Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/213

Rh hope of success when the people were not under the spell of his eloquence and charm. The fleet, therefore, left the Piraeus after solemn prayer and libation, and amidst the cheers and encouragement of the people who crowded down to the harbour. The armament was on an unusual scale of magnificence. There were a hundred Athenian triremes, with fifty from Lesbos and Chos, four thousand Athenian hoplites with three hundred cavalry, besides many more from the allied states. The crews were picked men, and the troops selected with special care, while great sums of money had been lavished on the equipment and ornamentation of the ships as well as of the men. The fleet was accompanied by a large number of transports and private trading vessels whose owners hoped to find opportunities for profitable traffic in Sicily. The whole armament made for Corcyra, where large forces of the allies of Athens were ordered to meet them.

But from the first moment that this great armament left Corcyra for Iapygia, in the south of Italy, one ominous difficulty after another seemed to predict failure. The cities on the Italian coast till they reached Rhegium refused to furnish supplies; and at Rhegium, though allowed to purchase what they needed, they could get no intelligence that any Sicilian cities were prepared to welcome them, nor could the three commanders agree on the plan of operations. Nicias was for attempting nothing beyond the professed object of the expedition—the settlement of the quarrel between Egesta and Selinus. Lamachus and Alcibiades were for