Orationes 30

376. To join in praying, Athenians, on behalf of the city for these things and many others is at once most pleasant of all to me, and, I know, ready to the hand of all of you. But I, even when you first deliberated about these Sicilian affairs, thought there was need of good counsel, and now of still more; for on one and the same day we are taking counsel both about an addition to our empire and about our own preservation. And the speeches you would most gladly hear I am not unaware of, but matters stand at such a point that even one who wished it could not pass over what the occasion requires. For it is far better for a man, if it should so happen, to offend you while persuading and instructing, than to look on while we fall foul of our own selves. Such, then, is my readiness and my judgment, and I claim leave to speak with frankness. For if, the moment we heard, we had to do something against our better judgment, it would perhaps be well to be on one's guard; but since it lies with you, after deliberation, to choose whichever of the things said you wish, it is not right to shun the choice, but, setting both side by side, to become masters of the better. And apart from this, if it were possible to bring matters into conformity with the pleasures of speech, it would be a misfortune not to choose to address the people in this fashion; but since it is not according to the form that speeches take that matters turn out, but according to the end those matters chance to reach, that the speeches uttered about them at the outset come to seem right or wrong, one must receive those spoken in goodwill, and not, for the sake of a small part of a day, throw away the whole future. For where it is not even the part of men of sense, in the very transactions, to barter the greater for the less, surely a momentary gratification of a speech is not worth the security of the whole hereafter. First, then, I shall reply to the last of what has been said; then I shall try, as best I can, to make the examination of the rest. For I say that both are right in their judgment, Athenians — both those who from the beginning, holding this

377. opinion that we ought not to sail to Sicily, hold to the same words, and those who, having voted with the many then, now bring forward the other view. For the former reckoned from the start what was needful, while the latter show in deed that they have foresight. For when it was possible to give rein to hopes, they were with you, but when trial discovers the truth, they range themselves with what is plain. And it is, I think, the part of contentious men to be willing to abide by what they chose at first, but of men of sense, who wish to save the city, to fall in with the facts. For it is not the decrees that bring success in armed actions, but, however the affairs of wars stand, such must be the decrees made about them.

These men, then, say nothing else than that, since at the outset we were led on, we must therefore now go on erring too, making the evil a remedy for the evil. But I, from what I find by hearing along with you, hold the opposite — that it would be better for us if from the start you had voted these things down. And indeed it is best for all men to grasp the future by calculation; for it is the token of the two fairest things, good fortune and good counsel. But if those who have missed the best are not to be allowed to substitute the second-best out of present circumstances, then what is the greatest of human things will be done away with — being taught by events — so that misfortune must be without end. And indeed, if someone should ask you in what the greatest difference lies between a law and a decree, you would find this: that the laws, having once for all discovered justice, have appointed it as common for all time, whereas decrees follow the needs of the moment; and in the same way in which actions occur now one way, now another, according to the occasions, so the occasions both make and dissolve decrees and resolutions; and reasonably. For in that former case we address fellow-citizens, so that it suffices to utter the same thing to the end; but these things have been devised with a view to those outside and to the fortunes of war. None of them, then, is fixed or unmovable, or of such a kind that one ought never to dissolve it. Nay, where it is stated in the very

378. laws that one may dissolve even the laws themselves, if they do any harm, surely a decree — and that one about a voyage and a campaign — may be set right without reproach. But I do not even say that you will dissolve any of your resolutions. For if anyone can show that we voted this too, never to be permitted to sail back here again, that would be another argument; but as it is, that has been carried out, and let the second part not be hindered.

