History of the Peloponnesian War

Realizing now that he would either be obliged to bring the same report as the messengers whose word he was impugning, or, if he contradicted them, be convicted of falsehood, and also seeing that the Athenians were now somewhat more inclined to send an expedition, he told them that they ought not to send commissioners, or by dallying to let slip a favourable opportunity, but urged them, if they themselves thought the reports to be true, to send a fleet and fetch the men.

And pointing at Nicias son of Niceratus, who was one of the generals and an enemy of his, and taunting him, he said that it was an easy matter, if the generals were men, to sail there with a proper force and take the men on the island, declaring that this was what he himself would have done had he been in command.

The Athenians thereupon began to clamour against Cleon, asking him why he did not sail even now, if it seemed to him so easy a thing; and Nicias, noticing this and Cleon's taunt, told him that as far as the generals were concerned he might take whatever force he wished and make the attempt.

As for Cleon, he was at first ready to go, thinking it was only in pretence that Nicias offered to relinquish the command; but when he realized that Nicias really desired to yield the command to him, he tried to back out, saying that not he but Nicias was general; for by now he was alarmed, and never thought that Nicias would go so far as to retire in his favour.

But again Nicias urged him to go and offered to resign his command of the expedition against Pylos, calling the Athenians to witness that he did so. And the more Cleon tried to evade the expedition and to back out of his own proposal, the more insistently the Athenians, as is the way with a crowd, urged Nicias to give up the command and shouted to Cleon to sail.

And so, not knowing how he could any longer escape from his own proposal, he undertook the expedition, and, coming forward, said that he was not afraid of the Lacedaemonians, and that he would sail without taking a single Athenian soldier, but only the Lemnian and Imbrian troops which were in Athens and a body of targeteers which had come from Aenos, and four hundred archers from other places. With these, in addition to the troops now at Pylos, he said that within twenty days he would either bring back the Lacedaemonians alive or slay them on the spot.

At this vain talk of his there was a burst of laughter on the part of the Athenians, but nevertheless the sensible men among them were glad, for they reflected that they were bound to obtain one of two good things—either they would get rid of Cleon, which they preferred, or if they were disappointed in this, he would subdue the Lacedaemonians for them.

When he had arranged everything in the assembly and the Athenians had voted in favour of his expedition, he chose as his colleague Demosthenes, one of the generals at Pylos, and made haste to set sail.

He selected Demosthenes because he had heard that he was planning to make his landing on the island. For his soldiers, who were suffering because of the discomforts of their position, where they were rather besieged than besiegers, were eager to run all risks. And Demosthenes himself had also been emboldened by a conflagration which had swept the island.

For hitherto, since the island was for the most part covered with woods and had no roads, having never been inhabited, he had been afraid to land, thinking that the terrain was rather in the enemy's favour; for they could attack from an unseen position and inflict damage upon a large army after it had landed. To his own troops, indeed, the mistakes and the preparations of the enemy would not be equally clear by reason of the woods, whereas all their own mistakes would be manifest to their opponents, and so they could fall upon them unexpectedly wherever they wished, since the power of attack would rest with them.

If, on the other hand, he should force his way into the thicket and there close with the enemy, the smaller force which was acquainted with the ground would, he thought, be stronger than the larger number who were unacquainted with it; and his own army, though large, would be destroyed piece-meal before he knew it, because there was no possible way of seeing the points at which the detachments should assist one another.

It was especially owing to his experience in Aetolia,[*](cf. 1.xcvii., 1.xcviii.) when his reverse was in some measure due to the forest, that these thoughts occurred to Demosthenes.