History of the Peloponnesian War

The following summer, as soon as the spring commenced, the ambassadors of the Athenians came from Sicily, and the Segestans with them, bringing sixty talents of uncoined silver, as a month's pay for sixty ships which they were to beg them to send.

And the Athenians having held an assembly, and heard from the Segestans and their own ambassadors a seductive and untrue report on the other subjects, and also, with regard to the money, that it was provided in abundance in the temples and the treasury; they voted to send sixty ships, with Alcibiades son of Clinias, Nicias son of Niceratus, and Lamachus son of Xenophanes, as commanders, with full powers, to assist the Segestans against the Selinuntines, and to join in re-founding Leontini, should they gain any advantage in the war, and to carry out all other measures in Sicily, as they should deem best for the Athenians.—

On the fifth day after this, an assembly was again held, to consider in what way the preparations for the ships should be most quickly made, and whatever else was wanted by the generals be voted them for the expedition.

Nicias then, who had been chosen against his will to take the command, and thought that the state was not well advised, but, on a trifling and specious pretext, was coveting the whole of Sicily—an arduous design to achieve—came forward with a wish to divert the Athenians from it, and advised them to the following effect: