Book 6
THE same winter the Athenians wished to sail again to Sicily, with a larger armament than that under Laches and Eurymedon, and bring it into subjection to them, if they could; the mass of the people being ignorant of the size of the island, and the number of its inhabitants, both Greeks and barbarians; and that they were undertaking a war not much inferior in magnitude to that with the Peloponnesians.
For the voyage round Sicily in a merchant vessel is one of not much less than eight days; and The reasoning employed in the words τοσαύτη οὖσα is very much in the style of the geography of Herodotus. The notion is, that so large an island ought to have been in the midst of a wide sea, proportioned to its own magnitude; and not to have been so close upon the coast, as to seem a sort of appendage to the mainland, —Arnold. though it is of such extent, it is only excluded by the space of about twenty stades of sea from being mainland.
Now it was settled originally in the following manner, and these were all the nations that occupied it. The earliest people said to have lived in any part of the country are the Cyclopes and Laestrygones; with regard to whom, I can neither tell their race, nor whence they came into it, nor whither they departed out of it: but let that suffice which has been said by the poets, and which every body in any way knows of them.
The Sicanians appear to have been the first who settled in it after them; indeed, as they themselves assert, even before them, as being the aboriginal population; but as the truth is found to be, they were Iberians, and were driven from the river Sicanus, in Theria, by the Ligurians. And it was from them that the island was at that time called Sicania, having previously been called Trinacria; and still, even to this day, they inhabit Sicily in its western districts.
But on the capture of Troy, some of the Trojans, having escaped the Greeks, came in vessels to Sicily, and having settled in the neighbourhood of the Sicanians, they were all together called Elymi, and their cities, Eryx and Segesta. There were also settled with them some of the Phocians, who, while returning from Troy, were carried by a tempest, first to Libya, and then from that country to Sicily.
The Sicels, again, went over into Sicily from Italy, (for it was there that they used to live,) while flying from some Opicans; crossing on rafts, (as is probable, and reported to have been the case,) having watched an opportunity for the passage, when the wind Or, set steadily in that direction, i. e. was favourable set down the strait; or, perhaps, having sailed to it in some other way. Even to this day there are still Sicels in Italy; and it was in this way that the country was called Italy, after Italus, a king of the Sicels who had that name.
Having gone, then, to Sicily with a great host, and being victorious in battle over the Sicanians, they compelled them to remove to the southern and western parts of it, and caused the island to be called Sicily, instead of Sicania, and occupied the best parts of the land; having held them, after they crossed over, nearly three hundred years before any Greeks came into Sicily; and still, even to this day, they retain the central and northern parts of the island.
There were also Phoenicians living Or, as Poppo explains it, all about the whole island. But the words immediately following are in favour of the other interpretation. Compare ch. 85. 2, καίπερ νησιώτας ὄντας καὶ εὐλήπτους, διότι ἐν χωρίοις ἐπικαίροις εἰσὶ περὶ τὴν πελοπόννησον. around the whole of Sicily, having occupied promontories on the sea-coast, and the small islands adjacent, for purposes of trading with the Sicels: but after the Greeks sailed to it in great numbers by sea, in addition to those already there, they evacuated the greater part of them, and lived in Motya, Solois, and Panormus, near the Elymi, having united with them, both from confidence in their alliance, and because from that quarter the voyage from Sicily to Carthage is shortest. As regards barbarians, then, so many of them were there that inhabited Sicily, and in such a manner.
Of the Greeks, on the other hand, some Chalcidians of Euboea first sailed with Thucles as the leader of the colony, and founded Naxos, and built the altar to Apollo The epithet ἀρχηγέτης, or ἀρχαγέτας as the Dorians wrote the word, was given to Apollo, because the Chalcidian colony had sailed to Sicily by his direction. See Scholiast on Pindar, Pyth. V. 80. —Arnold. Archegetes, which is now outside the city, and on which when any deputies to the games sail from Sicily, they first sacrifice.
Syracuse was founded the next year by Archias, of the family of Hercules at Corinth, after he had first expelled the Sicels from the island; on which, being no longer surrounded with water, the inner city now stands; and at a later period the outer one also was enclosed within the wall, and became populous.
Moreover, Thucles and the Chalcidians from Naxos set out in the fifth year after the founding of Syracuse, and having expelled the Sicels by arms, re—settled Leontini, and after it Catana, the Catanians themselves having chosen Evarchus as their founder.
At the same time Lamis arrived in Sicily with a colony from Megara, and after settling in a place beyond the river Pantacyas, Trotilus by name, and subsequently removing thence, and uniting for a short time with the Chalcidians at Leontini, and being driven out by them, he founded Thapsus, and then he himself died; while the rest, being expelled from Thapsus, effected a settlement at Megara, called the Hyblaean, Hyblo, a Sicel king, having given up the place to them and led them in.
