Book 6
"It is necessary first of all to speak to you about the prejudice against me, in order that you may not through suspicion of me give a less favourable hearing to matters of public concern.
When my ancestors on account of some complaint had renounced their office as your proxenoi, I myself, seeking to revive the relationship, courted your favour in other matters and especially in regard to your misfortune at Pylos.cf. 5.43.2. And although I continued zealous, you, in making peace with the Athenians, by negotiating through my personal enemies conferred power upon them but brought dishonour upon me.
For these reasons you deserved the injury you suffered when I turned to the side of the Mantineans and Argives, and when I opposed you in other matters.cf. 5.53. ff. And if anyone at the actual moment of suffering was unduly angry at me, let him now look at it in the light of the truth and be led to a different conviction; or if anyone thought worse of me because I was more inclined to the cause of the people, let him not even on that ground suppose that he was rightly offended.
For my family have always been at variance with tyrants, and as all that is opposed to despotic power has the name of democracy, so from the fact of that opposition of ours the leadership of the people has remained with us. Besides, while the city was a democracy, it was necessary in most respects to conform to existing conditions. We tried, however, to pursue a moderate course in politics in contrast with the prevailing licence.
But there have been others, both in the time of our forefathers and now, who led the masses into more evil ways; and these are the very men who have driven me out.
But it was of the whole people that we were leaders, deeming it right to help to preserve that form of government under which the state had, as it chanced, attained its highest greatness and completest freedom, and which had come down to us—for as to democracy of course, all of us who have any sense well understood what it was, and I better than anyone, inasmuch as I have greater cause to abuse it; but indeed nothing new can be said about an admitted folly—and it did not seem to us wise to change our democratic constitution when you, our enemies, were waiting at our gates.
"With regard, then, to the prejudices against me, that is how things fell out; but with reference to the matters about which you must take counsel and which I, if I have any superior knowledge, must bring to your notice, give me now your attention.
We sailed to Sicily, first, to subdue the Siceliots, if we could, and after them the Italiots also; and then to make an attempt upon the empire of the Carthaginians and upon the city itself.
If these things, either all, or at least the greater part of them, succeeded, then we intended to attack the Peloponnesus, bringing here the whole Hellenic force that had joined us there, hiring besides many barbarians, both Iberians and others of the peoples there that are admittedly the most warlike of the barbarians at the present day, and building many triremes in addition to our own, as Italy has timber in abundance. Laying a blockade with these triremes round the Peloponnesus, and at the same time attacking it with our infantry by land, having thus taken some of its cities by assault and walled in others, we expected easily to reduce it, and after that to have sway over the whole Hellenic race.
As to money and food, for making any of these projects more feasible, the additional territory acquired in Sicily would of itself furnish these in sufficient quantity, independently of our home revenues.
"That such were the objects of the expedition which has sailed, you have heard now from one who knows most accurately what we purposed; and the rest of the generals will, if they can, carry out these plans without change. But that the people over there cannot hold out unless you aid them, let me now show you.
The Siceliots have indeed less military experience than the Athenians, yet if they were united in one body they could, even as it is, gain the victory. But the Syracusans alone, being already worsted in battle with their full force and at the same time hemmed in at sea, will be unable to withstand the army of the Athenians now there.
And if this city shall be taken, all Sicily is theirs, and so presently will Italy be also; nor will it be long before the danger which I have just now predicted from that quarter would fall upon you.
Therefore let nobody think that you are deliberating about Sicily only, but about the Peloponnesus also, unless you do quickly the following things: send thither by ship such a body of troops as, after working their own passage at the oar, can at once serve as hoplites; also what I consider even more indispensable than the army, a Spartan as commander, that he may organize the forces already present and press into service those that are unwilling. For in this way the friends you have already will be encouraged, and those who are in doubt will come over with less misgiving.
And the war here you must at the same time prosecute more openly, in order that the Syracusans, convinced that you are really concerned, may offer greater resistance, and the Athenians be less able to send reinforcements to their own troops.
