History of the Peloponnesian War

But his enemies, fearing that the army might be favourable to him if he were brought to trial at once and that the populace might be lenient, inasmuch as it favoured him because it was through his influence that the Argives and some of the Mantineans were taking part in the campaign, were eager to postpone the trial, suborning other orators who insisted that he should sail now and not delay the departure of the expedition, but that lie should come back and be tried at an appointed time. Their purpose was to have a more slanderous charge —and this they would find it easier to procure in his absence—and then to have him recalled and brought home for trial. So it was determined that Alcibiades should sail.

After that, when it was already midsummer, the departure for Sicily was made. Orders had been given beforehand for most of the allies, as well as for the provision-ships and smaller boats and all the rest of the armament that went with them, to assemble at Corcyra, with the intention that from there they should all cross the Ionian Gulf to the promontory of lapygia in one body. But the Athenians themselves and the allies that were present went down to the Peiraeus at dawn on a day appointed and proceeded to man the ships for the purpose of putting to sea.

And with them went down also all the general throng, everyone, we may almost say, that was in the city, both citizens and strangers, the natives to send off each their own, whether friends or kinsmen or sons, going at once in hope and with lamentations —hope that they would make conquests in Sicily, lamentations that they might never see their friends again, considering how long was the voyage from their own land on which they were being sent. And at this crisis, when under impending dangers they were now about to take leave of one another, the risks came home to them more than when they were voting for the expedition; but still their courage revived at the sight of their present strength because of the abundance of everything they saw before their eyes. The strangers on the other hand and the rest of the multitude had come for a spectacle, in the feeling that the enterprise was noteworthy and surpassing belief.

For this first armament that sailed for Sicily was the costliest and most splendid, belonging to a single city and with a purely Hellenic force, that had ever up to that time set sail. In number of ships, however, and of hoplites the expedition against Epidaurus under Pericles, and the same one afterwards under Hagnon against Potidaea, was not inferior; for in that voyage four thousand Athenian hoplites and three hundred knights and one hundred triremes had participated, and from Lesbos and Chios fifty triremes, and allied troops besides in large numbers.

But they had set off for a short voyage with a poor equipment; whereas this expedition, as one likely to be of long duration, was fitted out for both kinds of service, according as there might be need of either, with ships and also with land-forces.

The fleet was built up at great expense on the part both of the trierarchs and of the city: the state giving a drachma per day for each sailor and furnishing sixty empty[*](ie. empty hulls without equipment, which the trierarch was to furnish.) warships and forty transports, with crews to man them of the very best; the triearchs giving bounties to the thranitae[*](In the trireme there were three ranks of oars: the thranites rowed with the longest oars; the zygites occupied the middle row; the thalamites the lowest row, using the shortest oars and drawing least pay.) or uppermost bench of the sailors in addition to the pay from the state, and using, besides, figure-heads and equipments that were very expensive; for each one strove to the utmost that his own ship should excel all others both in fine appearance and in swiftness of sailing. The land-forces were picked out of the best lists, and there was keen rivalry among the men in the matter of arms and personal equipment.

And so it came about that among themselves there was emulation, wherever each was assigned to duty, and the whole thing seemed more like a display of wealth and power before the rest of the Hellenes than an undertaking against enemies.