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Updated: June 24, 2025
Such were the words of Hermocrates; after whom Euphemus, the Athenian ambassador, spoke as follows: "Although we came here only to renew the former alliance, the attack of the Syracusans compels us to speak of our empire and of the good right we have to it. The best proof of this the speaker himself furnished, when he called the Ionians eternal enemies of the Dorians.
HERMOCRATES: And we too, Socrates, as Timaeus says, will not be wanting in enthusiasm; and there is no excuse for not complying with your request.
He also told Tissaphernes to bribe the captains and generals of the cities, and so to obtain their connivance an expedient which succeeded with all except the Syracusans, Hermocrates alone opposing him on behalf of the whole confederacy.
Forty thousand Athenian soldiers were still encamped within sight of the walls, and if they were allowed to escape, they might establish themselves in some friendly city, and begin the war again. All this was strongly felt by Hermocrates, and he lost no time in imparting his cares and anxieties to the responsible leaders.
The Syracusans were deaf to the warnings of Hermocrates until the great fleet had actually arrived at Rhegium. Nicias was now anxious to find an excuse, in the evident falsity of statements made by the Egestans, for the fleet to content itself with making a demonstration and then returning home.
These adverse events led to the disgrace of Hermocrates, who stimulated the movement and promised what he could not perform. But his conduct had been good, and his treatment was unjust and harsh.
And that the servants of the Athenians with the other confederates be sold for slaves, and they themselves and the Sicilian auxiliaries be kept and employed in the quarries, except the generals, who should be put to death. The Syracusans favored the proposal, and when Hermocrates said, that to use well a victory was better than to gain a victory, he was met with great clamor and outcry.
Meanwhile the Syracusan Hermocrates suspecting their intention, and impressed by the danger of allowing a force of that magnitude to retire by land, establish itself in some other part of Sicily, and from thence renew the war went and stated his views to the authorities, and pointed out to them that they ought not to let the enemy get away by night, but that all the Syracusans and their allies should at once march out and block up the roads and seize and guard the passes.
And therefore, as Hermocrates has told you, on my way home yesterday I at once communicated the tale to my companions as I remembered it; and after I left them, during the night by thinking I recovered nearly the whole of it.
The Syracusans heard him, and voted everything as he advised, and elected three generals, Hermocrates himself, Heraclides, son of Lysimachus, and Sicanus, son of Execestes.
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