‘Ah! you remember the day he set out for Sicily—just such another day as this. Would to the gods we had never let him go on that God-cursed expedition!’
‘Rather, would to the gods we had let him stay and fight for us in Sicily! He was just beginning the great siege when we recalled him. He must surely have been victorious.’
‘Why, then, were we not more wise? Surely some blindness must have fallen on us from the gods.’
‘How many of our sons who perished there would have been here to-day? Or perhaps we might have been just about to welcome them, instead of ever mourning for the deaths of brave men whose unburied bodies lie underneath the sea.’
‘They would be coming with the conqueror of Sicily, of Greece, of the barbarian, had we not been blinded for our sins.’
‘But, think you, he would have been victorious at Syrakuse, where two armies of Athenians fell?’
‘Why not? Has he not been victorious everywhere, wherever he has fought? Are not the Lakedaimonians better warriors than the men of Syrakuse? Has he not beaten Spartans and Persians, too, whenever he has met them?’
‘Ay! and they say the fight at Kyzikos was greater than any could have been in Sicily, or any that our men ever fought before.’
‘Indeed, it seems nothing can withstand his conquering arm.’
‘Then to accuse such a one of profanation of the sacred mysteries! I know not what they are, but could such a wise man ever think of so great a wickedness?’