excite, in order to get power and influence thrown into their own
hands. He told them that Athens knew her own interest too well to think
of wantonly provoking their hostility: "Even if the enemies were to
come," said he, "so distant from their resources, and opposed to such a
power as ours, their destruction would be easy and inevitable. Their
ships will have enough to do to get to our island at all, and to carry
such stores of all sorts as will be needed. They cannot therefore carry,
besides, an army large enough to cope with such a population as ours.
They will have no fortified place from which to commence their
operations, but must rest them on no better base than a set of wretched
tents, and such means as the necessities of the moment will allow them.
But, in truth, I do not believe that they would even be able to effect a
disembarkation. Let us, therefore, set at naught these reports as
altogether of home manufacture; and be sure that if any enemy does come,
the state will know how to defend itself in a manner worthy of the
national honor."

Such assertions pleased the Syracusan assembly; but the invaders of
Syracuse came, made good their landing in Sicily; and if they had
promptly attacked the city itself, instead of wasting nearly a year in
desultory operations in other parts of Sicily, the Syracusans must have
paid the penalty of their self-sufficient carelessness in submission to
the Athenian yoke. But, of the three generals who led the Athenian
expedition, two only were men of ability, and one was most weak and
incompetent. Fortunately for Syracuse, Alcibiades, the most skilful of
the three, was soon deposed from his command by a factious and fanatic
vote of his fellow-countrymen, and the other competent one, Lamachus,
fell early in a skirmish; while, more fortunately still for her, the
feeble and vacillating Nicias remained unrecalled and unhurt, to assume
the undivided leadership of the Athenian army and fleet, and to mar, by
alternate over-caution and over-carelessness, every chance of success
which the early part of the operations offered. Still, even under him,
the Athenians nearly won the town. They defeated the raw levies of the
Syracusans, cooped them within the walls, and, as before mentioned,
almost effected a continuous fortification from bay to bay over
Epipolae, the completion of which would certainly have been followed by
a capitulation.

Alcibiades--the most complete example of genius without