Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/256

238 238 HISTORY OF GREECE. eenaries, together with many new triremes built from the abun- dant forests of Italy, and large supplies both of treasure and provision. We could thus blockade Peloponnesus all round with our fleet, and at the same time assail it with our land-force ; and we calculated, by taking some towns by storm and occupying others as permanent fortified positions, that we should easily con- quer the whole peninsula, and then become undisputed masters of Greece. You thus hear the whole scheme of our expedition from the man who knows it best ; and you may depend on it that the remaining generals will execute all this, if they can. Noth- ing but your intervention can hinder them. If, indeed, the Sicilian Greeks were all united, they might hold out; but the Syracusans standing alone cannot, beaten as they already have been in a general action, and blocked up as they are by sea. If Syracuse falls into the hands of the Athenians, all Sicily and all Italy will share the same fate ; and the danger which I have described will be soon upon you. u It is not therefore simply for the safety of Sicily, it is for the safety of Peloponnesus, that I now urge you to send across, forthwith, a fleet with an army of hoplites as rowers ; and what I consider still more important than an army, a Spartan general to take the supreme command. Moreover, you must also carry on declared and vigorous war against Athens here, that the Syra- cusans may be encouraged to hold out, and that Athens may be in no condition to send additional reinforcements thither. You must farther fortify and permanently garrison Dekeleia in At- tica : ' that is the contingency which the Athenians have always been most afraid of, and which therefore you may know to be your best policy. You will thus get into your own hands the live and dead stock of Attica, interrupt the working of the silver mines at Laureion, deprive the Athenians of their profits from judicial fines as well as of their landed revenue, and dispose the subject-allies to withhold their tribute. " None of you ought to think the worse of me because I make this vigorous onset upon my country in conjunction with her 1 The establishment and permanent occupation of a fortified post in At- tk-a, had been contemplated by the Corinthians even before the beginning of the war ( Time yd. i, 1 22 ).