fulfil its assurance of defraying the costs of war,

partly to make investigations on the spot and report upon the general

state of affairs.

[218] Thucyd. vi, 6. ὧν ἀκούοντες οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις

τῶν τε Ἐγεσταίων ~πολλάκις λεγόντων~ καὶ τῶν ξυναγορευόντων

αὐτοῖς ἐψηφίσαντο, etc.

Mr. Mitford takes no notice of all these previous debates, when

he imputes to the Athenians hurry and passion in the ultimate

decision (ch. xviii. sect. ii, vol. iv, p. 30.)

Perhaps the commissioners despatched were men themselves friendly

to the enterprise; nor is it impossible that some of them may

have been individually bribed by the Egestæans; at least such a

supposition is not forbidden by the average state of Athenian public

morality. But the most honest or even suspicious men could hardly

be prepared for the deep-laid stratagems put in practice to delude

them, on their arrival at Egesta. They were conducted to the rich

temple of Aphroditê on Mount Eryx, where the plate and donatives

were exhibited before them; abundant in number, and striking

to the eye, yet composed mostly of silver-gilt vessels, which,

though falsely passed off as solid gold, were in reality of little

pecuniary value. Moreover, the Egestæan citizens were profuse in

their hospitalities and entertainments both to the commissioners and

to the crews of the triremes.[219] They collected together all the

gold and silver vessels, dishes, and goblets, of Egesta, which they

farther enlarged by borrowing additional ornaments of the same kind

from the neighboring cities, Hellenic as well as Carthaginian. At

each successive entertainment, every Egestæan host exhibited all

this large stock of plate as his own property, the same stock being

transferred from house to house for the occasion. A false appearance

was thus created, of the large number of wealthy men in Egesta; and

the Athenian seamen, while their hearts were won by the caresses,

saw with amazement this prodigious display of gold and silver, and

were thoroughly duped by the fraud.[220] To complete the illusion, by

resting it on a basis of reality and prompt payment, sixty talents

of uncoined silver were at once produced as ready for the operations

of war. With this sum in hand, the Athenian commissioners, after

finishing their examination, and the Egestæan envoys also, returned

to Athens, which they reached in the spring of 415 B.C.,[221] about

three months after the capture of Mêlos.

[219] Thucyd. vi, 46. ἰδίᾳ ξενίσεις ποιούμενοι τῶν τριηριτῶν, τά

τε ἐξ αὐτῆς Ἐγέστης ἐκπώματα καὶ χρυσᾶ καὶ ἀργυρᾶ ξυλλέξαντες,

καὶ τὰ ἐκ τῶν ἐγγὺς πόλεων καὶ Φοινικικῶν καὶ Ἑλληνίδων

αἰτησάμενοι, ἐσέφερον ἐς τὰς ἑστιάσεις ὡς οἰκεῖα ἕκαστοι. Καὶ

πάντων ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ τοῖς αὐτοῖς χρωμένων, καὶ πανταχοῦ πολλῶν

φαινομένων, μεγάλην τὴν ἔκπληξιν τοῖς ἐκ τῶν τριήρων Ἀθηναίοις

παρεῖχον, etc.

Such loans of gold and silver plate betoken a remarkable degree

of intimacy among the different cities.

[220] Thucyd. vi, 46; Diodor. xii, 83.

[221] To this winter or spring, perhaps, we may refer the

representation of the lost comedy Τριφάλης of Aristophanês.

Iberians were alluded to in it, to be introduced by Aristarchus;

seemingly, Iberian mercenaries, who were among the auxiliaries

talked of at this time by Alkibiadês and the other prominent

advisers of the expedition, as a means of conquest in Sicily

(Thucyd. vi, 90). The word Τριφάλης was a nickname (not difficult

to understand) applied to Alkibiadês, who was just now at the

height of his importance, and therefore likely enough to be

chosen as the butt of a comedy. See the few fragments remaining

of the Τριφάλης, in Meineke, Fragm. Comic. Gr. vol. ii, pp.

1162-1167.

The Athenian assembly being presently convened to hear their report,

the deluded commissioners drew a magnificent picture of the wealth,

public and private, which they had actually seen and touched at

Egesta, and presented the sixty talents—one month’s pay for a fleet

of sixty triremes—as a small instalment out of the vast stock

remaining behind. While they thus officially certified the capacity

of the Egestæans to perform their promise of defraying the cost

of the war, the seamen of their trireme, addressing the assembly

in their character of citizens,—beyond all suspicion of being

bribed,—overflowing with sympathy for the town in which they had

just been so cordially welcomed, and full of wonder at the display

of wealth which they had witnessed, would probably contribute still

more effectually to kindle the sympathies of their countrymen.

