On reaching Athens, however, he and his colleagues were received by the people with much displeasure. He himself was fined, and his colleagues Sophoklês and Pythodôrus banished, on the charge of having been bribed to quit Sicily, at a time when the fleet—so the Athenians believed—was strong enough to have made important conquests. Why the three colleagues were differently treated we are not informed.[211] This sentence was harsh and unmerited; for it does not seem that Eurymedon had it in his power to prevent the Ionic cities from concluding peace, while it is certain that without them he could have achieved nothing serious. All that seems unexplained in his conduct, as recounted by Thucydidês, is, that his arrival at Rhegium with the entire fleet in September, 425 B.C., does not seem to have been attended with any increased vigor or success, in the prosecution of the war. But the Athenians—besides an undue depreciation of the Sicilian cities, which we shall find fatally misleading them hereafter—were at this moment at the maximum of extravagant hopes, counting upon new triumphs everywhere, impatient of disappointment, and careless of proportion between the means intrusted to, and the objects expected from, their commanders. Such unmeasured confidence was painfully corrected in the course of a few months, by the battle of Delium and the losses in Thrace. But at the present moment, it was probably not less astonishing than grievous to the three generals, who had all left Athens prior to the success in Sphakteria.
The Ionic cities in Sicily were soon made to feel that they had been premature in sending away the Athenians. Dispute between Leontini and Syracuse, the same cause which had occasioned the invocation of Athens three years before, broke out afresh soon after the pacification of Gela. The democratical government of Leontini came to the resolution of strengthening their city by the enrolment of many new citizens; and a redivision of the territorial property of the state was projected in order to provide lots of land for these new-comers. But the aristocracy of the town upon whom the necessity would thus be imposed of parting with a portion of their lands, forestalled the project, seemingly before it was even formally decided, by entering into a treasonable correspondence with Syracuse, bringing in a Syracusan army, and expelling the Demos.[212] While these exiles found shelter as they could in other cities, the rich Leontines deserted and dismantled their own city, transferred their residence to Syracuse, and were enrolled as Syracusan citizens. To them the operation was exceedingly profitable, since they became masters of the properties of the exiled Demos in addition to their own. Presently, however, some of them, dissatisfied with their residence in Syracuse, returned to the abandoned city, and fitted up a portion of it called Phokeis, together with a neighboring strong post called Brikinnies. Here, after being joined by a considerable number of the exiled Demos, they contrived to hold out for some time against the efforts of the Syracusans to expel them from their fortifications.
The new enrolment of citizens, projected by the Leontine democracy, seems to date during the year succeeding the pacification of Gela, and was probably intended to place the city in a more defensible position in case of renewed attacks from Syracuse, thus compensating for the departure of the Athenian auxiliaries. The Leontine Demos, in exile and suffering, doubtless bitterly repenting that they had concurred in dismissing these auxiliaries, sent envoys to Athens with complaints, and renewed prayers for help.[213]
But Athens was then too much pressed to attend to their call; her defeat at Delium and her losses in Thrace had been followed by the truce for one year; and even during that truce, she had been called upon for strenuous efforts in Thrace to check the progress of Brasidas. After the expiration of that truce, she sent Phæax and two colleagues to Sicily (B.C. 422) with the modest force of two triremes. He was directed to try and organize an anti-Syracusan party in the island, for the purpose of reëstablishing the Leontine Demos. In passing along the coast of Italy, he concluded amicable relations with some of the Grecian cities, especially with Lokri, which had hitherto stood aloof from Athens; and his first addresses in Sicily appeared to promise success. His representations of danger from Syracusan ambition were well received both at Kamarina