Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/259

241 WAR RESOLVED AT SPARTA. 241 tt-uclics upon Athenian politics and his own past conduct, is not to Le taken as historical evidence, just as little can we trust the following portion in which he professes to describe the real pur- poses of Athens in her Sicilian expedition. That any such vast designs as those which he announces were ever really contem- plated even by himself and his immediate friends, is very im- probable ; that they were contemplated by the Athenian public, by the armament, or by Nikias, is utterly incredible. The tar- diness and timid movements of the armament during the first eight months after arriving at Rhegium recommended by Nikias, partially admitted even by Alkibiades, opposed only by the unavailing wisdom of Lamachus, and not strongly censured when known at Athens, conspire to prove that their minds were not at first fully made up even to the siege of Syracuse ; that they counted on alliances and money in Sicily which they did not find ; and that those who sailed from Athens with large hopes of brilliant and easy conquest were soon taught to see the reality with different eyes. If Alkibiades had himself conceived at Athens the designs which he professed to reveal in his speech at Sparta, there can be no doubt that he would have espoused the scheme of Lamachus, or rather would have originated it himself. We find him, indeed, in his speech delivered at Athens before the determination to sail, holding out hopes that by means of con- quests in Sicily, Athens might become mistress of all Greece. Kut this is there put as an alternative and as a favorable possi- bility, is noticed only in one place, without expansion or amplifi- cation, and shows that the speaker did not reckon upon finding any such expectations prevalent among his hearers. Alkibiades could not have ventured to promise, in his discourse at Athens, the results which he afterwards talked of at Sparta as having been actually contemplated, Sicily, Italy, Carthage, Iberian mercenaries, etc., all ending in a blockading fleet large enough to gird round Peloponnesus. 1 Had he put forth such promises, the jharge of juvenile folly which Nikias urged against him would probably have been believed by every one. His speech at Spar (a, though it has passed with some as a fragment of true Grecian 1 Thucyd. vi, 12-17. VOL. VII. 11 IGoc.