You ought likewise to fortify Deceleia in Attica,The occupation of Deceleia took place in 413 B.C. (cf. 1.xix.). the very thing the Athenians are always most in dread of and reckon the only peril of which they have not made full trial in this war. And the surest way in which anyone can hurt his enemies is this: acting on certain information, he should inflict upon them that which he perceives they most fear; for it is natural that every man should have the most accurate knowledge of his own dangers and should fear them accordingly.
But as to the benefits which you yourselves will gain by this menacing strongholdie. a fortress built to dominate an enemy's territory. and will prevent your opponents from obtaining, I will pass over many and sum up only the most important. Whatever their country is stocked with will for the most part come into your hands, either by capture or by voluntary surrender.αὐτόατα, refers to slaves, who were part of the “stock.” And the revenues of the Laureian silver mines and whatever profits they now derive from their land and from their courts,The fees and fines arising from the adjudication of cases brought by the allied states. they will at once be deprived of, and above all of the tribute from their allies, that would be less regularly brought in; for these, convinced that the war is now being prosecuted on your part with all your might, will take their obligations lightly.
“The accomplishment of any of these projects promptly and more zealously depends, men of Lacedaemon, upon you, for that they are possible— and I do not think that I shall prove wrong in my judgment—I am fully assured.
And I claim that no one of you shall think more harshly of me because I, who seemed once to be a lover of my city, now make assault with all my might upon her, in concert with her bitterest enemies;
nor do I think that my word should be suspected on the score of the outcast's zeal. For outcast as I am from the villainy of those that expelled me, I am not ousted from doing you good service, if you will but hearken to me; and the worse enemies are not those who, like you, have merely hurt their enemies, but those who have forced their friends to become foes.
And as to love of country— I have it not when I am wronged, but had it when I possessed my civil rights in security. And it is not, as I conceive, against a country still my own that I am now going, but far rather one no longer mine that I am seeking to recover. And the true patriot is not the man who, having unjustly lost his fatherland, refrains from attacking it, but he who in his yearning for it tries in every way to get it back.
So I urge you, Lacedaemonians, to use me without misgiving for any danger and for any hardships, recognising that, according to the saying which is on everybody's lips, if as an enemy I did you exceeding injury, I might also be of some sufficient service to you as a friend, in so far as I know the affairs of the Athenians, while I could only conjecture yours. And I urge, too, that you yourselves now, convinced that you are deliberating about interests that are of the greatest importance, shrink not from sending an expedition into Sicily, and also into Attica, in order that, by keeping a small detachment on the island, you may preserve the large interests you have over there and may overthrow the power of the Athenians both present and prospective, and after that may yourselves live in security and be accepted by all the Hellenes of their free will, not by force but through affection, as their leaders.”
Such was the speech of Alcibiades; and the Lacedaemonians, who had already before this been disposed to make an expedition against Athens, but were still hesitating and looking about them, were now far more encouraged when Alcibiades himself explained these matters in detail, thinking that they had heard them from the one man who had most certain knowledge.
And so they now turned their attention to the fortification of Deceleia and, in particular, to sending immediately some assistance to the Sicilians. Having appointed Gylippus son of Cleandridas commander of the Syracusan forces, they ordered him, in consultation with the envoys of the Syracusans and Corinthians, to devise how under present circumstances help might come to the Syracusans in the best and quickest way.
And Gylippus bade the Corinthians send to him at once at AsineProbably the harbour in Messenia (4.13.1). two ships, and to equip all the rest they intended to send, and to be ready to sail whenever opportunity offered.
Having made these arrangements the envoys left Lacedaemon and set out for home. At this time also there arrived at Athens from Sicily the trireme that had been sent by the generals for money and cavalry. And the Athenians, hearing their request, voted to send to the army both the supplies and the cavalry. And the winter ended, and with it the seventeenth year of this war of which Thucydides wrote the history.
