tion was believed, and the advice adopted. Had Demosthenês been in command alone, we may doubt whether he would have been so easily duped; for granting the accuracy of the fact asserted, it was not the less obvious that the difficulties, instead of being diminished, would be increased tenfold on the following day. We have seen, however, on more than one previous occasion, how fatally Nikias was misled by his treacherous advices from the philo-Athenians at Syracuse. An excuse for inaction was always congenial to his character; and the present recommendation, moreover, fell in but too happily with the temper of the army-now benumbed with depression and terror, like those unfortunate soldiers, in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks, who were yielding to the lethargy of extreme cold on the snows of Armenia, and whom Xenophon vainly tried to arouse1. Having remained over that night, the generals determined also to stay the next day,-in order that the army might carry away with them as much of their baggage as possible-sending forward a messenger to the Sikels in the interior to request that they would meet the army, and bring with them a supply of provisions. Gylippus and Hermokratês had thus ample time, on the following day, to send out forces and occupy all the positions convenient for obstructing the Athenian march. They at the same time towed into Syracuse as prizes all the Athenian triremes which had been driven ashore in the recent battle, and which now lay like worthless hulks,

1 Xenophon. Anab. iv. 5, 15, 19; v. 8, 15.

'Thucyd. vii. 77.

unguarded and unheeded' seemingly even those within the station itself.

Retreat of

the Athe

nians

miserable

It was on the next day but one after the maritime defeat that Nikias and Demosthenês put their army in motion to attempt retreat. The camp had long condition of been a scene of sickness and death from the preva- the army. lence of marsh fever; but since the recent battle, the number of wounded men and the unburied bodies of the slain, had rendered it yet more pitiable. Forty thousand miserable men (so prodigious was the total including all ranks and functions) now set forth to quit it, on a march of which few could hope to see the end; like the pouring forth of the population of a large city starved out by blockade. Many had little or no provisions to carryso low had the stock become reduced; but of those who had, every man carried his own-even the horsemen and hoplites, now for the first time either already left without slaves by desertion, or knowing that no slave could now be trusted. But neither such melancholy equality of suffering, nor the number of sufferers, counted for much in the way of alleviation. A downcast stupor and sense of abasement possessed every man; the more intolerable, when they recollected the exit of the armament from Peiræus two years before, with prayers, and solemn pæans, and all the splendid dreams of conquest-set against the humiliation of the closing scene now before them, without a single trireme left out of two prodigious fleets.

But it was not until the army had actually begun its march that the full measure of wretchedness was

1 Thucyd. vii. 74.

ness arising

from aban

doning the sick and wounded.

Wretched- felt and manifested. It was then that the necessity first became proclaimed, which no one probably spoke out beforehand, of leaving behind not merely the unburied bodies, but also the sick and the wounded. The scenes of woe, which marked this hour, passed endurance or description. The departing soldier sorrowed and shuddered, with the sentiment of an unperformed duty, as he turned from the unburied bodies of the slain; but far more terrible was the trial, when he had to tear himself from the living sufferers, who implored their comrades, with wailings of agony and distraction, not to abandon them. Appealing to all the claims of pious friendship, they clung round their knees, and even crawled along the line of march until their strength failed. The silent dejection of the previous day was now exchanged for universal tears and groans, and clamorous outbursts of sorrow, amidst which the army could not without the utmost difficulty be disengaged and put in motion.

Attempt of the generals

some order

Nikias.

After such heart-rending scenes, it might seem to maintain that their cup of bitterness was exhausted; but -energy of worse was yet in store-and the terrors of the future dictated a struggle against all the miseries of past and present. The generals did their best to keep up some sense of order as well as courage; and Nikias, particularly, in this closing hour of his career, displayed a degree of energy and heroism which he had never before seemed to possess. Though himself among the greatest personal sufferers of all, from his incurable complaint, he was seen everywhere in the ranks, marshaling the troops, heartening up their dejection, and addressing them

with a voice louder, more strenuous, and more commanding than was his wont.

tions of

'Keep up your hope still, Athenians (he said), Exhortaeven as we are now: others have been saved out of Nikias to

circumstances worse than ours. Be not too much humiliated, either with your defeats or with your present unmerited hardships. I too, having no advantage over any of you in strength (nay, you see the condition to which I have been brought by my disease), and accustomed even to superior splendour and good fortune in private as well as public life-I too am plunged in the same peril with the humblest soldier among you. Nevertheless my conduct has been constantly pious towards the gods, as well as just and blameless towards men ; in recompense for which, my hope for the future is yet sanguine, at the same time that our actual misfortunes do not appal me in proportion to their intrinsic magnitude'. Perhaps indeed they may from this time forward abate; for our enemies have had

1 Thucyd. vii. 77. Καίτοι πολλὰ μὲν ἐς θεοὺς νόμιμα δεδιῄτημαι, πολλὰ δὲ ἐς ἀνθρώπους δίκαια καὶ ἀνεπίφθονα. ̓Ανθ' ὧν ἡ μὲν ἐλπὶς ὅμως θρασεία τοῦ μέλλοντος, αἱ δὲ ξυμφοραὶ οὐ κατ ̓ ἀξίαν δὴ φοβοῦσι. Τάχα δ' ἂν καὶ λωφήσειαν· ἱκανὰ γὰρ τοῖς τε πολεμίοις εὐτύχης ται, καὶ εἴ τῷ θεῶν ἐπίφθονοι ἐστρατεύσαμεν, ἀρκούντως ἤδη τετιμωρή μεθα.

