Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/248

230 230 HISTORY Of' GREECK Egesta served merely as convenient pretences to put forward, and that she could have no sincere sympathy for Chalkidians in Sicily, when she herself held in slavery the Chalkidians in Eu boea. It was, in truth, nothing else but an extension of the same scheme of rapacious ambition, whereby she had reduced her Ionian allies and kinsmen to their present wretched slavery, now threat- ened against Sicily. The Sicilians could not too speedily show her that they were no Ionian?, made to be transferred from one master to another, but autonomous Dorians from the centre of autonomy, Peloponnesus. It would be madness to forfeit this honorable position through jealousy or lukewarmness among themselves. Let not the Kamarinceans imagine that Athens was striking her blow at Syracuse alone : they were themselves next neighbors of Syracuse, and would be the first victims if she were conquered. They might wish, from apprehension or envy, to see the superior power of Syracuse humbled, but this could not happen without endangering their own existence. They ought to do for her what they would have asked her to do if the Athenians had invaded Kamarina, instead of lending merely nominal aid, as they had hitherto done. Their former alliance with Athens was for purposes of mutual defence, not binding them to aid her in Bchemes of pure aggression. To hold aloof, give fair words to both parties, and leave Syracuse to fight the battle of Sicily single-handed, was as unjust as it was dishonorable. If she came off victor in the struggle, she would take care that the Kama- rinaeans should be no gainers by such a policy. The state of affairs was so plain, that he (Hermokrates) could not pretend to enlighten them : but he solemnly appealed to their sentiments of common blood and lineage. The Dorians of Syracuse were assailed by their eternal enemies the lonians, and ought not to be now betrayed by their own brother Dorians of Kamarina. 1 Euphemus, in reply, explained the proceedings of Athens in reference to her empire, and vindicated her against the charges of Hermokrates. Though addressing a Dorian assembly, he did not fear to take his start from the position laid down by Hermo- krates, that lonians were the natural enemies of Dorians. Under this feeling Athens, as an Ionian city, had looked about to Thucyd, vi, 77-80.