The ancient Greek historians (Harvard lectures) by J. B. Bury.

126 ANCIENT GREEK HISTORIANS LECT.

gravest consequences was the psychical effect upon
the Athenians, for which Pericles suffered. The
other surprise of fortune was a kind one, the
combination of circumstances which helped the
Athenians to their stroke of luck at Pylos. This
elated them, as the pestilence had cast them down.
Instead of grasping the opportunity of making
advantageous terms and bringing to an end a war
which they would gladly have concluded on any
terms a few years before, they were incited to
hopes of new conquest. But the consequences
were by no means disastrous; the Peace of 421
B.C. left the balance of power much the same.
They had recovered from the effects of the
plague and the war when they undertook the
conquest of Sicily in 415 B.C. The catastrophe of
that enterprise was the beginning of a gradual
decline, which was determined by domestic dissensions in Athens, and afterwards by the intervention
of Persia. A modern historian has designated the
Sicilian expedition as an act of insanity, an instance
of a whole people gone mad, analogous to the case
of England in the Crimean war. But this was
not the opinion of Thucydides. He says, and he
is speaking in his own name, that it was not an
error of judgment in the design or in the calculation of strength, and would have been a success, if
it had been properly supported and carried out.
The verdict of the modern writer was influenced
partly by ethical considerations; the verdict of
Thucydides did not take ethics into account; he