History of the Peloponnesian War

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.

Such were the views which Nicias was positive in stating, from having gained an accurate acquaintance with the state of affairs in Syracuse, and their want of money; and because there were some who were desirous that the state should fall into the hands of the Athenians, and were sending messages to him not to abandon the siege; and at the same time, [*](θαρσήσει κρατηθείς.] I have given what appears to me the only sense that this participle can bear, though different from any that has been attributed to it by others. Compare the somewhat similar use of the verb ἡσσῶμαι, in the sense of yielding, or giving way to, e. g. III. 38. 5, ἡδονῆ ἡσσώμενοι; and with a genitive, IV. 37. 1, ἡσσηθεῖεν τοῦ παρόντοςδεινοῦ. If, however, it should be thought that neither this meaning, nor (to use the words of Arnold) any other, can be fairly extracted from the text as it now stands, I should be disposed to adopt a rather bolder emendation than the mere substitution of κρατυνθείς, which Bauer and so many others after him have admitted, but which, as Poppo observes, leaves the passage scarcely less strange in its phraseology than before. From the fact that six MSS. have γ᾽ ἂν, instead of γοῦν, it seems probable that an infinitive mood originally formed part of the sentence; and I venture therefore to propose the following correction: καὶ ἅμα ταῖς γοῦν (or γ᾽ ἂν, whichever may be preferred) ναυσὶν ἢ πρότεσρον θαρσήσας κρατήσειν, taking κρατήσειν in the same absolute sense as κρατεῖν has already borne in a very similar passage, ch. 47. 3. If the objections urged by Göller against understanding μᾶλλον before ἢ be thought valid, his correction ᾖ may be admitted; from feeling confident that they should at any rate have the advantage at sea, as they had formerly; i. e. before their recent defeat in the naval engagement.) because he was influenced by confidence in his fleet, at any rate more than before.

Demosthenes, however, would not at all listen to the proposal for continuing the siege; but if it were necessary for them not to withdraw the forces without a decree from the Athenians, but to remain in the country, he said that they should either remove to Thapsus and do so, or to Catana, where they could overrun with their troops a large part of the country, and support themselves by ravaging their enemies' property, and so might injure them; while at the same time with their fleet they would fight their battles on the open deep, and not in a confined space, which was more in favour of the enemy, but rather with spacious sea-room, where their skill would be of service to them, and they would have an opportunity of retreating and advancing in no narrow and circumscribed space, both on putting out and coming to land.

In a word, he did not, he said, at all approve of remaining in their present position, but of removing immediately without delay. Eurymedon also supported him in this view.