Accordingly, when the Egestæan envoys again renewed their petitions

and representations, confidently appealing to the scrutiny which

they had undergone,—when the distress of the suppliant Leontines was

again depicted,—the Athenian assembly no longer delayed coming to a

final decision. They determined to send forthwith sixty triremes to

Sicily, under three generals with full powers,—Nikias, Alkibiadês,

and Lamachus; for the purpose, first, of relieving Egesta; next,

as soon as that primary object should have been accomplished, of

reëstablishing the city of Leontini; lastly, of furthering the

views of Athens in Sicily, by any other means which they might find

practicable.[222] Such resolution being passed, a fresh assembly was

appointed for the fifth day following, to settle the details.

[222] Thucyd. vi, 8; Diodor. xii, 83.

We cannot doubt that this assembly, in which the reports from Egesta

were first delivered, was one of unqualified triumph to Alkibiadês

and those who had from the first advocated the expedition, as well as

of embarrassment and humiliation to Nikias, who had opposed it. He

was probably more astonished than any one else at the statements of

the commissioners and seamen, because he did not believe in the point

which they went to establish. Yet he could not venture to contradict

eye-witnesses speaking in evident good faith, and as the assembly

went heartily along with them, he labored under great difficulty

in repeating his objections to a scheme now so much strengthened

in public favor. Accordingly, his speech was probably hesitating

and ineffective; the more so, as his opponents, far from wishing

to make good any personal triumph against himself, were forward

in proposing his name first on the list of generals, in spite of

his own declared repugnance.[223] But when the assembly broke up,

he became fearfully impressed with the perilous resolution which

it had adopted, and at the same time conscious that he had not

done justice to his own case against it. He therefore resolved to

avail himself of the next assembly, four days afterwards, for the

purpose of reopening the debate, and again denouncing the intended

expedition. Properly speaking, the Athenians might have declined to

hear him on this subject; indeed, the question which he raised could

not be put without illegality: the principle of the measure had been

already determined, and it remained only to arrange the details, for

which special purpose the coming assembly had been appointed. But he

was heard, and with perfect patience; and his harangue, a valuable

sample, both of the man and of the time, is set forth at length by

Thucydidês. I give here the chief points of it, not confining myself

to the exact expressions.

[223] Thucyd. vi, 8. Ὁ δὲ Νικίας, ἀκούσιος μὲν ᾑρημένος ἄρχειν,

etc. The reading ἀκούσιος appears better sustained by MSS.,

and intrinsically more suitable, than ἀκούσας, which latter

word probably arose from the correction of some reader who was

surprised that Nikias made in the second assembly a speech

which properly belonged to the first, and who explained this by

supposing that Nikias had not been present at the first assembly.

That he was not present, however, is highly improbable. The

matter, nevertheless, does require some explanation; and I have

endeavored to supply one in the text.

