Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/177

159 ATHENIAN PROCEEDINGS. 159 cisive in favor of the former, the party thus strengthened thought itself warranted in calling for a decision immediately, after all the previous debates. Nevertheless, the measure still had to surmount the renewed and hearty opposition of Nikias, before it became finally ratified. It was this long and frequent debate, with opposition often repeated but always outreasoned, which working gradually deeper and deeper conviction in the minds of the people, brought them all into hearty unanimity to support it, and made them cling to it with that tenacity which the coming chapters will demonstrate. In so far as the expedition was an error, it certainly was not error arising either from hurry, or want of discussion, or want of inquiry. Never in Grecian history was any measure more carefully weighed beforehand, or more deliberately and unanimously resolved. The position of Nikias in reference to the measure is remark able. As a dissuasive and warning counsellor, he took a right view of it ; but in that capacity he could not carry the people along with him. Yet such was their steady esteem for him per sonally, and their reluctance to proceed in the enterprise without him, that they eagerly embraced any conditions which he thought proper to impose. And the conditions which he named had the effect of exaggerating the enterprise into such gigantic magnitude as no one in Athens had ever contemplated ; thus casting into it so prodigious a proportion of the blood of Athens, that its dis- comfiture would be equivalent to the ruin of the commonwealth. This was the first mischief occasioned by Nikias, when, after being forced to relinquish his direct opposition, he resorted to the indirect manoeuvre of demanding more than he thought the people would be willing to grant. It will be found only the first among a sad series of other mistakes, fatal to his country as well as to himself. Giving to Nikias, however, for the present, full credit for the wisdom of his dissuasive counsel and his skepticism about the reports from Egesta, we cannot but notice the opposite quality in Alkibiades. His speech is not merely full of overweening inso- lence, as a manifestation of individual character, but of rash and ruinous instigations in regard to the foreign policy of his country. The arguments whereby he enforces the expedition against Syra- cuse are indeed more mischievous in thf r tendency than the ex-