allies could furnish was sent on board it, together with a smaller
number of slingers and bowmen. The quality of the forces was even more
remarkable than the number. The zeal of individuals vied with that of
the republic in giving every galley the best possible crew and every
troop the most perfect accoutrements. And with private as well as public
wealth eagerly lavished on all that could give splendor as well as
efficiency to the expedition, the fated fleet began its voyage for the
Sicilian shores in the summer of 415.

The Syracusans themselves, at the time of the Peloponnesian war, were a
bold and turbulent democracy, tyrannizing over the weaker Greek cities
in Sicily, and trying to gain in that island the same arbitrary
supremacy which Athens maintained along the eastern coast of the
Mediterranean. In numbers and in spirit they were fully equal to the
Athenians, but far inferior to them in military and naval discipline.
When the probability of an Athenian invasion was first publicly
discussed at Syracuse, and efforts were made by some of the wiser
citizens to improve the state of the national defences and prepare for
the impending danger, the rumors of coming war and the proposal for
preparation were received by the mass of the Syracusans with scornful
incredulity. The speech of one of their popular orators is preserved to
us in Thucydides.

The Syracusan orator told his countrymen to dismiss with scorn the
visionary terrors which a set of designing men among themselves strove
to excite, in order to get power and influence thrown into their own
hands. He told them that Athens knew her own interest too well to think
of wantonly provoking their hostility: "Even if the enemies were to
come," said he, "so distant from their resources, and opposed to such a
power as ours, their destruction would be easy and inevitable. Their