History of the Peloponnesian War · Chapter
XVIII explained
The Athenians resolve to launch a massive expedition to conquer Sicily, despite their ignorance of the island's size and population.
What happens
The Athenians resolve to launch a massive expedition to conquer Sicily, despite their ignorance of the island's size and population. Nicias attempts to dissuade them by emphasizing the strength of Sicilian cities, the need for overwhelming forces, and the risks of a distant campaign. Alcibiades counters by defending his personal conduct and arguing that Sicilian cities are weak due to internal divisions. The chapter also provides a detailed history of Sicily's settlement by various peoples, including Cyclopes, Sicanians, Trojans, Sicels, Phoenicians, and Hellenic colonists.
Themes in this chapter
Leadership and Strategy
Nicias and Alcibiades present opposing strategic visions for the Sicilian expedition, debating the necessary scale of forces and the nature of the enemy.
Identity and Ethnicity
The detailed account of Sicily's settlement by diverse groups (Sicanians, Trojans, Sicels, Phoenicians, Hellenes) underscores the island's ethnic complexity and its implications for Athenian strategy.
Human Nature and Morality
Alcibiades defends his personal ambition and extravagance as serving the city's glory, while Nicias warns against overreach and the dangers of hubris in undertaking such a distant campaign.
Characters to notice
- Alcibiades
Argues passionately for the Sicilian expedition, defending his personal extravagance as beneficial to Athens and claiming Sicilian cities are weak due to internal strife.
- Nicias
Attempts to dissuade the Athenians by detailing the military and logistical challenges of conquering Sicily, advocating for a massive, well-prepared force.
- Laches
Mentioned as having led an earlier expedition to Sicily, providing context for the current campaign.
- Eurymedon
Mentioned as having co-led an earlier expedition to Sicily, setting the stage for the larger venture.
Key passages
“the safest rule of life is to take one’s character and institutions for better and for worse, and to live up to them as closely as one can.”
The most prudent way to live is to accept your own nature and customs, both good and bad, and adhere to them as faithfully as possible.
Alcibiades argues for consistency in character and policy, defending his own lifestyle as integral to his effectiveness.
“we are cutting ourselves off, and going to a land entirely strange, from which during four months in winter it is not even easy for a messenger get to Athens.”
We are isolating ourselves by traveling to a completely foreign land, so distant that even a messenger cannot reach Athens during the four winter months.
Nicias emphasizes the logistical dangers of the Sicilian expedition, highlighting the extreme isolation from home.
“The cities in Sicily are peopled by motley rabbles, and easily change their institutions and adopt new ones in their stead; and consequently the inhabitants, being without any feeling of patriotism, are not provided with arms for their persons, and have not regularly established themselves on the land.”
The Sicilian cities are filled with mixed populations that readily alter their governments, lacking patriotism, personal armament, and stable settlement.
Alcibiades dismisses Sicilian military strength, claiming internal divisions make them vulnerable to Athenian conquest.