On Sending Aid to Those in Sicily

​Even this cannot be said, namely that after all few words were spoken about these things among us from the beginning, or that we entrusted the whole to a small part of a single day. But as to your having voted, even at the very beginning of the war, both that the Syracusans were enemies and to help those of the Greeks there who needed it, and the envoys whom you sent to make trial of the whole situation, I shall pass that over; but when we were planning to send this great armament, what argument was not spoken among us? Or what time was not spent? Or to whom among all did we not grant the right to speak? You who, even at the last, holding an assembly about the preparation itself, when Nicias came forward and again opposed from the beginning almost those very things which he now writes in his letter—namely that Sicily is large and neither easy to capture nor to hold, if indeed we should acquire it—* * both things can be said, men of Athens: for we showed not the slightest anger, so as to prevent him from speaking his mind, and having heard him through all, we resolved even more firmly that we must sail. And naturally so, men of Athens. For all such arguments are far more encouraging and stirring than they could possibly be hindering. For the size of the island and its circumnavigation are a prize worthy of our daring enterprise, and the fact that its inhabitants are a mixed populace and do not think alike is in our favor. For if they had all been of one race, they would have been difficult both to persuade and to constrain to the end; but being a mixed rabble gathered from all quarters, they stand in the relation of allies to us no less than of enemies. For they would not unite as one, so that we have the opportunity of using one party against the other. For just as, I think, it is easier to reduce a city that is in sedition, so too an island which has been divided from the beginning. And further, men of Athens, before our fleet touched at Sicily, the Syracusans had some resource from their allies; but now that a refuge is at hand, those who formerly obeyed them by constraint become untrustworthy partners in their affairs if they remain, and formidable enemies if they revolt;

​and the war has shaken these things thoroughly. So for the present, in view of their sudden prosperity and the appearance of having recovered contrary to expectation, they act with caution. But if another fleet should appear again, within a short time, men of Athens, you will find that Sicily, vast and populous as it is, is yours. To persuade you to sail at the beginning, therefore, was perhaps in need of more discussion and scrutiny; but now, looking at the facts themselves, one would find that they are in every way advantageous, and not too great for you to achieve, and that you have resolved on what is not impossible to be done. For we have mastered the sea to the greatest extent possible, and on land, no one could name a battle which we have not won by a wide margin, out of all those, so many in number, that have taken place up to this point. And yet, how is it not absurd, if because we have won so many consecutive victories we think we ought not to be confident, but because this single battle just now did not go according to our mind, we shall regard this as a hopeless disaster? And if the Syracusans know how to be confident after suffering so many and continuous misfortunes, shall not we, on whose part so many trophies have been erected at their expense, do the same? Shall we not learn, even from the very things in which we seem to have stumbled, that it is not good to yield easily? For come, by Zeus, if anyone among the Syracusans, when they were failing in everything in succession, had said that they must end the war and surrender the city to us, and had then persuaded them, is there any way that Gylippus would either have come to them in the first place, or, by Zeus, having come, would have had anything to do? And how could he? In no way. But now, I think, by extending their hopes and in their imagination always rising superior to the difficulties at hand, they have at least gained this much, that the debate already seems to be about equal terms for them. Therefore, we must not fear the fact that some of their affairs have gone according to their mind, but rather, making this very thing our example, we must help our cause vigorously, so that we may not appear to have less hope than they—and that too when all men have supposed us to be not only the strongest in accomplishing our designs, but also far pre-eminent in dangers—nor should we wastefully destroy the gains that have accrued to us in the past. And indeed, when Nicias...