Nicias

It was Nicias, then, who, when an embassy came from Egesta and Leontini[*](In the spring of 415 B.C.) seeking to persuade the Athenians to undertake an expedition against Sicily, opposed the measure, only to be defeated by the ambitious purposes of Alcibiades. Before the assembly had met at all, Alcibiades had already corrupted the multitude and got them into his power by means of his sanguine promises, so that the youth in their training-schools and the old men in their work-shops and lounging-places would sit in cluster drawing maps of Sicily, charts of the sea about it, and plans of the harbors and districts of the island which look towards Libya.

For they did not regard Sicily itself as the prize of the war, but rather as a mere base of operations, purposing therefrom to wage a contest with the Carthaginians and get possession of both Libya and of all the sea this side the Pillars of Heracles.

Since, therefore, their hearts were fixed on this, Nicias, in his opposition to them, had few men, and these of no influence, to contend on his side. For the well-to-do citizens feared accusations of trying to escape their contributions for the support of the navy, and so, despite their better judgement, held their peace.

But Nicias did not faint nor grow weary. Even after the Athenians had actually voted for the war and elected him general first, and after him Alcibiades and Lamachus, in a second session of the assembly he rose and tried to divert them from their purpose by the most solemn adjurations, and at last accused Alcibiades of satisfying his own private greed and ambition in thus forcing the city into grievous perils beyond the seas.

Still, he made no headway, nay, he was held all the more essential to the enterprise because of the experience from which he spoke. There would be great security, his hearers thought, against the daring of Alcibiades and the roughness of Lamachus, if his well known caution were blended with their qualities. And so he succeeded only in confirming the previous vote. For Demostratus, the popular leader who was most active in spurring the Athenians on to the war, rose and declared that he would stop the mouth of Nicias from uttering vain excuses; so he introduced a decree to the effect that the generals have full and independent powers in counsel and in action, both at home and at the seat of war, and persuaded the people to vote it.

And yet the priesthood also is said to have offered much opposition to the expedition. But Alcibiades had other diviners in his private service, and from sundry oracles reputed ancient he cited one saying that great fame would be won by the Athenians in Sicily. To his delight also certain envoys who had been sent to the shrine of Ammon[*](In an oasis of the Libyan desert. Cf. Plut. Cim. 18.6 f.) came back with an oracle declaring that the Athenians would capture all the Syracusans; but utterances of opposite import the envoys concealed, for fear of using words of ill omen.

For no signs could deter the people from the expedition, were they never so obvious and clear such as, for instance, the mutilation of the Hermae. These statues were all disfigured in a single night except one, called the Hermes of Andocides, a dedication of the Aegeid tribe, standing in front of what was at that time the house of Andocides. Then there was the a affair of the altar of the Twelve Gods. An unknown man leaped upon it all of a sudden, bestrode it, and then mutilated himself with a stone.

At Delphi, moreover, there stood a Palladium, made of gold and set upon a bronze palm tree, a dedication of the city of Athens from the spoils of her valor in the Persian wars. Ravens alighted on this image and pecked it for many days together; they also bit off the fruit of the palm-tree, which was of gold, and cast it to the ground.