For come, by the gods, if someone had been able straightway from the outset to set before you accurately the whole future — and such a one would, it seems, have been some god, for no man could withstand those who then fired you up — that affairs would come round to such a point that for us the discussion should be about those who have gone, rather than about Sicily: is anyone so senseless or so ill-fated, to whom, had it been put to him that these things would come to pass, it would have seemed good to involve the city in so great an expense and so great dangers? I, for one, would not believe it. Therefore, what you would not have sent had you foreseen it, that, having now come to know it, you would recall the men in good time — especially as it is not in like circumstances, Athenians, of affairs and occasions as a whole, that we held the former judgment and shall now change it, if you are persuaded by me. For then, both with a truce existing toward the Lacedaemonians, and having brilliantly won the war at home, being in a solitude of enemies, we reasonably ran riot; but now you see the enemy, surely, from your wall, and, instead of that vexatious and grievous thing, the invading of our land each year, they are settled continuously at our gates, and there has come upon us, if one is not to trifle, an exact siege. As for money, part has been spent on the fine expedition, part we used up in the times above; slaves desert daily; and we have become fewer by as many, in all, as sufficed to equip the greatest city after our own. Let us consider, then, whether we shall seem either to know ourselves or to tend the city well, if, being besieged ourselves, we attempt to do this to others over the sea, and, before we can get

379. outside the wall, sail against others, hiding away Attica from sight — and, not being able to rule our own, shall wish to rule the Greeks and barbarians in Sicily at once. But such things are perhaps assigned not to those who have come to extremities, but to those who have a surplus.

And the matters here are such; but those there, of what sort are they? In no way better than these, but much more fearful, inasmuch as the land is foreign, the need of necessaries greater, and the dangers sharper. The ships are waterlogged, the sailors are out of order, money is flowing away, most of the merchants have gone over, slaves desert, the enemy blockade us, in battle we are worsted, the bringing-in of provisions is right at the hands of the enemy, Sicily has revolted, Gylippus is gone to bring other forces, we have fared beyond prayer and past expectation; for by some we are despised, toward others we have been slandered, and the weakest alone are left as friends, worth nothing for use. The money of the Egestaeans is gone together with the smoke. And the Syracusans, they say, will yield nothing, unless they exact a penalty worthy of the plot against them. Shall we then, Athenians, wait for these things, and, the affairs not having followed what we voted, claim that we ourselves should follow what was voted — as though this would suffice, if we do not stop playing the fool — or that the Syracusans will carry through the contest against us according to our desires? And of three generals sent out, the one is dead, the other has gone over to the enemy, and the one remaining, whom we drove out hence against his will, to him now shall we appoint others besides? And shall we not make this very thing, as it were, a token of the whole — that the affairs there are not ours, nor do we strive for things equal to our power — if indeed the one who laid down the hopes about them is now among the enemy, and we have been forced to use, for these affairs, the very man who most of all forbids them; but, as though seeking an addition of evils, shall we send out other generals and another army and persist in contention? Trusting in what,

380. Athenians? Is it in enjoying our own securely? Nay, may that be the enemy's lot. But in the multitude of hoplites and horsemen? But I fear to say it, yet I am carried on — we have undone, Athenians, the muster-roll, and shaken the troop-arrangements beyond the occasion. For what ought to have been laid up in reserve for the city's preservation, that we have picked out and sent off, for the shadow of the Egestaeans and Leontines, to the western parts of the inhabited world; and we are not running far from the proverb now: for through desire of the more and the absent — but I shall let the ill-omened word go — but that we may not be stripped of what we have, this, I think, I should not err in adding. We shall not imitate the physicians, Athenians, who do not allow the fluxes in bodies to advance further, but check the inflammation before it is poured through the whole mass; we shall not bring our excessive impulses to soberness, but, the former evil being in plain sight, shall add the second and weigh down our affairs with other horses and other men and money, and shall gather evil nourishment for the war — as if some men, a conflagration being kindled, neglecting to quench it, should bring together wood and rubbish and timber, intending by this to check the fire.

Do not you, Athenians, suffer anything so foolish, nor deceive yourselves, like those who close their eyes that they may not see what they do not wish. But, having seen whither affairs are advancing, while there is yet time and you are established as masters of the deliberation, hold back, and do not wish, of two roads, to see the one against you and to ignore the one for you. For not even now have affairs been so disposed through a lack of men and of the rest of the equipment, that we should reproach ourselves as having set our hands to them too meanly; but as far as the splendour and abundance of the armament go, everything has been done, while we have stumbled through fortune and through having let slip the greatest of advantages — and this was the right moment — and through not falling upon Syracuse at the height of its fear. As to these things, let anyone accuse both Nicias and whomever he wishes; but the occasions, at any rate, have been let slip, and it is not possible

