History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗
- Author: Thucydides
- Performer: -
Book online «History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗». Author Thucydides
and Crataemenes from Cuma and Chalcis respectively. It first had the
name of Zancle given it by the Sicels, because the place is shaped
like a sickle, which the Sicels call zanclon; but upon the original
settlers being afterwards expelled by some Samians and other Ionians
who landed in Sicily flying from the Medes, and the Samians in their
turn not long afterwards by Anaxilas, tyrant of Rhegium, the town
was by him colonized with a mixed population, and its name changed
to Messina, after his old country.
Himera was founded from Zancle by Euclides, Simus, and Sacon, most
of those who went to the colony being Chalcidians; though they were
joined by some exiles from Syracuse, defeated in a civil war, called
the Myletidae. The language was a mixture of Chalcidian and Doric, but
the institutions which prevailed were the Chalcidian. Acrae and
Casmenae were founded by the Syracusans; Acrae seventy years after
Syracuse, Casmenae nearly twenty after Acrae. Camarina was first
founded by the Syracusans, close upon a hundred and thirty-five
years after the building of Syracuse; its founders being Daxon and
Menecolus. But the Camarinaeans being expelled by arms by the
Syracusans for having revolted, Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela, some time
later receiving their land in ransom for some Syracusan prisoners,
resettled Camarina, himself acting as its founder. Lastly, it was
again depopulated by Gelo, and settled once more for the third time by
the Geloans.
Such is the list of the peoples, Hellenic and barbarian,
inhabiting Sicily, and such the magnitude of the island which the
Athenians were now bent upon invading; being ambitious in real truth
of conquering the whole, although they had also the specious design of
succouring their kindred and other allies in the island. But they were
especially incited by envoys from Egesta, who had come to Athens and
invoked their aid more urgently than ever. The Egestaeans had gone
to war with their neighbours the Selinuntines upon questions of
marriage and disputed territory, and the Selinuntines had procured the
alliance of the Syracusans, and pressed Egesta hard by land and sea.
The Egestaeans now reminded the Athenians of the alliance made in
the time of Laches, during the former Leontine war, and begged them to
send a fleet to their aid, and among a number of other
considerations urged as a capital argument that if the Syracusans were
allowed to go unpunished for their depopulation of Leontini, to ruin
the allies still left to Athens in Sicily, and to get the whole
power of the island into their hands, there would be a danger of their
one day coming with a large force, as Dorians, to the aid of their
Dorian brethren, and as colonists, to the aid of the Peloponnesians
who had sent them out, and joining these in pulling down the
Athenian empire. The Athenians would, therefore, do well to unite with
the allies still left to them, and to make a stand against the
Syracusans; especially as they, the Egestaeans, were prepared to
furnish money sufficient for the war. The Athenians, hearing these
arguments constantly repeated in their assemblies by the Egestaeans
and their supporters, voted first to send envoys to Egesta, to see
if there was really the money that they talked of in the treasury
and temples, and at the same time to ascertain in what posture was the
war with the Selinuntines.
The envoys of the Athenians were accordingly dispatched to Sicily.
The same winter the Lacedaemonians and their allies, the Corinthians
excepted, marched into the Argive territory, and ravaged a small
part of the land, and took some yokes of oxen and carried off some
corn. They also settled the Argive exiles at Orneae, and left them a
few soldiers taken from the rest of the army; and after making a truce
for a certain while, according to which neither Orneatae nor Argives
were to injure each other’s territory, returned home with the army.
Not long afterwards the Athenians came with thirty ships and six
hundred heavy infantry, and the Argives joining them with all their
forces, marched out and besieged the men in Orneae for one day; but
the garrison escaped by night, the besiegers having bivouacked some
way off. The next day the Argives, discovering it, razed Orneae to the
ground, and went back again; after which the Athenians went home in
their ships. Meanwhile the Athenians took by sea to Methone on the
Macedonian border some cavalry of their own and the Macedonian
exiles that were at Athens, and plundered the country of Perdiccas.
Upon this the Lacedaemonians sent to the Thracian Chalcidians, who had
a truce with Athens from one ten days to another, urging them to
join Perdiccas in the war, which they refused to do. And the winter
ended, and with it ended the sixteenth year of this war of which
Thucydides is the historian.
Early in the spring of the following summer the Athenian envoys
arrived from Sicily, and the Egestaeans with them, bringing sixty
talents of uncoined silver, as a month’s pay for sixty ships, which
they were to ask to have sent them. The Athenians held an assembly
and, after hearing from the Egestaeans and their own envoys a
report, as attractive as it was untrue, upon the state of affairs
generally, and in particular as to the money, of which, it was said,
there was abundance in the temples and the treasury, voted to send
sixty ships to Sicily, under the command of Alcibiades, son of
Clinias, Nicias, son of Niceratus, and Lamachus, son of Xenophanes,
who were appointed with full powers; they were to help the
Egestaeans against the Selinuntines, to restore Leontini upon
gaining any advantage in the war, and to order all other matters in
Sicily as they should deem best for the interests of Athens. Five days
after this a second assembly was held, to consider the speediest means
of equipping the ships, and to vote whatever else might be required by
the generals for the expedition; and Nicias, who had been chosen to
the command against his will, and who thought that the state was not
well advised, but upon a slight aid specious pretext was aspiring to
the conquest of the whole of Sicily, a great matter to achieve, came
forward in the hope of diverting the Athenians from the enterprise,
and gave them the following counsel:
“Although this assembly was convened to consider the preparations to
be made for sailing to Sicily, I think, notwithstanding, that we
have still this question to examine, whether it be better to send out
the ships at all, and that we ought not to give so little consideration
to a matter of such moment, or let ourselves be persuaded by
foreigners into undertaking a war with which we have nothing to do.
And yet, individually, I gain in honour by such a course, and fear as
little as other men for my person—not that I think a man need be
any the worse citizen for taking some thought for his person and
estate; on the contrary, such a man would for his own sake desire
the prosperity of his country more than others—nevertheless,
as I have never spoken against my convictions to gain honour, I
shall not begin to do so now, but shall say what I think best.
Against your character any words of mine would be weak enough, if
I were to advise your keeping what you have got and not risking
what is actually yours for advantages which are dubious in themselves,
and which you may or may not attain. I will, therefore, content
myself with showing that your ardour is out of season, and your
ambition not easy of accomplishment.
“I affirm, then, that you leave many enemies behind you here to go
yonder and bring more back with you. You imagine, perhaps, that the
treaty which you have made can be trusted; a treaty that will continue
to exist nominally, as long as you keep quiet—for nominal it has
become, owing to the practices of certain men here and at Sparta—but
which in the event of a serious reverse in any quarter would not delay
our enemies a moment in attacking us; first, because the convention
was forced upon them by disaster and was less honourable to them
than to us; and secondly, because in this very convention there are
many points that are still disputed. Again, some of the most
powerful states have never yet accepted the arrangement at all. Some
of these are at open war with us; others (as the Lacedaemonians do not
yet move) are restrained by truces renewed every ten days, and it is
only too probable that if they found our power divided, as we are
hurrying to divide it, they would attack us vigorously with the
Siceliots, whose alliance they would have in the past valued as they
would that of few others. A man ought, therefore, to consider these
points, and not to think of running risks with a country placed so
critically, or of grasping at another empire before we have secured
the one we have already; for in fact the Thracian Chalcidians have
been all these years in revolt from us without being yet subdued,
and others on the continents yield us but a doubtful obedience.
Meanwhile the Egestaeans, our allies, have been wronged, and we run to
help them, while the rebels who have so long wronged us still wait for
punishment.
“And yet the latter, if brought under, might be kept under; while
the Sicilians, even if conquered, are too far off and too numerous
to be ruled without difficulty. Now it is folly to go against men
who could not be kept under even if conquered, while failure would
leave us in a very different position from that which we occupied
before the enterprise. The Siceliots, again, to take them as they
are at present, in the event of a Syracusan conquest (the favourite
bugbear of the Egestaeans), would to my thinking be even less
dangerous to us than before. At present they might possibly come
here as separate states for love of Lacedaemon; in the other case
one empire would scarcely attack another; for after joining the
Peloponnesians to overthrow ours, they could only expect to see the
same hands overthrow their own in the same way. The Hellenes in Sicily
would fear us most if we never went there at all, and next to this, if
after displaying our power we went away again as soon as possible.
We all know that that which is farthest off, and the reputation of
which can least be tested, is the object of admiration; at the least
reverse they would at once begin to look down upon us, and would
join our enemies here against us. You have yourselves experienced this
with regard to the Lacedaemonians and their allies, whom your
unexpected success, as compared with what you feared at first, has
made you suddenly despise, tempting you further to aspire to the
conquest of Sicily. Instead, however, of being puffed up by the
misfortunes of your adversaries, you ought to think of breaking
their spirit before giving yourselves up to confidence, and to
understand that the one thought awakened in the Lacedaemonians by
their disgrace is how they may even now, if possible, overthrow us and
repair their dishonour; inasmuch as military reputation is their
oldest and chiefest study. Our struggle, therefore, if we are wise,
will not be for the barbarian Egestaeans in Sicily, but how to
defend ourselves most effectually against the oligarchical
machinations of Lacedaemon.
“We should also remember that we are but now enjoying some respite
from a great pestilence and from war, to the no small benefit of our
estates and persons, and that it is right to employ
Comments (0)