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

to aid

them heart and soul themselves, and then sent on envoys with them to

Lacedaemon, to help them to persuade her also to prosecute the war

with the Athenians more openly at home and to send succours to Sicily.

The envoys from Corinth having reached Lacedaemon found there

Alcibiades with his fellow refugees, who had at once crossed over in a

trading vessel from Thurii, first to Cyllene in Elis, and afterwards

from thence to Lacedaemon; upon the Lacedaemonians’ own invitation,

after first obtaining a safe conduct, as he feared them for the part

he had taken in the affair of Mantinea. The result was that the

Corinthians, Syracusans, and Alcibiades, pressing all the same request

in the assembly of the Lacedaemonians, succeeded in persuading them;

but as the ephors and the authorities, although resolved to send

envoys to Syracuse to prevent their surrendering to the Athenians,

showed no disposition to send them any assistance, Alcibiades now came

forward and inflamed and stirred the Lacedaemonians by speaking as

follows:

 

“I am forced first to speak to you of the prejudice with which I

am regarded, in order that suspicion may not make you disinclined to

listen to me upon public matters. The connection, with you as your

proxeni, which the ancestors of our family by reason of some

discontent renounced, I personally tried to renew by my good offices

towards you, in particular upon the occasion of the disaster at Pylos.

But although I maintained this friendly attitude, you yet chose to

negotiate the peace with the Athenians through my enemies, and thus to

strengthen them and to discredit me. You had therefore no right to

complain if I turned to the Mantineans and Argives, and seized other

occasions of thwarting and injuring you; and the time has now come

when those among you, who in the bitterness of the moment may have

been then unfairly angry with me, should look at the matter in its

true light, and take a different view. Those again who judged me

unfavourably, because I leaned rather to the side of the commons, must

not think that their dislike is any better founded. We have always

been hostile to tyrants, and all who oppose arbitrary power are called

commons; hence we continued to act as leaders of the multitude;

besides which, as democracy was the government of the city, it was

necessary in most things to conform to established conditions.

However, we endeavoured to be more moderate than the licentious temper

of the times; and while there were others, formerly as now, who

tried to lead the multitude astray—the same who banished me—our

party was that of the whole people, our creed being to do our part

in preserving the form of government under which the city enjoyed

the utmost greatness and freedom, and which we had found existing.

As for democracy, the men of sense among us knew what it was, and I

perhaps as well as any, as I have the more cause to complain of it;

but there is nothing new to be said of a patent absurdity; meanwhile

we did not think it safe to alter it under the pressure of your

hostility.

 

“So much then for the prejudices with which I am regarded: I now can

call your attention to the questions you must consider, and upon which

superior knowledge perhaps permits me to speak. We sailed to Sicily

first to conquer, if possible, the Siceliots, and after them the

Italiots also, and finally to assail the empire and city of

Carthage. In the event of all or most of these schemes succeeding,

we were then to attack Peloponnese, bringing with us the entire

force of the Hellenes lately acquired in those parts, and taking a

number of barbarians into our pay, such as the Iberians and others

in those countries, confessedly the most warlike known, and building

numerous galleys in addition to those which we had already, timber

being plentiful in Italy; and with this fleet blockading Peloponnese

from the sea and assailing it with our armies by land, taking some

of the cities by storm, drawing works of circumvallation round others,

we hoped without difficulty to effect its reduction, and after this to

rule the whole of the Hellenic name. Money and corn meanwhile for

the better execution of these plans were to be supplied in

sufficient quantities by the newly acquired places in those countries,

independently of our revenues here at home.

 

“You have thus heard the history of the present expedition from

the man who most exactly knows what our objects were; and the

remaining generals will, if they can, carry these out just the same.