and Agrigentum. For on the one hand, that universal terror of Athens, which had dictated the pacification of Gela, had now disappeared; while on the other hand, the proceeding of Syracuse in regard to Leontini was well calculated to excite alarm. We see by that proceeding that sympathy between democracies in different towns was not universal: the Syracusan democracy had joined with the Leontine aristocracy to expel the Demos, just as the despot Gelon had combined with the aristocracy of Megara and Eubœa, sixty years before, and had sold the Demos of those towns into slavery. The birthplace of the famous rhetor Gorgias was struck out of the list of inhabited cities; its temples were deserted; and its territory had become a part of Syracuse. All these were circumstances so powerfully affecting Grecian imagination, that the Kamarinæans, neighbors of Syracuse on the other side, might well fear lest the like unjust conquest, expulsion, and absorption, should soon overtake them. Agrigentum, though without any similar fear, was disposed from policy, and jealousy of Syracuse, to second the views of Phæax. But when the latter proceeded to Gela, in order to procure the adhesion of that city in addition to the other two, he found himself met by so resolute an opposition that his whole scheme was frustrated, nor did he think it advisable even to open his case at Selinus or Himera. In returning, he crossed the interior of the island through the territory of the Sikels to Katana, passing in his way by Brikinnies, where the Leontine Demos were still maintaining a precarious existence. Having encouraged them to hold out by assurances of aid, he proceeded on his homeward voyage. In the strait of Messina, he struck upon some vessels conveying a body of expelled Lokrians from Messênê to Lokri. The Lokrians had got possession of Messênê after the pacification of Gela, by means of an internal sedition; but after holding it some time, they were now driven out by a second revolution. Phæax, being under agreement with Lokri, passed by these vessels without any act of hostility.[214]
The Leontine exiles at Brikinnies, however, received no benefit from his assurances, and appear soon afterwards to have been completely expelled. Nevertheless, Athens was noway disposed, for a considerable time, to operations in Sicily. A few months after the visit of Phæax to that island, came the Peace of Nikias: the consequences of that peace occupied her whole attention in Peloponnesus, while the ambition of Alkibiadês carried her on for three years in intra-Peloponnesian projects and coöperation with Argos against Sparta. It was only in the year 417 B.C., when these projects had proved abortive, that she had leisure to turn her attention elsewhere. During that year, Nikias had contemplated an expedition against Amphipolis in conjunction with Perdikkas, whose desertion frustrated the scheme. The year 416 B.C. was that in which Mêlos was besieged and taken.
Meanwhile the Syracusans had cleared and appropriated all the territory of Leontini, which city now existed only in the talk and hopes of its exiles. Of these latter a portion seem to have continued at Athens, pressing their entreaties for aid, which began to obtain some attention about the year 417 B.C., when another incident happened to strengthen their chance of success. A quarrel broke out between the neighboring cities of Selinus (Hellenic) and Egesta (non-Hellenic) in the western corner of Sicily; partly about a piece of land on the river which divided the two territories, partly about some alleged wrong in cases of internuptial connection. The Selinuntines, not satisfied with their own strength, obtained assistance from the Syracusans their allies, and thus reduced Egesta to considerable straits by land as well as by sea.[215] Now the Egestæans had allied themselves with Lachês ten years before, during the first expedition sent by the Athenians to Sicily; upon the strength of which alliance they sent to Athens, to solicit her intervention for their defence, after having in vain applied both to Agrigentum and to Carthage. It may seem singular that Carthage did not at this time readily embrace the pretext for interference, considering that, ten years afterwards, she interfered with such destructive effect against Selinus. At this time, however, the fear of Athens and her formidable navy appears to have been felt even at Carthage,[216] thus protecting the Sicilian Greeks against the most dangerous of their neighbors.
