Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/278

 270 LETTER OF NICIAS [vil to make an effort at sea. And let no one be startled when I say "at sea." Our fleet was originally in first-rate condition : the ships were sound and the crews were in good order, but now, as the enemy are well aware, the timbers of the ships, having been so long exposed to the sea, are soaked, and the efficiency of the crews is destroyed. We have no means of drawing up our vessels and airing them, because the enemy's fleet is equal or even superior in numbers to our own, and we are always expecting an attack from them. They are clearly trying their strength ; they can attack us when they please, and they have far greater facilities for drying their ships, since they are not, like us, engaged in a blockade. 13 ' Even if we had a great superiority in the number of our ships, and were not compelled as we Our stipplics are ivith, , ,, n • i j/r // ji o are to employ them all m keepmg difficulty conveyed to us; V J. our crews are demoral- guard, we could hardly have the like ised and our sailors advantage. For our supplies have to pass so near the enemy's city that they are with difficulty conveyed to us now, and if we relax our vigilance ever so little we shall lose them altogether. ' It has been, and continues to be the ruin of our crews, that the sailors, having to forage and fetch water and wood from a distance, are cut off by the Syracusan horse", while our servants, since we have been reduced to an equality with the enemy, desert us. Of the foreign sailors, some who were pressed into the service run off at once to the Sicilian cities ; others, having been originally attracted by high pay, and fancying that they were going to trade and not to fight, astonished at the resistance which they en- counter, and especially at the naval strength of the enemy, either find an excuse for deserting to the Syracusans, or they effect their escape into the countr}' ; and Sicily is a large place. Others, again, have persuaded the trierarchs to take Hyccarian slaves in their room while they them-
 * Cp. vii. 4 fin.