“Among all these embarrassments, the worst of all is, that I as general can neither prevent the mischief, from the difficulty of your tempers to govern, nor can I provide supplementary recruits elsewhere, as the enemy can easily do from many places open to him. We have nothing but the original stock which we brought out with us, both to make good losses and to do present duty; for Naxus and Katana, our only present allies, are of insignificant strength. And if our enemy gain but one farther point,—if the Italian cities, from whence we now draw our supplies, should turn against us, under the impression of our present bad condition, with no reinforcement arriving from you,—we shall be starved out, and he will bring the war to triumphant close, even without a battle.
“Pleasanter news than these I could easily have found to send you; but assuredly nothing so useful, seeing that the full knowledge of the state of affairs here is essential to your deliberations. Moreover, I thought it even the safer policy to tell you the truth without disguise, understanding as I do your real dispositions, that you never listen willingly to any but the most favorable assurances, yet are angry in the end if they turn to unfavorable results. Be thoroughly satisfied, that in regard to the force against which you originally sent us, both your generals and your soldiers have done themselves no discredit. But now that all Sicily is united against us, and that farther reinforcements are expected from Peloponnesus, you must take your resolution with full knowledge that we here have not even strength to contend against our present difficulties. You must either send for us home, or you must send us a second army, land-force as well as naval, not inferior to that which is now here, together with a considerable supply of money. You must farther send a successor to supersede me, as I am incapable of work from a disease in the kidneys. I think myself entitled to ask this indulgence at your hands, for while my health lasted I did you much good service in various military commands. But whatever you intend, do it at the first opening of spring, without any delay: for the new succors which the enemy is getting together in Sicily, will soon be here, and those which are to come from Peloponnesus, though they will be longer in arriving, yet, if you do not keep watch, will either elude or forestall you as they have already once done.”[406]
Such was the memorable despatch of Nikias, which was read to the public assembly of Athens about the end of November, or beginning of December, 414 B.C., brought by officers who strengthened its effect by their own oral communications, and answered all such inquiries as were put to them.[407] We have much reason to regret that Thucydidês does not give us any idea of the debate which so gloomy a revelation called forth. He tells us merely the result: the Athenians resolved to comply with the second portion of the alternative put by Nikias; not to send for the present armament home, but to reinforce it by a second powerful armament, both of land and naval force, in prosecution of the same objects. But they declined his other personal request, and insisted on continuing him in command; passing a vote, however, to name Menander and Euthydemus, officers already in the army before Syracuse, joint commanders along with him, in order to assist him in his laborious duties. They sent Eurymedon speedily, about the winter solstice, in command of ten triremes to Syracuse, carrying one hundred and twenty talents of silver, together with assurances of coming aid to the suffering army. And they resolved to equip a new and formidable force, under Demosthenês and Eurymedon, to go thither as reinforcement in the earliest months of the spring. Demosthenês was directed to employ himself actively in getting this larger force ready.[408]
This letter of Nikias—so authentic, so full of matter, and so characteristic of the manners of the time—suggests several serious reflections, in reference both to himself and to the Athenian people. As to himself, there is nothing so remarkable as the sentence of condemnation which it pronounces on his own past proceedings in Sicily. When we find him lamenting the wear and tear of the armament, and treating the fact as notorious that even the best naval force could only maintain itself in good condition for a short time, what graver condemnation could be passed upon those eight months which he wasted in trifling measures, after his arrival in Sicily, before commencing the siege of Syracuse? When he announces that the arrival of Gylippus with his auxiliary force before Syracuse, made the difference to the Athenian army between triumph and something bordering on ruin, the inquiry naturally suggests itself, whether he had done his best to anticipate, and what precautions he had himself taken to prevent, the coming of the Spartan general. To which the answer must be, that, so far from anticipating the arrival of new enemies as a possible danger, he had almost invited them from abroad by his delay, and that he had taken no precautions at all against them, though forewarned and having sufficient means at his disposal. The desertion and demoralization of his naval force, doubtless but too real, was, as he himself points out, mainly the consequence of this turn of fortune, and was also the first commencement of that unmanageable temper of the Athenian soldiery, numbered among his difficulties. For it would be injustice to this unfortunate army not to recognize that they first acquiesced patiently in prolonged inaction, because their general directed it, and next did their duty most gallantly in the operations of the siege, down to the death of Lamachus.