At the very beginning of the following414 B.C. spring, the Athenians in Sicily set out from Catana and proceeded along the coast toward Megara, from which, as has been stated before,cf. 6.4.2. the Syracusans in the time of the tyrant Gelon had expelled the inhabitants, holding their territory themselves. Here they landed and ravaged
the fields; then, attacking a stronghold of the Syracusans without success, they went back again along the coast with both land-force and fleet to the river Terias, and going inland ravaged the plain and set fire to the grain. Meeting with a small force of Syracusans, they killed some of them and after setting up a trophy withdrew to their ships. Having sailed back then to Catana and supplied themselves with provisions from there, they advanced with their whole army to Centoripa,Now Centorbi, twenty-seven miles north-west from Catana and near Mt. Aetna. a
Sicel town; and when they had brought it over by capitulation they returned, burning at the same time the grain of the InessiansThe site of Inessa is doubtful (cf. 3.103.1).
and Hyblaeans.Hybla Gelcatis (6.62.5). On their arrival at Catana they found that the horsemen had come from Athens, two hundred and fifty in number—with accoutrements but without the horses, for it was expected that horses would be procured in Sicily—as well as thirty mounted archers and three hundred talents£60,000, $291,600. of silver.
During the same summer the Lacedaemonians, making an expedition to Argos, got as far as Cleonae, but when an earthquake occurred they retired. After this the Argives invaded the Thyreatis, which lies on their borders, and took much booty from the Lacedaemonians, which was sold for not less than twenty-five talents.£5,000, $24,300.
And in the course of the same summer, not long afterwards, the people of Thespiae attacked the government but did not succeed; for succour came from Thebes and some were arrested, while others fled for refuge to Athens.
During the same summer the Syracusans, on learning that the Athenians had received their cavalry and that they were about to march against them immediately, thinking that unless the Athenians should get possession of Epipolae, a precipitous place lying directly above the city, they themselves, even if they were defeated in battle, could not easily be walled in, determined to guard the approaches to it, in order to prevent the enemy from ascending secretly by that way, since they could not possibly do so by any other road.
For at all other points the place overhangs the city and slopes right down to it, the whole height being visible from it; and it is called Epipolae by the Syracusans because it lies as an upper surface above the rest of the country.
So they went out at daybreak in full force to the meadow along the river Anapus—for Hermocrates and his fellow-generals, as it chanced, had just come into office—and proceeded to hold a review of the hoplites. And they selected first six hundred picked men of these, under the command of Diomilus, a fugitive from Andros, that these might be a guard for Epipolae, and if there were need of them anywhere else might be quickly at hand in a body.
And the Athenians during the night preceding the day on which the Syracusans held their review, came from Catana with their whole force and put in unobserved at the place called Leon, which is six or seven stadia distant from Epipolae, disembarking the land-force there and anchoring their ships at Thapsus. That is a peninsula, with a narrow isthmus, extending into the sea and not far distant from the city of Syracuse, either by sea or by land.
The naval force of the Athenians, having run a stockade across the isthmus, lay quiet on Thapsus; but the land-force advanced at once at a run to Epipolae, and got up by way of Euryelus before the Syracusans, when they became aware of it, could come up from the review which they were holding in the meadow.
They brought aid, however, everyone with what speed he could, the others as well as the six hundred under Diomilus; but they had not less than twenty-five stadia to go, after leaving the meadow, before they reached the enemy.
Consequently the Syracusans fell upon the Athenians in considerable disorder, and being defeated in battle on Epipolae, retired into the city, Diomilus and about three hundred of the rest being slain.
After this the Athenians, having set up a trophy and given up their dead under truce to the Syracusans, next day went down against the city itself; but when the enemy did not come out against them they withdrew and built a fort at Labdalum, on the verge of the bluffs of Epipolae looking towards Megara, that it might serve as a magazine for their baggage and stores whenever they advanced either to fight or to work at the wall.