History of the Peloponnesian War

In Sicily, about the same period of this spring, Gylippus came to Syracuse, bringing from the cities which he had persuaded to join him as large a number of troops as he respectively could.

And now, having called the Syracusans together, he said that they ought to man as many ships as possible, and try the experiment of a sea-fight; for that he hoped to produce thereby a result worth the risk, towards the issue of the war.

Hermocrates, too, most earnestly joined him in trying to persuade them, in order that they might not rant courage for attacking the Athenians by sea; observing,

that that people had no more than themselves enjoyed an hereditary and perpetual experience at sea, but had become a naval power after being, even more than the Syracusans, an inland one; and only because they were compelled to do so by the Medes. And to men of a daring character, like the Athenians, those who were daring in opposition to them would appear most formidable: for the terror with which that people paralysed their enemies, not, in some cases, by being superior to them in power, but by attacking them with confidence, [*](καὶ σφᾶς, κ. τ. λ.] Or, they (i. e. the Athenians) would themselves also be subject to before their enemies: supposing, as Dobree does, that σφᾶς is here equivalent to ἀυτοὺς ἐκείνους.) they, too, would in the same way strike into their opponents.

And he was well assured, he said, that the Syracusans, by unexpectedly daring to offer resistance to the navy of the Athenians, would in a greater degree gain advantage from the surprise of the enemy on that account, than the Athenians by their skill would harm the unskilful Syracusans.

He urged them therefore to proceed to the trial with their fleet, and not to shrink from it.