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14.
Now I need not remind you that the time
during which a crew is in its prime is short, and that the number of sailors
who can start a ship on her way and keep the rowing in time is small.
[2]
But by far my greatest trouble is, that holding the post which I do, I am
prevented by the natural indocility of the Athenian seaman from putting a
stop to these evils; and that meanwhile we have no source from which to recruit our crews, which
the enemy can do from many quarters, but are compelled to depend both for
supplying the crews in service and for making good our losses upon the men
whom we brought with us.
For our present confederates, Naxos and Catana, are incapable of supplying
us.
[3]
There is only one thing more wanting to our opponents, I mean the defection
of our Italian markets.
If they were to see you neglect to relieve us from our present condition,
and were to go over to the enemy, famine would compel us to evacuate, and
Syracuse would finish the war without a blow.
[4]
I might, it is true, have written to you
something different and more agreeable than this, but nothing certainly more
useful, if it is desirable for you to know the real state of things here
before taking your measures.
Besides I know that it is your nature to love to be told the best side of
things, and then to blame the teller if the expectations which he has raised
in your minds are not answered by the result; and I therefore thought it safest to declare to you the truth.
Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton. 1910.
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References (18 total)
- Commentary references to this page (3):
- Cross-references to this page
(2):
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.pos=2.2
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), EXE´RCITUS
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(13):
- LSJ, ἀκμή
- LSJ, διαπολεμ-έω
- LSJ, ἐξορμάω
- LSJ, ἐκβαίνω
- LSJ, ἐπίστα^μαι
- LSJ, ἐπιπληρ-όω
- LSJ, ἐπιστέλλω
- LSJ, εἰρεσία
- LSJ, γράφω
- LSJ, οἷος
- LSJ, πλήρ-ωμα
- LSJ, πληρ-όω
- LSJ, συνέχω
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