Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/297

 CHAP. XVI. THE ROMAN. THE ATHENIAN. 291 Corinth; while he is returning victorious to Athens, lie perceives that two of his dead soldiers have been left, Avithout burial, upon the enoniy's territory. He is seized with a religious scruple ; he stops his fleet, and sends a herald to demand of the Corinthians permission to bury the two bodies. Some time after, the Athenian people are deliberating upon the Sicilian expedition. Nicias ascends the speaker's stand, and declares that his priests and soothsayers announce prestiges which are opposed to the expedition. Alcibiades, it is true, has other diviners who interpret the oracles in a contrary sense. Tiie people are undecided. Men come in who have just arrived from Egypt; they have consulted the god Ammon, who is beginning to be quite the f-ishion, and they report this oracle from him. The Athenians will capture all the Syracusans. Tiie people immedi- ately decide for war.' Nicias, much against his will, commands the expedi- tion. Befoi'e setting out, he offers a sacrifice, according to custom. He takes with him, like other generals, a troop of diviners, sacrificers, aruspices, and heralds. The fleet carries its sacred fire; every vessel has an emblem representing some god. But Nicias has little hope. Is not misfortune an- nounced by prodigies enough ? Crows have injured a statue of Pallas; a man has mutilated himself upon an altar; and the departure takes place during the unlucky days of the Plynteria. Nicias knows only too well that this war will be fatal to him and his country. During the whole course of his campaign he always appears timorous and circumspect : he hardly dares to give the signal for a battle, he whom they know to be so brave ' Plutarcli, Nicias. Thucydides, VI.