Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/149

131 AGGl'iES&iuNS OF SYRACUSE 1>I SICILY. 131 that here as elsewhere she was then on the offensive, and Athens only on the defensive. Probably the Corinthians had encouraged the expectation of ample reinforcements from Syracuse and the neighboring towns, a hope which must have contributed largely to the confidence with which they began the struggle. What were the causes which prevented it from being realized, we are not distinctly told ; and we find Hermokrates the Syracusan re- proaching his countrymen fifteen years afterwards, immediately before the great Athenian expedition against Syracuse, with their antecedent apathy. 1 But it is easy to see, that as the Sicilian Greeks had no direct interest in the contest, neither wrongs to avenge, nor dangers to apprehend, from Athens, nor any habit of obeying requisitions from Sparta, so they might naturally content themselves with expressions of sympathy and promises of aid in case of need, without taxing themselves to the enormous extent which it pleased Sparta to impose, for purposes both ag- gressive and purely Peloponnesian. Perhaps the leading men in Syracuse, from attachment to Corinth, may have sought to act upon the order. But no similar motive would be found operative either at Agrigentum or at Gela or Selinus. Though the order was not executed, however, there can be little doubt that it was publicly announced and threatened, thus becoming known to the Ionic cities in Sicily as well as to Athens ; and that it weighed materially in determining the latter afterwards to assist those cities, when they sent to invoke her aid. Instead of despatching their forces to Peloponnesus, where they had nothing to gain, the Sicilian Dorians preferred attacking the Ionic cities in their own island, whose territory they might have reason- able hopes of conquering and appropriating, Naxos, Katana, and Leontini. These cities doubtless sympathized with Athens in her struggle against Sparta ; yet, far from being strong enough to assist her or to threaten their Dorian neighbors, they were unable to defend themselves without Athenian aid. They were assisted by the Dorian city of Kamarina, which was afraid of her powerful border city Syracuse, and by Rhegium in Italy; while Lokri in Italy, the bitter enemy of Rhegium, sided with Syracuse against them. In the fifth summer of the war, finding 1 Thucyd. vi, 34 : compare iii, 86.