posal, as it appears, of Alcibiades, all the adult males were put to death, the women and children sold into slavery, and the island colonized afresh by 500 Athenians. This horrible proceeding was the more indefensible, as the Athenians, having attacked the Melians in full peace, could not pretend that they were justified by the custom of war in slaying the prisoners. It was the crowning act of insolence and cruelty displayed during their empire, which from this period began rapidly to decline.

§ 10. The event destined to produce that catastrophe-the intervention of the Athenians in the affairs of Sicily-was already in progress. The feuds of race had been kindled in that island, as in the rest of Greece, by the Peloponnesian war. Eleven or twelve years before the period of which we are now speaking the Dorian cities of Sicily (with the exception of Camarina), together with the Locrians of Italy, had, under the headship of Syracuse, joined the Peloponnesian confederacy, and declared war against Leontini, Camarina, and their ally, the city of Rhegium in Italy.

In the year 427 B.C., the Leontines sent an embassy to Athens, to crave the assistance of the Athenians. At the head of it was the rhetorician, Gorgias, the novelty of whose brilliant eloquence took the Athenians by surprise, and is said to have chiefly contributed to the success of the application. However that may be, an Athenian squadron of twenty ships was despatched to the assistance of the Leontines, and also with a view to ascertain the possibility of reducing all Sicily, of whose size the Athenians seem to have had very vague and imperfect notions, to the obedience of Athens. A subsequent expedition in 425 B.C., consisting of forty triremes, under the command of Eurymedon and Sophocles, has been already mentioned.* The selfish and ambitious designs of Athens had however become so evident that in the spring of the following year a congress of the Sicilian cities met at Gela; where the Syracusan, Hermocrates, in an able and patriotic speech, succeeded in persuading them to lay aside their dissensions, and to unite in defeating the schemes of Athens. The Athenians were so disappointed at this failure, that when Eurymedon, and his colleagues Sophocles and Pythodorus, returned, they were indicted and convicted of having taken bribes to accede to the peace. Eurymedon was sentenced to pay a fine, and his fellow commanders were banished.

§ 11. In the year 422 B.C., another application for assistance was made to the Athenians by the Leontine democracy, whe had been expelled by the aristocrats; but the Athenians, then

* See above, p. 307.

smarting under their recent losses, and having just concluded a truce with Sparta, could not be persuaded to grant any effectual succour. In the spring of 416 B.C., however, an embassy from the Sicilian town of Egesta was more successful. A quarrel had broken out between Egesta and Selinus, both which cities were seated near the western extremity of Sicily; and Selinus, having obtained the aid of Syracuse, was pressing very hard upon the Egestæans. The latter appealed to the interests of the Athenians rather than to their sympathies. They represented how great a blow it would be to Athens if the Dorians became predominant in Sicily, and joined the Peloponnesian confederacy; and they undertook, if the Athenians would send an armament to their assistance, to provide the necessary funds for the prosecution of the war. Their application was supported by the Leontine exiles still resident at Athens. But their most powerful advocate was Alcibiades, whose ambitious views are said to have extended even to the conquest of Carthage. In these distant expeditions he beheld a means of gratifying his passion for adventure and glory, and at the same time of retrieving his fortune, which had been dilapidated by his profligate expenditure. The quieter and more prudent Nicias and his party threw their weight into the opposite scale; and at their instance it was resolved, before an expedition was undertaken, to ascertain whether the Egestaæans were really able to perform the promises they had made. For this purpose commissioners were despatched to Egesta, whom, however, the cunning Egestæans completely deceived. In the splendid temple of Aphrodité, on Mount Eryx, a magnificent display of offerings was set out, consisting of vessels which the Egestæans passed off for solid gold, though only silver gilt. In the private houses, where they were invited to banquet after banquet, the Athenian envoys were astonished at the profusion of plate under which the sideboards groaned, but which was slily transferred for the occasion from one house to another. Sixty talents of silver, placed in their hands as earnest-money, completed the delusion; and the commissioners, who were, perhaps, not unwilling to be deceived, returned to Athens with magnificent accounts of the wealth of Egesta.

§ 12. Dazzled by the idea of so splendid an enterprise, the means for accomplishing which seemed ready provided, the Athenian assembly at once decided on despatching a fleet of sixty triremes, under Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus, with the design of assisting Egesta, of restoring the Leontine democracy, and lastly of establishing the influence of Athens throughout Sicily, by whatever means might be found practicable. Nicias, though named as one of the commanders of the expedition,

sion.

entirely disapproved of it, and denounced it in the assembly as springing from the vain glory and ambition of Alcibiades. The latter repelled these not unmerited attacks in a violent speech, and persuaded the assembly to ratify their former deciAnother attempt of Nicias to deter the Athenians from the enterprise by representing the enormous force which it would require, had an effect exactly contrary to what he had intended; for the assembly, taking him at his word, decreed a fleet of 100 instead of 60 triremes, together with a proportionate increase in the land forces.

