Note 207 — Chapter LVII · SICILIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE EXTINCTION OF THE GELONIAN DYNASTY.

See the speech of Hermokratês, Thucyd. iv, 59-64. One expression in this speech indicates that it was composed by Thucydidês many years after its proper date, subsequently to the great expedition of the Athenians against Syracuse in 415 B.C.; though I doubt not that Thucydidês collected the memoranda for it at the time.

Hermokratês says: “The Athenians are now near us with a few ships, lying in wait for our blunders,”—οἱ δύναμιν ἔχοντες μεγίστην τῶν Ἑλλήνων τάς τε ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν τηροῦσιν, ὀλίγαις ναυσὶ παρόντες, etc. (iv, 60).

Now the fleet under the command of Eurymedon and his colleagues at Rhegium included all or most of the ships which had acted at Sphakteria and Korkyra, together with those which had been previously at the strait of Messina under Pythodôrus. It could not have been less than fifty sail, and may possibly have been sixty sail. It is hardly conceivable that any Greek, speaking in the early spring of 424 B.C., should have alluded to this as a small fleet: assuredly, Hermokratês would not thus allude to it, since it was for the interest of his argument to exaggerate rather than extenuate, the formidable manifestations of Athens.

But Thucydidês, composing the speech after the great Athenian expedition of 415 B.C., so much more numerous and commanding in every respect, might not unnaturally represent the fleet of Eurymedon as “a few ships,” when he tacitly compared the two. This is the only way that I know, of explaining such an expression.

The Scholiast observes that some of the copies in his time omitted the words ὀλίγαις ναυσὶ: probably they noticed the contradiction which I have remarked; and the passage may certainly be construed without those words.