“Though we are met to-day, Athenians, to settle the particulars

of the expedition already pronounced against Sicily, yet I think

we ought to take farther counsel whether it be well to send that

expedition at all; nor ought we thus hastily to plunge, at the

instance of aliens, into a dangerous war noway belonging to us. To

myself personally, indeed, your resolution has offered an honorable

appointment, and for my own bodily danger I care as little as any

man: yet no considerations of personal dignity have ever before

prevented me, nor shall now prevent me, from giving you my honest

opinion, however it may clash with your habitual judgments. I tell

you, then, that in your desire to go to Sicily, you leave many

enemies here behind you, and that you will bring upon yourselves new

enemies from thence to help them. Perhaps you fancy that your truce

with Sparta is an adequate protection. In name, indeed (though only

in name, thanks to the intrigues of parties both here and there),

that truce may stand, so long as your power remains unimpaired; but

on your first serious reverses, the enemy will eagerly take the

opportunity of assailing you. Some of your most powerful enemies

have never even accepted the truce; and if you divide your force

as you now propose, they will probably set upon you at once along

with the Sicilians, whom they would have been too happy to procure

as coöperating allies at the beginning of the war. Recollect that

your Chalkidian subjects in Thrace are still in revolt, and have

never yet been conquered: other continental subjects, too, are not

much to be trusted; and you are going to redress injuries offered

to Egesta, before you have yet thought of redressing your own. Now

your conquests in Thrace, if you make any, can be maintained; but

Sicily is so distant, and the people so powerful, that you will

never be able to maintain permanent ascendency; and it is absurd

to undertake an expedition wherein conquest cannot be permanent,

while failure will be destructive. The Egestæans alarm you by the

prospect of Syracusan aggrandizement. But to me it seems that the

Sicilian Greeks, even if they become subjects of Syracuse, will be

less dangerous to you than they are at present: for as matters stand

now, they might possibly send aid to Peloponnesus, from desire on the

part of each to gain the favor of Lacedæmon, but imperial Syracuse

would have no motive to endanger her own empire for the purpose of

putting down yours. You are now full of confidence, because you have

come out of the war better than you at first feared. 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.”

Nikias then continued, doubtless turning towards Alkibiadês: “If any

man, delighted to be named to the command, though still too young

for it, exhorts you to this expedition in his own selfish interests,

looking to admiration for his ostentation in chariot-racing, and to

profit from his command, as a means of making good his extravagances,

do not let such a man gain celebrity for himself at the hazard of the

entire city. Be persuaded that such persons are alike unprincipled in

regard to the public property and wasteful as to their own, and that

this matter is too serious for the rash counsels of youth. I tremble

when I see before me this band sitting, by previous concert, close

to their leader in the assembly; and I in my turn exhort the elderly

men, who are near them, not to be shamed out of their opposition by

the fear of being called cowards. Let them leave to these men the

ruinous appetite for what is not within reach, in the conviction that

few plans ever succeed from passionate desire; many, from deliberate

foresight. Let them vote against the expedition; maintaining

undisturbed our present relations with the Sicilian cities, and

desiring the Egestæans to close the war against Selinus, as they

have begun it, without the aid of Athens.[224] Nor be thou afraid,

prytanis (Mr. President), to submit this momentous question again to

the decision of the assembly, seeing that breach of the law, in the

presence of so many witnesses, cannot expose thee to impeachment,

while thou wilt afford opportunity for the correction of a perilous

misjudgment.”

[224] Thucyd. vi, 9-14. Καὶ σὺ, ὦ πρύτανι, ταῦτα, εἴπερ ἡγεῖ

σοι προσήκειν κήδεσθαί τε τῆς πόλεως, καὶ βούλει γενέσθαι

πολίτης ἀγαθός, ἐπιψήφιζε, καὶ γνώμας προτίθει αὖθις Ἀθηναίοις,

νομίσας, εἰ ὀῤῥωδεῖς τὸ ἀναψηφίσαι, τὸ μὲν λύειν τοὺς νόμους

μὴ μετὰ τοσῶνδ’ ἂν μαρτύρων αἰτίαν σχεῖν, τῆς δὲ πόλεως κακῶς

βουλευσαμένης ἰατρὸς ἂν γενέσθαι, etc.

I cannot concur in the remarks of Dr. Arnold, either on this

passage or upon the parallel case of the renewed debate in

the Athenian assembly, on the subject of the punishment to be

inflicted on the Mitylenæans (see above, vol. vi, ch. 1, p. 338,

and Thucyd. iii, 36). It appears to me that Nikias was here

asking the prytanis to do an illegal act, which might well expose

him to accusation and punishment. Probably he _would_ have been

accused on this ground, if the decision of the second assembly

had been different from what it actually turned out; if they had

reversed the decision of the former assembly, but only by a small

majority.

The distinction taken by Dr. Arnold between what was _illegal_

and what was merely _irregular_, was little marked at Athens:

both were called _illegal_, τοὺς νόμους λύειν. The rules which

the Athenian assembly, a sovereign assembly, laid down for its

own debates and decisions, were just as much _laws_ as those

which it passed for the guidance of private citizens. The English

House of Commons is not a sovereign assembly, but only a portion

of the sovereign power: accordingly, the rules which it lays down

for its debates are not _laws_, but orders of the House: a breach

of these orders, therefore, in debating any particular subject,

would not be illegal, but merely irregular or informal. The same

was the case with the French Chamber of Deputies, prior to the

revolution of February, 1848: the rules which it laid down for

its own proceedings were not laws, but simply _le réglement de la

Chambre_. It is remarkable that the present National Assembly now

sitting (March, 1849) has retained this expression, and adopted

a _réglement_ for its own business; though it is in point of

fact a sovereign assembly, and the rules which it sanctions are,

properly speaking, _laws_.

