It appears to me that the words ἐπ’ αὐτομολίας προφάσει will bear this sense perfectly well, and that it is the real meaning of Nikias.
Even before the Peloponnesian war was begun, the Corinthian envoy at Sparta affirms that the Athenians cannot depend upon their seamen standing true to them, since their navy was manned with hired foreign seamen rather than with natives—ὠνητὴ γὰρ ἡ Ἀθηναίων δύναμις μᾶλλον ἢ οἰκεία (Thucyd. i, 121). The statement of Nikias proves that this remark was to a great extent well founded.
[406] Thucyd. vii, 11-15.
[407] Thucyd. vii, 10.
[408] Thucyd. vii, 16. There is here a doubt as to the reading, between one hundred and twenty talents, or twenty talents.
I agree with Dr. Arnold and other commentators in thinking that the money taken out by Eurymedon was far more probably the larger sum of the two, than the smaller. The former reading seems to deserve the preference. Besides, Diodorus states that Eurymedon took out with him one hundred and forty talents: his authority, indeed, does not count for much, but it counts for something, in coincidence with a certain force of intrinsic probability (Diodor. xiii, 8).
On an occasion such as this, to send a very small sum, such as twenty talents, would produce a discouraging effect upon the armament.
[409] Thucyd. vii, 42.
[410] Plutarch (Nikias, c. 20) tells us that the Athenians had been disposed to send a second armament to Sicily, even before the despatch of Nikias reached them: but that they had been prevented by certain men who were envious (φθόνῳ) of the glory and good fortune of Nikias.
No judgment can be more inconsistent with the facts of the case than this, facts recounted in general terms even by Plutarch himself.