In mid-summer the appointed day came for the fleet’s sailing. The people of Athens descended to the port of Piraeus to watch the spectacle as one hundred newly constructed and fitted-out galleys launched into the harbor. The ships were freshly painted and the soldiers and marines glittered in new or polished armor and weaponry. Once the ships were all assembled a long blast from a bugle signaled silence. On each ship sailors poured libations of wine into the sea from gold and silver cups, and prayers were said for the safety of the fleet. The men sang a battle paean together. Then the oarsmen dropped their oars into the water and drove the ships forward, forming a single file through the shallows, then breaking formation to race each other to the island of Aegina in the distance. The crowds watched with pride mixed with apprehension as the great armada, the largest ever assembled by a Greek state, disappeared over the horizon.[32]
For those unaffected by the ill-starred recent events, the prospects seemed fair for success. Athens was sailing with the most powerful fleet ever assembled in Greece, with a large force of fresh troops, to rendezvous with allies on the island of Corcyra, whence the augmented fleet would sail to Sicily. Despite the ongoing tensions with Sparta and the Peloponnesian League, Athens was not at war with them. Rather, a kind of cold war continued with mutual distrust and hostile attitudes. Thus the Athenians did not have to defend against attacks at home but could concentrate their military force in a distant theater.
On the other hand, the vast undertaking had no clear strategic purpose. Nominally, the fleet was setting out to support Egesta against Selinus, two landlocked cities in the farthest corner of Sicily and within the sphere of influence of Carthage. The warships, however, would be largely useless for the official objective, and what was at stake in western Sicily hardly merited such attention. The real target, as Alcibiades and Lamachus appreciated, had to be Syracuse, Athens’ enemy, Sparta’s ally, and the most powerful city in Sicily. Syracuse had defeated Athens’ ally Leontini and exiled her people. The divided command of the Athenians, with Alcibiades the young hawk, Nicias the old dove, and Lamachus the non-entity, guaranteed a diversity of opinions about everything but no unified leadership for the campaign. The only other time the Athenians had sent a large armament to a distant shore, when they sent a fleet to Egypt in the mid-fifth century, they had experienced a disaster. That lesson was a fading memory. But in the generals’ minds there was a real pressure to succeed in this great undertaking, however undefined its objectives were. Commanders who came back empty-handed, they knew, were often put on trial for incompetence or even embezzlement.
At Corcyra the Athenians were joined by thirty-four more triremes, thirty cargo ships to bring supplies, one horse transport, and 100 small boats for miscellaneous transportation. The total allied army now consisted of 5,100 infantry, 480 archers, 700 slingers, 120 light infantry, and 30 horses.[33] The generals divided the force into three divisions, one under each general, to cross the Ionian Sea, so that they might more easily get supplies from the cities of southern Italy. They met up again at Rhegium, their former ally, on the toe of Italy. The city of Rhegium, wary of the great fleet, let the Athenians set up camp outside their walls, but they did not allow them inside the city walls, nor agree to join the Athenian campaign. Most other cities held aloof likewise. The fleet was too big, too intimidating, and not welcome in the relatively peaceful conditions of Magna Graecia. Finally the city of Naxos, on the east coast of Sicily, agreed to host the Athenian force. Sailing south to Catana, the Athenians intimidated that city into joining the Athenian alliance and thus obtained a base close to Syracuse.[34]
At this point the one of two official state galleys, the Salaminia, arrived from Athens with a subpoena for Alcibiades and some of his staff, on charges connected with the mutilation of the herms. The charges had been brought by Thessalus, son of the great Cimon.[35] The officers handled Alcibiades with kid gloves, not wishing to upset the army and navy. Alcibiades accompanied the Salaminia in his own galley as far as Thurii on the instep of Italy, then jumped ship and disappeared, fearing the results of the trial. The Athenians, taking his flight as evidence of guilt, held the trial, condemned him to death in absentia, and confiscated his property.[36] After the trial the Athenian government put a price on Alcibiades’ head of one talent—sixty pounds of silver.[37]
[32].Thucydides 6.30-32.
[33].Thucydides 6.43-44.1.
[34].Thucydides 6.44.2-4, 6.50, 51.
[35].Plutarch Alcibiades 22.3-4.
[36].Thucydides 6.53.1, 6.61.5-7.
[37].Posted on a stele in Athens: Philochorus fr. 134 Jacoby.