After inhabiting it two hundred and forty—five years, they were expelled from the city and country by Gelo, tyrant of Syracuse. Before their expulsion, however, a hundred years after their settlement, they founded Seliaus, having sent Pamillus for the purpose, who came from Megara, their mother—city, and joined them in founding it.
Gela, again, was founded by Antiphemus from Rhodes, and Entimus from Crete, who led a common colony, in the forty-fifth year after the founding of Syracuse. The name of the city was taken from the river Gelas, but the spot where the city, [properly so called,] now stands, and which was first fortified, is named So named because Antiphemus and his Rhodian companions had principally come from Lindus in Rhodes. See Herod. VII. 153. 2. —Arnold Lindii. The institutions established amongst them were Dorian.
Just about a hundred and eight years after their own settlement, the Geloans settled Acragas, [or Agrigentum,] naming the city from the river Acragas: they made Aristonous and Pystilus the leaders of their colony, and gave it the institutions of the Geloans.
Zancle, again, was originally founded from Cuma, the Chalcidian city in the country of the Opici, by some freebooters who went there; but afterwards a great number went from Chalcis and the rest of Euboea, and shared with them in the occupation of the land; its founders being Perieres and Crataemenes, one from Cuma, the other from Chalcis. As regards its name, it was at first called Zancle by the Sicels, because the site resembles a reaping-hook in figure, and the reaping-hook is called by the Sicels zanclon. Afterwards, these settlers were expelled by some Samians and other Ionians, who landed in Sicily while flying from the Medes;
and again, Anaxilas, tyrant of Rhegium, having not long after expelled the Samians, and colonized their country with a mixed population, changed its name to Messana, after his own original country.
Himera was founded from Zancle by Euclides, Simus, and Saco, and most of those who went to the colony were Chalcidians, though there were also united with them some exiles from Syracuse, who had been defeated in a strife of factions—the Mylaetidae, as they are called. The language was a mixture of the Chalcidian and Dorian; but the Chalcidian were the prevailing institutions.
Acrae and Casmenae were founded by the Syracusans; Acrae seventy years after Syracuse, and Casmenae nearly twenty years after Acrae.
Camarina was in the first instance founded by the Syracusans, just about a hundred and thirty-five years after the building of Syracuse, its founders being Dascon and Menecolus. But the Camarinaeans having been driven out after a war by the Syracusans on account of their revolting from them, some time after, Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela, having received their territory as a ransom for some Syracusan prisoners, himself acting as founder, re-settled Camarina. And having again been depopulated by Gelo, it was settled for the third time by the Geloans.
So many were the nations of Greeks and barbarians that inhabited Sicily, and such was the size of the island against which the Athenians were eager to make an expedition; being desirous (to mention their truest motive) of gaining dominion over the whole of it; but at the same time wishing, as a plausible pretext, to succour their own kinsmen, and the allies they had gained besides.
Above all, they were instigated by ambassadors from the Segestans, who had come to Athens and invoked their aid more earnestly than ever. For being borderers of the Selinuntines, they had gone to war with them on certain questions respecting marriage rights, and for some debated territory; and the Selinuntines, having taken the Syracusans for their allies, were pressing them hard with hostilities both by land and sea. Consequently the Segestans reminded the Athenians of their alliance, which had been formed in the time of Laches and of the former war with the Leontines, and begged them to send a fleet and assist them; alleging many other things, and, as the sum and substance of all, that if the Syracusans should be unpunished for the depopulation of Leontini, and, by ruining such of the Athenian allies as were still left should themselves obtain the whole power of Sicily; there would be danger of their some time or other coming with a large force, as Dorians, to the aid of Dorians, on the strength of their connexion, and, moreover, as colonists, to the aid of the Peloponnesians who had sent them out, and so joining in the destruction of the Athenian power. It were wise therefore, in concert with the remaining allies, to resist the Syracusans;
especially as they would themselves furnish money sufficient for the war. The Athenians, hearing these things in their assemblies from the Segestans and their supporters, who were repeatedly alleging them, Or, voted to send, etc., according to Bekker's and Poppo's reading of πέμψαι, instead of πέμψαντες. passed a decree on the subject; sending ambassadors, in the first place, to see about the money, whether it were already laid up, as they asserted, in the treasury and in the temples, and at the same time to ascertain what was the state of the war with the Selinuntines.
The ambassadors of the Athenians, then, were thus sent to Sicily. The same winter, the Lacedaemonians and their allies, except the Corinthians, having made an expedition into the Argive territory, 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 having left them a few men from the rest of their forces also, and made a truce for some time, on condition of the Orneatae and the Argives not injuring each other's land, they returned home with their army.
