‘Cold art thou, little one, cheek and brow,
Ah me, ah me! but I love thee now.’
WE must now take the reader away from Greece, and ask him to turn his
thoughts for a little while to Sicily. If an example were wanted of the
effect of intestine quarrel, we need only point to Sicily at the time at
which our story has arrived. That land, so fertile and so beautiful that
a Holy Roman Emperor, who knew both countries, once irreverently
declared that the Almighty would not have chosen Palestine for His
peculiar people if He had first seen Sicily,—this island, which, more
than any other, gives us a vision of those happy isles to which the
heroes of the past were said to go,—this beautiful island, like many
another fair spot on earth, was torn by its dissensions.
There were the Siculi, the early, if not the original, inhabitants, and
some small Phœnikian settlements, besides colonies from Ionian and
Dorian Greece. Syrakuse, originally a colony from Korinth, became the
leading city, and being so, began to dominate the others, and especially
to trouble those which had been founded by the other portion of the
Grecian race. Early in the Peloponnesian War the people of Leontini, to
the north of Syrakuse, who were of Ionic origin, had called upon the
Athenians for aid. For no reason apparently but the lust of plunder the
Syrakusans had despoiled their city. The Leontines were old allies of
Athens, and she was bound in honour to do all she could in their
support. At that time all she could do was not much. But in the year 427
Laches was sent with a squadron of twenty ships, and he and his
successors in command succeeded in reducing the power of Syrakuse so far
that a peace was made, which left the Leontines and other peoples, whose
liberties had been in like manner threatened, independent of their more
powerful neighbour.
The Athenians having retired, and the usual contest breaking out between
democrats and oligarchs within the walls of Leontini more fiercely than
before, the Syrakusans took advantage of the opportunity, and finally
laid waste the city and drove the citizens into exile. The Leontines
again appealed to Athens, but for some time without success. Athens was
then too much taken up with her own immediate enemies. But although it
had long been felt by the more patriotic of the Athenians, by all those
who felt strongly for the honour of their country, that a wrong was
being suffered by their old allies and kinsmen in Sicily at the hands of
the descendants of their Korinthian rivals, it was some time before any
practical steps could be taken to comply with the prayer of the
outcasts.
But, in 416, a deputation from Egesta, an ancient colony said to have
been founded by Philoktetes in the North-West of Sicily, which had made
a treaty of alliance with Laches ten years before, came to seek
assistance. They poured out the story of the wrongs they were suffering
from the people of Selinous before the Senate and the Ekklesia, appealed
to the treaty that had been made with them by Laches, and declared, if
they were not aided soon, these enemies of theirs and the Syrakusans
would crush them utterly, as the Syrakusans had crushed the Leontines,
and would become together masters of the whole of Sicily.
They were seconded in their prayers by the exiles from Leontini, who
were still in Athens, and who had never ceased to urge their petition
for redress on the Athenians. The Egestæans not only asked for help, but
undertook to help themselves, and promised to defray a large part of
whatever expense their allies might be put to in assisting them.
The Athenians before deciding sent ambassadors to Egesta to find out
whether their suppliants were able to do, in their own defence, what
their envoys had promised. The ambassadors returned to Athens early in
April, 415, and assured the people of the wealth of Sicily in general,
and particularly of the city of Egesta.
Athens again was up in arms. This time it was not to repel invasion of
the Spartans, or to assist allies in the Peloponnesos; it was to decide
upon an armed voyage of discovery to a land of fabulous resources. Of
those resources they could form some notion from that which the
ambassadors reported they had seen at Egesta. ‘Why, even in that remote
town the temples shone with gold, with silver shrines and precious
vessels.’ The ambassadors, and even the sailors, were served at every
banquet on plates of gold and silver wonderfully wrought. They told how,
on leaving Egesta, ingots of fine silver had been put on board their
trireme—here the ingots were borne into the Ekklesia—of value to
maintain a fleet of sixty triremes for a month. And in that month what
might not be done? Something like the wild enthusiasm which led the
English in Elizabethan times to sail for Eldorado seized on the
Athenians. Little was heard in the gymnasia but the glory of this quest;
and the old men talked of the wealth and the material support which the
conquest of Sicily would bring them in their contest with hostile
Grecian states, and of the advantage of Syrakuse as a strategic base,
whence, at will, they could issue forth to spread their empire in Italy,
in Africa, in all the world.