Both in this case, and in the Mitylenæan debate, I think the

Athenian prytanis committed an illegality. In the first case,

every one is glad of the illegality, because it proved the

salvation of so many Mitylenæan lives. In the second case,

the illegality was productive of practical bad consequences,

inasmuch as it seems to have brought about the immense extension

of the scale upon which the expedition was projected. But there

will occur in a few years a third incident, the condemnation

of the six generals after the battle of Arginusæ, in which the

prodigious importance of a strict observance of forms will appear

painfully and conspicuously manifest.

Such were the principal points in the speech of Nikias on this

memorable occasion. It was heard with attention, and probably made

some impression, since it completely reopened the entire debate, in

spite of the formal illegality. Immediately after he sat down, while

his words were yet fresh in the ears of the audience, Alkibiadês rose

to reply. The speech just made, bringing the expedition again into

question, endangered his dearest hopes both of fame and of pecuniary

acquisition; for his dreams went farther than those of any man in

Athens; not merely to the conquest of all Sicily, but also to that

of Carthage and the Carthaginian empire. Opposed to Nikias, both in

personal character and in political tendencies, he had pushed his

rivalry to such a degree of bitterness that at one moment a vote

of ostracism had been on the point of deciding between them. That

vote had indeed been turned aside by joint consent, and discharged

upon Hyperbolus; yet the hostile feeling still continued on both

sides, and Nikias had just manifested it by a parliamentary attack

of the most galling character; all the more galling because it was

strictly accurate and well deserved. Provoked as well as alarmed,

Alkibiadês started up forthwith, his impatience breaking loose from

the formalities of an exordium.

“Athenians, I both have better title than others to the post of

commander,—for the taunts of Nikias force me to begin here,—and I

count myself fully worthy of it. Those very matters with which he

reproaches me are sources not merely of glory to my ancestors and

myself, but of positive advantage to my country. For the Greeks,

on witnessing my splendid theôry at Olympia, were induced to rate

the power of Athens even above the reality, having before regarded

it as broken down by the war; when I sent into the lists seven

chariots, being more than any private individual had ever sent

before, winning the first prize, coming in also second and fourth,

and performing all the accessories in a manner suitable to an Olympic

victory. Custom attaches honor to such exploits, but the power of

the performers is at the same time brought home to the feelings of

spectators. 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. Just as, when we are in distress, we find no one to

speak to us, in like manner let a man lay his account to bear the

insolence of the prosperous, or else let him give equal dealing to

the low, and then claim to receive it from the high. I know well

that such exalted personages, and all who have in any way attained

eminence, have been during their lifetime unpopular, chiefly in

society with their equals, and to a certain extent with others

also; while after their decease, they have left such a reputation

as to make people claim kindred with them falsely, and to induce

their country to boast of them, not as though they were aliens or

wrongdoers, but as her own citizens and as men who did her honor. It

is this glory which I desire, and in pursuit of which I incur such

reproaches for my private conduct. Yet look at my public conduct,

and see whether it will not bear comparison with that of any other

citizen. 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.”

“Thus did my youth, and my so-called monstrous folly, find suitable

words to address the Peloponnesian powers, and earnestness to give

them confidence and obtain their coöperation. Be not now, therefore,

afraid of this youth of mine: but so long an I possess it in full

vigor, and so long as Nikias retains his reputation for good fortune,

turn us each to account in our own way.”[225]

[225] Thucyd. vi, 16, 17.

Having thus vindicated himself personally, Alkibiadês went on to

deprecate any change of the public resolution already taken. The

Sicilian cities, he said, were not so formidable as was represented.

Their population was numerous, indeed, but fluctuating, turbulent,

often on the move, and without local attachment. No man there

considered himself as a permanent resident, nor cared to defend the

city in which he dwelt; nor were there arms or organization for such

a purpose. The native Sikels, detesting Syracuse, would willingly

lend their aid to her assailants. As to the Peloponnesians, powerful

as they were, they were not more desperate enemies now than they had

been in former days:[226] they might invade Attica by land whether

the Athenians sailed to Sicily or not; but they could do no mischief

by sea, for Athens would still have in reserve a navy sufficient

to restrain them. What valid ground was there, therefore, to evade

performing obligations which Athens had sworn to her Sicilian allies?

