204 HISTORY OF GREECE. making him responsible for results which could not have b*.en foreseen, we have only to turn back to what had been said six months before by the exile Alkibiades at Sparta : " Send forthwith an army to Sicily (he exhorted the Lacedaemonians) ; but send at the same time, what will be yet more valuable than an army, a Spar- tan to take the supreme command" It was in fulfilment of thia recommendation, the wisdom of which will abundantly appear, that Gylippus had been appointed. And had he even reached Syracuse alone in a fishing-boat, the effect of his presence, carry- ing the great name of Sparta, and full assurance of Spartan intervention to come, not to mention his great personal ability, would have sufficed to give new life to the besieged. Yet Nikias having, through a lucky accident, timely notice of his ap- proach, when a squadron of four ships would have prevented his reaching the island disdains even this most easy precaution, and neglects him as a freebooter of no significance. Such neg- lect too is the more surprising, since the well-known philo-Laco- nian tendencies of Nikias would have led us to expect, that he would overvalue rather than undervalue the imposing ascendency of the Spartan name. Gylippus, on arriving at Himera, as commander named by Sparta, and announcing himself as forerunner of Peloponnesian reinforcements, met with a hearty welcome. The Himeraans agreed to aid him with a body of hoplites, and to furnish pano- plies for the seamen in his vessels. On sending to Selinus, Gela, and some of the Sikel tribes in the interior, he received equally favorable assurances ; so that he was enabled in ho very long time to get together a respectable force. The interest of Athens among the Sikels had been recently weakened by the death of one of her most active partisans, the Sikel prince Archonides, a circumstance which both enabled Gylippus to obtain more of their aid, and facilitated his march across the island. He was enabled to undertake this inland march from Himera to Syracuse at the head of seven hundred hoplites from his own vessels, seamen and epibatse taken together ; one thousand hoplites and light troop?, with one hundred horse, from Himera, some horse and light troops from Selinus and Gela, and one thousand Sikels. 1 With
1 Thucvd. vii. 1 .
