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96.
When the news of what had happened in Euboea
reached Athens a panic ensued such as they had never before known.
Neither the disaster in Sicily, great as it seemed at the time, nor any
other had ever so much alarmed them.
[2]
The camp at Samos was in revolt; they had no more ships or men to man them; they were at discord among themselves and might at any moment come to
blows; and a disaster of this magnitude coming on the top of all, by which they
lost their fleet, and worst of all Euboea, which was of more value to them
than Attica, could not occur without throwing them into the deepest
despondency.
[3]
Meanwhile their greatest and most immediate trouble was the possibility
that the enemy, emboldened by his victory, might make straight for them and
sail against Piraeus, which they had no longer ships to defend; and every moment they expected him to arrive.
[4]
This, with a little more courage, he might easily have done, in which case
he would either have increased the dissensions of the city by his presence,
or if he had stayed to besiege it have compelled the fleet from Ionia,
although the enemy of the oligarchy, to come to the rescue of their country
and of their relatives, and in the meantime would have become master of the
Hellespont, Ionia, the islands, and of everything as far as Euboea, or, to
speak roundly, of the whole Athenian empire.
[5]
But here, as on so many other occasions the Lacedaemonians proved the most
convenient people in the world for the Athenians to be at war with.
The wide difference between the two characters, the slowness and want of
energy of the Lacedaemonians as contrasted with the dash and enterprise of
their opponents, proved of the greatest service, especially to a maritime
empire like Athens.
Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans, who were most like the Athenians
in character, and also most successful in combating them.
Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton. 1910.
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References (24 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(4):
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 7, 7.67
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER CXXV
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5, 5.49
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5, 5.89
- Cross-references to this page
(4):
- Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, PECULIARITIES IN THE USE OF NUMBER
- Raphael Kühner, Friedrich Blass, Ausführliche Grammatik der Griechischen Sprache, Von den Adjektiven und Participien insbesondere.
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.5.2
- Smith's Bio, Hegesa'ndridas
- Cross-references in notes to this page
(4):
- Isocrates, Panegyricus, Isoc. 4 108
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos, Introduction
- Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Thuc. 1.141
- Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Thuc. 7.55
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(12):
- LSJ, ἐγγύτερος
- LSJ, ἐπιγίγνομαι
- LSJ, ἐπιχειρ-ητής
- LSJ, ἐρῆμος
- LSJ, ὅσος
- LSJ, ὀξύς
- LSJ, παρίστημι
- LSJ, προσπολεμ-έω
- LSJ, ῥάσσω
- LSJ, σύμφορ-ος
- LSJ, συρράσσω
- LSJ, τρόπος
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