History of the Peloponnesian War

Such was the judgment of Demosthenes. Nicias, however, although he also thought that their situation was bad, did not wish expressly to reveal their weakness, or that they should be reported to the enemy as openly voting in full council for the retreat; for, he urged, they would be far less likely, when they should wish to retreat, to do this unobserved.

Besides, the affairs of the enemy, from such information as he had beyond the rest, still afforded some hope that they would turn out to be worse than their own, if they persisted in the siege; for they would wear the enemy out by cutting off his supplies, especially since now with their present fleet they were to a greater extent than before the masters of the sea. And, in fact, there was a party in Syracuse that favoured submitting to the Athenians, and it was secretly sending proposals to him and urging him not to withdraw. Having knowledge of these things, although in reality he still wavered between the two alternatives and kept pondering them, yet in the speech which he openly made at that time he refused to lead the army away.

For he knew well, he said, that the Athenians would not approve of the generals withdrawing without any vote of their own to that effect. For[*](The mental thought to be supplied is: “And it would involve them in personal danger if they did, for . . . .”) those who would vote on their case would not be men who would form their judgments from seeing the facts with their own eyes, as they themselves had seen them, and not from listening to the harsh criticisms of others; on the contrary, whatever calumnies any clever speaker might utter, by these the Athenians would be persuaded.

And of the soldiers now present in Sicily, many, he said—aye, the majority—who were now crying out that they were in a desperate plight, as soon as they arrived in Athens would cry out just the reverse, that their generals had been bribed to betray them and withdraw. Accordingly, he at any rate did not wish, knowing as he did the character of the Athenians, to be put to death on a shameful charge and unjustly at the hands of the Athenians, but rather to fight and die, if so he must, his own death at the hands of the foe. And bad as their own situation was, that of the Syracusans, he said, was still worse;

for in point of money, since they were supporting a mercenary force and at the same time bearing the expense of patrol guard-posts, and had now for a year been maintaining a large fleet besides, they were already embarrassed, and hereafter would be quite without resources;[*](Or, “were in some respects already ill-provided, and in still others would be utterly at a loss what to do.”) indeed, they had spent two thousand talents already and were in debt for many talents more, and if they should lose any portion whatsoever of their present force by not being able to pay for its maintenance, their cause would be ruined, since it depended upon mercenary troops and had not, like their own, the backing of necessity.[*](ie. mercenary troops had to be bribed, but the Athenians were compelled to fight.)

They ought, therefore, he concluded, to stay on and continue the siege, and not go back home beaten by money, in which they had by far the greater resources.