History of the Peloponnesian War

Nicias, however, though he too considered their circumstances to be bad, yet did not wish to display their weak. ness by words, nor that they should become a laughing-stock to their enemies by voting for the retreat openly, and in [*](μετὰ πολλῶν,] i. e. with the Taxiarchs and Trierarchs, who attended when a regular council of war was held. Compare ch. 50. 3.) conjunction with many; for so they would far less elude their observation in executing it, whenever they might wish.

To a certain extent also the affairs of the enemy, judging from what he, more than others, knew of them, still afforded some hope that they would be worse than their own, should they persist in carrying on the siege; for so they would exhaust them by want of funds; especially, too, as they had now, with their present fleet, a more extensive command of the sea. A party in Syracuse also, which wished to surrender the city to the Athenians, was sending messengers to him, and urging him not to raise the siege. Knowing these things, then, he was in fact waiting because he was still inclined both ways, and wished to see his course more clearly;

but in the speech openly made by him on that occasion he said,

that he refused to withdraw the forces; for he well knew that the Athenians would not put up with such a step on the part of the generals—their returning, he meant, without a vote from themselves to authorize it. Besides, those who would vote in their case, would not give their verdict from seeing the facts, as they themselves had done, instead of hearing them from the invectives of others; but whatever calumnies any clever speaker threw upon them, by those would they be persuaded. Many too, nay, even the greater part of the soldiers present on the spot, who were now clamouring about their perilous condition, would, he said, on arriving there, raise the very contrary clamour, namely, that their generals had utterly betrayed them for money, when they returned.

For himself, then, he did not wish (knowing as he did the Athenian character and temper) to die under a dishonourable charge and by an unjust sentence at the hands of the Athenians, rather than run the risk, in his own individual case, of meeting his fate at the hands of the enemy, if it must be so. As for the affairs of the Syracusans, however, he knew that they were in a still worse condition than their own.

For supporting mercenaries as they had to do with their funds, and at the same time spending them on guard-posts, and maintaining, moreover, a large navy, as they had now done for more than a year, they were in some respects ill provided, and in others would be still more at a loss, as they had already expended two hundred talents, and still owed many more; and should they lose any part whatever of their present forces through not giving them supplies, their cause would be ruined, as it was supported by voluntary aid, rather than by compulsory exertions, like theirs.

He maintained, therefore, that they must continue to carry on the siege, and not go away defeated in point of money, wherein they were decidedly superior.