381. to recover them, not even if we send out twice as many. For men seen suddenly astound, both the few the many and the inferior the stronger; but when those who feared dreadful things have arranged the war at leisure, they are far easier to ward off the attackers, having the anger that comes from what they feared, and having gained strength by the respite. And it seems to me that Nicias, in his letter, has come to the very same point as when he addressed the people then. For addressing the people, Athenians, wishing to turn you from the expedition, he asked for so large a force as he thought you would least give, that thereby you might turn to the necessary quiet — which is indeed exceedingly plain, that he came to this not from a lack of power; for, having got all he mentioned, he sailed away. And in writing now about the affairs there, one thing straightway and clear he seems to me, out of shame, to indicate — that you must recall them; but he adds, as though by way of consolation, that there is a choice, either to call those there back, or to send so great a reinforcement as will suffice for the fears there. If, then, Athenians, the same thing happens now as before, and you set out toward the reinforcement and toward sending as many as he should most wish, but they fall into the same straits — by Zeus! for might not this happen? Nay, may it not happen, O Zeus and all you gods; nor do I wish it not merely to come to pass, but not even to fear this very thing, lest it happen. But, I think, we all know that we have now come together not only to pray, as into a temple, but to deliberate about the whole. And one must, in praying, ask the gods for the greatest and most pleasant things, but in deliberating choose the safest out of present circumstances — those, at least, who intend afterward to blame neither themselves nor the gods.

Let someone, then, tell me what sufficient surety we must take, of the gods — for of no man, surely — to be confident that the same force, going off, will both hold the affairs there and

382. that Nicias will not announce to us some other fear again? Because, by Zeus, he himself has said, either to recall them, or to send those who shall help? But this very same man, sailing out hence, asked for this and that, as sufficient, and yet, by his own present testimony, none of these appears adequate. What, then, if you fail in the second attempt too, or if he is again midway between speaking the truth and serving our desire? Shall we not choose, Athenians, the plain and the visible before the unclear and untrustworthy and perhaps soon to trouble us again? But we shall suffer something like what would happen if some men, in agony and fear about persons endangered in a ship, should then think it right to man another ship for the sake of the same trouble. And yet, even in such cases, the helpers carry off the storm-tossed from the sea; they do not themselves sail with them. And indeed, if, Athenians, we shall send so great a force as will have its help manifest to them, the matter of those here is brought to an utter thread, so that at the same time as we send the helpers to those there, we shall need to seek help for those here too. But if we divide it, clinging to both — to seeming not to abandon those, and to being able to preserve things here — I fear lest we do the opposite of what we wish: the help sufficient for neither part, and more deficient for each because of the other, and then we sit midway between the two. For I fear about the Piraeus, knowing that even before the Peloponnesians attempted to sail in, at the very beginning of the war, before our navy had suffered even any small reverse; and I fear too about those departing, lest they fare worse than the fair-sounding word, and, having the appearance of bringing help to those there, themselves stand in need of those meant to help save both. For if, Athenians, in one — one single sea-fight — we should only be worsted, and all the gods should turn it upon the sons of the Syracusans and those who think with them, it is no longer possible for us, I do not say to take the affairs there, but even to find how we ourselves shall escape. For the harbour will be closed at once, and we shall be all but caught in the very bosoms of the enemy. And what will they then bid us do, these men now so easy about it?

383. Send again, in place of provisioning, to the Syracusans the things they will become masters of? Yes, by Zeus, but they will fear this second onset of ours. Rather they will be the more confident, knowing that they prevailed over the former. For indeed they would already hold this as testimony from ourselves, that we have despaired of affairs being any longer in an easy state. For it is not as men confident, but as men afraid, surely, that we shall be thought to send those now.

