unreasonable conditions. The ambassadors believed him, and fashioned their tale in the assembly of the people as he had advised them. Hereupon the same Alcibiades, taking presently the advantage which their double-dealing afforded, inveighed openly against them, as men of no sincerity, that were come to Athens for none other purpose, than to hinder the people from strengthening themselves with friends, meaning to draw the Argives and their adherents to their own alliance, as (contrary to their oath) already they had the Thebans. The people of Athens, whom a pleasing errand would hardly have satisfied, or brought into a good opinion of the Lacedæmonians, (whose honest meanings had so ill been seconded with good performance,) were now so incensed with the double-dealing of the ambassadors and the strong persuasions of Alcibiades, that little wanted of concluding the league with Argos. Yet for the present so far did Nicias, an honourable citizen and great friend to the peace, prevail with them, that the business was put off, till he himself with other ambassadors might fetch a better answer from Sparta.

It may seem a great wonder how so poor a trick of Alcibiades was able to carry a matter of such importance, when the Spartan ambassadors might have cast the load upon his own shoulders, by discovering the truth. But the gravity which was usually found in the Lacedæmonians, hindered them (perhaps) from playing their game handsomely against so nimble a wit; and they might well have been thought untrusty men, had they professed themselves such as would say and unsay for their most advantage.

Nicias and his companions had a sour message to deliver at Sparta, being peremptorily to require performance of all conditions; and among the rest, that the Lacedæmonians should take the pains to rebuild Panacte, and should immediately renounce their alliance made with the Thebans, letting them understand, that otherwise the Athenians, without further delay, would enter into confederacy with the Argives and their adherents. The ephori at Sparta had no mind to forsake the Thebans, assured friends to their

state, but wrought so hard, that the anger of the Athenians was suffered to break out what way it could, which to mitigate they would do no more, than only (at the request of Nicias their honourable friend, who would not seem to have effected nothing) swear anew to keep the articles of the league between them and Athens. Immediately therefore upon return of the ambassadors, a new league was made between the Athenians, Argives, Mantinæans, and Eleans, with very ample provision for holding the same common friends and enemies; wherein though the Lacedæmonians were passed over with silence, yet was it manifest that the whole intent of this confederacy did bend itself chiefly against them, as in short while after was proved by effect.

At this time the Lacedæmonians were in ill case, who having restored all that they could unto the Athenians, and procured others to do the like, had themselves recovered nothing of their own (prisoners excepted) for default of restoring all that they should. But that which did most of all disable them was the loss of reputation, which they had not more impaired in the late war by misfortunes, than in sundry passages between them and the Athenians; to procure and keep whose amity they had left sundry of their old friends to shift for themselves. Contrariwise, the Athenians, by the treaty of peace, had recovered the most of that which they lost in war; all their gettings they had retained, and were strengthened by the access of new confederates.

SECT. VII.

How the peace between Athens and Sparta was ill kept, though not openly broken.

IT was not long ere the Argives and their fellows had found business wherewith to set the Athenians on work, and make use of this conjunction. For, presuming upon the strength of their side, they began to meddle with the Epidaurians, whom it concerned the state of Sparta to defend. So, many acts of hostility were committed, wherein Athens and Sparta did not (as principals) infest each the

other, but came in collaterally, as to the aid of their several friends.

By these occasions the Corinthians, Boeotians, Phocians, Locrians, and other people of Greece, began anew to range themselves under the Lacedæmonians, and follow their ensigns. One victory, which the Lacedæmonians obtained by their mere valour in a set battle near to Mantinæa against the Argive side, helped well to repair their decayed reputation, though otherwise it yielded them no great profit. The civil dissension, arising shortly after within Argos itself, between the principal citizens and the commons, had almost thrown down the whole frame of the new combination. For the chief citizens getting the upper hand, made a league with Sparta, wherein they proceeded so far as to renounce the amity of the Athenians in express words, and forced the Mantinæans to the like. But in short space of time the multitude prevailing, reversed all this, and having chased away their ambitious nobility, applied themselves to the Athenians as closely as before.