To be sure, _they_ could bring no help to Attica in return; but

Athens did not want them on her own side of the water; she wanted

them in Sicily, to prevent her Sicilian enemies from coming over to

attack her. She had originally acquired her empire by a readiness

to interfere wherever she was invited; nor would she have made any

progress, if she had been backward or prudish in scrutinizing such

invitations. She could not now set limits to the extent of her

imperial sway; she was under a necessity not merely to retain her

present subjects, but to lay snares for new subjects, on pain of

falling into dependence herself if she ceased to be imperial. Let

her then persist in the resolution adopted, and strike terror into

the Peloponnesians by undertaking this great expedition. She would

probably conquer all Sicily; at least she would humble Syracuse: in

case even of failure, she could always bring back her troops, from

her unquestionable superiority at sea. The stationary and inactive

policy recommended by Nikias was not less at variance with the

temper, than with the position, of Athens, and would be ruinous to

her if pursued. Her military organization would decline, and her

energies would be wasted in internal rub and conflict, instead of

that steady activity and acquisition which had become engrafted upon

her laws and habits, which could not be now renounced, even if bad in

itself, without speedy destruction.[227]

[226] Thucyd. vi, 17. Καὶ νῦν οὔτε ἀνέλπιστοί πω μᾶλλον

Πελοποννήσιοι ἐς ἡμᾶς ἐγένοντο, εἴτε καὶ πάνυ ἔῤῥωνται, etc.

The construction of ἀνέλπιστοι here is not certain: yet I cannot

think that the meaning which Dr. Arnold and others assign to it

is the most suitable. It rather seems to mean the same as in vii,

4, and vii, 47: “enemies beyond our hopes of being able to deal

with.”

[227] Thucyd. vi, 16-19.

Such was substantially the reply of Alkibiadês to Nikias. The debate

was now completely reopened, so that several speakers addressed the

assembly on both sides; more, however, decidedly in favor of the

expedition than against it. The alarmed Egestæans and Leontines

renewed their supplications, appealing to the plighted faith of the

city: probably also those Athenians who had visited Egesta, again

stood forward to protest against what they would call the ungenerous

doubts and insinuations of Nikias. By all these appeals, after

considerable debate, the assembly was so powerfully moved, that

their determination to send the fleet became more intense than ever;

and Nikias, perceiving that farther direct opposition was useless,

altered his tactics. He now attempted a manœuvre, designed indirectly

to disgust his countrymen with the plan, by enlarging upon its

dangers and difficulties, and insisting upon a prodigious force as

indispensable to surmount them. Nor was he without hopes that they

might be sufficiently disheartened by such prospective hardships,

to throw up the scheme altogether. At any rate, if they persisted,

he himself as commander would thus be enabled to execute it with

completeness and confidence.

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. The fleet indeed must

be prodigiously great, for the purpose not merely of maritime

combat, but of keeping open communication at sea, and insuring the

importation of subsistence. But there must besides be a large force

of hoplites, bowmen, and slingers, a large stock of provisions in

transports, and, above all an abundant amount of money: for the funds

promised by the Egestæans would be found mere empty delusion. The

army must be not simply a match for the enemy’s regular hoplites and

powerful cavalry, but also independent of foreign aid from the first

day of their landing.[228] If not, in case of the least reverse, they

would find everywhere nothing but active enemies, without a single

friend. “I know (he concluded) that there are many dangers against

which we must take precaution, and many more in which we must trust

to good fortune, serious as it is for mere men to do so. But I choose

to leave as little as possible in the power of fortune, and to have

in hand all means of reasonable security at the time when I leave

Athens. Looking merely to the interests of the commonwealth, this is

the most assured course; while to us who are to form the armament, it

is indispensable for preservation. If any man thinks differently, I

resign to him the command.”[229]

[228] Thucyd. vi, 22.

[229] Thucyd. vi, 23. ὅπερ ἐγὼ φοβούμενος, καὶ εἰδὼς πολλὰ

μὲν ἡμᾶς δέον βουλεύσασθαι, ἔτι δὲ πλείω εὐτυχῆσαι (~χαλεπὸν

δὲ ἀνθρώπους ὄντας~), ὅτι ἐλάχιστα τῇ τύχῃ παραδοὺς ἐμαυτὸν

βούλομαι ἐκπλεῖν, παρασκευῇ δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν εἰκότων ἀσφαλὴς ἐκπλεῦσαι.

