n them the necessity of encouraging
their friends in Sicily, by showing that they themselves were in earnest
in hostility to Athens. He exhorted them not only to march their armies
into Attica again, but to take up a permanent fortified position in the
country; and he gave them in detail information of all that the
Athenians most dreaded, and how his country might receive the most
distressing and enduring injury at their hands.

The Spartans resolved to act on his advice, and appointed Gylippus to
the Sicilian command. Gylippus was a man who, to the national bravery
and military skill of a Spartan united political sagacity that was
worthy of his great fellow-countryman Brasidas; but his merits were
debased by mean and sordid vices; and his is one of the cases in which
history has been austerely just, and where little or no fame has been
accorded to the successful but venal soldier. But for the purpose for
which he was required in Sicily, an abler man could not have been found
in Lacedaemon. His country gave him neither men nor money, but she gave
him her authority; and the influence of her name and of his own talents
was speedily seen in the zeal with which the Corinthians and other
Peloponnesian Greeks began to equip a squadron to act under him for the
rescue of Sicily. As soon as four galleys were ready, he hurried over
with them to the southern coast of Italy, and there, though he received
such evil tidings of the state of Syracuse that he abandoned all hope of
saving that city, he determined to remain on the coast, and do what he
could in preserving the Italian cities from the Athenians.

So nearly, indeed, had Nicias completed his beleaguering lines, and so
utterly desperate had the state of Syracuse seemingly become, that an
assembly of the Syracusans was actually convened, and they were
discussing the terms on which they should offer to capitulate, when a
galley was seen dashing into the great harbor, and making her way toward
the town with all the speed which her rowers could supply. From her
shunning the part of the harbor where the Athenian fleet lay, and making
straight for the Syracusan side, it was clear that she was a friend; the
enemy's cruisers, careless through confidence of success, made no
attempt to cut her off; she touched the beach, and a Corinthian captain,
springing on shore from her, was eagerly conducted to the assembly of
the Syracusan people just in time to prevent the fatal vote being put
f