Note 338 — Chapter LVIII · FROM THE RESOLUTION OF THE ATHENIANS TO ATTACK SYRACUSE, DOWN TO THE FIRST WINTER AFTER THEIR ARRIVAL IN SICILY. (continued 2)

Αἰσχρὸν δὲ βιασθέντας ἀπελθεῖν, ἢ ὕστερον ἐπιμεταπέμπεσθαι, τὸ πρῶτον ἀσκέπτως βουλευσαμένους: “It is disgraceful to be driven out of Sicily by superior force, or to send back here afterwards for fresh reinforcements, through our own fault in making bad calculations at first.” (Thucyd. vi, 21.)

This was a part of the last speech by Nikias himself at Athens, prior to the expedition. The Athenian people in reply had passed a vote that he and his colleagues should fix their own amount of force, and should have everything which they asked for. Moreover, such was the feeling in the city, that every one individually was anxious to put down his name to serve (vi, 26-31). Thucydidês can hardly find words sufficient to depict the completeness, the grandeur, the wealth public and private, of the armament.

As this goes to establish what I have advanced in the text,—that the actions of Nikias in Sicily stand most of all condemned by his own previous speeches at Athens,—so it seems to have been forgotten by Dr. Arnold, when he wrote his note on the remarkable passage, ii, 65, of Thucydidês,—ἐξ ὧν ἄλλα τε πολλὰ, ὡς ἐν μεγάλῃ πόλει, καὶ ἀρχὴν ἐχούσῃ, ἡμαρτήθη, καὶ ὁ ἐς Σικελίαν πλοῦς· ὃς οὐ τοσοῦτον γνώμης ἁμάρτημα ἦν πρὸς οὓς ἐπῄεσαν, ὅσον οἱ ἐκπέμψαντες, οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα τοῖς οἰχομένοις ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὰς ἰδίας διαβολὰς περὶ τῆς τοῦ δήμου προστασίας, τά τε ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδῳ ἀμβλύτερα ἐποίουν, καὶ τὰ περὶ τὴν πόλιν πρῶτον ἐν ἀλλήλοις ἐταράχθησαν. Upon which Dr. Arnold remarks:—

“Thucydidês here expresses the same opinion which he repeats in two other places (vi, 31; vii, 42). namely, that the Athenian power was fully adequate to the conquest of Syracuse, had not the expedition been mismanaged by the general, and insufficiently supplied by the government at home. The words οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα τοῖς οἰχομένοις ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες signify “not voting afterwards the needful supplies to their absent armament:” for Nikias was prevented from improving his first victory over the Syracusans by the want of cavalry and money; and the whole winter was lost before he could get supplied from Athens. And subsequently the armament was allowed to be reduced to great distress and weakness, before the second expedition was sent to reinforce it.” Göller and Poppo concur in this explanation.

Let us in the first place discuss the explanation here given of the words τὰ πρόσφορα ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες. It appears to me that these words do not signify “voting the needful supplies.”

The word ἐπιγιγνώσκειν cannot be used in the same sense with ἐπιπέμπειν—παρασχεῖν (vii, 2-15), ἐκπορίζειν. As it would not be admissible to say ἐπιγιγνώσκειν ὅπλα, νῆας, ἵππους, χρήματα, etc., so neither can it be right to say ἐπιγιγνώσκειν τὰ πρόσφορα, if this latter word were used only as a comprehensive word for these particulars, meaning “supplies.” The words really mean: “taking farther resolutions (after the expedition was gone) unsuitable or mischievous to the absent armament.” Πρόσφορα is used here quite generally, agreeing with βουλεύματα, or some such word: indeed, we find the phrase τὰ πρόσφορα used in the most general sense, for “what is suitable;” “what is advantageous or convenient:” γυμνάσω τὰ πρόσφορα—πράσσεται τὰ πρόσφορα—τὰ πρόσφορ’ ηὔξατ’—τὰ πρόσφορα δρῳης ἂν—τὸ ταῖσδε πρόσφορον. Euripid. Hippol. 112; Alkestis, 148; Iphig. Aul. 160, B; Helen. 1299; Troades, 304.

Thucydidês appears to have in view the violent party contests which broke out in reference to the Hermæ and the other irreligious acts at Athens, after the departure of the armament, especially to the mischief of recalling Alkibiadês, which grew out of those contests. He does not allude to the withholding of supplies from the armament; nor was it the purpose of any of the parties at Athens to withhold them. The party acrimony was directed against Alkibiadês exclusively, not against the expedition.

Next, as to the main allegation in Dr. Arnold’s note, that one of the causes of the failure of the Athenian expedition in Sicily, was, that it was “insufficiently supplied by Athens.” Of the two passages to which he refers in Thucydidês (vi, 31; vii, 42), the first distinctly contradicts this allegation, by setting forth the prodigious amount of force sent; the second says nothing about it, and indirectly discountenances it, by dwelling upon the glaring blunders of Nikias.

After the Athenians had allowed Nikias in the spring to name and collect the force which he thought requisite, how could they expect to receive a demand for farther reinforcements in the autumn, the army having really done nothing? Nevertheless, the supplies were sent, as soon as they could be, and as soon as Nikias expected them. If the whole winter was lost, that was not the fault of the Athenians.

Still harder is it in Dr. Arnold, to say, “that the armament was allowed to be reduced to great distress and weakness before the second expedition was sent to reinforce it.” The second expedition was sent the moment that Nikias made known his distress and asked for it; his intimation of distress coming quite suddenly, almost immediately after most successful appearances.

It appears to me that nothing can be more incorrect or inconsistent with the whole tenor of the narrative of Thucydidês, than to charge the Athenians with having starved their expedition. What they are really chargeable with, is, the having devoted to it a disproportionate fraction of their entire strength, perfectly enormous and ruinous. And so Thucydidês plainly conceives it, when he is describing both the armament of Nikias and that of Demosthenês.

Thucydidês is very reserved in saying anything against Nikias, whom he treats throughout with the greatest indulgence and tenderness. But he lets drop quite sufficient to prove that he conceived the mismanagement of the general as the cause of the failure of the armament, not as “one of two causes,” as Dr. Arnold here presents it. Of course, I recognize fully the consummate skill, and the aggressive vigor so unusual in a Spartan, of Gylippus, together with the effective influence which this exercised upon the result. But Gylippus would never have set foot in Syracuse, had he not been let in, first through the apathy, next through the contemptuous want of precaution, shown by Nikias (vii, 42).