“All of you have sons, some with sons of their own. Each heir dilutes your patrimony, as holdings must be divided. What may we leave our successors? Where will they find their portion? You, my friends, are of the fifty-measure and equestrian classes; you are estate holders and knights. Let me put a question to you. Which is easier: to build up a landholding from dirt and stone, or to conquer one whole and entire, a founded property already in possession of cleared and planted fields, with water and fences and pasture land and even crofters who know and work the land? When we take Sicily, to whose sons will the choicest of these prizes go? Whom but those who have funded the arms by which they have been mastered?
“You are thinking: war is no mean undertaking, Alcibiades. It brings in its train evils unnumberable; its outcome may as well be calamity as conquest. You frame this question as welclass="underline" Sicily is strong, her fifty cities will not simply roll over and quit. In answer I wish she had more cities, for the more, the more divided, and more easily subdued. We must think of these cities as islands.
That is what they are. Each apart and self-interested, jealous of all others. We will take these cities as we took the islands of our empire: ally with the strongest against the weakest, conquer the main, then turn upon the holdouts. Leave one or two independent, that we may point to them in proof that none has been coerced into our alliance.
“Many of you have held command with the fleet. You understand sea power. You question the feasibility of its projection over so many leagues, so far from friendly harbors and resupply. I answer, friends, that were a fleet unnecessary, I should seek pretext to commission her anyway. Let me tell you why. Against a prize the size of Sicily, brute force will not suffice, but diplomacy and audacity, and above all the sudden and dramatic presentation of overwhelming might. For that, nothing may rival a fleet. Hear me, gentlemen.
“Land forces, no matter how numerous, present to the eye a spectacle bedraggled and ill defined. When they marshal upon the field, their numbers are often obscured by planted crops or hidden by defiles and mountains. A thousand infantry occupy a space little greater than this estate. An army even of fifty thousand is often dwarfed by the landscape or masked by the dust of its own tread; despite its numbers it looks puny and undaunting.
“Ah, but a fleet! Her spectacle sprawls unbroken across the main, brilliant with sails spread and oar banks extended. An army in the field looks like a mob, an armada like God's wrath. And recalclass="underline" the foe never gets the chance to see our fleet eclipsed in scale by the vastness of the ocean. He beholds us only within the confines of his own harbor, which we fill end-to-end with fighting ships and men, daunting and overawing him.
“There is another telling aspect to a show of naval might. This is its temerity. A fleet carries with it the audacity of its enterprise.
The stay-at-home foe is stricken by its sudden apparition. The enemy beholding a navy advancing upon him out of the aether is struck with dread, as Priam himself when Achilles' black ships beached upon the plain of Troy.
“A fleet minimizes risk and casualties. Employing the theater of its spectacle, we overawe one city and another, rolling them up within our bag. Rhegium, Messana, Camarina, Catana, Naxos, and the native Sicels have all taken our cause in the past; played right, they will again. Our advance acquires a momentum of its own, indistinguishable in the foe's eyes from fate. He cannot prevail, he sees, and enrolls himself beneath our banner of his own will. Yes, yes, you say, all this sounds brilliant on paper, Alcibiades. But who will make it happen?
“Here I must set delicacy aside and speak straight and blunt.
There are those who are jealous of me, of my private celebrity. I understand this, friends. I ask you, however, to consider that I now place this fame at your disposal, to be yoked to your ends. What I achieve by my private exertions redounds to Athens' glory as well as my own. Recall Olympia; the leading men of Sicily stood present in the stadium when my horses took the triple. They erected pavilions in honor of my victory and clamored about me, seeking my friendship. Will they not be favorably disposed when I and my fellow commanders, backed by this mighty armada, address them as I do you tonight, not with arrogance, threatening the destruction of their homes and enslavement of their families, but seeking their alliance, bidding them join us? Immodest as it sounds, I ask: who else in Athens may command such attention?
“Two more points, gentlemen, and I will finish.
“First, to those who protest that our nation now stands at peace, that we have a treaty with the Spartans, and that this Sicilian venture, though technically not in violation, will in the event plunge us back into full-scale war. I answer with a question: what kind of peace is it when the nations of Greece are in fact fighting on more fronts now than they did under formal declaration? What peace is it when the third part of our young men elect to serve as mercenaries for these very states? War will come again, this is certain. What remains for us to decide is when.
Will it resume at the hour of our enemies' choosing, when they have elevated their forces to the peak of readiness? Or will it come at our election, when our cause stands most likely to prevail?
“Now to the nub. To others, gentlemen, I may confine my appeal to considerations of profit and risk, and these are not inconsequential. But to you who perceive with the eyes of wisdom, I may speak to deeper designs.
“Our nation is great. But greatness begets obligation. It must prove worthy of itself or it falls. You have all seen what this war, prosecuted piecemeal and without vigor, and this so-called Peace have done to our young men's spirit. Those fresh to maturity crave action, while veterans turn sour and sullen. They are going bad-let us call it by its name. Sicily is the antidote. A call to brilliance which will summon ourselves and our youth back from their depletion and despair. Pericles was in error to set us on the defensive. This is not Athens. It is not our style. We are dying by inches, shackled by this ignoble Peace, declining not for lack of goods, but want of glory.
“Athens is a sword rusting in her sheath. We may not sit still, we Athenians. Idleness is fatal to us. What I hate most about this Peace is the toll it has taken on our nation's soul. It will finish us, my friends, as surely as defeat in war. Athens is not a draft mule, but a mighty racehorse; she must be harnessed not to a plough, but to a chariot-and a chariot of war.
“Lastly this, gentlemen. To those who mistrust me and fear my ambition. When this fleet takes station before Syracuse, you will not discover me shrinking from the foe. My ram will be the first to seek and strike the enemy. Perhaps I will be slain. Then you will be quit of me. My pride will no longer vex you. But hear this…
“The fleet will remain.
“Long after my bones are dust beneath the earth, you will have her. Athens will have her. She will be yours, to make use of as you wish.
“Consider this proposal, my friends. Think it over. The spoils of our enterprise will be shared by all, even those who remain safe behind. But glory and honor are his who early sets his name upon the rolls. Join me, brothers and countrymen. Launch from our harbors this mighty armada and let the world stand back in wonder.”
XV
The debate that succeeded Alcibiades' departure from my grandfather's halls replicated in heat and animation, no doubt, that which transpired within every other cell or association to which he had spoken or subsequently did speak.
Beyond the merit of our guest's presentation, whether one agreed with him or not, what could not but strike each listener was the force of his personality. Many of the clan's elders had had occasion to view Alcibiades only in Assembly. They had never had the chance to examine him close up, across their own board, where they might look him in the face, see the intelligence in his eyes, the expressiveness of his hands, the resolve in his voice. In person he was a force. His belief in the enterprise he championed was so genuine, and delivered with such conviction, that even those chary of its wisdom or in out-and-out opposition were called upon to summon all their stoniness of heart to resist the persuasiveness with which he represented it. The beauty of his person easily won over those previously disposed, and disarmed even those who abhorred his character and conduct.