Relations of Sicily to Sparta Sicily-Naxos, Katana, and Leontini-were at this time united with Athens by any special treaty, is very doubtful. But if we examine the state of politics prior to the breaking out of the war, it will be found that the connection of the Sicilian cities on both sides with Central Greece was rather one of sympathy and tendency, than of pronounced obligation and action. The Dorian Sicilians, though doubtless sharing the antipathy of the Peloponnesian Dorians to Athens, had never been called upon for any cooperation with Sparta; nor had the Ionic Sicilians yet learned to look to Athens for protection against their powerful neighbour, Syracuse. It was the memorable quarrel between Corinth Athens and and Korkyra, and the intervention of Athens in that quarrel (B.c. 433-432), which brought the Sithe quarrel cilian parties one step nearer to co-operation in the Peloponnesian quarrel, in two different ways; first, altered by between Corinth and Kor kyra and the inter by exciting the most violent anti-Athenian warvention of spirit in Corinth, with whom the Sicilian Dorians Athens. p. 112) relating to the alliance between Athens and Rhegium, conveys little certain information. Boeckh refers it to a covenant concluded in the archonship of Apseudês at Athens (Olymp. 86, 4. B.C. 433-432, the year before the Peloponnesian war), renewing an alliance which was even then of old date. But it appears to me that the supposition of a renewal is only his own conjecture: and even the name of the archon, Apseudés, which he has restored by a plausible conjecture, can hardly be considered as certain. If we could believe the story in Justin iv. 3, Rhegium must have ceased to be Ionic before the Peloponnesian war. He states, that in a sedition at Rhegium, one of the parties called in auxiliaries from Himera. These Himeræan exiles having first destroyed the enemies against whom they were invoked, next massacred the friends who had invoked them-"ausi facinus nulli tyranno comparandum." They married the Rhegine women, and seized the city for themselves. I do not know what to make of this story, which neither appears noticed in Thucydidês, nor seems to consist with what he tells us. held their chief commerce and sympathy-next, by providing a basis for the action of Athenian maritime force in Italy and Sicily, which would have been impracticable without an established footing in Korkyra. But Plutarch (whom most historians have followed) is mistaken, and is contradicted by Thucydidês, when he ascribes to the Athenians at this time ambitious projects in Sicily of the nature of those which they came to conceive seven or eight years afterwards. At the outbreak, and for some years before the outbreak, of the war, the policy of Athens was purely conservative, and that of her enemies aggressive, as I have shown in a former chapter. At that moment Sparta and Corinth anticipated large assistance from the Sicilian Dorians, in ships of war, in money, and in provisions; while the value of Korkyra as an ally of Athens consisted in affording facilities for obstructing such reinforcements, far more than from any anticipated conquests 1. tions en by Sparta of aid from the Sicilian Dorians, at the beginPeloponne ning of the In the spring of 431 B.C., the Spartans, then or- Expecta ganising their first invasion of Attica and full of tertained hope that Athens would be crushed in one or two campaigns, contemplated the building of a vast fleet of 500 ships of war among the confederacy. A considerable portion of this charge was imposed upon the Italian and Sicilian Dorians, and a con- Expectatribution in money besides; with instructions to refrain from any immediate declaration against Athens until their fleet should be ready. Of such 1 Thucyd. i. 36. 2 Thucyd. ii. 7. Καὶ Λακεδαιμονίοις μὲν, πρὸς ταῖς αὐτοῦ ὑπαρχούσαις, ἐξ Ιταλίας καὶ Σικελίας τοῖς τἀκείνων ἑλομένοις, ναῦς ἐπετάχθησαν VOL. VII. N sian war. tions not realised. expected succour, indeed, little was ever realised in any way; in ships, nothing at all. But the expectations and orders of Sparta show, that here as elsewhere, she was then on the offensive, and Athens only on the defensive. Probably the Corinthians had encouraged the expectation of ample reinforcements from Syracuse and the neighbouring towns,-a hope which must have contributed largely to the confidence with which they began the struggle. What were the causes which prevented it from beποιεῖσθαι κατὰ μέγεθος τῶν πόλεων, ὡς ἐς τὸν πάντα ἀριθμὸν πεντακοσίων νεῶν ἐσόμενον, &c. Respecting the construction of this perplexing passage, read the notes of Dr. Arnold, Poppo, and Göller: compare Poppo, ad Thucyd. vol. i. ch. xv. p. 181. I agree with Dr. Arnold and Göller in rejecting the construction of αὐτοῦ with ἐξ Ιταλίας καὶ Σικελίας, in the sense of " those ships which were in Peloponnesus from Italy and Sicily." This would be untrue in point of fact, as they observe: there were no Sicilian ships of war in Peloponnesus. 