History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

not gaining admission within the walls

pitched a camp outside the city in the precinct of Artemis, where a

market was also provided for them, and drew their ships on shore and

kept quiet. Meanwhile they opened negotiations with the Rhegians,

and called upon them as Chalcidians to assist their Leontine

kinsmen; to which the Rhegians replied that they would not side with

either party, but should await the decision of the rest of the

Italiots, and do as they did. Upon this the Athenians now began to

consider what would be the best action to take in the affairs of

Sicily, and meanwhile waited for the ships sent on to come back from

Egesta, in order to know whether there was really there the money

mentioned by the messengers at Athens.

 

In the meantime came in from all quarters to the Syracusans, as well

as from their own officers sent to reconnoitre, the positive tidings

that the fleet was at Rhegium; upon which they laid aside their

incredulity and threw themselves heart and soul into the work of

preparation. Guards or envoys, as the case might be, were sent round

to the Sicels, garrisons put into the posts of the Peripoli in the

country, horses and arms reviewed in the city to see that nothing

was wanting, and all other steps taken to prepare for a war which

might be upon them at any moment.

 

Meanwhile the three ships that had been sent on came from Egesta

to the Athenians at Rhegium, with the news that so far from there

being the sums promised, all that could be produced was thirty

talents. The generals were not a little disheartened at being thus

disappointed at the outset, and by the refusal to join in the

expedition of the Rhegians, the people they had first tried to gain

and had had had most reason to count upon, from their relationship

to the Leontines and constant friendship for Athens. If Nicias was

prepared for the news from Egesta, his two colleagues were taken

completely by surprise. The Egestaeans had had recourse to the

following stratagem, when the first envoys from Athens came to inspect

their resources. They took the envoys in question to the temple of

Aphrodite at Eryx and showed them the treasures deposited there:

bowls, wine-ladles, censers, and a large number of other pieces of

plate, which from being in silver gave an impression of wealth quite

out of proportion to their really small value. They also privately

entertained the ships’ crews, and collected all the cups of gold and

silver that they could find in Egesta itself or could borrow in the

neighbouring Phoenician and Hellenic towns, and each brought them to

the banquets as their own; and as all used pretty nearly the same, and

everywhere a great quantity of plate was shown, the effect was most

dazzling upon the Athenian sailors, and made them talk loudly of the

riches they had seen when they got back to Athens. The dupes in

question—who had in their turn persuaded the rest—when the news got

abroad that there was not the money supposed at Egesta, were much

blamed by the soldiers.

 

Meanwhile the generals consulted upon what was to be done. The

opinion of Nicias was to sail with all the armament to Selinus, the

main object of the expedition, and if the Egestaeans could provide

money for the whole force, to advise accordingly; but if they could

not, to require them to supply provisions for the sixty ships that

they had asked for, to stay and settle matters between them and the

Selinuntines either by force or by agreement, and then to coast past

the other cities, and after displaying the power of Athens and proving

their zeal for their friends and allies, to sail home again (unless

they should have some sudden and unexpected opportunity of serving the

Leontines, or of bringing over some of the other cities), and not to

endanger the state by wasting its home resources.

 

Alcibiades said that a great expedition like the present must not

disgrace itself by going away without having done anything; heralds

must be sent to all the cities except Selinus and Syracuse, and

efforts be made to make some of the Sicels revolt from the Syracusans,

and to obtain the friendship of others, in order to have corn and

troops; and first of all to gain the Messinese, who lay right in the

passage and entrance to Sicily, and would afford an excellent

harbour and base for the army. Thus, after bringing over the towns and

knowing who would be their allies in the war, they might at length

attack Syracuse and Selinus; unless the latter came to terms with

Egesta and the former ceased to oppose the restoration of Leontini.

 

Lamachus, on the other hand, said that they ought to sail straight

to Syracuse, and fight their battle at once under the walls of the

town while the people were still unprepared, and the panic at its

height. Every armament was most terrible at first; if it allowed

time to run on without showing itself, men’s courage revived, and they

saw it appear at last almost with indifference. By attacking suddenly,

while Syracuse still trembled at their coming, they would have the

best chance of gaining a victory for themselves and of striking a

complete panic into the enemy by the aspect of their numbers—which

would never appear so considerable as at present—by the anticipation

of coming disaster, and above all by the immediate danger of the

engagement. They might also count upon surprising many in the fields

outside, incredulous of their coming; and at the moment that the enemy

was carrying in his property the army would not want for booty if it

sat down in force before the city. The rest of the Siceliots would

thus be immediately less disposed to enter into alliance with the

Syracusans, and would join the Athenians, without waiting to see which

were the strongest. They must make Megara their naval station as a

place to retreat to and a base from which to attack: it was an

uninhabited place at no great distance from Syracuse either by land or

by sea.

