INACTION OF MKIAS. 25 nians. when, after having sent forth in the month of June, an expedition of unparalleled efficiency, they receive in the month of November a despatch to acquaint them that the general has accomplished little except one indecisive victory ; and that he has not even attempted anything serious, nor can do so unless they send him farther cavalry and money. Yet the only answer which they made was, to grant and provide for this demand without any public expression of discontent or disappointment against him. 1 And this is the more to be noted, since the re- 1 A.laxpbv (5e piaatievraf aTre/ltfeZy, ) varepov TO npiJTov dcr/cgTrrwf j3ov^evffa/j.Evovf : " It is disgraceful to be driven out of Sicily by superior force, or to send back here afterwards for fresh reinforce- ments^ through our own fault in making bad calculations at Jirst." ( Thucyd vi, 21.) This was a part of the last speech by Nikias himself at Athens, prior to ihe expedition. The Athenian people in reply had passed a vote that he and his colleagues should fix their own amount of force, and should have everything which they asked for. Moreover, such was the feeling in the city, that every one individually was anxious to put down his name to serve (vi, 26-31). Thucydides can hardly find words sufficient to depict the completeness, the grandeur, the wealth public and private, of the ar- mament. As this goes to establish what I have advanced in the text, that the actions of Nikias in Sicily stand most of all condemned by his own pre- vious speeches at Athens, so it seems to have been forgotten by Dr. Ar- nold, when he wrote his note on the remarkable passage, ii, 65, of Thucydi- des, e uv dAAa re Tro/lAd, ug iv peyuhri Tco^ei, Kal up%T)v exovari, i]p.ap~ Trj-drj, Kal 6 f St/ce/U'av irXoiif of oil TOOOVTOV yvufinf a/j.apT7j/u.a fyv npbf oiif sTtr/saav, uaov ol e K nepip avr E f, oil TU irpoatyopa roif ol%o- fievo if eTri-yiyvuaKovTef, fM.a Kara ruf Iti'iag fiaflo'Xuc Trepl ri]f rov drifj-ov TTOotyratTiaf, ra re ev ru CTrparoTrtd^j upfJXvTepa tnoiovv, Kal rH irapl T}/V itokiv irpuTov EV uXkifhoiq trapaxdrinav. Upon which Dr. Arnold remarks : " Thucydides here expresses the same opinion which he repeats in two other places (vi, 31 ; vii, 42), namely, that the Athenian power was fully adequate to the conquest of Syracuse, had not the expedition been mismanaged by the general, and insufficiently supplied by the government at home. The words oil ru irpoaQopa role oixouivotc iTrtyiyvuaKovrec signify " not voting afler- uxirds the needful supplies to their absent armament :" for Nikias was prevented from improving his rirst victory over the Syracusans by the want of cavalry and money ; and the whole winter was lost before he could get supplied from Athens. And subsequently the armament was allowed to be reduced
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