t being
impossible for them to be worse off than they are.

"The fortune of our greatest enemies having thus betrayed itself, and
their disorder being what I have described, let us engage in anger,
convinced that, as between adversaries, nothing is more legitimate
than to claim to sate the whole wrath of one's soul in punishing the
aggressor, and nothing more sweet, as the proverb has it, than the
vengeance upon an enemy, which it will now be ours to take. That enemies
they are and mortal enemies you all know, since they came here to
enslave our country, and if successful had in reserve for our men all
that is most dreadful, and for our children and wives all that is
most dishonourable, and for the whole city the name which conveys the
greatest reproach. None should therefore relent or think it gain if they
go away without further danger to us. This they will do just the same,
even if they get the victory; while if we succeed, as we may expect, in
chastising them, and in handing down to all Sicily her ancient freedom
strengthened and confirmed, we shall have achieved no mean triumph. And
the rarest dangers are those in which failure brings little loss and
success the greatest advantage."

After the above address to the soldiers on their side, the Syracusan
generals and Gylippus now perceived that the Athenians were manning
their ships, and immediately proceeded to man their own also. Meanwhile
Nicias, appalled by the position of affairs, realizing the greatness and
the nearness of the danger now that they were on the point of putting
out from shore, and thinking, as men are apt to think in great crises,
that when all has been done they have still something left to do, and
when all has been said that they have not yet said enough, again called
on the captains one by one, addressing each by his father's name and by
his own, and by that of his tribe, and adjured them not to belie their
own personal renown, or to obscure the hereditary virtues for which
their ancestors were illustrious: he reminded them of their country, the
freest of the free, and of the unfettered discretion allowed in it to
all to live as they pleased; and added other arguments such as men would
use at such a crisis, and which, with little alteration, are made to
serve on all occasions alike--appeals to wives, children, and national
gods--without caring whether they are thought commonplace, but
loudly invoking them in the belief that they will be of use