Confidence of the Athenians at home in Nikias temper they send to him the reinforcements demanded. every kind, and at any rate to postpone them until the necessity became imminent: the consequence of which was (to use an expression of the Corinthian envoy, before the Peloponnesian war, in censuring the dilatory policy of Sparta), that never acting, yet always seeming about to act, he found his enemy in double force instead of single, at the moment of actual conflict1. Great indeed must have been the disappointment of the Athenians, when, after having sent forth in the month of June an expedition of unpatheir good ralleled efficiency, they receive in the month of November a despatch to acquaint them that the general has accomplished little except one indecisive victory; and that he has not even attempted any thing serious-nor can do so unless they send him farther cavalry and money. Yet the only answer which they made was, to grant and provide for this demand without any public expression of discontent or disappointment against him2. And 1 Thucyd. i. 69. ἡσυχάζετε γὰρ μόνοι Ελλήνων, ὦ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, οὐ τῇ δυνάμει τινὰ ἀλλὰ τῇ μελλήσει ἀμυνόμενοι, καὶ μόνοι οὐκ ἀρχομένην τὴν αὔξησιν τῶν ἐχθρῶν, ἀλλὰ διπλασιουμένην, καταλύοντες. * Αἰσχρὸν δὲ βιασθέντας ἀπελθεῖν, ἢ ὕστερον ἐπιμεταπέμπεσθαι, τὸ πρῶτον ἀσκέπτως βουλευσαμένους" It is disgraceful to be driven out of Sicily by superior force, or to send back here afterwards for fresh reinforcements, through our own fault in making bad calculations at first." (Thucyd. vi. 21.) This was a part of the last speech by Nikias himself at Athens, prior to the expedition. The Athenian people in reply had passed a vote that he and his colleagues should fix their own amount of force, and should have everything which they asked for. Moreover, such was the feeling in the city, that every one individually was anxious to put down his name to serve (vi. 26-31). Thucydidês can hardly find words sufficient to depict the completeness, the grandeur, the wealth public and private, of the armament. As this goes to establish what I have advanced in the text-that the this is the more to be noted, since the removal of Alkibiadês afforded an inviting and even valuable actions of Nikias in Sicily stand most of all condemned by his own previous speeches at Athens -so it seems to have been forgotten by Dr. Arnold when he wrote his note on the remarkable passage, ii. 65, of Thucydides--ἐξ ὧν ἄλλα τε πολλὰ, ὡς ἐν μεγάλῃ πόλει, καὶ ἀρχὴν ἐχούσῃ, ἡμαρτήθη, καὶ ὁ ἐς Σικελίαν πλοῦς· ὃς οὐ τοσοῦτον γνώμης ἁμάρτ τημα ἦν πρὸς οὓς ἐπῄεσαν, ὅσον οἱ ἐκπέμψαντες, οὐ τὰ πρόσε φορα τοῖς οἰχομένοις ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὰς ἰδίας διαβολὰς περὶ τῆς τοῦ δήμου προστασίας, τά τε ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδω ἀμβλύτερα ἐποίουν, καὶ τὰ περὶ τὴν πόλιν πρῶτον ἐν ἀλλήλοις ἐταράχθησαν. -Upon which Dr. Arnold remarks :—. 66 Thucydidês here expresses the same opinion, which he repeats in two other places (vi. 31; vii. 42), namely, that the Athenian power was fully adequate to the conquest of Syracuse, had not the expedition been mismanaged by the general, and insufficiently supplied by the government at home. The words οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα τοῖς οἰχομένοις ἐπιγιγνώσε KOVTES signify 'not voting afterwards the needful supplies to their absent armament:' for Nikias was prevented from improving his first victory over the Syracusans by the want of cavalry and money; and the whole winter was lost before he could get supplied from Athens. And subsequently the armament was allowed to be reduced to great distress and weakness, before the second expedition was sent to reinforce it."-Göller and Poppo concur in this explanation. Let us in the first place discuss the explanation here given of the words τὰ πρόσφορα ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες. It appears to me that these words do not signify" voting the needful supplies." The word enуyуvάσкew cannot be used in the same sense with eππέμπειν—παρασχεῖν (vii. 2-15)—ἐκπορίζειν. As it would not be admissible to say έπιγιγνώσκειν ὅπλα, νῆας, ἵππους, χρήματα, &c., so neither can it be right to say επιγιγνώσκειν τὰ πρόσφορα, if this latter word were used only as a comprehensive word for these particulars, meaning supplies." The words really mean-" taking farther resolutions (after the expedition was gone) unsuitable or mischievous to the absent armament." Пpóopopa is used here quite generally-agreeing with βουλεύματα or some such word: indeed we find the phrase τὰ πρόσpopa used in the most general sense, for "what is suitable "—" what is advantageous or convenient”γυμνάσω τὰ πρόσφορα-πράσσεται τὰ πρόσφορα-τὰ πρόσφορ' ηὔξατ ̓ τὰ πρόσφορα δρώῃς ἀν-τὸ ταῖσδε Tрóσ popov. Euripid. Hippol. 112; Alkestis, 148; Iphig. Aul. 160 B; Helen. 1299; Troades, 304. Thucydidês appears to have in view the violent party contests which broke out in reference to the Hermæ and the other irreligious acts at Athens, after the departure of the armament, especially to the mischief of recalling Alkibiadês, which grew out of those contests. He does not opportunity for proposing to send out a fresh colleague in his room. If there were no complaints raised against Nikias at Athens, so neither are we informed of any such, even among his own soldiers allude to the withholding of supplies from the armament; nor was it the purpose of any of the parties at Athens to withhold them. The party-acrimony was directed against Alkibiadês exclusively-not against the expedition. Next, as to the main allegation in Dr. Arnold's note—that one of the causes of the failure of the Athenian expedition in Sicily, was, that it was "insufficiently