Ταῦτα γὰρ τῇ τε ξυμπάσῃ πόλει βεβαιότατα ἡγοῦμαι, καὶ ἡμῖν τοῖς

στρατευσομένοις σωτήρια· εἰ δέ τῳ ἄλλως δοκεῖ, παρίημι αὐτῷ τὴν

ἀρχήν.

The effect of this second speech of Nikias on the assembly, coming

as it did after a long and contentious debate, was much greater

than that which had been produced by his first. But it was an

effect totally opposite to that which he himself had anticipated

and intended. Far from being discouraged or alienated from the

expedition by those impediments which he had studiously magnified,

the people only attached themselves to it with yet greater obstinacy.

The difficulties which stood in the way of Sicilian conquest served

but to endear it to them the more, calling forth increased ardor

and eagerness for personal exertion in the cause. The people not

only accepted, without hesitation or deduction, the estimate which

Nikias had laid before them of risk and cost, but warmly extolled

his frankness not less than his sagacity, as the only means of making

success certain. They were ready to grant without reserve everything

which he asked, with an enthusiasm and unanimity such as was rarely

seen to reign in an Athenian assembly. In fact, the second speech of

Nikias had brought the two dissentient veins of the assembly into

a confluence and harmony, all the more welcome because unexpected.

While his partisans seconded it as the best way of neutralizing the

popular madness, his opponents—Alkibiadês, the Egestæans, and the

Leontines—caught at it with acclamation, as realizing more than

they had hoped for, and more than they could ever have ventured to

propose. If Alkibiadês had demanded an armament on so vast a scale,

the people would have turned a deaf ear. But such was their respect

for Nikias—on the united grounds of prudence, good fortune, piety,

and favor with the gods—that his opposition to their favorite scheme

had really made them uneasy; and when he made the same demand, they

were delighted to purchase his concurrence by adopting all such

conditions as he imposed.[230]

[230] Plutarch. Compare Nikias and Crassus, c. 3.

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. So overpowering

was the popular voice in calling for the execution of the scheme,

that the small minority who retained their objections were afraid

to hold up their hands, for fear of incurring the suspicion of want

of patriotism. When the excitement had somewhat subsided, an orator

named Demostratus, coming forward as spokesman of this sentiment,

urged Nikias to declare at once, without farther evasion, what force

he required from the people. Disappointed as Nikias was, yet being

left without any alternative, he sadly responded to the appeal;

saying, that he would take farther counsel with his colleagues,

but that speaking on his first impression, he thought the triremes

required must be not less than one hundred, nor the hoplites less

than five thousand, Athenians and allies together. There must farther

be a proportional equipment of other forces and accompaniments,

especially Kretan bowmen and slingers. Enormous as this requisition

was, the vote of the people not only sanctioned it without delay, but

even went beyond it. They conferred upon the generals full power to

fix both the numbers of the armament and every other matter relating

to the expedition, just as they might think best for the interest of

Athens.

Pursuant to this momentous resolution, the enrolment and preparation

of the forces was immediately begun. Messages were sent to summon

sufficient triremes from the nautical allies, as well as to invite

hoplites from Argos and Mantineia, and to hire bowmen and slingers

elsewhere. For three months, the generals were busily engaged in this

proceeding, while the city was in a state of alertness and bustle,

fatally interrupted, however, by an incident which I shall recount in

the next chapter.

Considering the prodigious consequences which turned on the

expedition of Athens against Sicily, it is worth while to bestow

a few reflections on the preliminary proceedings of the Athenian

people. Those who are accustomed to impute all the misfortunes of

Athens to the hurry, passion, and ignorance of democracy, will not

find the charge borne out by the facts which we have been just

considering. The supplications of Egestæans and Leontines, forwarded

to Athens about the spring or summer of 416 B.C., undergo careful and

repeated discussion in the public assembly. They at first meet with

considerable opposition, but the repeated debates gradually kindle

both the sympathies and the ambition of the people. Still, however,

no decisive step is taken without more ample and correct information

from the spot, and special commissioners are sent to Egesta for

the purpose. These men bring back a decisive report, triumphantly

certifying all that the Egestæans had promised: nor can we at all

wonder that the people never suspected the deep-laid fraud whereby

their commissioners had been duped.