 

After speaking to this effect, Lamachus nevertheless gave his

support to the opinion of Alcibiades. After this Alcibiades sailed

in his own vessel across to Messina with proposals of alliance, but

met with no success, the inhabitants answering that they could not

receive him within their walls, though they would provide him with a

market outside. Upon this he sailed back to Rhegium. Immediately

upon his return the generals manned and victualled sixty ships out

of the whole fleet and coasted along to Naxos, leaving the rest of the

armament behind them at Rhegium with one of their number. Received

by the Naxians, they then coasted on to Catana, and being refused

admittance by the inhabitants, there being a Syracusan party in the

town, went on to the river Terias. Here they bivouacked, and the

next day sailed in single file to Syracuse with all their ships except

ten which they sent on in front to sail into the great harbour and see

if there was any fleet launched, and to proclaim by herald from

shipboard that the Athenians were come to restore the Leontines to

their country, as being their allies and kinsmen, and that such of

them, therefore, as were in Syracuse should leave it without fear

and join their friends and benefactors the Athenians. After making

this proclamation and reconnoitring the city and the harbours, and the

features of the country which they would have to make their base of

operations in the war, they sailed back to Catana.

 

An assembly being held here, the inhabitants refused to receive

the armament, but invited the generals to come in and say what they

desired; and while Alcibiades was speaking and the citizens were

intent on the assembly, the soldiers broke down an ill-walled-up

postern gate without being observed, and getting inside the town,

flocked into the marketplace. The Syracusan party in the town no

sooner saw the army inside than they became frightened and withdrew,

not being at all numerous; while the rest voted for an alliance with

the Athenians and invited them to fetch the rest of their forces

from Rhegium. After this the Athenians sailed to Rhegium, and put off,

this time with all the armament, for Catana, and fell to work at their

camp immediately upon their arrival.

 

Meanwhile word was brought them from Camarina that if they went

there the town would go over to them, and also that the Syracusans

were manning a fleet. The Athenians accordingly sailed alongshore with

all their armament, first to Syracuse, where they found no fleet

manning, and so always along the coast to Camarina, where they brought

to at the beach, and sent a herald to the people, who, however,

refused to receive them, saying that their oaths bound them to receive

the Athenians only with a single vessel, unless they themselves sent

for more. Disappointed here, the Athenians now sailed back again,

and after landing and plundering on Syracusan territory and losing

some stragglers from their light infantry through the coming up of the

Syracusan horse, so got back to Catana.

 

There they found the Salaminia come from Athens for Alcibiades, with

orders for him to sail home to answer the charges which the state

brought against him, and for certain others of the soldiers who with

him were accused of sacrilege in the matter of the mysteries and of

the Hermae. For the Athenians, after the departure of the

expedition, had continued as active as ever in investigating the facts

of the mysteries and of the Hermae, and, instead of testing the

informers, in their suspicious temper welcomed all indifferently,

arresting and imprisoning the best citizens upon the evidence of

rascals, and preferring to sift the matter to the bottom sooner than

to let an accused person of good character pass unquestioned, owing to

the rascality of the informer. The commons had heard how oppressive

the tyranny of Pisistratus and his sons had become before it ended,

and further that that had been put down at last, not by themselves and

Harmodius, but by the Lacedaemonians, and so were always in fear and

took everything suspiciously.

 

Indeed, the daring action of Aristogiton and Harmodius was

undertaken in consequence of a love affair, which I shall relate at

some length, to show that the Athenians are not more accurate than the

rest of the world in their accounts of their own tyrants and of the

facts of their own history. Pisistratus dying at an advanced age in

possession of the tyranny, was succeeded by his eldest son, Hippias,

and not Hipparchus, as is vulgarly believed. Harmodius was then in the

flower of youthful beauty, and Aristogiton, a citizen in the middle

rank of life, was his lover and possessed him. Solicited without

success by Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, Harmodius told Aristogiton,

and the enraged lover, afraid that the powerful Hipparchus might

take Harmodius by force, immediately formed a design, such as his

condition in life permitted, for overthrowing the tyranny. In the

meantime Hipparchus, after a second solicitation of Harmodius,

attended with no better success, unwilling to use violence, arranged

to insult him in some covert way. Indeed, generally their government

was not grievous to the multitude, or in any way odious in practice;

and these tyrants cultivated wisdom and virtue as much as any, and

without exacting from the Athenians more than a twentieth of their

income, splendidly adorned their city, and carried on their wars,

and provided sacrifices for the temples. For the rest, the city was

left in full enjoyment of its existing laws, except that care was

always taken to have the offices in the hands of some one of the