If even with our imperfect knowledge of the case, the ruin complained of by Nikias be distinctly traceable to his own remissness and oversight, much more must this conviction have been felt by intelligent Athenians, both in the camp and in the city, as we shall see by the conduct of Demosthenês[409] hereafter to be related. Let us conceive the series of despatches, to which Nikias himself alludes, as having been transmitted home, from their commencement. We must recollect that the expedition was originally sent from Athens with hopes of the most glowing character, and with a consciousness of extraordinary efforts about to be rewarded with commensurate triumphs. For some months, the despatches of the general disclose nothing but movements either abortive or inglorious; adorned, indeed, by one barren victory, but accompanied by an intimation that he must wait till the spring, and that reinforcements must be sent to him, before he can undertake the really serious enterprise. Though the disappointment occasioned by this news at Athens must have been mortifying, nevertheless his requisition was complied with; and the despatches of Nikias, during the spring and summer of 414 B.C., become cheering. The siege of Syracuse is described as proceeding successfully, and at length, about July or August, as being on the point of coming to a triumphant close, in spite of a Spartan adventurer, named Gylippus, making his way across the Ionian sea with a force too contemptible to be noticed. Suddenly, without any intermediate step to smooth the transition, comes a despatch announcing that this adventurer has marched into Syracuse at the head of a powerful army, and that the Athenians are thrown upon the defensive, without power of proceeding with the siege. This is followed, after a short time, by the gloomy and almost desperate communication above translated.
When we thus look at the despatch, not merely as it stands singly, but as falling in series with its antecedents, the natural effect which we should suppose it likely to produce upon the Athenians, would be a vehement burst of wrath and displeasure against Nikias. Upon the most candid and impartial scrutiny, he deserved nothing less. And when we consider, farther, the character generally ascribed by historians of Greece to the Athenian people, that they are represented as fickle, ungrateful, and irritable, by standing habit; as abandoning upon the most trifling grounds those whom they had once esteemed, forgetting all prior services, visiting upon innocent generals the unavoidable misfortunes of war, and impelled by nothing better than demagogic excitements, we naturally expect that the blame really deserved by Nikias would be exaggerated beyond all due measure, and break forth in a storm of violence and fury. Yet what is the actual resolution taken in consequence of his despatch, after the full and free debate of the Athenian assembly? Not a word of blame or displeasure is proclaimed. Doubtless there must have been individual speakers who criticized him as he deserved. To suppose the contrary, would be to think meanly indeed of the Athenian assembly. But the general vote was one not simply imputing no blame, but even pronouncing continued and unabated confidence. The people positively refuse to relieve him from the command, though he himself solicits it in a manner sincere and even touching. So great is the value which they set upon his services, and the esteem which they entertain for his character, that they will not avail themselves of the easy opportunity which he himself provides to get rid of him.
It is not by way of compliment to the Athenians that I make these remarks on their present proceeding. Quite the contrary. The misplaced confidence of the Athenians in Nikias, on more than one previous occasion, but especially on this, betrays an incapacity of appreciating facts immediately before their eyes, and a blindness to decisive and multiplied evidences of incompetency, which is one of the least creditable manifestations of their political history. But we do learn from it a clear lesson, that the habitual defects of the Athenian character were very different from what historians commonly impute to them. Instead of being fickle, we find them tenacious in the extreme of confidence once bestowed, and of schemes once embarked upon: instead of ingratitude for services actually rendered, we find credit given for services which an officer ought to have rendered, but has not: instead of angry captiousness, we discover an indulgence not merely generous, but even culpable, in the midst of disappointment and humiliation: instead of a public assembly, wherein, as it is commonly depicted, the criminative orators were omnipotent, and could bring to condemnation any unsuccessful general, however meritorious; we see that even grave and well-founded accusations make no impression upon the people in opposition to preëstablished personal esteem; and personal esteem for a man who not only was no demagogue, but in every respect the opposite of a demagogue: an oligarch by taste, sentiment, and position; who yielded to the democracy nothing more than sincere obedience, coupled with gentleness and munificence in his private bearing. If Kleon had committed but a small part of those capital blunders which discredit the military career of Nikias, he would have been irretrievably ruined. So much weaker was his hold upon his countrymen, by means of demagogic excellences, as compared with those causes which attracted confidence to Nikias; his great family and position, his wealth dexterously expended, his known incorruptibility against bribes, and even comparative absence of personal ambition, his personal courage combined with reputation for caution, his decorous private life and ultra-religious habits. All this assemblage of negative merits, and decencies of daily life, in a citizen whose station might have enabled him to act with the insolence of Alkibiadês, placed Nikias on a far firmer basis of public esteem than the mere power of accusatory speech in the public assembly or the dikastery could have done. It entitled him to have the most indulgent construction put upon all his shortcomings, and spread a fatal varnish over his glaring incompetence for all grave and responsible command.
