SPEECH OF NIKIAS. 335 gods, we have already undergone chastisement amply sufficient. Other people before us have invaded foreign lands, and after having done what was competent to human power, have suffered what was within the limit of human endurance. We too may reasonably hope henceforward to have the offended god dealing with us more mildly, for we are now objects fitter for his compas- sion than for his jealousy. 1 Look, moreover, at your own ranks, hoplites so numerous and so excellent : let that guard you against excessive despair, and recollect that, wherever you may sit down, you are yourselves at once a city ; nor is there any other city in hopes ; at the same time that, as to the present, I am not overwhelmed by tho ore-sent misfortunes in proportion to their prodigious intensity." This is the precise thing for a man of resolution to say upon so terrible an occasion. The particle <5i) has its appropriate meaning, al 6s frfujtopal oil /car' agiav 6 ?) <f>oj3oii<n ; " and the present distresses, though they do appall me, do not appall me assuredly in proportion to their actual magnitude." Lastly, the particle Kal (in the succeeding phrase, ra%a <5' uv Kal TiuQfjffetav) does not fit on to the preceding passage as usually construed : accordingly tho Latin translator, as well as M. Didot, leave it out, and translate : " At for- tasse cessabunt." " Mais peut etre vont ils cesser." It ought to be trans- lated : " And perhaps they may even abate," which implies that what had been asserted in the preceding sentence is here intended not to be contra- dicted, but to be carried forward and strengthened : see Kuhner, Griech. Gramm. sects. 725-728. Such would not be the case as the sentence is usually construed. 1 Thucyd. vii, 77. 'luava yap role re 7ro/U-/zoif evrvxijTai, Kal el T<J> deuv revaapsv, arro^pwvruf fjdri rer^wp^uetfa fadov yap TTOV Kal k<p irepovf, Kal dv&puTreia dpdaavreg dveKra tiratiov. Kai fifj.af eiKbf vvv rd re air() rov dsov Msirifyiv qmurepa ev ' OIKTOV yap UTT* avruv agiuTepot fj6r] kafikv rj 6&6vov. This is a remarkable illustration of the doctrine, so frequently set forth in Herodotus, that the gods were jealous of any man or any nation who was preeminently powerful, fortunate, or prosperous. Nikias, recollecting the immense manifestation and promise with which his armament h&cl started from Peiraeus, now believed that this had provoked the jealousy of some of the gods, and brought about the misfortunes in Sicily. He com- forts his soldiers by saying that the enemy is now at the same dangerous pinnacle of exaltation, whilst they have exhausted the sad effects of tha divine jealousy. Compare the story of Amasis and Polykratcs in Herodotus (iii, 39), and the striking remarks pul into the mouth of Paulus ^Emilins by Plutarch
(Vit. Paul, Mmil. c. 36).
