Kitap 6
There is no reason therefore we should be afraid when we are all together, but that we should have the better will to unite ourselves in a league; and the rather because we are to have aid from Peloponnesus, who every way excel these men in military sufficiency. Nor should you think that your purpose to aid neither, as being in league with both, is either just in respect of us or safe for yourselves;
for it is not so just in substance as it is in the pretence. For if through want of your aid the assailed perish and the assailant become victor, what do you by your neutrality but leave the safety of the one undefended and suffer the other to do evil? Whereas it were more noble in you, by joining with the wronged and with your kindred, both to defend the common good of Sicily and keep the Athenians, as your friends, from an act of injustice.
To be short, we Syracusians say that to demonstrate plainly to you or to any other the thing you already know is no hard matter; but we pray you, and withal if you reject our words we protest, that whereas the Ionians, who have ever been our enemies, do take counsel against us, you, that are Dorians as well as we, betray us.
And if they subdue us, though it be by your counsels that they do it, yet they only shall have the honour of it; and for the prize of their victory, they will have none other but even the authors of their victory; but if the victory fall unto us, even you also, the cause of this our danger, shall undergo the penalty.
Consider therefore now and take your choice whether you will have the servitude without the present danger, or saving yourselves with us, both avoid the dishonour of having a master and escape our enmity, which is likely otherwise to be lasting.
Thus spake Hermocrates. After him Euphemus, ambassador from the Athenians, spake thus:
"Though our coming were to renew our former league, yet seeing we are touched by the Syracusian, it will be necessary we speak something here of the right of our dominion.
And the greatest testimony of this right he hath himself given, in that he said the Ionians were ever enemies to the Dorians. And it is true. For being Ionians, we have ever endeavoured to find out some means or other how best to free ourselves from subjection to the Peloponnesians, that are Dorians, more in number than we and dwelling near us.
After the Medan war, having gotten us a navy, we were delivered thereby from the command and leading of the Lacedaemonians, there being no cause why they should rather be leaders of us than we of them save only that they were then the stronger. And when we were made commanders of those Grecians which before lived under the king, we took upon us the government of them, because we thought that, having power in our hands to defend ourselves, we should thereby be the less subject to the Peloponnesians. And to say truth, we subjected the Ionians and islanders (whom the Syracusians say we brought into bondage being our kindred) not without just cause;
for they came with the Medes against ours, their mother city, and for fear of losing their wealth durst not revolt, as we did, that abandoned our very city. But as they were content to serve, so they would have imposed the same condition upon us.
"For these causes we took upon us our dominion over them, both as worthy of the same, in that we brought the greatest fleet and promptest courage to the service of the Grecians, whereas they, with the like promptness in favour of the Medes, did us hurt; and also as being desirous to procure ourselves a strength against the Peloponnesians.
And follow any other we will not, seeing we alone have pulled down the barbarian and therefore have right to command, or at least have put ourselves into danger more for the liberty of the Peloponnesians than of all the rest of Greece, and our own besides. Now to seek means for one's own preservation is a thing unblameable. And as it is for our own safety's cause that we are now here, so also we find that the same will be profitable for you.
Which we will make plain from those very things which they accuse, and you, as most formidable, suspect us of, being assured that such as suspect with vehement fear, though they may be won for the present with the sweetness of an oration, yet when the matter comes to performance, will then do as shall be most for their turn.
"We have told you that we hold our dominion yonder upon fear; and that upon the same cause we come hither now, by the help of our friends to assure the cities here, and not to bring you into subjection but rather to keep you from it.
"And let no man object that we be solicitous for those that are nothing to us; for as long as you be preserved and able to make head against the Syracusians, we shall be the less annoyed by their sending of forces to the Peloponnesians.
And in this point you are very much unto us. For the same reason it is meet also that we replant the Leontines; not to subject them, as their kindred in Euboea, but to make them as puissant as we can, that, being near, they may from their own territory weaken the Syracusians in our behalf.
For as for our wars at home, we are a match for our enemies without their help; and the Chalcidean (whom having made a slave yonder, the Syracusian said, we absurdly attempt to vindicate into liberty here) is most beneficial to us there without arms, paying money only; but the Leontines, and our other friends here, are the most profitable to us when they are most in liberty.
"Now to a tyrant or city that reigneth, nothing can be thought absurd if profitable, nor any man a friend that may not be trusted to. Friend or enemy he must be, according to the several occasions. But here it is for our benefit not to weaken our friends, but by our friends' strength to weaken our enemies. This you must needs believe, inasmuch as yonder also we so command over our confederates as every of them may be most useful to us:
the Chians and Methymnaeans redeem their liberty with providing us some galleys; the most of the rest, with a tribute of money somewhat more pressing. Some again of our confederates are absolutely free, notwithstanding that they be islanders and easy to be subdued; the reason whereof is this: they are situate in places commodious about Peloponnesus.
It is probable, therefore, that here also we will so order our affairs as shall be most for our own turn and most according to our fear, as we told you, of the Syracusians. For they affect a dominion over you, and having by advantage of your suspicion of us drawn you to their side, will themselves by force, or (if we go home without effect) by your want of friends, have the sole command of Sicily, which, if you join with them, must of necessity come to pass. For neither will it be easy for us to bring so great forces again together, nor will the Syracusians want strength to subdue you if we be absent. Him that thinketh otherwise, the thing itself convinceth.
