History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗
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more dismayed by the surprise than they could ever be by our actual
power. I could wish to persuade you to show this courage; but if
this cannot be, at all events lose not a moment in preparing generally
for the war; and remember all of you that contempt for an assailant is
best shown by bravery in action, but that for the present the best
course is to accept the preparations which fear inspires as giving the
surest promise of safety, and to act as if the danger was real. That
the Athenians are coming to attack us, and are already upon the
voyage, and all but here—this is what I am sure of.”
Thus far spoke Hermocrates. Meanwhile the people of Syracuse were at
great strife among themselves; some contending that the Athenians
had no idea of coming and that there was no truth in what he said;
some asking if they did come what harm they could do that would not be
repaid them tenfold in return; while others made light of the whole
affair and turned it into ridicule. In short, there were few that
believed Hermocrates and feared for the future. Meanwhile Athenagoras,
the leader of the people and very powerful at that time with the
masses, came forward and spoke as follows:
“For the Athenians, he who does not wish that they may be as
misguided as they are supposed to be, and that they may come here to
become our subjects, is either a coward or a traitor to his country;
while as for those who carry such tidings and fill you with so much
alarm, I wonder less at their audacity than at their folly if they
flatter themselves that we do not see through them. The fact is that
they have their private reasons to be afraid, and wish to throw the
city into consternation to have their own terrors cast into the
shade by the public alarm. In short, this is what these reports are
worth; they do not arise of themselves, but are concocted by men who
are always causing agitation here in Sicily. However, if you are
well advised, you will not be guided in your calculation of
probabilities by what these persons tell you, but by what shrewd men
and of large experience, as I esteem the Athenians to be, would be
likely to do. Now it is not likely that they would leave the
Peloponnesians behind them, and before they have well ended the war in
Hellas wantonly come in quest of a new war quite as arduous in Sicily;
indeed, in my judgment, they are only too glad that we do not go and
attack them, being so many and so great cities as we are.
“However, if they should come as is reported, I consider Sicily
better able to go through with the war than Peloponnese, as being at
all points better prepared, and our city by itself far more than a
match for this pretended army of invasion, even were it twice as large
again. I know that they will not have horses with them, or get any
here, except a few perhaps from the Egestaeans; or be able to bring
a force of heavy infantry equal in number to our own, in ships which
will already have enough to do to come all this distance, however
lightly laden, not to speak of the transport of the other stores
required against a city of this magnitude, which will be no slight
quantity. In fact, so strong is my opinion upon the subject, that I do
not well see how they could avoid annihilation if they brought with
them another city as large as Syracuse, and settled down and carried
on war from our frontier; much less can they hope to succeed with
all Sicily hostile to them, as all Sicily will be, and with only a
camp pitched from the ships, and composed of tents and bare
necessaries, from which they would not be able to stir far for fear of
our cavalry.
“But the Athenians see this as I tell you, and as I have reason to
know are looking after their possessions at home, while persons here
invent stories that neither are true nor ever will be. Nor is this the
first time that I see these persons, when they cannot resort to deeds,
trying by such stories and by others even more abominable to
frighten your people and get into their hands the government: it is
what I see always. And I cannot help fearing that trying so often they
may one day succeed, and that we, as long as we do not feel the smart,
may prove too weak for the task of prevention, or, when the
offenders are known, of pursuit. The result is that our city is rarely
at rest, but is subject to constant troubles and to contests as
frequent against herself as against the enemy, not to speak of
occasional tyrannies and infamous cabals. However, I will try, if
you will support me, to let nothing of this happen in our time, by
gaining you, the many, and by chastising the authors of such
machinations, not merely when they are caught in the act—a difficult
feat to accomplish—but also for what they have the wish though not
the power to do; as it is necessary to punish an enemy not only for
what he does, but also beforehand for what he intends to do, if the
first to relax precaution would not be also the first to suffer. I
shall also reprove, watch, and on occasion warn the few—the most
effectual way, in my opinion, of turning them from their evil courses.
And after all, as I have often asked, what would you have, young men?
Would you hold office at once? The law forbids it, a law enacted
rather because you are not competent than to disgrace you when
competent. Meanwhile you would not be on a legal equality with the
many! But how can it be right that citizens of the same state should
be held unworthy of the same privileges?