supplied by Athens." Of the two passages to which he refers in Thucydidês (vi. 31; vii. 42), the first distinctly contradicts this allegation, by setting forth the prodigious amount of force sentthe second says nothing about it, and indirectly discountenances it, by dwelling upon the glaring blunders of Nikias. After the Athenians had allowed Nikias in the spring to name and collect the force which he thought requisite, how could they expect to receive a demand for farther reinforcements in the autumn-the army having really done nothing? Nevertheless the supplies were sent, as soon as they could be, and as soon as Nikias expected them. If the whole winter was lost, that was not the fault of the Athenians. Still harder is it in Dr. Arnold, to say-" that the armament was allowed to be reduced to great distress and weakness before the second expedition was sent to reinforce it." The second expedition was sent, the moment that Nikias made known his distress and asked for it; his intimation of distress coming quite suddenly, almost immediately after most successful appearances. It appears to me that nothing can be more incorrect or inconsistent with the whole tenor of the narrative of Thucydidês, than to charge the Athenians with having starved their expedition. What they are really chargeable with, is-the having devoted to it a disproportionate fraction of their entire strength-perfectly enormous and ruinous. And so Thucydidês plainly conceives it, when he is describing both the armament of Nikias and that of Demosthenês. 66 Thucydidês is very reserved in saying anything against Nikias, whom he treats throughout with the greatest indulgence and tenderness. But he lets drop quite sufficient to prove that he conceived the mismanagement of the general as the cause of the failure of the armament-not as 'one of two causes," as Dr. Arnold here presents it. Of course I recognise fully the consummate skill, and the aggressive vigour so unusual in a Spartan, of Gylippus-together with the effective influence which this exercised upon the result. But Gylippus would never have set foot in Syracuse had he not been let in, first through the apathy, next through the contemptuous want of precaution, shown by Nikias (vii. 42). in Sicily; though their disappointment must have been yet greater than that of their countrymen at home, considering the expectations with which they had come out. We may remember that the delay of a few days at Eion, under perfectly justifiable circumstances, and while awaiting the arrival of reinforcements actually sent for, raised the loudest murmurs against Kleon in his expedition against Amphipolis, from the hoplites in his own army'. The contrast is instructive, and will appear yet more instructive as we advance forward. feeling at Syracuse measures of recommen Hermo Meanwhile the Syracusans were profiting by the Determined lesson of their recent defeat. At the next public assembly which ensued, Hermokratês addressed improved them in a mingled tone of encouragement and defence admonition. While praising their bravery, he de- dations of precated their want of tactics and discipline. Con- kratês. sidering the great superiority of the enemy in this last respect, he regarded the recent battle as giving good promise for the future; and he appealed with satisfaction to the precautions taken by Nikias in fortifying his camp, as well as to his speedy retreat after the battle. He pressed them to diminish the excessive number of fifteen generals, whom they had hitherto been accustomed to nominate to the command-to reduce the number to three, conferring upon them at the same time fuller powers than had been before enjoyed, and swearing a solemn oath to leave them unfettered in the exercise of such powers -lastly, to enjoin upon these generals the most strenuous efforts, during the coming winter, for Thucyd. v. 7. See the preceding volume vi. of this History, chap. liv. p. 638. Enlargement of the fortifications of Syracuse. Improvement of tion. In crease of the difficul kias. training and arming the whole population. Accordingly Hermokratês himself, with Herakleidês and Sikanus, were named to the command. Ambassadors were sent both to Sparta and to Corinth, for the purpose of entreating assistance in Sicily, as well as of prevailing on the Peloponnesians to recommence a direct attack against Attica'; so as at least to prevent the Athenians from sending farther reinforcements to Nikias, and perhaps even to bring about the recall of his army. But by far the most important measure which marked the nomination of the new generals, was, the enlargement of the line of fortifications at Syracuse. They constructed a new wall, enclosing their situa- an additional space and covering both their Inner and their Outer City to the westward-reaching ties of Ni- from the Outer sea to the Great Harbour, across the whole space fronting the rising slope of the hill of Epipolæ-and stretching far enough westward to enclose the sacred precinct of Apollo Temenites. This was intended as a precaution, in order that if Nikias, resuming operations in the spring, should beat them in the field and confine them to their walls-he might nevertheless be prevented from carrying a wall of circumvallation from sea to sea without covering a great additional extent of ground. Besides this, the Syracusans fitted up 1 Thucyd. vi. 72, 73. 2 Thucyd. vi. 75. Ετείχιζον δὲ οἱ Συρακόσιοι ἐν τῷ χειμῶνι πρός τε τῇ πόλει, τὸν Τεμενίτην ἐντὸς ποιησάμενοι, τεῖχος παρὰ πᾶν τὸ πρὸς Επιπολὰς ὁρῶν, ὅπως μὴ δι' ἐλάσσονος εὐαποτείχιστοι ὦσιν, ἢν ἄρα σφάλλωνται, &c. I reserve the general explanation of the topography of Syracuse for the next chapter (when the siege begins), and the Appendix attached to it. |