But that the states in Sicily must succumb if you do not help them,

I will now show. Although the Siceliots, with all their

inexperience, might even now be saved if their forces were united, the

Syracusans alone, beaten already in one battle with all their people

and blockaded from the sea, will be unable to withstand the Athenian

armament that is now there. But if Syracuse falls, all Sicily falls

also, and Italy immediately afterwards; and the danger which I just

now spoke of from that quarter will before long be upon you. None need

therefore fancy that Sicily only is in question; Peloponnese will be

so also, unless you speedily do as I tell you, and send on board

ship to Syracuse troops that shall able to row their ships themselves,

and serve as heavy infantry the moment that they land; and what I

consider even more important than the troops, a Spartan as

commanding officer to discipline the forces already on foot and to

compel recusants to serve. The friends that you have already will thus

become more confident, and the waverers will be encouraged to join

you. Meanwhile you must carry on the war here more openly, that the

Syracusans, seeing that you do not forget them, may put heart into

their resistance, and that the Athenians may be less able to reinforce

their armament. You must fortify Decelea in Attica, the blow of

which the Athenians are always most afraid and the only one that

they think they have not experienced in the present war; the surest

method of harming an enemy being to find out what he most fears, and

to choose this means of attacking him, since every one naturally knows

best his own weak points and fears accordingly. The fortification in

question, while it benefits you, will create difficulties for your

adversaries, of which I shall pass over many, and shall only mention

the chief. Whatever property there is in the country will most of it

become yours, either by capture or surrender; and the Athenians will

at once be deprived of their revenues from the silver mines at

Laurium, of their present gains from their land and from the law

courts, and above all of the revenue from their allies, which will

be paid less regularly, as they lose their awe of Athens and see you

addressing yourselves with vigour to the war. The zeal and speed

with which all this shall be done depends, Lacedaemonians, upon

yourselves; as to its possibility, I am quite confident, and I have

little fear of being mistaken.

 

“Meanwhile I hope that none of you will think any the worse of me

if, after having hitherto passed as a lover of my country, I now

actively join its worst enemies in attacking it, or will suspect

what I say as the fruit of an outlaw’s enthusiasm. I am an outlaw from

the iniquity of those who drove me forth, not, if you will be guided

by me, from your service; my worst enemies are not you who only harmed

your foes, but they who forced their friends to become enemies; and

love of country is what I do not feel when I am wronged, but what I

felt when secure in my rights as a citizen. Indeed I do not consider

that I am now attacking a country that is still mine; I am rather

trying to recover one that is mine no longer; and the true lover of

his country is not he who consents to lose it unjustly rather than

attack it, but he who longs for it so much that he will go all lengths

to recover it. For myself, therefore, Lacedaemonians, I beg you to use

me without scruple for danger and trouble of every kind, and to

remember the argument in every one’s mouth, that if I did you great

harm as an enemy, I could likewise do you good service as a friend,

inasmuch as I know the plans of the Athenians, while I only guessed

yours. For yourselves I entreat you to believe that your most

capital interests are now under deliberation; and I urge you to send

without hesitation the expeditions to Sicily and Attica; by the

presence of a small part of your forces you will save important cities

in that island, and you will destroy the power of Athens both

present and prospective; after this you will dwell in security and

enjoy the supremacy over all Hellas, resting not on force but upon

consent and affection.”

 

Such were the words of Alcibiades. The Lacedaemonians, who had

themselves before intended to march against Athens, but were still

waiting and looking about them, at once became much more in earnest

when they received this particular information from Alcibiades, and

considered that they had heard it from the man who best knew the truth

of the matter. Accordingly they now turned their attention to the

fortifying of Decelea and sending immediate aid to the Sicilians;

and naming Gylippus, son of Cleandridas, to the command of the

Syracusans, bade him consult with that people and with the Corinthians

and arrange for succours reaching the island, in the best and

speediest way possible under the circumstances. Gylippus desired the

Corinthians to send him at once two ships to Asine, and to prepare the

rest that they intended to send, and to have them ready to sail at the

proper time. Having settled this, the envoys departed from Lacedaemon.

 

In the meantime arrived the Athenian galley from Sicily sent by

the generals for money and cavalry; and the Athenians, after hearing

what they wanted, voted to send the supplies for the armament and

the cavalry. And the winter ended, and with it ended the seventeenth

year of the present war of which Thucydides is the historian.

 

The next summer, at the very beginning of the season, the

Athenians in Sicily put out from Catana, and sailed along shore to

Megara in Sicily, from which, as I have mentioned above, the

Syracusans expelled the inhabitants in the time of their tyrant

Gelo, themselves occupying the territory. Here the Athenians landed

and laid waste the country, and after an unsuccessful attack upon a

fort of the Syracusans, went on with the fleet and army to the river

Terias, and advancing inland laid waste the plain and set fire to

the corn; and after killing some of a small Syracusan party which they

encountered, and setting up a trophy, went back again to their

ships. They now sailed to Catana and took in provisions there, and

going with their whole force against Centoripa, a town of the

Sicels, acquired it by capitulation, and departed, after also

burning the corn of the Inessaeans and Hybleans. Upon their return

to Catana they found the horsemen arrived from Athens, to the number

of two hundred and fifty (with their equipments, but without their

horses which were to be procured upon the spot), and thirty mounted

archers and three hundred talents of silver.

 

The same spring the Lacedaemonians marched against Argos, and went

as far as Cleonae, when an earthquake occurred and caused them to

return. After this the Argives invaded the Thyreatid, which is on

their border,