But the Athenians having come no long time after with thirty ships and six hundred heavy—armed, the Argives, in conjunction with the Athenians, taking the field with all their force, besieged the men in Orneae one day; but at night, the army having bivouacked at some distance, they escaped out of it. The next day, the Argives, on finding this, razed Orneae and returned, and the Athenians afterwards went home with their ships.
Moreover, the Athenians took by sea some of their own cavalry, and the Macedonian exiles who were with them, to Methone, the country bordering on Macedonia, and ravaged the territory of Perdiccas.
The Lacedaemonian. therefore sent to the Chalcidians Thrace-ward, who had a truce with the Athenians from one ten days to another, and urged then to join Perdiccas in the war; but they would not. And so the winter ended, and the sixteenth year of this war, of which Thucydides wrote the history.
The following summer, as soon as the spring commenced, the ambassadors of the Athenians came from Sicily, and the Segestans with them, bringing sixty talents of uncoined silver, as a month's pay for sixty ships which they were to beg them to send.
And the Athenians having held an assembly, and heard from the Segestans and their own ambassadors a seductive and untrue report on the other subjects, and also, with regard to the money, that it was provided in abundance in the temples and the treasury; they voted to send sixty ships, with Alcibiades son of Clinias, Nicias son of Niceratus, and Lamachus son of Xenophanes, as commanders, with full powers, to assist the Segestans against the Selinuntines, and to join in re-founding Leontini, should they gain any advantage in the war, and to carry out all other measures in Sicily, as they should deem best for the Athenians.—
On the fifth day after this, an assembly was again held, to consider in what way the preparations for the ships should be most quickly made, and whatever else was wanted by the generals be voted them for the expedition.
Nicias then, who had been chosen against his will to take the command, and thought that the state was not well advised, but, on a trifling and specious pretext, was coveting the whole of Sicily—an arduous design to achieve—came forward with a wish to divert the Athenians from it, and advised them to the following effect:
"This assembly was, it is true, convened to consider the subject of our preparations, namely, in what way we ought to make the expedition to Sicily. My opinion, however, is, that we ought still to consider this very point, whether it be better to send out our ships: and not on such slight deliberation on matters of great moment, at the instigation of aliens, to take upon ourselves a war, with which we have nothing to do.
And yet I, for my own part, receive honour from such a policy, and have less fear than others for my own personal safety: (though I consider that man to be an equally good citizen who takes some forethought both for his person and his property; for such a man would, for his own sake, be most desirous that his country also should prosper:) nevertheless, neither aforetime have I ever spoken contrary to my convictions, for the sake of being honoured above others, nor will I now, but as I think best, so will I speak.
And though against your inclinations my words would be powerless, should I advise you to keep what you have, and not expose your present possessions to danger for things which are uncertain and future; yet that neither are you timely in your haste, nor the objects of your ambition easy to attain, on these points I will give you instruction.
"I say then, that you wish, though leaving many enemies behind you here, to bring hither fresh ones besides, by sailing there.
And you fancy, perhaps, that the treaty that has been made by you affords some ground of confidence. But though, as long as you remain quiet, that will, indeed, be a treaty—in name, (for to this condition have certain persons here and amongst your enemies brought it by their intrigues,) yet if we are ever defeated with any considerable force, those who hate us will quickly make an attack upon us; seeing, in the first place, that the arrangement was made of necessity by them, under circumstances of disaster, and of greater discredit to them than to us; and, secondly, that in this very arrangement we have many subjects open to debate.
There are some, too, who have not yet acceded even to this composition, such as it is, and those not the least powerful states; but some of them are at war with us downright, and, in the case of others, because the Lacedaemonians remain quiet at present, they too are restrained by truces from one ten days to another.
But probably, if they should find our power divided, (which we are now so anxious to bring about,) they would with all their might attack us, in conjunction with the Siceliots, whose alliance they would in time past have valued Literally, above many things. Compare I. 33. most highly.
Every one therefore ought to look to this, and not presume to run risks with a state so unsettled, and to grasp at another empire before we have secured the one we have; seeing that the Chalcidians Thrace-ward, though they have revolted from us so many years, are still unsubdued; and there are some others on the different coasts of the mainland who yield us but a doubtful obedience. And so we are quick to succour the Segestans, who are our allies, for sooth, as being injured; but on those by whose revolt we have ourselves long ago been injured, we still defer to avenge ourselves.
"And yet the latter, if subdued, might be kept in subjection by us; but the former, even if we conquered them, we should hardly be able to govern, so far off and so numerous as they are. But it is folly to go against men whom we could not keep under, if we conquered them; while, if we did not succeed in the attempt, we should not be in the same position as we were before making it.