Never had enterprise been supported by more general consent; and from
the first Alkibiades had been the life and soul of it. But just before
this time a silent grief, such as he had never known before, had fallen
upon him, and for a time had checked his ardour. Not that it had blinded
him to the advantages which the undertaking might, if well carried out,
bring to Athens, or stayed his efforts for his country’s good; but it
had sobered him, it was so new to him. It made him pause and wonder if
the objects of his high ambition, when obtained, and the fulfilment of
his hopes, when realized, would be worth so very much.
On his return from Argos, somewhat saddened by the failure of his treaty
with that state through the defeat at Mantineia, he had found more
happiness in the quiet converse with his wife than he had felt before.
He was getting older; some of the pleasures of his earlier years had
lost their interest. She, too, needed consolation. Ephialtes, their
first-born, their only child, had died while her husband was away at
Argos. On his return she clung to him with a stronger love than ever. He
was touched by the tenderness, the forbearance, she had shown to him in
his wanderings, his frolics, his dissipation. He felt now, come what
might from enemies rising up around him, and whether all his hopes were
realized or not, there was one at home to comfort him and receive him as
a hero.
This short time that he could give to her was certainly the calmest,
perhaps not the least happy, he had throughout the remnant of his
troubled life. But he could not stay long with her. His private affairs
obliged him to go off to Ephesos at the opening of the spring.
In his newly-built and wonderfully-constructed trireme, the _Eros_, the
most sumptuous ship yet built for any Greek, with its great eyes peering
from the bows, and the image of the boy-god, from whom it took its name,
carved cunningly upon the stern, with the bows and arrows of that deity
wrought among wreaths and festoons of roses all along the sides, he
sailed for Ephesos.
A fair wind filled the purple sails, which had figures of the god of
love worked in silver on them, and bore him like a conqueror to the port
of Ephesos. And like a conqueror the Ephesians received the greatest man
of Athens, the victor at the pan-Hellenic games. He forgot the rebuff
his hopes had met at Mantineia while he spent his pleasant time in that
splendid town, and having done his business there, in like manner he
returned to Athens. His friend Polytion was looking out for him. He put
off to meet the _Eros_ as soon as the well-known purple sails were seen
approaching in the east.
There was an effort of cheerfulness about Polytion as he came on board.
Yet no—yes, there was no doubt something was wrong.
‘What is it, man? Speak! say at once! No good trying to hide it. Quick!
Tell me, is all well?’
‘No, Alkibiades, all is not well. Your wife——’
‘Not dead, ye gods? Not dead?’
‘Yes, Alkibiades, and she has left a son.’
The purple sails had fallen as they neared the harbour. He would have
fallen, too, but his friend caught him, and held him for a time. This
friend, the riotous companion of so many bouts and frolics, this
careless dog, good for a night’s convivial merriment, was overcome at
the sight of such grief as he had never seen before.
Alkibiades went home in silence. He desired to be alone.
Amykla met him at the door. Cries of grief came to him across the
courtyard, where the fountain splashed as ever, the white peacocks, his
especial pride, sunning themselves around its basin, and the notes of
lamentation sounded through the house.
The women were about her room mourning and crying their wailing ‘Aiai!’
of lament. He sternly put them out.
There he stayed alone with her he had left, so short a time before, full
of love and fond caresses, and hopes that she would soon bring him a son
to bear his name and carry on the noblest house in Greece for ever.
There she lay, pale and still, with a faint smile upon her face, as
though knowing she had done her duty, though she had died in doing it.
We fear we have dwelt too long over this mere private matter, and kept
the reader waiting for Sicilian affairs, which are, indeed, important,
and the turning-point in the history of Athens. For some time he mourned
as he thought of his past life—the neglect, more than neglect, with
which he had so often treated her; the suffering she had endured in
silence; her gentleness, devotion, and forgiveness—but he kept his grief
shut up within him. It was his business to direct his countrymen, and
never was there such an opportunity.
