THUCYDIDES AND ALCIBIADES

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1. Thucydides' View of the Sicilian Expedition

To many readers of Thucydides the arguments adduced by Nicias against the Sicilian expedition must appear of irresistible cogency. Even if Syracuse and the other Sicilian cities had been conquered, Athens could not have held them down without suffering exhaustion ; and the men and money expended in so vain an enterprise could better have been devoted to restoring the Empire in Ghalcidice and rebuilding' the Peloponnesian coalition against Sparta. Thucydides was aware, as the Athenian masses were not, of the great size and population of Sicily ; he knew that the Athenians in 415 engaged on a war not less difficult than that with the Peloponne- sians (VI 1 ; "VII 28,3) ; yet even in retrospect his verdict on the expedition seems to have been less severe. In the famous passage in II 65, written after the fall of Athens, he attributes her ruin to the competition among the leading politicians in ingratiating themselves with the people ; this, he says, was the source of many errors ; in particular it led to the Sicilian expedition. Thus he acknowledges that the Athenians blundered in their invasion of Sicily, but he at once adds that the error of judgement consisted not so much in selecting the Sicilians for attack as in the subsequent decisions taken