66 Nevertheless I think (differing from them) that auroû is not a pronoun referring to ἐξ Ιταλίας καὶ Σικελίας, but is used in contrast with those words, and really means in or about Peloponnesus." It was contemplated that new ships should be built in Sicily and Italy of sufficient number to make the total fleet of the Lacedæmonian confederacy (including the triremes already in Peloponnesus) equal to 500 sail. But it was never contemplated that the triremes in Italy and Sicily alone should amount to 500 sail, as Dr. Arnold (in my judgement, erroneously) imagines. Five hundred sail for the entire confederacy would be a prodigious total: 500 sail for Sicily and Italy alone, would be incredible. To construe the sentence as it stands now (putting aside the conjecture of νies instead of ναῦς, or ἐπετάχθη instead of ἐπετάχθησαν, which would make it run smoothly), we must admit the supposition of a break or double construction, such as sometimes occurs in Thucydidês. The sentence begins with one form of construction and concludes with another. We must suppose (with Göller) that ai Ħóders is understood as the nominative case to èñeráxoŋoav. The dative cases (Aakedaiμoviois-doμévois) are to be considered, I apprehend, as governed by vñes éñeтáxoŋσav: that is, these dative cases belong to the first form of construction, which Thucydidês has not carried out. The sentence is begun as if vnes éneтáxonσav were intended to follow. ing realised, we are not distinctly told; and we find Hermokrates the Syracusan reproaching his countrymen fifteen years afterwards (immediately before the great Athenian expedition against Syracuse) with their antecedent apathy'. But it is easy to see, that as the Sicilian Greeks had no direct interest in the contest-neither wrongs to avenge, nor dangers to apprehend, from Athens-nor any habit of obeying requisitions from Sparta; so they might naturally content themselves with expressions of sympathy and promises of aid in case of need, without taxing themselves to the enormous extent which it pleased Sparta to impose, for purposes both aggressive and purely Peloponnesian. Perhaps the leading men in Syracuse, from attachment to Corinth, may have sought to act upon the order. But no similar motive would be found operative either at Agrigentum or at Gela or Selinus. Though the order was not executed, however, there can be little doubt that it was publicly announced and threatened, thus becoming known to the Ionic cities in Sicily as well as to Athens; and that it weighed materially in determining the latter afterwards to assist those cities, when they sent to invoke her aid. Instead of despatching their forces to Peloponnesus, where they had nothing to gain, the Sicilian Dorians preferred attacking the Ionic cities in their own island, whose territory they might have reasonable hopes of conquering and appropriating-Naxos, Katana, and Leontini. These cities doubtless sympathised with Athens in her struggle against Sparta; yet, far from being strong 1 Thucyd. vi. 34: compare iii. 86. The Dorian cities in tack the cities in Sicily. B.C. 427. enough to assist her or to threaten their Dorian neighbours, they were unable to defend themselves without Athenian aid. They were assisted by the Dorian city of Kamarina, which was afraid of her powerful border city Syracuse-and by Rhegium in Italy; while Lokri in Italy, the bitter enemy of Rhegium, sided with Syracuse against them. In the fifth summer of the war, finding themselves blockaded by sea and confined to their walls, they sent to Athens, both to entreat succour, as allies' and Ionians-and to represent that if Syracuse succeeded in crushing them, she and the other Dorians in Sicily would forthwith send over the positive aid which the Peloponnesians had so long been invoking. The eminent rhetor Gorgias of Leontini, whose peculiar style of speaking is said to have been new to the Athenian assembly, and to have produced a powerful effect, was at the head of this embassy. It is certain that this rhetor procured for himself numerous pupils and large gains not merely in Athens, but in many other towns of Central Greece, though it is exaggeration to ascribe to his pleading the success of the present application. Now the Athenians had a real interest as well in protecting these Ionic Sicilians from being conquered by the Dorians in the island, as in obstruct1 Thucyd. vi. 86. 2 Thucyd. iii. 86; Diodor. xii. 53; Plato, Hipp. Maj. p. 282. B. It is remarkable that Thucydidês, though he is said (with much probability) to have been among the pupils of Gorgias, makes no mention of that rhetor personally as among the envoys. Diodorus probably copied from Ephorus the pupil of Isokratês. Among the writers of the Isokratean school, the persons of distinguished rhetors, and their supposed political efficiency, counted for much more than in the estimation of Thucydidês. Pausanias (vi. 17, 3) speaks of Tisias also as having been among the envoys in this celebrated legation. |