Well, then. Privately, each of the two by itself holds so much fear — both the taking away from the force here, and the campaigning thither with however many. But how are these things opposed to one another? From the affairs here being in a bad way, confidence comes to the enemy there, that if they hold out a little they will not be in danger further; and again, from doing something there against expectation, it is to share danger with all here. For not only if our armament should be defeated, or they should be superior in the whole, but if only a false report and opinion should arrive that we have stumbled, everything is overthrown and gone over, and of those who now of necessity listen to you, there is none who will not at once order his own affairs through the Lacedaemonians. And if we shall be deprived, Athenians, of the allies and the revenues, what is left for you? I, for my part, would not say it, but it is seen by all. Then they remind us how, straightway from the beginning, it was resolved not to fight the Peloponnesians for the land, but to wage war with expeditions and coastings-about. But that this very same man, Pericles, who urged these things, also urged that other, not to acquire empire during the war, this they do not wish to remember, though it is most of all fitting. For I, Athenians, suppose our city to so far surpass all cities that it is able to conquer not only each one singly, but even certain of them by nations; not, however, that it could ever become superior to human nature, nor that it is fitting to claim this. For instance, I say that you would master the Peloponnesians, you alone, them alone and all together; and again, you would not with difficulty take Sicily, if your war were against the

384. Sicilians by themselves. The same things I say also about affairs in Italy — that they would not escape you, if leisure from the rest should befall. But if it shall be necessary at the same time to war against both the Peloponnesians and those in Sicily, both Greeks and barbarians, and besides these against those from the mainland opposite who will be with them, this I can no longer be confident of, but I fear that our hopes are long. For the appendix of the war is in danger of becoming for us greater than the main matter — we who claim to make Sicily and Italy and Carthage and well-nigh all men subject, that, having brought them hither, we may reduce the Peloponnese. But to me, Athenians — and let no one take it amiss — the opposite seems both possible and necessary: first to make the Peloponnese subject to ourselves, that through it we may master those so many things outside, and that we should acquire those things through this rather than set our hands to those there for the sake of these at an unseasonable time.

But that one ought not to trust that argument, that the greater part of the Syracusans' power is on our side, hear me. No one, Athenians, of those in Sicily — neither of the Greeks, I say, nor of the barbarians — hates the Syracusans and is well-disposed to us in equal measure; but I shall tell how they seem to me to be disposed. Those people, so long as no one had come from us into Sicily, were vexed at the Syracusans, just as many of our own allies are at us. For no one, I think, willingly wishes to be a slave. But when so great a force appeared, and another was being sent by us, and the design was conspicuous, they no longer hate those more than they fear us, so that we become reconcilers for them. For they will far rather choose their own and their like, even if they must overlook being a little worse off at their hands, than foreigners and newcomers. These are the things I fear, and besides these, Athenians, the lying speech of the Lacedaemonians, by which we have been slandered, as having surpassed all in ruling by force. But of all things the strangest — to give up Attica itself for the sake of not fighting and not running risks, but for the sake of

385. those in Syracuse to choose to do and suffer anything? Or do you not hear from the letter that, unless someone shall take the counter-wall, forcing it with a strong hand, the affairs in that land are at an end? Is it not, then, strange, to flee the same dangers on behalf of our own land and what we have, but to undertake them on behalf of another's and of things in no way belonging to us? And indeed, here the battle would be against the Peloponnesians and Boeotians, but there against these same men present and against still more others besides, some from the very island, others from wherever it may chance. And indeed I would say nothing even about the guarding of the land, if we should take it; for I should be wholly ignorant of present things. And yet, with regard to the example of Cyprus, I had this much to say: that the King rules Cyprus through a continuous stretch from his own land, but for us, before we can even sail round Malea, everything on the right is hostile.

But I let these things be. Let some god give us Sicily and the rest, if you wish — I who fear everything am the surety. But what need is there to fear distant fears and dangers, while letting go those before our eyes? To this let them say that Sicily is great and good and most profitable for the war. But beware lest it change its surnames for us, and lest we suffer what the Persian did, who, hearing from Mardonius about Europe, that it was great and good and in no way meaner than Asia to possess, found his preservation a welcome gain. For of whatever matter one does not deem the thing possible, the rest is babble and shadows. "By Zeus, but it is shameful to flee from Sicily." Whether, if it were possible to prevail, we should flee, or even in any case at all? For if it is when it is possible to prevail, let someone show that it is possible; but if it is even in any case, they hold nothing else to be dreadful than being saved. Further, I would gladly ask them whether they think the very return-voyage of the triremes and soldiers shameful. But surely this we prayed for from the very start, to receive them safe. Or are they not ashamed of

