s would go so far as to retire in his favour. Nicias, however,
repeated his offer, and resigned the command against Pylos, and called
the Athenians to witness that he did so. And as the multitude is wont to
do, the more Cleon shrank from the expedition and tried to back out
of what he had said, the more they encouraged Nicias to hand over his
command, and clamoured at Cleon to go. At last, not knowing how to get
out of his words, he undertook the expedition, and came forward and said
that he was not afraid of the Lacedaemonians, but would sail without
taking any one from the city with him, except the Lemnians and Imbrians
that were at Athens, with some targeteers that had come up from Aenus,
and four hundred archers from other quarters. With these and the
soldiers at Pylos, he would within twenty days either bring the
Lacedaemonians alive, or kill them on the spot. The Athenians could not
help laughing at his fatuity, while sensible men comforted themselves
with the reflection that they must gain in either circumstance; either
they would be rid of Cleon, which they rather hoped, or if disappointed
in this expectation, would reduce the Lacedaemonians.

After he had settled everything in the assembly, and the Athenians
had voted him the command of the expedition, he chose as his colleague
Demosthenes, one of the generals at Pylos, and pushed forward the
preparations for his voyage. His choice fell upon Demosthenes because
he heard that he was contemplating a descent on the island; the soldiers
distressed by the difficulties of the position, and rather besieged than
besiegers, being eager to fight it out, while the firing of the island
had increased the confidence of the general. He had been at first
afraid, because the island having never been inhabited was almost
entirely covered with wood and without paths, thinking this to be in
the enemy's favour, as he might land with a large force, and yet might
suffer loss by an attack from an unseen position. The mistakes and
forces of the enemy the wood would in a great measure conceal from him,
while every blunder of his own troops would be at once detected, and
they would be thus able to fall upon him unexpectedly just where they
pleased, the attack being always in their power. If, on the other hand,
he should force them to engage in the thicket, the smaller number who
knew the country would, he thought, have the advantage over the
larger who were ignorant of it, while his own a