Upon the result of that mission to Egesta, the two parties for and

against the projected expedition had evidently joined issue; and

when the commissioners returned, bearing testimony so decisive in

favor of the former, the party thus strengthened thought itself

warranted in calling for a decision immediately, after all the

previous debates. Nevertheless, the measure still had to surmount the

renewed and hearty opposition of Nikias, before it became finally

ratified. It was this long and frequent debate, with opposition often

repeated but always outreasoned, which working gradually deeper and

deeper conviction in the minds of the people, brought them all into

hearty unanimity to support it, and made them cling to it with that

tenacity which the coming chapters will demonstrate. In so far as the

expedition was an error, it certainly was not error arising either

from hurry, or want of discussion, or want of inquiry. Never in

Grecian history was any measure more carefully weighed beforehand, or

more deliberately and unanimously resolved.

The position of Nikias in reference to the measure is remarkable. As

a dissuasive and warning counsellor, he took a right view of it; but

in that capacity he could not carry the people along with him. Yet

such was their steady esteem for him personally, and their reluctance

to proceed in the enterprise without him, that they eagerly embraced

any conditions which he thought proper to impose. And the conditions

which he named had the effect of exaggerating the enterprise into

such gigantic magnitude as no one in Athens had ever contemplated;

thus casting into it so prodigious a proportion of the blood of

Athens, that its discomfiture would be equivalent to the ruin of the

commonwealth. This was the first mischief occasioned by Nikias, when,

after being forced to relinquish his direct opposition, he resorted

to the indirect manœuvre of demanding more than he thought the people

would be willing to grant. It will be found only the first among a

sad series of other mistakes, fatal to his country as well as to

himself.

Giving to Nikias, however, for the present, full credit for the

wisdom of his dissuasive counsel and his skepticism about the

reports from Egesta, we cannot but notice the opposite quality in

Alkibiadês. His speech is not merely full of overweening insolence,

as a manifestation of individual character, but of rash and ruinous

instigations in regard to the foreign policy of his country. The

arguments whereby he enforces the expedition against Syracuse are

indeed more mischievous in their tendency than the expedition

itself, for the failure of which Alkibiades is not to be held

responsible. It might have succeeded in its special object, had

it been properly conducted; but even if it had succeeded, the

remark of Nikias is not the less just, that Athens was aiming at

an unmeasured breadth of empire, which it would be altogether

impossible for her to preserve. 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. Even granting the necessity

for Athens to employ her military and naval force, as Nikias had

truly observed, Amphipolis and the revolted subjects in Thrace were

still unsubdued; and the first employment of Athenian force ought

to be directed against them, instead of being wasted in distant

hazards and treacherous novelties, creating for Athens a position

in which she could never permanently maintain herself. The parallel

which Alkibiadês draws, between the enterprising spirit whereby

the Athenian empire had been first acquired, and the undefined

speculations which he was himself recommending, is altogether

fallacious. The Athenian empire took its rise from Athenian

enterprise, working in concert with a serious alarm and necessity

on the part of all the Grecian cities in or round the Ægean sea.

Athens rendered an essential service by keeping off the Persians, and

preserving that sea in a better condition than it had ever been in

before: her empire had begun by being a voluntary confederacy, and

had only passed by degrees into constraint; while the local situation

of all her subjects was sufficiently near to be within the reach of

her controlling navy. Her new career of aggression in Sicily, was

in all these respects different. Nor is it less surprising to find

Alkibiadês asserting that the multiplication of subjects in that

distant island, employing a large portion of the Athenian naval force

to watch them, would impart new stability to the preëxisting Athenian

empire; to read the terms in which he makes light of enemies both in

Peloponnesus and in Sicily, the Sicilian war being a new enterprise

hardly less in magnitude and hazard than the Peloponnesian,[231] and

to notice the credit which he claims to himself for his operations

in Peloponnesus and the battle of Mantineia,[232] although it had

ended in complete failure; restoring the ascendency of Sparta to the

maximum at which it had stood before the events of Sphakteria! There

is in fact no speech in Thucydidês so replete with rash misguiding,

and fallacious counsels, as this harangue of Alkibiadês.

[231] Thucyd. vi, 1. οὐ πολλῷ τινι ὑποδεέστερον πόλεμον, etc.:

compare vii, 28.

[232] Compare Plutarch, Præcept. Reipubl. Gerend. p. 804.