An Assembly was held towards the end of April, to consider finally the
Sicilian question. The people were almost unanimous for a warlike
expedition. Few dare say anything against it. Nikias, fearful and
doubting as usual, whispered his fears. His supporters were afraid to
run counter to the people. They dreaded lest their hesitation might be
put down to cowardice, or to a mean desire to escape the burden of
furnishing their proper portion of the fleet. Everybody expected Nikias
would oppose whatever Alkibiades proposed, so they paid the less
attention to his sad forebodings, as they raised their voices in
approbation of the motion that sixty triremes should be at once got
ready. Then they elected the generals. Nikias, Lamachos, and Alkibiades
were chosen.
This was the first time he had been elected to such high duties. Before
this, as strategos, he had been twice sent with a small force into the
Peloponnesos, once with twenty triremes to the relief of Argos. He had
often gone on embassies, but hitherto he had been thought too young to
share the command of such an armament as this.
Another Assembly was summoned to meet in a few days, to pass measures
for the due equipment of the fleet, and to provide the necessary funds,
so that whatever the newly-appointed generals might ask for should be at
their disposal. This Assembly was even more crowded than the first, and
all were silent when Nikias appeared before them in the Tribune.
The people expected the demands about to be made upon them would be
large; they were prepared to meet them. To everyone’s astonishment
Nikias began his speech, not by encouraging them to put all their hearts
into the work they had decided to undertake, and to give those to whose
care they had entrusted the Athenian future a liberal support, but by an
urgent protest against the expedition altogether. He entreated them,
with tears in his eyes and tears in his voice, to reconsider their
decision and recall their vote.
This was a course unprecedented in the annals of the state, and against
an express law, which made it penal to reopen a matter which had been
discussed, and upon which a vote had been already given. He admitted
this. It was a proof of the respect in which they held his character
that they heard him patiently. It was a signal proof of the dignity with
which they clothed their debates in the national Assembly that they
listened to him without interruption.
He used the well-known arguments against the dangers of a war, and
especially one so far away from home, and dwelt upon the greater wisdom
of strengthening the empire that they had already than of seeking to
extend it.
‘I have no selfish motive in objecting to the war. War has ever been my
field of honour. By that won I my distinctions. My whole life is a proof
that I fear not for myself—I fear only for my country and its worthy
citizens. Those I consider to be worthy citizens who know how first to
value their own estate and protect it from ruinous expenditure.’ Then
turning towards his young fellow-general: ‘If anyone, elated by being
but just now made a strategos of an enormously important expedition,
before a fitting age has given him due experience and wisdom, would urge
you onward to this fatal enterprise, it is because he thinks to shine in
all the pomp of war and make a show with his fine equipage and prancing
horses, and turn the dignity of general into a fit occasion—ye gods! a
fit occasion—to indulge his luxury and grandeur. Oh, men of Athens, let
not such a one imperil the safety—nay, the very existence—of us all that
he may make himself conspicuous. Remember, there are citizens who could
not only dissipate their private fortunes upon fine studs of horses and
such-like frivolities, but afterwards make shipwreck of the state. I
tremble when I see a band of rash young men before me, sitting close
together, near their leader, and I exhort the older men not to be
frightened from their opposition to this crazy work by fear of hearing
the epithet of cowards applied to them.’
No other would have dared to speak at that time in such a way of the
leader and favourite of the people, or thus to oppose the general
desire. The people not only let him speak, but allowed the whole
question of the expedition to be reopened. Several spoke in favour of
the war, a few against it. At length Alkibiades ascended the tribune. He
felt the speech of Nikias had made an impression upon many. Not only was
the war he had so much at heart, together with his generalship, at
stake; a personal attack, as everybody knew, had been made upon him. It
had been suggested that he was ruining his patrimony. This was, indeed,
a serious charge, for, were it proved, it would, by the law of Athens,
disable him from holding any public office.
He began by answering, in perfect taste, the attack of Nikias. He
apologized for speaking of himself at all. He regretted, he said, that
he had been forced to do so by the ungenerous treatment he had met with
at the hands of his brother-general, his elder colleague.
