Such was the end of the Sicilian Expedition, which ultimately decided
the issue of the Peloponnesian War. Forsaking the wise counsels of
their greatest statesman, and carried away by the mad sophistry of
Alcibiades, the Athenians had committed themselves, heart and soul, to
a wild game of hazard, in which they had little to win, and everything
to lose. By this act of desperate folly they brought on themselves an
overwhelming disaster, from which it was impossible for them wholly to
recover. With wonderful vitality they rallied from the blow, and
struggled on for nine years more, against the whole power of
Peloponnesus, and their own revolted allies, backed by the influence
and the gold of Persia. They gained great victories, and under prudent
leaders they might still have been saved from the worst consequences of
their defeat in Sicily. But at every favourable crisis they wantonly
flung away the advantage they had gained, and abandoned themselves to
blind guides, who led them further and further on the road to ruin.
The history of Thucydides ends abruptly in the twenty-first year of the
war, and for an account of the closing scenes we have to go to the
pages of Xenophon. It will be convenient, therefore, to bring our
narrative to a close at the point which we have reached, for any
attempt even to sketch the events of this confused and troubled period
would carry us far beyond the limits of the present volume. And so for
the present we take leave of the Athenians, in the hour of their
decline. Their light is burning dim, and yet darker days are awaiting
them in the future. But they are still great and illustrious, as the
chief guardians of those spiritual treasures which are our choicest
heritage from the past.