History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides (free ebooks for android .txt) 📕

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