They were curious to see one of whom they had heard so many strange accounts. Great was their wonder when they beheld the grave severity of his demeanour. They had been told tales of his fabulous luxury and extravagance—tales which had not been lessened in the telling. He dressed himself as the plainest citizen there. The flowing purple robe we last saw him wear in the house of his good friend Eumanthes he left behind at Elis. These simple-faring folk had heard tell of his many cooks, the battery of copper saucepans, and other paraphernalia of his kitchen, which must be taken with him even to the wars; they saw him eating at the common table of the coarse food of Sparta. They had been scandalized at the description of his costly baths of curious perfumes; they saw him bathing on winter mornings in the frozen river. And this went on for many months while he was carrying out his great designs. He met the leading men in council frequently, and showed them how they might advance their state while humbling Athens.
Before the spring came he heard how things were going on in Sicily—how Nikias had tried to enter Messana, and found, to his astonishment, that the gates were not opened to him; how that then he had gone back to Naxos and Katané, and wasted all the remainder of the autumn and winter doing nothing—wasting precious time and Athenian treasure while Syrakuse was strengthening her defences.
All this while he had his agents at work in Korinth. Late in the spring of 414, hearing that Nikias had at length made up his mind to attack Syrakuse, that his ships had entered the bay of Thapsos, and that his troops were on the hills above the town, he got leave to address the Lakedaimonian assembly. He found an audience very different from that which had so often been moved by him at Athens. Only members of the old Lakonian families sat here, who were intensely conservative; it was no easy task to gain their confidence.
He began in a diffident, half-apologetic strain, open and unaffected. He reminded them that his ancestors for many generations had been the ‘proxenoi’ of Sparta, their friends and agents; that no important business of their state had had to be done in Athens but his progenitors had aided them, and that none of their citizens ever became entangled in their private affairs but his progenitors had come to their assistance; and he impressed upon them that on his entry into public life he found a democratic Constitution had been long established. Was it for him to upset that Constitution? ‘And after all,’ he asked, ‘what is the first reason for the existence of a democracy but to oppose and ward off tyranny? Such as I found it I adopted it, and did my best to make it perfect. I and my ancestors before me found ourselves placed at the head of a democracy because of our known hatred of a tyranny. For, as amongst you it is your ancient oligarchy which saves your land from despotism, in Athens it is democracy which wards off this danger. We have striven to teach the people to rule themselves with moderation, that so they might conserve the Constitution as it came to them, in its grandeur and its liberty, that so they might stop the first efforts of a tyranny to raise its head, or scheme to bring about a revolution. It is these insidious foes we have ever fought; it is to them I owe my exile. Democracies may have many faults—I know it more than anyone. Would it have been right in me to attempt to overthrow a long-standing Constitution while you and other enemies were at our doors?
‘Having said so much about myself and my own conduct, will you permit me, oh ye Lakedaimonians, to give you some practical advice and information? We did not sail to Sicily merely to assist the Egestæans or the Greek colonists. We intended, and the Athenians still intend, if they can, after completely subjugating Sicily, to turn their forces upon Italy. Sicily won, Italy would soon be theirs. Enriched by the contributions they would force from those lands, they could attack Carthage and her dependencies. If the Athenians succeed there, then, by the spoils of these rich peoples, they will be able to enlarge their fleet till it becomes larger than those of all the world together. With such a fleet it is intended to blockade the hostile ports of Greece, to become rulers of the Peloponnesos and of the whole Grecian land, and masters of the world. Such is their intention.
‘Remember, you are hearing of these designs from the mouth of one who helped to form them, from one who did something towards carrying them out. While I was in Sicily, I saw a good deal of that country, and I tell you plainly, if you do not act at once, Syrakuse must fall, and with it Sicily, and all the other plans and hopes of the Athenians may be accomplished. Then you will have to look to your home. It will be too late to think of Sicily or your allies. Furnish, then, your ships without delay. Fill them with your bravest hoplites. Above all things, put over them your ablest general.
‘I will tell you one thing more. If you wish to drive the Athenians from Sicily, if you wish to frustrate their designs, if you wish to weaken them at home, you must attack them in their own country. You must take, and you must fortify, Dekeleia, in Attika. That is what the Athenians dread the most; that is the most deadly blow you can aim at them. It would take long to enumerate all the advantages you will gain thereby. The Syrakusans will be encouraged to hold out against their besiegers. It will prevent the Athenians sending reinforcements. They will want all their men to protect them at home. It will stop a great part of their supplies of food coming from their fertile fields. It will stop the silver coming from the mines at Laurion. It will, by degrees, detach from Athens the islands and towns which are now allied to her by the treaty of Delos, but which love her not. Many of these, even now, are looking for the first opportunity to shake off her heavy imposts and ally themselves to you. It will turn the wavering who have not yet determined to which side to look for help. It will close her tribunals, to which the islands and the smaller states dependent upon her are now obliged to take their causes, and she will thereby lose the large revenues she now receives from the fees paid to her by those litigants.
‘Do not suspect the advice I tender you, nor fear, because I counsel you against my country, that my advice is insincere. I would not wound my country, but my country’s secret enemies, who, by abusing the power of her laws, thrust out her truest friends from her. I seek not to destroy my country; I seek only to regain her. He shows his love of country most who does what in him lies to purge his country of her enemies at home, and to force her to receive again those true sons who have been driven from her by her foes. To gain this end I will spare no pains, avoid no labour, fear no dangers, in your service. Just as I inflicted great injury upon you as your opponent in open war, so now as your friend I am able to be of the greatest service to you. By following the twofold counsel I have given you, you will gain peace at home and the empire of all Greece, which will freely give herself to you without restraint.’
The sincerity of his avowal that he wished to use his present hosts as a means to recover his rights at home; the obvious wisdom of his counsel; the simple eloquence of his whole address, without ornament or flowers of rhetoric, won the confidence of the plain Lakonian people. Indeed, he knew his audience. His apology for the democratic part he had played at home was a masterpiece of pleading, showing how the party of popular freedom at Athens and the strict oligarchic government of Sparta had the same end in view—the hatred, the apprehension, of anything approaching to a despotism; while his plain, pathetic peroration, in which he stood forth as the true friend of Athens, softened towards him the hardest heart, and the most suspicious intellect of his Spartan audience.
His words, as far as we can find trace of them, give little notion of the grave solicitude with which he mixed up his cause with that of his hearers, and brought vividly before them his earnest hopes, his heartfelt wrongs. His success is another proof—though no proof is wanting—of the injustice of the charge brought against him by his enemy Thukydides, that he had tricked and meanly cheated the Spartan envoys while they were guests of his at Athens. For he was trusted, and his honest declaration won its end. It vanquished fears and hesitations, and persuaded the Lakonians to join with the Korinthians in sending aid to Syrakuse.