‘As to my prodigality and the prancing steeds you have just now heard so
much about, for whose honour and at whose expense were those horses bred
and taken to the pan-Hellenic meeting? If I did spend something of my
patrimonial estate in rearing them, was it not for Athens that I did it?
And if with them I won the greatest prize in Greece, it was that you,
not I alone, might reap the glory. I only bore the charges. And if I
have many times equipped great triremes for the state at larger cost
than some other citizens are wont to undertake, was it not for Athens
that I did it? If I have put finer choruses upon the stage, and
furnished forth my public functions with greater splendour, it was that
you and strangers from all over Greece might see and hear them, and that
they might bring the greater praise, not to myself, but to my country.
‘If you have shown me honour now in choosing me strategos, and the
colleague of such a well-known general as Nikias, it is not for any
merit of my own, but for the glory reflected on me by my ancestors. You
have not forgotten all my great-grandfather Kleisthenes did for the
democracy of Athens when he expelled the tyrants and oligarchs, and’
(turning to Nikias) ‘all who favoured them; nor have you forgotten my
grandfather Alkibiades; nor my dear father Kleinias, who taught me by
his life and actions to spare nothing of my own in your defence, who
lived for the people, who died for Athens. Why need I speak of Perikles,
my cousin and my tutor, whose memory is fresh in the minds of every one
of you? It is as the scion of such a steadfast race that ye have
honoured me, not for myself; and may the gods grant that in this
expedition I prove worthy of that race and of your choice.’
He went on to speak of the envy small minds feel at another’s rise. He
touched on what, during his comparatively short career, he had been able
to accomplish—the league of the Peloponnesian states against their chief
enemy, the strengthening of the ports of Patrai and Argos.
‘If in my youth, and even at the very height of those great follies you
have just now heard about, I have been able to do somewhat for the
state, what may I not do, when opportunity presents itself, in the time
of my maturer, my more sober years? At any rate, you have joined with me
one of whom none can say that he is likely to offend by too great
temerity.’
He then answered the taunt of Nikias as to his youth, and the
mischievous attempt of his colleague to stir up the old against the
young.
‘Above all things, never let this wicked policy of setting old and young
at variance turn you from your purpose. But, as in the good old days our
forefathers, old and young together, by their united counsels and their
united efforts, brought Athens to its present greatness, so do you now
endeavour to make her prosper.’
Then he went through the various questions practically. He showed how
many of the Greek colonies in Sicily, even the Dorian colonies, would
come over to them on their first success. He ridiculed the exaggerated
report of the strength of Syrakuse by sea and land, and laughed at the
fears Nikias had confessed that the Spartans might take advantage of the
absence of the Athenian fleet.
‘Why, we shall leave behind us a larger fleet than that of all the other
Grecian people put together.’
Then he appealed to the generosity of his hearers, and to their love of
honourable dealing, not to break the oath of allegiance they had sworn
to weaker states, who were relying on them and praying for their aid.
‘How have we made this empire of ours, which all men wonder at, but by
assisting our allies, whether Grecian or barbarian, when called upon? If
now, when our aid is sought, we stay at home in idle negligence, we
shall but stay to see that empire crumbling bit by bit away. Not thus
did our great ancestors build up the state. They anticipated attacks and
stopped them. They waited not for them to come.’
This oration, which we can but so imperfectly turn from its strong
original into our modern tongue, electrified the people. There was no
longer any doubt about the expedition. Even Nikias professed himself
convinced. Yet he played an unworthy part. He attempted, by a weak
device, to accomplish that by trick which he had failed to do by
argument.
Nikias spoke again, and demanded exorbitant preparations of men, ships,
and commissariat, hoping by this means to damp the ardour of those who
would have to provide these things. It had the contrary effect.
Demokrates exposed the artifice, and called on the strategos to declare
in precise terms what and how much he wanted. The people ratified their
vote, gave Nikias all he asked for—more than was necessary—and left it
to the generals to judge what force they thought would be sufficient.
Through this underhand and unsuccessful scheme Nikias struck the first
blow against the fortune of the Sicilian expedition. In attempting to
stop it he made it assume a greater size than was originally intended.
As in the case of the invading force of Xerxes against Greece, its
unwieldy proportions became an element of weakness.
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