As a man of action, Alkibiadês was always brave, vigorous, and

full of resource; as a politician and adviser, he was especially

mischievous to his country, because he addressed himself exactly to

their weak point, and exaggerated their sanguine and enterprising

temper into a temerity which overlooked all permanent calculation.

The Athenians had now contracted the belief that they, as lords of

the sea, were entitled to dominion and receipt of tribute from all

islands; a belief which they had not only acted upon, but openly

professed, in their attack upon Mêlos during the preceding autumn.

As Sicily was an island, it seemed to fall naturally under this

category of subjects; nor ought we to wonder, amidst the inaccurate

geographical data current in that day, that they were ignorant how

much larger Sicily was[233] than the largest island in the Ægean.

Yet they seem to have been aware that it was a prodigious conquest

to struggle for; as we may judge from the fact, that the object was

one kept back rather than openly avowed, and that they acceded to

all the immense preparations demanded by Nikias.[234] Moreover, we

shall see presently, that even the armament which was despatched had

conceived nothing beyond vague and hesitating ideas of something

great to be achieved in Sicily. But if the Athenian public were rash

and ignorant, in contemplating the conquest of Sicily, much more

extravagant were the views of Alkibiadês, who looked even beyond

Sicily to the conquest of Carthage and her empire. Nor was it merely

ambition which he desired to gratify; he was not less eager for the

immense private gains which would be consequent upon success, in

order to supply those deficiencies which his profligate expenditure

had occasioned.[235]

[233] Thucyd. v, 99; vi, 1-6.

[234] Thucyd. vi, 6. ἐφιέμενοι μὲν τῇ ἀληθεστάτῃ προφάσει, τῆς

πάσης (Σικελίας) ἄρξειν, βοηθεῖν δὲ ἅμα εὐπρεπῶς βουλόμενοι τοῖς

ἑαυτῶν ξυγγένεσι καὶ τοῖς προσγεγενημένοις ξυμμάχοις.

Even in the speech of Alkibiadês, the conquest of Sicily is only

once alluded to, and that indirectly; rather as a favorable

possibility, than as a result to be counted upon.

[235] Thucyd. vi, 15. Καὶ μάλιστα στρατηγῆσαί τε ἐπιθυμῶν καὶ

ἐλπίζων Σικελίαν τε δι’ αὐτοῦ καὶ Καρχηδόνα λήψεσθαι, καὶ τὰ ἴδια

ἅμα εὐτυχήσας χρήμασί τε καὶ δόξῃ ὠφελήσειν. Ὢν γὰρ ἐν ἀξιώματι

ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀστῶν, ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις μείζοσιν ἢ κατὰ τὴν ὑπάρχουσαν

οὐσίαν ἐχρῆτο ἔς τε τὰς ἱπποτροφίας καὶ τὰς ἄλλας δαπάνας, etc.

Compare vi, 90. Plutarch (Alkib. c. 19; Nikias, c. 12). Plutarch

sometimes speaks as if, not Alkibiadês alone (or at least in

conjunction with a few partisans), but the Athenians generally,

set out with an expectation of conquering Carthage as well as

Sicily. In the speech which Alkibiadês made at Sparta after his

banishment (Thucyd. vi, 90), he does indeed state this as the

general purpose of the expedition. But it seems plain that he

is here describing, to his countrymen generally, plans which

were only fermenting in his own brain, as we may discern from a

careful perusal of the first twenty chapters of the sixth book of

Thucydidês.

In the inaccurate Oratio de Pace ascribed to Andokidês (sect.

30), it is alleged that the Syracusans sent an embassy to Athens,

a little before this expedition, entreating to be admitted as

allies of the Athenians, and affirming that Syracuse would be

a more valuable ally to Athens than Egesta or Katana. This

statement is wholly untrue.

When we recollect how loudly the charges have been preferred against

Kleon, of presumption, of rash policy, and of selfish motive, in

reference to Sphakteria, to the prosecution of the war generally, and

to Amphipolis; and when we compare these proceedings with the conduct

of Alkibiadês as here described, we shall see how much more forcibly

such charges attach to the latter than the former. It will be seen

before this volume is finished, that the vices of Alkibiadês, and the

defects of Nikias, were the cause of far greater ruin to Athens than

either Kleon or Hyperbolus, even if we regard the two latter with the

eyes of their worst enemies.