SPEECH OF NIKIAS. 333 from his incurable complaint, he was seen everywhere in tlui ranks marshalling the troops, heartening up their dejection, and addressing them with a voice louder, more strenuous, and more commanding than was his wont. " Keep up your hope still, Athenians (he said), even as we are now : others have been saved out of circumstances worse than oura, Be not too much humiliated, either with your defeats or with your present unmerited hardships. I too, having no advantage over any of you in strength, nay, you see the condition to which I have been brought by my disease, and accustomed even to superior splendor and good fortune in private as well as public life, I too am plunged in the same peril with the humblest eoldier among you. Nevertheless, my conduct has been constantly pious towards the gods as well as just and blameless towards men ; in recompense for which, my hope for the future is yet sanguine, at the same time that our actual misfortunes do not appall me in proportion to their intrinsic magnitude. 1 Perhaps, 1 Thucyd. vii, 77. Kairoi 7ro/,A<i /j.ev ef $eoi)f vopt/Lia 6e6i?jrT}ftai, <5e if uvdpuTtovf diKaia KOI avemQ&ova. 'Av$' uv # (J.EV eATTif &paaela rov (j.eh'kovTOt, al de ^vfj.<f>opal ov /tor' aljiav 6t) <f> o (3 o v a i. Td^a <S' av /cat TiufyrjaEiav IKO.VU, yap rolf re irofa/tioif EVTVXT]- rai, KO.I el ru -deuv fatydovoi karpaTEvcdfiEV, upKoiivrue fidq reTt/j,apri[ie&a. I have translated the words ov HOT' u^iav, and the sentence of which they form a part, differently from what has been hitherto sanctioned by the com- mentators, who construe /car' a lav as meaning " according to our desert," understand the words al gv/ujtopal oi> /car' a%lav as bearing the same sense with the words raif napci TT)V agiav KaKOTrpayiaif some lines before ; and likewise construe ov, not with <<>o(3ovai, but with /car" ugiav, assigning to (j)o(3ovai an affirmative sense. They translate: " Quare, quamvis nostra fortuna prorsiis qfflicta-videatur (these words have no parallel in the original) rerum tamen futurarum spes est audax : sed clades, quas nullo nostro merito ac cepimus, nos jam terrent. At fortasse cessabunt," etc. M. Didot translates : " Aussij'ai un ferme espoir dans 1'avenir, malgrtfFeffroi que des malheurs non m6rit& nous causent." Dr. Arnold passes the sentence over without notice. This manner of translating appears to me not less unsuitable in reference to the spirit and thread of the harangue, than awkward as regards the indi- vidual words. Looking to the spirit of the harangue, the object of encour aging the dejected soldiers would hardly be much answered by repeating what in fact had been glanced at in a manner sufficient and becoming, before that '-the unmerited reverses terrified either Nikias or the sol- diers." Then as to the words; the expressions <h>i9' d>v, o/iwf, [iev, and tie,
com to me to denote, not only that the two halves of the sentence apply