386. this, but of that — if, not having attained their objects, they come back? For if the shame is here, how is it the more dissolved by their staying, so long as attaining is one of the impossibles? For to me the opposite appears, Athenians — that thereby the shame is established still greater. For if, having stayed on as though to accomplish something, they then suffer more than they have now suffered, how will not what I said come to pass? But indeed, when we say that this one thing would be a shame, to accomplish nothing, it is not the present recall that holds the shame; for it in no way has destroyed the affairs there, but the dispatch then convicted us of desiring impossibilities. So that the blame lies on those who persuaded to those things, not on those who counsel these. For through those men we have been forced to flee, as they themselves say, though it was possible from the start to remain where we were. But I would not even call such a thing a flight, Athenians; by no means. For if, when they were attacking, we did not dare to withstand them, one might reasonably say it was cowardice; but if we went against them out of a surplus, then, if it succeeded, not to depart beforehand, but, when it met with reverse, to withdraw, is the part of the same prudence. For wars for the more have this sense: if it is possible to take, to dare; but if not, the second-best, not to make one's old possessions worse — just as, I think, we see good men of business too, not, if they shall not be able to make their substance greater, willingly damaging even their old possessions, but setting their hands to it if there is a surplus, and not contending if something hinders. By these arguments, Athenians, Nicias ought not even now to have withdrawn from the counter-wall, nor, however many contests the soldiers have contended, ought they to withdraw any longer, it seems, since once they have come together. This is folly and a jest.

But that we shall do nothing outside the customary, nor against human nature, if we do not sit down to the unaccomplishable, recall a few things at once and clear. For I know that we once campaigned into Thessaly on behalf of

387. Orestes' affairs, and, as it did not succeed, turned back hither again with him; and I know that, having crossed to Oeniadae of the Acarnanians, as it was not possible to take it, we withdrew, with Pericles, not Nicias, as general; and I know that we held Boeotia for no small time — not as these men now say of Syracuse, but having taken all of it and again abandoning it, when we were struck, judging the safety of those taken in the battle more worthy. And indeed you remember giving back even Achaea and other things to the Peloponnesians for the sake of peace. And yet, when you willingly gave up the advantages from the war, that peace might come about, surely in the very affairs of war and its necessities it is fitting not to be willing to add double the dangers. But these men would deprive us even beyond double, and no less than of confidence itself. Consider this too, that the Lacedaemonians, invading Attica each year, were not ashamed to withdraw, having done as much harm as they could; and, by Zeus, they invaded while they had the upper hand; but when they feared for their own land, they ceased. And now again they garrison Decelea, since they have a surplus of advantage. So great a thing is the occasion and the possibility. For no man accomplishes everything from prediction, nor do wars serve desires, but fortune apportions the most; of which, taking such share as she gives, one must know to overlook something too. And apart from this, this argument of theirs is contrary to the wiser one, which proclaims that, if those now departed should accomplish nothing, it will be possible for both to sail back. For if it is shameful to flee in any circumstances whatever of affairs, it will be yet more shameful then, when it overtakes both armaments. But if necessity is strong, why need we, letting go the facts, frighten you with names? For the present withdrawal is better by so much, inasmuch as, having won battles, Athenians, both by land and by sea, and having come within a little of holding Syracuse itself, then, fortune meeting us adversely, we shall turn back, leaving to all men signs of both — both of our high courage in the contests

388. and of our adaptability to the occasions; and neither the Syracusans nor the Selinuntians nor anyone else there will boast against us, nor be able to say that he drove us out. For all men will understand that, as far as concerned us and them, they were unable to lift even a little against us, but that, the Lacedaemonians and Corinthians and the old enemies having come on, we thus gave account to ourselves about present circumstances. So that not only safety, but also good repute accrues to the resolution. These men, then, fear lest we seem to flee; but I, on the one hand, pray that the word's truth fail, and, on the other, I fear the opposite fear — lest, exceeding measure, we should then not be able to flee, but suffer the same as those who contend over dice, for whom, when it was possible to overlook how much they had lost and then be quit of more, the strife with anger brought the loss to its uttermost.