§ 13. For the next three months the preparations for the undertaking were pressed on with the greatest ardour. Young and old, rich and poor, all vied with one another to obtain a share in the expedition. Oracles and prophecies predicting success were circulated through the city, and greedily listened to. So great was the throng of volunteers, that the care of the generals was restricted to the task of selection. The trierarchs contended which should produce his vessel not only in the most efficient, but in the most ornamental state of equipment. Five years of comparative peace had accumulated a fresh supply both of men and money; and the merchants of Athens embarked in the enterprise as in a trading expedition. It was only a few of the wisest heads that escaped the general fever of excitement. Meton, the astronomer, and Socrates, the philosopher, are said not to have shared in the universal enthusiasm; the latter warned, perhaps, by that familiar demon to whose whispered wisdom his ears were ever open.

§ 14. And now the magnificent armament is on the point of sailing. The brilliant city is alive with hope, and pride, and expectation, when a sudden and mysterious event converts all these exulting feelings into gloomy foreboding.

At every door in Athens, at the corners of streets, in the market-place, before temples, gymnasia, and other public places, stood Hermæ, or statues of the god Hermes, consisting of a bust of that deity surmounting a quadrangular pillar of marble about the height of the human figure. When the Athenians rose one morning towards the end of May, 415 B.C., it was found that all these figures had been mutilated during the night, and reduced by unknown hands to a shapeless mass. We may partly realize the feelings excited by this occurrence, by picturing to ourselves some Roman Catholic town, in which all the statues of the Virgin should have been suddenly defaced. But the act inspired political, as well as religious, alarm. It seemed to indicate a wide spread conspiracy, for so sudden and general a mutilation must have been the work of many hands. Athens, like other

Grecian states, abounded with clubs, which, like our societies of freemasons, offered facilities for secret and extensive combinations. This will probably afford the most natural explanation of the fear which now pervaded Athens; for the sacrilege might only be a preliminary attempt of some powerful citizen to seize the despotism, and suspicion pointed its finger at Alcibiades. Active measures were taken and large rewards offered for the discovery of the perpetrators. A public board was appointed to examine witnesses, which did not, indeed, succeed in eliciting any facts bearing on the actual subject of inquiry, but which obtained evidence respecting similar acts of impiety committed at previous times in drunken frolics. In these Alcibiades himself was implicated; and though the fleet was on the very eve of departure, Pythonicus rose in the assembly and accused him of having profaned the Eleusinian mysteries by giving a representation of them in a private house, producing in evidence the testimony of a slave. Pythonicus also charged him with being privy to the mutilation of the Hermæ, but without bringing forward the slightest proof. Alcibiades denied the accusation, and implored the people to have it investigated at once. His enemies, however, had sufficient influence to get the inquiry postponed till his return; thus keeping the charge hanging over his head, and gaining time to poison the public mind against him.

§ 15. The day had arrived for the sailing of the fleet. Corcyra was appointed for the rendezvous of the allies; but even the departure of the Athenian armament was a spectacle imposing in the extreme. Of the hundred triremes, sixty were equipped as men of war, the rest as transports. Fifteen hundred chosen Athenian hoplites, 700 of the class of Thetes to act as marines, together with 500 Argive and 250 Mantinean hoplites, marched at daybreak to embark at the Piræus, accompanied by nearly the whole of the population. As the ships were preparing to slip their moorings, the sound of the trumpet enjoined silence, and the voice of the herald, accompanied by that of the people, was lifted up in prayer. Then followed the chanting of the pæan, whilst the officers on the decks of their respective vessels made libations of wine to the gods from gold and silver goblets. At length at a given signal the whole fleet started from Piræus, each crew striving as in a nautical contest to arrive first at the island of Ægina. The people who lined the beach watched the vessels till they were out of sight, and then returned to the city with heavy hearts and ominous misgivings.

AAKIB

Bust of Alcibiades.

CHAPTER XXX.

PELOPONNESIAN WAR CONTINUED.

THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION.

§ 1. Armament mustered at Corcyra. § 2. Its reception in Italy. Pro ceedings at Syracuse. § 3. Plans of the Athenian generals. § 4. The advice of Alcibiades adopted. He gains over Naxos and Catana. 5. Proceedings at Athens respecting the mutilation of the Hermæ, and the profanation of the mysteries. § 6. Alcibiades accused, and ordered to return to Athens. §7. Proceedings of Nicias in Sicily. § 8. Preparations of the Sicilians for defence. § 9. Nicias lays siege to Syracuse. § 10. He seizes Epipolæ and constructs a fort at Syké. Attempt of the Syracusans against it. §11. Arrival of the Spartan general Gylippus. Change in the Athenian prospects. 12. Invasion of Attica by the Lacedæmonians. They fortify Deceleia. § 13. The Syracusans defeat the Athenians at sea. § 14. Demosthenes and Eurymedon arrive in Sicily with reinforcements. Reverses. The Athenians resolve to retreat. § 15. Naval engagement in the Great Harbour. Victory of the Syracusans. § 16. Its effects. Disastrous retreat of the Athenians. Surrender of Demosthenes. § 17. Surrender of Nicias. Treatment of the prisoners. Death of Nicias and Demosthenes. § 18. Their characters.

§ 1. THE Athenian fleet destined for Sicily was joined at Corcyra by the other allies in the month of July, 415 B.C. The whole armament when mustered consisted of 134 triremes and two Rhodian penteconters, and had on board 5100 hoplites, 480 bowmen, of whom 80 were Cretans, 700 Rhodian slingers, and