"For when you called us in to aid you at the first, the fear you pretended was only this: that if we neglected you, the Syracusians would subdue you, and we thereby should participate of the danger.
And it were unjust that the argument you would needs have to prevail then with us should now have no effect with yourselves, or that you should be jealous of the much strength we bring against the power of the Syracusians when much rather you should give the less ear unto them. We cannot so much as stay here without you;
and if becoming perfidious we should subdue these states, yet we are unable to hold them, both in respect of the length of the voyage and for want of means of guarding them, because they be great and provided after the manner of the continent. Whereas they, not lodged near you in a camp, but inhabiting near you in a city of greater power than this of ours, will be always watching their advantages against you;
and when an opportunity shall be offered against any of your cities, will be sure not to let it slip. This they have already made to appear, both in their proceedings against the Leontines, and also otherwise. And yet have these the face to move you against us that hinder this, and that have hitherto kept Sicily from falling into their hands.
But we, on the other side, invite you to a far more real safety, and pray you not to betray that safety which we both of us hold from one another at this present, but to consider that they by their own number have way to you always, though without confederates, whereas you shall seldom have so great an aid again to resist them. Which if through your jealousy you suffer to go away without effect, or if it miscarry, you will hereafter wish for the least part of the same, when their coming can no more do you good.
But, Camarinaeans, be neither you nor others moved with their calumnies. We have told you the very truth why we are suspected; and summarily we will tell it you again, claiming to prevail with you thereby.
We say we command yonder lest else we should obey, and we assert into liberty the cities here lest else we should be harmed by them; many things we have to be doing, because many things we are forced to beware of; and both now and before, we came not uncalled, but called as confederates to such of you as suffer wrong.
Make not yourselves judges of what we do, nor go about as censors (which were now hard to do) to divert us; but as far as this busy humour and fashion of ours may be for your own service, so far take and use it; and think not the same hurtful alike to all, but that the greatest part of the Grecians have good by it.
For in all places, though we be not of any side, yet both he that looketh to be wronged and he that contriveth to do the wrong, by the obviousness of the hope that the one hath of our aid and of the fear that the other hath of their own danger if we should come, are brought by necessity, the one to moderation against his will, the other into safety without his trouble.
Refuse not therefore the security now present, common both to us that require it, and to yourselves. But do as others use to do: come with us, and instead of defending yourselves always against the Syracusians, take your turn once and put them to their guard as they have done you.
Thus spake Euphemus. The Camarinaeans stood thus affected: they bare good will to the Athenians, save that they thought they meant to subjugate Sicily; and were ever at strife with the Syracusians about their borders. Yet because they were afraid that the Syracusians, that were near them, might as well get the victory as the other, they had both formerly sent them some few horse, and also now resolved for the future to help the Syracusians, but underhand and as sparingly as possible; and withal that they might no less seem to favour the Athenians than the Syracusians, especially after they had won a battle, to give for the present an equal answer unto both.
So after deliberation had, they answered thus: that forasmuch as they that warred were both of them their confederates, they thought it most agreeable to their oath for the present to give aid to neither.
And so the ambassadors of both sides went their ways. And the Syracusians made preparations for the war by themselves. The Athenians, being encamped at Naxos, treated with the Siculi to procure as many of them as they might to their side.
Of whom, such as inhabited the plain and were subject to the Syracusians for the most part held off; but they that dwelt in the most inland parts of the island, being a free people, and ever before dwelling in villages, presently agreed with the Athenians, and brought corn into the army, and some of them also money.
To those that held off the Athenians went with their army; and some they forced to come in and others they hindered from receiving the aids and garrisons of the Syracusians. And having brought their fleet from Naxos, where it had been all the winter till now, they lay the rest of the winter at Catana and re-erected their camp formerly burnt by the Syracusians.
They sent a galley also to Carthage to procure amity and what help they could from thence; and into Hetruria, because some cities there had of their own accord promised to take their parts. They sent likewise to the Siculi about them and to Egesta, appointing them to send in all the horse they could, and made ready bricks and iron and whatsoever else was necessary for a siege, and every other thing they needed, as intending to fall in hand with the war early the next spring.
The ambassadors of Syracuse which were sent to Corinth and Lacedaemon, as they sailed by, endeavoured also to move the Italians to a regard of this action of the Athenians.
Being come to Corinth, they spake unto them and demanded aid upon the title of consanguinity. The Corinthians, having forthwith for their own part decreed cheerfully to aid them, sent also ambassadors from themselves along with these to Lacedaemon to help them to persuade the Lacedaemonians both to make a more open war against the Athenians at home and to send some forces also into Sicily.
At the same time that these ambassadors were at Lacedaemon from Corinth, Alcibiades was also there with his fellow fugitives, who presently upon their escape passed over from Thurii first to Cyllene, the haven of the Eleians, in a ship, and afterwards went thence to Lacedaemon, sent for by the Lacedaemonians themselves, under public security.
For he feared them for his doings about Mantineia. And it fell out that in the assembly of the Lacedaemonians the Corinthians, Syracusians, and Alcibiades made all of them the same request. Now the ephores and magistrates, though intending to send ambassadors to Syracuse to hinder them from compounding with the Athenians, being yet not forward to send them aid, Alcibiades stood forth and sharpened the Lacedaemonians, inciting them with words to this effect: