The Athenian expedition having been coldly received by the cities it came to rescue, returned to Athens, where Eurymedon was fined and Sophocles banished on a charge of bribery. And now the reservation made by Hermocrates as to the right of the Sicilian cities to war upon one another, was soon justified. And to such an extent that the Ionic cities began to realise that the Syracusans had been chiefly anxious to expel the foreign invader, in order that the island might be left entirely to Syracusan ambition. In the city of Leontini the aristocrats crushed the democrats, and turned the city into a Syracusan fort after destroying the greater portion of it. The common people appealed to Athens, and received in reply two triremes under Phæax in B.C. 422. Before he had accomplished anything the Peace of Nicias put a temporary close to the war.
In 417 B.C. the two Sicilian cities of Selinus and Segesta (or Egesta) quarrelled over a bit of territory. Syracuse aided Selinus, and Segesta, after appealing in vain to Agrigentum and to Carthage, sent envoys to Athens. The Leontine people also reminded Athens that Syracuse, having destroyed Leontini and assailed Segesta, was planning and accomplishing the gradual reduction of all Sicilian cities favourable to Athens, and thus building up an empire which would give Sparta unlimited aid. The people of Segesta asked only for men and ships, and promised to provide ample money for expenses.
[416-415 B.C.]
The idea of such an armada delighted the fire-brand Alcibiades, who saw in it a chance to be a leader and to find an abundance of the things he most desired—adventure, notoriety, and money. The cautious Nicias opposed the scheme, and secured a delay until ambassadors could be sent to Segesta to learn if the city were really wealthy enough to pay as it promised. And now it was a case of Greek meeting Sicilian. The people of Segesta had sent secret expeditions to all their friendly towns, Phœnician or Grecian, to borrow all the treasure they could wheedle out of their prospective allies. When the Athenian envoys appeared, they were taken to the temple of Venus and shown a great array of gifts, “bowls, wine ladles, censers, and other articles of furniture in no small quantity.” These were all silver or of silver gilt, and made a far greater showing than they merited. Then the Athenians were put through a round of entertainments. In each case the host displayed all his own plate, and in addition a large portion of the common fund, which was passed from house to house surreptitiously. The gullible Athenians were overwhelmed by the evident opulence of the private citizens of Segesta, and when sixty talents of uncoined silver (valued at over £12,000 or $60,000) were handed over to the Athenians for the first month’s expenses of the fleet, the embassy was thoroughly duped, and returned to Athens glowing with enthusiasm for an alliance with such a western Golconda. Then followed a tug of war between Nicias and Alcibiades. Nicias was to be one of the commanders of the expedition, and he could well claim that it was no fear of bodily danger that made him averse to it. He opposed it purely as a piece of folly. Alcibiades replied in favour of the expedition, and it was so evident that the people were determined to send the fleet that Nicias in a last effort tried to alarm the city by magnifying the difficulties of the task and demanding a tremendous force. To the Athenians, in their drunkenness for empire, and in that frenzy of “Westward Ho!” which, in the fifteenth century, attacked all Europe, the opposition of Nicias was only wind on flame. They rejoiced the more at the magnificence of the problem.
To decide upon sending a fleet of one hundred triremes instead of the sixty asked for, was folly enough; but to elect Nicias as the commander of the expedition, and to ally with him his bitter opponent, Alcibiades, was pure delirium. Still, Athens had just conquered Melos, and no task was too gigantic for her hopes.[a]
Greek Door Keys
THE MUTILATION OF THE HERMÆ
For the two or three months immediately succeeding the final resolution taken by the Athenians to invade Sicily, the whole city was elate and bustling with preparation. The prophets, circulators of oracles, and other accredited religious advisers, announced generally the favourable dispositions of the gods, and promised a triumphant result. All classes in the city, rich and poor,—cultivators, traders, and seamen,—old and young, all embraced the project with ardour; as requiring a great effort, yet promising unparalleled results, both of public aggrandisement and individual gain. Each man was anxious to put down his own name for personal service; so that the three generals, Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus, when they proceeded to make their selection of hoplites, instead of being forced to employ constraint or incur ill-will, as happened when an expedition was adopted reluctantly with many dissentients, had only to choose the fittest among a throng of eager volunteers.
Such efforts were much facilitated by the fact that five years had now elapsed since the Peace of Nicias, without any considerable warlike operations. While the treasury had become replenished with fresh accumulations, and the triremes increased in number, the military population, reinforced by additional numbers of youth, had forgotten both the hardships of the war and the pressure of epidemic disease. Hence the fleet now got together, while it surpassed in number all previous armaments of Athens, except a single one in the second year of the previous war under Pericles, was incomparably superior even to that, and still more superior to all the rest in the other ingredients of force, material as well as moral, in picked men, universal ardour, ships as well as arms in the best condition, and accessories of every kind in abundance. Such was the confidence of success, that many Athenians went prepared for trade as well as for combat; so that the private stock, thus added to the public outfit and to the sums placed in the hands of the generals, constituted an unparalleled aggregate of wealth. After between two and three months of active preparations, the expedition was almost ready to start, when an event happened which fatally poisoned the prevalent cheerfulness of the city. This was the mutilation of the Hermæ, one of the most extraordinary events in all Grecian history.