Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/307

289 SKCJOND ATHENIAN ARMAMENT TO SICILY 281? upon under Demosthenes, to push offensive operations against Syracuse. The force under the latter general consisted of sixty Athenian and five Chian triremes ; of twelve hundre.d Athenian hoplites of the best class, chosen from the citizen muster-roll : wiih a considerable number of hoplites besides, from the subject- allies and elsewhere. There had been also engaged on hire fif- teen hundred peltasts from Thrace, of the tribe called Dii ; but these men did not arrive in time, so that Demosthenes set sail without them. 1 Charikles having gone forward to take aboard a body of allies from Argos, the two fleets joined at JEgina, in- flicted some devastations on the coasts of Laconia, and established a strong post on the island of Kythera to encourage desertion among the Helots. From hence Charikles returned with the Argeians, while Demosthenes conducted his armament round Peloponnesus to Korkyra. 2 On the Eleian coast, he destroyed a transport carrying boplites to Syracuse, though the men escaped ashore : from theace he proceeded to Zakynthus and Kephallenia, from whence he engaged some additional hoplites, and to Anak- torium, in order to procure darters and ^lingers from Akarnania. It was here thst he was met by Eurymedon with his ten triremes, who had gone forward to Syracuse in the winter with the pecu- niary remittance urgently required, and was now returning to act as colleague of Demosthenes in the command. 3 The news 1 Thucyd. vii, 20-27. 2 Thucyd. vii, 26. 3 Thucyd. vii, 31. "Ovrt c$' avru (Demosthenes) mpi ravra (Anaktorium) FibpvfieSuv uiravTa, of Tore TOV J aoii'Of r u xpTjfiara. uyuv ry Grpa- Titi a IT e?r E [ityftri, Kai (iyyfA/lez, etc. The meaning of this passage appears quite unambiguous, that Eurymedon had been sent to Sicily in the winter, to carry the sum of one hundred and twenty talents to Nikias, and was now on his return (see Thucyd. vii, 11). Nor is it without some astonishment that I read in Mr. Mitford : " At Anactorium, Demosthenes found Eurymedon collecting provisions for Sicily," etc. Mr. Mitford then says in a note (quoting the Scholiast, "Hrot TO, irpbc Tpofj>r/v xptjaifta, not TU 7i,onril avvTeivovra aiirolf, Schol.) : " This is not the only occasion on which Thucydides uses the term xPW ara for necessaries in t/cneral. Smith has translated accordingly : but the Latin has pecuniam, which does not express the sense intended hcre. :) (ch. xviii, sect, vi, vol. iv, p. 118.) There cannot be the least doubt that the Latin is here right. The definite article makes the point quite certain, even if it were true (which I dcubt) that Thucydides sometimes uses the word Jg'qftara to mean " necessaries in VOL vii. 13 IDoc.