And to me it seems the opposite — that it is not in sending the help that there lies either the taking of Sicily or the bringing back of the men, but in the recalling that the affairs there are now already ruined, as you heard just now. But we, while there is yet time, if we recall them and all come to be in one place, I say, the gods being gracious, that hopes are left about the affairs there — just as before it happened to those who sent in season, that afterward they were able to set upon them more greatly. But if we shall thrust ourselves against the impossible, I say that one of us will count the loss a gain, if only it should happen to fail of the objects and nothing more be added to suffer. Then, too, which of the generals, Athenians, will dare on his own to bring back hither the whole force together, when it is announced to him that you appear to have voted it down, and the lesser not to return before doing what they were sent for? And where Nicias now shrank from your orders, what does he think he will suffer, you having missed a second hope? So either send those who will conquer, or the other thing I do not wish to add. But in what I say, everything

389. comes to be in your power, along with the occasion: both the taking of Sicily, if it be possible, and their being safe, if only that one thing should not come to pass. For if it is easy to set affairs here right, using the whole force, it is easy to sail anew against those things; but if the business is greater, why, not being able sufficiently to hold out for things here, do we devise for ourselves troubles beyond our borders? And I shall make an extreme supposition. For if we should set down the affairs in Sicily as equal and even — which I, for one, would say is far to our advantage, if it were so — yet that, surely, we all know, that it is not so great a gain to take Sicily, if it should go forward, as it is an evil to be defeated with so great a force. When, then, the fear is greater than the hope, how is it not worth guarding against?

I marvel at those who fear lest the Syracusans sail hither, yet bid us sail against them, as though there were security in it. But I hold that the Syracusans are not so out of their senses that, having been quit of their troubles welcomely and beyond expectation, they would stir up others for themselves — especially having learned from us ourselves that it is not profitable to move so great a force lightly from one's own land; and I would pray to all the gods to catch them here. For at the same time we shall not engage against as many ships of theirs as they would furnish there for their own preservation, and at the same time, I think, they will learn the law of distant and great campaigns — the law upon which the King of the Persians stumbled, who campaigned hither, and upon which the Carthaginians stumbled, crossing into Sicily with many tens of thousands of land and naval force. For it is not possible in like manner both to guard one's own and to subdue those far removed, but a certain retribution follows the rash deed. Knowing which, the Lacedaemonians too guard against nothing so much as the campaigns at a great distance. And indeed, for this very reason they have no small power among the Greeks, gathering up the small advantages bit by bit. But if, leaving all else, one must say one

390. thing: it is not the case that, if any necessity should beset us, for this reason we ought willingly to add to ourselves the things that do not concern us; but we should set apart the warding off of attackers from the unwillingness to spare ourselves. And I fear the things I said a little before, and I fear too the omens — looking at the Mysteries, how they were not well carried out before we sailed; looking at the Hermae, how they were treated; and considering that the one who counselled these things has become accursed, and against him alone the sacred families publicly pronounced curses. And I call to mind too the campaign into Egypt, which this man just now finely glossed over, which took from us two hundred triremes — and that when we already held a portion of Egypt no smaller than all of Sicily; and not even there did we stop, but, time having passed, fifty others went off to help those there, and neither did they help those at all, but they themselves perished besides, an addition. This, this is the example I shudder at, Athenians, and neither night nor day takes away the memory of it; and I beg all of you to guard Sicily as you would Egypt, and not to make many such examples — reckoning that, if then someone had said these things and persuaded — most of all not to sail to Egypt from the start, but if not, at least not to send the second triremes — no matter whatever would have befallen the city, or at least the second loss would not have been added. But indeed, if you all know that those things too were erred in through the judgment of counsellors and through the hinderers being outvoted, see lest now too you yourselves pay the penalty of our defeat. And consider that not even from the many great victories once in Cyprus did it result for us to acquire Cyprus itself, but, abandoning it, we withdrew. And that the place where the camp was is plague-ridden, you all perhaps learn. Reckoning these things, you must not, if we shall receive back unsuccessful those who sailed out with paeans,

391. count it unbearable, but hold that this would be the most wretched of all — if those whom we then sent out as men about to acquire empire, and with such pomp, these we should one day seek with other cries, and the rivalry then, as far as Aegina, will now not let them get safely back into their own harbours. I have had my say; and I pray for one of two things: either that you too agree, or that I myself err in judgment and afterward alone of all be charged with cowardice.