The incident now before us is one of the most instructive in all history, as an illustration of the usual sentiment, and strongest causes of error, prevalent among the Athenian democracy, and as a refutation of that exaggerated mischief which it is common to impute to the person called a demagogue. Happy would it have been for Athens had she now had Kleon present, or any other demagogue of equal power, at that public assembly which took the melancholy resolution of sending fresh forces to Sicily and continuing Nikias in the command! The case was one in which the accusatory eloquence of the demagogue was especially called for, to expose the real past mismanagement of Nikias, to break down that undeserved confidence in his ability and caution which had grown into a sentiment of faith or routine, to prove how much mischief he had already done, and how much more he would do if continued.[410] Unluckily for Athens, she had now no demagogue who could convince the assembly beforehand of this truth, and prevent them from taking the most unwise and destructive resolution ever passed in the Pnyx.
What makes the resolution so peculiarly discreditable, is, that it was adopted in defiance of clear and present evidence. To persist in the siege of Syracuse, under present circumstances, was sad misjudgment; to persist in it with Nikias as commander, was hardly less than insanity. The first expedition, though even that was rash and ill-conceived, nevertheless presented tempting hopes which explain, if they do not excuse, the too light estimate of impossibility of lasting possession. Moreover, there was at that time a confusion,—between the narrow objects connected with Leontini and Egesta, and the larger acquisitions to be realized through the siege of Syracuse,—which prevented any clear and unanimous estimate of the undertaking in the Athenian mind. But now, the circumstances of Sicily were fully known: the mendacious promises of Egesta had been exposed; the hopes of allies for Athens in the island were seen to be futile; while Syracuse, armed with a Spartan general and Peloponnesian aid, had not only become inexpugnable, but had assumed the aggressive: lastly, the chance of a renewal of Peloponnesian hostility against Attica had been now raised into certainty. While perseverance in the siege of Syracuse, therefore, under circumstances so unpromising and under such necessity for increased exertions at home, was a melancholy imprudence in itself, perseverance in employing Nikias converted that imprudence into ruin, which even the addition of an energetic colleague in the person of Demosthenês was not sufficient to avert. Those who study the conduct of the Athenian people on this occasion, will not be disposed to repeat against them the charge of fickleness which forms one of the standing reproaches against democracy. Their mistake here arose from the very opposite quality; from what may be called obtuseness, or inability to get clear of two sentiments which had become deeply engraven on their minds; ideas of Sicilian conquest, and confidence in Nikias.
A little more of this alleged fickleness—or easy escape from past associations and impressibility to actual circumstances—would have been at the present juncture a tutelary quality to Athens. She would then have appreciated more justly the increased hazards thickening around her both in Sicily and at home. War with Sparta, though not yet actually proclaimed, had become impending and inevitable. Even in the preceding winter, the Lacedæmonians had listened favorably to the recommendation of Alkibiadês[411] that they should establish a fortified post at Dekeleia in Attica. They had not yet indeed brought themselves to execution of this resolve; for the peace between them and Athens, though indirectly broken in many ways, still subsisted in name, and they hesitated to break it openly, partly because they knew that the breach of peace had been on their side at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war; attributing to this fault their capital misfortune at Sphakteria.[412] Athens on her side had also scrupulously avoided direct violation of the Lacedæmonian territory, in spite of much solicitation from her allies at Argos. But her reserve on this point gave way during the present summer, probably at the time when her prospect of taking Syracuse appeared certain. The Lacedæmonians having invaded and plundered the Argeian territory, thirty Athenian triremes were sent to aid in its defence, under Pythodôrus with two colleagues. This armament disembarked on the eastern coast of Laconia near Prasiæ and committed devastations: which direct act of hostility—coming in addition to the marauding excursions of the garrison of Pylos, and to the refusal of pacific redress at Athens—satisfied the Lacedæmonians that the peace had been now first and undeniably broken by their enemy, so that they might with a safe conscience recommence the war.[413]