I have translated the words οὐ κατ ̓ ἀξίαν, and the sentence of which they form a part, differently from what has been hitherto sanctioned by the commentators, who construe κar' ȧ§íav as meaning "according to our desert understand the words αἱ ξυμφοραὶ οὐ κατ ̓ ἀξίαν as bearing the same sense with the words ταῖς παρὰ τὴν ἀξίαν κακοπραγίαις some lines before—and likewise construe οὐ, not with φοβοῦσι, but with κατ' ἀξίαν, assigning to φοβοῦσι an affirmative sense. They translate-" Quare, quamvis nostra fortuna prorsus afflicta videatur (these words have no parallel in the original), rerum tamen futurarum spes est audax: sed clades, quas nullo nostro merito accepimus, nos jam terrent. At fortasse cessabunt," &c. M. Didot translates—“ Aussi j'ai un

the suffer

ing army.

their full swing of good fortune, and if at the moment of our starting we were under the jealous wrath of any of the gods, we have already undergone chastisement amply sufficient. Other people ferme espoir dans l'avenir malgré l'effroi que des malheurs non mérités nous causent." Dr. Arnold passes the sentence over without notice.

This manner of translating appears to me not less unsuitable in reference to the spirit and thread of the harangue, than awkward as regards the individual words. Looking to the spirit of the harangue, the object of encouraging the dejected soldiers would hardly be much answered by repeating (what in fact had been glanced at in a manner sufficient and becoming, before) that "the unmerited reverses terrified either Nikias, or the soldiers." Then as to the words-the expressions åvľ Ev, õμws, pèv and dè, seem to me to denote, not only that the two halves of the sentence apply both of them to Nikias-but that the first half of the sentence is in harmony, not in opposition, with the second. Matthiæ (in my judgement, erroneously) refers (Gr. Gr. § 623) öμws to some words which have preceded; I think that ouws contributes to hold together the first and the second affirmation of the sentence. Now the Latin translation refers the first half of the sentence to Nikias, and the last half to the soldiers whom he addresses; while the translation of M. Didot, by means of the word malgré, for which there is nothing corresponding in the Greek, puts the second half in antithesis to the first.

I cannot but think that ou ought to be construed with poßoûσɩ, and that the words κar' d§íav do not bear the meaning assigned to them by the translators. 'Agiav not only means, "desert, merit, the title to that which a man has earned by his conduct "-as in the previous phrase "apà rηv å§íav—but it also means "price, value, title to be cared for, capacity of exciting more or less desire or aversion ”—in which last sense it is predicated as an attribute, not only of moral beings, but of other objects besides. Thus Aristotle says (Ethic. Nikom. iii. 11)—ὁ γὰρ οὕτως ἔχων, μᾶλλον ἀγαπᾷ τὰς τοιαύτας ἡδονὰς τῆς ἀξίας· ὁ δὲ σώφρων οὐ τοιοῦτος, &c. Again, ibid. iii. 5. Ὁ μὲν οὖν ἃ δεῖ καὶ οὗ ἕνεκα, ὑπομένων καὶ φοβούμενος, καὶ ὡς δεῖ, καὶ ὅτε, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ θαῤῥῶν, ἀνδρεῖος· κατ ̓ ἀξίαν γὰρ, καὶ ὡς ἂν ὁ λόγος, πάσχει καὶ πράττει ὁ ἀνδρεῖος. Again, ibid. iv. 2. Διὰ τοῦτό ἐστι τοῦ μεγαλοπρε ποῦς, ἐν ᾧ ἂν ποιῇ γένει, μεγαλοπρεπῶς ποιεῖν· τὸ γὰρ τοιοῦτον οὐχ εὐυπέρβλητον, καὶ ἔχον κατ ̓ ἀξίαν τοῦ δαπανήματος. Again, ibid. viii. 14. ̓Αχρεῖον γὰρ ὄντα οὔ φασι δεῖν ἴσον ἔχειν· λειτουργίαν τε γὰρ γίνεσθαι, καὶ οὐ φιλίαν, εἰ μὴ κατ' ἀξίαν τῶν ἔργων ἔσται τὰ ἐκ τῆς pilías. Compare also ib. viii. 13.

Xenophon, Cyrop. viii. 4, 32. τὸ γὰρ πολλὰ δοκοῦντα ἔχειν μὴ κατ' ἀξίαν τῆς οὐσίας φαίνεσθαι ὠφελοῦντα τοὺς φίλους, ἀνελευθερίαν ἐμοίγε