Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/340

322 322 HISTORY OF GREECE. own previous policy as commander, so we are here carried back, when we find him striving to palliate the ruinous effects of that confined space of water which paralyzed the Athenian seamen, to his own obstinate improvidence in forbidding the egress of the fleet when insisted on by Demosthenes. His hearers probably were too much absorbed with the terrible present, to revert to irremediable mistakes of the past. Immediately on the conclu- sion of his touching address, the order was given to go aboard, and the seamen took their places. But when the triremes were fully manned, and the trierarchs, after superintending the em- barkation, were themselves about to enter and push off, the agony of Nikias was too great to be repressed. Feeling more keenly than any man the intensity of this last death-struggle, and the serious, but inevitable, shortcomings of the armament in its present condition, he still thought that he had not said enough for the occasion. He now renewed his appeal personally to the trierarchs, all of them citizens of rank and wealth at Athens. They were all familiarly known to him, and he addressed himself to every man separately by his own name, his father's name, and his tribe, adjuring him by the deepest and most solemn motives which could touch the human feelings. Some he re- minded of their own previous glories, others of the achievements of illustrious ancestors, imploring them not to dishonor or betray these precious titles : to all alike he recalled the charm of their beloved country, with its full political freedom and its uncon- strained license of individual agency to every man : to all alike he appealed in the names of their wi% T es, their children, and their paternal gods. He cared not for being suspected of trenching upon the common places of rhetoric : he caught at every topic which could touch the inmost affections, awaken the inbred patri- otism, and rekindle the abated courage of the officers, whom he was sending forth to this desperate venture. He at length con- strained himself to leave off, still fancying in his anxiety that he ought to say more, and proceeded to marshal the land-force for the defence of the lines, as well as along the shore, where they might render as much service and as much encouragement as possible to the combatants en shipboard. 1 1 See the striking chapter of Thucyd. vii, 69. Even the tame stylo ot Diodorus fxiii, 15) becomes animated in describing this scene.