“It will be said, perhaps, that democracy is neither wise nor
equitable, but that the holders of property are also the best fitted
to rule. I say, on the contrary, first, that the word demos, or
people, includes the whole state, oligarchy only a part; next, that if
the best guardians of property are the rich, and the best
counsellors the wise, none can hear and decide so well as the many;
and that all these talents, severally and collectively, have their
just place in a democracy. But an oligarchy gives the many their share
of the danger, and not content with the largest part takes and keeps
the whole of the profit; and this is what the powerful and young among
you aspire to, but in a great city cannot possibly obtain.
“But even now, foolish men, most senseless of all the Hellenes
that I know, if you have no sense of the wickedness of your designs,
or most criminal if you have that sense and still dare to pursue
them—even now, if it is not a case for repentance, you may still
learn wisdom, and thus advance the interest of the country, the common
interest of us all. Reflect that in the country’s prosperity the men
of merit in your ranks will have a share and a larger share than the
great mass of your fellow countrymen, but that if you have other
designs you run a risk of being deprived of all; and desist from
reports like these, as the people know your object and will not put up
with it. If the Athenians arrive, this city will repulse them in a
manner worthy of itself; we have moreover, generals who will see to
this matter. And if nothing of this be true, as I incline to
believe, the city will not be thrown into a panic by your
intelligence, or impose upon itself a self-chosen servitude by
choosing you for its rulers; the city itself will look into the
matter, and will judge your words as if they were acts, and, instead
of allowing itself to be deprived of its liberty by listening to
you, will strive to preserve that liberty, by taking care to have
always at hand the means of making itself respected.”
Such were the words of Athenagoras. One of the generals now stood up
and stopped any other speakers coming forward, adding these words of
his own with reference to the matter in hand: “It is not well for
speakers to utter calumnies against one another, or for their
hearers to entertain them; we ought rather to look to the intelligence
that we have received, and see how each man by himself and the city as
a whole may best prepare to repel the invaders. Even if there be no
need, there is no harm in the state being furnished with horses and
arms and all other insignia of war; and we will undertake to see to
and order this, and to send round to the cities to reconnoitre and
do all else that may appear desirable. Part of this we have seen to
already, and whatever we discover shall be laid before you.” After
these words from the general, the Syracusans departed from the
assembly.
In the meantime the Athenians with all their allies had now
arrived at Corcyra. Here the generals began by again reviewing the
armament, and made arrangements as to the order in which they were
to anchor and encamp, and dividing the whole fleet into three
divisions, allotted one to each of their number, to avoid sailing
all together and being thus embarrassed for water, harbourage, or
provisions at the stations which they might touch at, and at the
same time to be generally better ordered and easier to handle, by each
squadron having its own commander. Next they sent on three ships to
Italy and Sicily to find out which of the cities would receive them,
with instructions to meet them on the way and let them know before
they put in to land.
After this the Athenians weighed from Corcyra, and proceeded to
cross to Sicily with an armament now consisting of one hundred and
thirty-four galleys in all (besides two Rhodian fifty-oars), of
which one hundred were Athenian vessels—sixty men-of-war, and forty
troopships—and the remainder from Chios and the other allies; five
thousand and one hundred heavy infantry in all, that is to say,
fifteen hundred Athenian citizens from the rolls at Athens and seven
hundred Thetes shipped as marines, and the rest allied troops, some of
them Athenian subjects, and besides these five hundred Argives, and
two hundred and fifty Mantineans serving for hire; four hundred and
eighty archers in all, eighty of whom were Cretans, seven hundred
slingers from Rhodes, one hundred and twenty light-armed exiles from
Megara, and one horse-transport carrying thirty horses.
Such was the strength of the first armament that sailed over for the
war. The supplies for this force were carried by thirty ships of
burden laden with corn, which conveyed the bakers, stone-masons, and
carpenters, and the tools for raising fortifications, accompanied by
one hundred boats, like the former pressed into the service, besides
many other boats and ships of burden which followed the armament
voluntarily for purposes of trade; all of which now left Corcyra and
struck across the Ionian Sea together. The whole force making land
at the Iapygian promontory and Tarentum, with more or less good
fortune, coasted along the shores of Italy, the cities shutting
their markets and gates against them, and according them nothing but
water and liberty to anchor, and Tarentum and Locri not even that,
until they arrived at Rhegium, the extreme point of Italy. Here at
length they reunited, and
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