[235] Thucyd. vi, 15. Καὶ μάλιστα στρατηγῆσαί τε ἐπιθυμῶν καὶ ἐλπίζων Σικελίαν τε δι’ αὐτοῦ καὶ Καρχηδόνα λήψεσθαι, καὶ τὰ ἴδια ἅμα εὐτυχήσας χρήμασί τε καὶ δόξῃ ὠφελήσειν. Ὢν γὰρ ἐν ἀξιώματι ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀστῶν, ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις μείζοσιν ἢ κατὰ τὴν ὑπάρχουσαν οὐσίαν ἐχρῆτο ἔς τε τὰς ἱπποτροφίας καὶ τὰς ἄλλας δαπάνας, etc.
Compare vi, 90. Plutarch (Alkib. c. 19; Nikias, c. 12). Plutarch sometimes speaks as if, not Alkibiadês alone (or at least in conjunction with a few partisans), but the Athenians generally, set out with an expectation of conquering Carthage as well as Sicily. In the speech which Alkibiadês made at Sparta after his banishment (Thucyd. vi, 90), he does indeed state this as the general purpose of the expedition. But it seems plain that he is here describing, to his countrymen generally, plans which were only fermenting in his own brain, as we may discern from a careful perusal of the first twenty chapters of the sixth book of Thucydidês.
In the inaccurate Oratio de Pace ascribed to Andokidês (sect. 30), it is alleged that the Syracusans sent an embassy to Athens, a little before this expedition, entreating to be admitted as allies of the Athenians, and affirming that Syracuse would be a more valuable ally to Athens than Egesta or Katana. This statement is wholly untrue.
[236] Thucyd. viii, 1.
[237] Thucyd. vi, 31. ἐπιφοράς τε πρὸς τῷ ἐκ δημοσίου μισθῷ διδόντων τοῖς θρανίταις τῶν ναυτῶν καὶ ταῖς ὑπηρεσίαις, καὶ τἄλλα σημείοις καὶ κατασκευαῖς πολυτελέσι χρησαμένων, etc.
Dobree and Dr. Arnold explain ὑπηρεσίαις to mean the petty officers, such as κυβερνήτης, κελευστὴς, etc. Göller and Poppo construe it to mean “the servants of the sailors.” Neither of the two seems to me satisfactory. I think the word means “to the crews generally;” the word ὑπερησία being a perfectly general word comprising all who received pay in the ship. All the examples produced in the notes of the commentators testify this meaning, which also occurs in the text itself two lines before. To construe ταῖς ὑπηρεσίαις as meaning “the crews generally, or the remaining crews, along with the thranitæ,” is doubtless more or less awkward. But it departs less from ordinary construction than either of the two senses which the commentators propose.
[238] Thucyd. vii, 13. οἱ ξένοι, οἱ μὲν ἀναγκαστοὶ ἐσβάντες, etc.
[239] Thucyd. vi, 26. I do not trust the statement given in Æschinês, De Fals. Legat. c. 54, p. 302, and in Andokidês, De Pace, sect. 8, that seven thousand talents were laid by as an accumulated treasure in the acropolis during the Peace of Nikias, and that four hundred triremes, or three hundred triremes, were newly built. The numerous historical inaccuracies in those orations, concerning the facts prior to 400 B.C., are such as to deprive them of all authority, except where they are confirmed by other testimony; even if we admitted the oration ascribed to Andokidês as genuine, which in all probability it is not.
But there exists an interesting Inscription which proves that the sum of three thousand talents at least must have been laid by, during the interval between the conclusion of the Peace of Nikias and the Sicilian Expedition, in the acropolis; and that over and above this accumulated fund, the state was in condition to discharge, out of the current receipts, various sums which it had borrowed during the previous war from the treasury of various temples, and seems to have had besides a surplus for docks and fortifications. The Inscription above named records the vote passed for discharging these debts, and for securing the sums so paid in the opisthodomus, or back-chamber, of the Parthenon, for account of those gods to whom they respectively belonged. See Boeckh’s Corp. Inscr. part ii, Inscr. Att. No. 76, p. 117; also the Staats-haushaltung der Athener of the same author, vol. ii, p. 198. This Inscription belongs unquestionably to one of the years between 421-415 B.C., to which year we cannot say.
[240] Thucyd. vi, 31; Diodor. xiii, 2, 3.