The Egestæan envoys reached Athens in the spring of 416 B.C., at a time when the Athenians had no immediate project to occupy their thoughts, except the enterprise against Mêlos, which could not be either long or doubtful. Though urgent in setting forth the necessities of their position, they at the same time did not appear, like the Leontines, as mere helpless suppliants, addressing themselves to Athenian compassion. They rested their appeal chiefly on grounds of policy. The Syracusans, having already extinguished one ally of Athens (Leontini), were now hard pressing upon a second (Egesta), and would thus successively subdue them all: as soon as this was completed, there would be nothing left in Sicily except an omnipotent Dorian combination, allied to Peloponnesus both by race and descent, and sure to lend effective aid in putting down Athens herself. It was therefore essential for Athens to forestall this coming danger by interfering forthwith to uphold her remaining allies against the encroachments of Syracuse. If she would send a naval expedition adequate to the rescue of Egesta, the Egestæans themselves engaged to provide ample funds for the prosecution of the war.[217]
Such representations from the envoys, and fears of Syracusan aggrandizement as a source of strength to Peloponnesus, worked along with the prayers of the Leontines in rekindling the appetite of Athens for extending her power in Sicily. The impression made upon the Athenian public, favorable from the first, was wound up to a still higher pitch by renewed discussion. The envoys were repeatedly heard in the public assembly,[218] together with those citizens who supported their propositions. At the head of these was Alkibiadês, who aspired to the command of the intended expedition, tempting alike to his love of glory, of adventure, and of personal gain. But it is plain from these renewed discussions that at first the disposition of the people was by no means decided, much less unanimous, and that a considerable party sustained Nikias in a prudential opposition. Even at last, the resolution adopted was not one of positive consent, but a mean term such as perhaps Nikias himself could not resist. Special envoys were despatched to Egesta, partly to ascertain the means of the town to fulfil its assurance of defraying the costs of war, partly to make investigations on the spot and report upon the general state of affairs.
Perhaps the commissioners despatched were men themselves friendly to the enterprise; nor is it impossible that some of them may have been individually bribed by the Egestæans; at least such a supposition is not forbidden by the average state of Athenian public morality. But the most honest or even suspicious men could hardly be prepared for the deep-laid stratagems put in practice to delude them, on their arrival at Egesta. They were conducted to the rich temple of Aphroditê on Mount Eryx, where the plate and donatives were exhibited before them; abundant in number, and striking to the eye, yet composed mostly of silver-gilt vessels, which, though falsely passed off as solid gold, were in reality of little pecuniary value. Moreover, the Egestæan citizens were profuse in their hospitalities and entertainments both to the commissioners and to the crews of the triremes.[219] They collected together all the gold and silver vessels, dishes, and goblets, of Egesta, which they farther enlarged by borrowing additional ornaments of the same kind from the neighboring cities, Hellenic as well as Carthaginian. At each successive entertainment, every Egestæan host exhibited all this large stock of plate as his own property, the same stock being transferred from house to house for the occasion. A false appearance was thus created, of the large number of wealthy men in Egesta; and the Athenian seamen, while their hearts were won by the caresses, saw with amazement this prodigious display of gold and silver, and were thoroughly duped by the fraud.[220] To complete the illusion, by resting it on a basis of reality and prompt payment, sixty talents of uncoined silver were at once produced as ready for the operations of war. With this sum in hand, the Athenian commissioners, after finishing their examination, and the Egestæan envoys also, returned to Athens, which they reached in the spring of 415 B.C.,[221] about three months after the capture of Mêlos.
The Athenian assembly being presently convened to hear their report, the deluded commissioners drew a magnificent picture of the wealth, public and private, which they had actually seen and touched at Egesta, and presented the sixty talents—one month’s pay for a fleet of sixty triremes—as a small instalment out of the vast stock remaining behind. While they thus officially certified the capacity of the Egestæans to perform their promise of defraying the cost of the war, the seamen of their trireme, addressing the assembly in their character of citizens,—beyond all suspicion of being bribed,—overflowing with sympathy for the town in which they had just been so cordially welcomed, and full of wonder at the display of wealth which they had witnessed, would probably contribute still more effectually to kindle the sympathies of their countrymen. Accordingly, when the Egestæan envoys again renewed their petitions and representations, confidently appealing to the scrutiny which they had undergone,—when the distress of the suppliant Leontines was again depicted,—the Athenian assembly no longer delayed coming to a final decision. They determined to send forthwith sixty triremes to Sicily, under three generals with full powers,—Nikias, Alkibiadês, and Lamachus; for the purpose, first, of relieving Egesta; next, as soon as that primary object should have been accomplished, of reëstablishing the city of Leontini; lastly, of furthering the views of Athens in Sicily, by any other means which they might find practicable.[222] Such resolution being passed, a fresh assembly was appointed for the fifth day following, to settle the details.