Besides these uproars in Peloponnesus, many essays were made to raise up troubles in all parts of Greece, and likewise in Macedon, to the Athenians; whose forces and readiness for execution prevented some things, revenged other, and requited all with some prosperous attempts. Finally, the Athenians wanting matter of quarrel, and the Lacedæmonians growing weary, they began to be quiet, retaining still that enmity in their hearts, which they had sufficiently discovered in effects, though not as yet breaking out into terms of open war.

SECT. VIII.

The Athenians, sending two fleets to sack Syracuse, are put to flight, and utterly discomfited.

DURING this intermission of open war, the Athenians reentertained their hopes of subduing Sicil, whither they sent a fleet so mighty as never was set forth by Greece in any age before or after.

This fleet was very well manned, and furnished with all

necessaries to so great an expedition. All which came to nought; partly by the factions in Athens, whence Alcibiades, author of that voyage, and one of the generals of their fleet, was driven to banish himself, for fear of such judgment as else he was like to have undergone among the incensed people; partly by the invasion which the Lacedæmonians made upon Attica, whilst the forces of that state were so far from home. Hereunto was added the aid of the king of Persia, who supplied the Peloponnesians with money.

Neither was the success of things in Sicilia such as without help from Athens could give any likelihood of a good end in that war. For although in the beginning the enterprise had so well succeeded, that they besieged Syracuse, the chief city of the island, and one of the fairest towns which the Greeks inhabited, obtaining the better in sundry battles by land and sea; yet when the town was relieved with strong aid from Peloponnesus, it came to pass that the Athenians were put to the worse on all sides, in such wise that their fleet was shut up into the haven of Syracuse, and could not issue out.

As the Athenian affairs went very ill in Sicil, so did they at home stand upon hard terms, for that the Lacedæmonians, who had been formerly accustomed to make wearisome yearly journeys into Attica, which having pilled and foraged they returned home, did now by counsel of Alcibiades (who seeking revenge upon his own citizens was fled unto them) fortify the town of Decelea, which was near to Athens, whence they ceased not with daily excursions to harry all the country round about, and sometimes give alarm unto the city itself.

In these extremities, the perverse obstinacy of the Athenians was very strange, who leaving at their backs, and at their own doors, an enemy little less mighty than themselves, did yet send forth another fleet into Sicil, to invade a people no less puissant, which never had offended them.

It often happens that prosperous event makes foolish counsel seem wiser than it was, which came to pass many RALEGH, VOL. III.

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times among the Athenians, whose vain conceits Pallas was said to turn unto the best. But where unsound advice, finding bad proof, is obstinately pursued, neither Pallas nor Fortune can be justly blamed for a miserable issue. This second fleet of the Athenians, which better might have served to convey home the former that was defeated, after some attempts made to small purpose against the Syracusans, was finally (together with the other part of the navy, which was there before) quite vanquished and barred up into the haven of Syracuse, whereby the camp of the Athenians, utterly deprived of all benefit by sea, either for succour or departure, was driven to break up and fly away by land, in which flight they were overtaken, routed, and quite overthrown in such wise that scarce any man escaped.

This mischief well deservedly fell upon the Athenians, who had wickedly condemned into exile Sophocles and Phthiodorus, generals, formerly sent into that isle, pretending that they had taken money for making peace in Sicil, whereas indeed there was not any means or possibility to have made war. Hereby it came to pass that Nicias, who had the chief command in this unhappy enterprise, did rather choose to hazard the ruin of his country by the loss of that army, wherein consisted little less than all the power of Athens, than to adventure his own estate, his life, and his honour, upon the tongues of shameless accusers, and the sentence of judges before his trial resolved to condemn him, by retiring from Syracuse, when wisdom and necessity required it. "For," said he, "they shall give sentence upon 66 us, who know not the reason of our doings, nor will give "ear to any that would speak in our behalf, but altoge "ther hearken to suspicious and vain rumours that shall be brought against us; yea, these our soldiers who now are so desirous to return in safety, will in our danger be well "contented to frame their tales to the pleasure of the lewd "and insolent multitude."

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This resolution of Nicias, though it cannot be commended, (for it is the part of an honest and valiant man to do what reason willeth, not what opinion expecteth, and to