Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/170

152 152 HISTORY OF GREECE. thou afraid, prytanis (Mr. President), to submit this momentous question again to the decision of the assembly, seeing that breach of the law, in the presence of so many witnesses, cannot expose thee to impeachment, while thou wilt afford opportunity for the correction of a perilous misjudgment." Such were the principal points in the speech of Nikias on this memorable occasion. It was heard with attention, and probably made some impression, since it completely reopened the entire debate, in spite of the formal illegality. Immediately after he sat down, while his words were yet fresh in the ears of the audience, Alkibiades rose to reply. The speech just made, bringing the expedition again into question, endangered his dearest hopes both of fame and of pecuniary acquisition ; for his dreams went farther than those of any man in Athens ; not merely to the conquest of all Sicily, but also to that of Carthage and the Carthaginian empire. Opposed to Nikias, both in personal char- acter and in political tendencies, he had pushed his rivalry to such a degree of bitterness that at one moment a vote of ostra- cism had been on the point of deciding betwren them. That vote had indeed been turned aside by joint consent, and dis- charged upon Hyperbolus ; yet the hostile feeling still continued on both sides, and Nikias had just manifested it by a parliamen- tary attack of the most galling character ; all the more galling because it was strictly accurate and well deserved. Provoked as well as alarmed, Alkibiades started up forthwith, his impatience breaking loose from the formalities of an exordium. "Athenians, I both have better title than others to the post of commander, for the taunts of Nikias force me to begin here, and I count myself fully worthy of it. Those very matters with which he reproaches me are sources not merely of glory to my ancestors and myself, but of positive advantage to my country. For the Greeks, on witnessing my splendid theory at Olympia, were induced to rate the power of Athens even above the reality, having before regarded it as broken down by the war ; when 1 bent into the lists seven chariots, being more than any private individual had ever sent before, winning the first prize, coming battle of Arirtimsie, in which the prodigious importance of a strict vancc of forms -uill appear painfully and conspicuously manifest.