Ep. 0290: ‘The Mad Dream of Conquest,’ Pt. III

May I always speak the truth as best I understand it in the moment in which I find myself.

I suppose that no one will dispute that we went to war at first in order to serve our own individual interests, and that we are now, in view of these same separate interests, debating how we can make peace.

And yet, as men of sense, we ought to see that our separate interests are not alone at stake in the present Congress.

There is also the question whether we have still time to save Sicily.

The whole of which, in my opinion, is menaced by Athenian ambition.

When we see the first power in Greece watching our mistakes under the fair name of alliance, speciously seeking to exploit the natural hostility that exists between us.

If we go to war and call in to help us a people that are ready enough to carry their arms even when they are not invited, and if we injure ourselves at our own expense and at the same time serve as the prisoners of their dominion, we may expect when they see us worn out that they will one day come with a larger armament and seek to bring all of us into subjection.

We should understand that the internal discords which are so fatal to communities generally will be equally so to Sicily if we, its inhabitants, absorbed in our local quarrels, neglect the common enemy.

These considerations should reconcile individual with individual and city with city and unite us in a common effort to save the whole of Sicily.

Nor should anyone imagine that the Dorians only are enemies of Athens.

The attack in question is not inspired by hatred of one or two nationalities, but by a desire on the part of the Athenians for the good things in Sicily, the common property of us all.

That the Athenians should cherish this ambition and practice this policy is very excusable.

I do not blame those who wish to rule, but those who are too ready to serve.

It is just as much in men's nature to rule those who submit to them as it is to resist those who molest them.

But all who see these dangers and refuse to provide for them properly, or who have come here without having made up their minds that our first duty is to get rid of the common peril, are mistaken.

The quickest way to be rid of it is to make peace with each other, since the Athenians menace us not from their own country, but from that of those in Sicily who invited them here.

We are neighbors, live in the same country, are girt by the same sea, and go by the name of Sicilians.

We shall go to war against each other again, I suppose, when the time comes, and again make peace among ourselves by means of future congresses.

But the foreign invader, if we are wise, will always find us united against him, since the hurt of one is the danger of all.

And we should never, in future, invite into the island either allies or mediators.

By so acting we shall at the present moment do for Sicily a double service, ridding her at once of the Athenians and of civil war, and in future shall live in freedom at home and be less menaced from abroad.

Such were the words of Hermocrates.

The Sicilians took his advice and came to an understanding among themselves to end the war, each keeping what they had.

And the Sicilian allies of the Athenians called the officers in command and told them that they were going to make peace and that they should be included in the treaty.

The Athenian generals assenting, the peace was concluded and the Athenian fleet afterwards sailed away from Sicily.

Upon their return from Sicily to Athens, the Athenian assembly banished the generals Pythodorus and Sophocles and fined the general Eurymedon for having taken bribes to depart when they might have subdued Sicily.

So thoroughly had the present prosperity persuaded the Athenians that nothing could withstand them and that they could achieve what was possible and what was impracticable alike, with means ample or inadequate, it mattered not.

The reason for this was their previous extraordinary success which made them confuse their strengths with their hopes.

Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 4 Explaining how the relatively limited Athenian intervention in Sicily in 424 BC, almost a decade before the much larger Athenian expedition to Sicily in 415, had come to an end.

In opposing the decision of the assembly and again in refusing to be buoyed up by hopes or to be carried away by the importance of the command that was offered him as to change his opinion, Nicias proved himself to be a man honest and wise.

But when, after all his efforts, he had failed to persuade people either to abandon the campaign or to relieve him of his appointment, and the people were, so to say, raising him up and carrying him and made him commander of the force, then he should have recognized that it was no longer the moment for that excessive caution and hesitation of his.

He should not, like a child, have cast lingering glances homeward from his ship or continued to protest that the people had not listened to his advice or by dwelling on all this dull the ardor of his colleagues and let slip countless opportunities for action.

The right course would have been to come to grips with the enemy and put fortune immediately to the test in battle.

As it was, Lamachus was in favor of sailing directly to Syracuse and offering battle before the city, while Alcibiades proposed that they should first detach the Syracusans' allies from their allegiance and then attack the city.

Nicias, however, opposed both plans and ordered that they cruise quietly around the shores of Sicily, make a display of their arms and triremes, and then, after leaving a small contingent at Egesta, to return to Athens.

In this way, he straightaway weakened his men's resolutions and depressed their spirits.

Plutarch, The Life of Nicias.

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