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By 415, almost two decades into the conflict between Athens and Sparta, the war was going about as well as it could for the Athenians. Sparta had invaded Attica multiple times, consistently failing to draw the Athenians into a decisive land engagement and being unable to cripple the Athenian economy with raids on Attica. The Spartans had success with sending military advisors and small contingents of irregular forces to encourage insurrection among Athenian subject cities, but the Spartan government worried about how those approaches might alter Spartan society back home. The two sides negotiated a “peace” in 422, but the fighting never really stopped. Athens looked for a way to end the war.
Athenian eyes wandered west, to the island of Sicily and southern Italy. There was a diverse collection of Hellenic colonies in that region. If Athens could bring them into its empire, it would have the resources to finally knock the Peloponnesians out of the war and be the undisputed head of the Greek world.
Not all Greeks agreed, however. When the war first broke out, the Athenian leader Pericles had warned his fellow citizens not to try expanding their empire and gamble away an already winning hand. Demosthenes, the primary Athenian general in 415, concurred, arguing that Athens should not invade Sicily. He pointed out the island was far away and attacking it would be a huge logistical strain on Athens requiring a massive army and fleet to not just beat the Sicilians but then occupy the island as well.
Alcibiades, a prominent Athenian politician, disagreed. He argued that Athens could not take the risk that the Peloponnesians would never be able to convince Syracuse and the other Sicilian cities to intervene against Athens. Sicily was a rising power, and Athens needed to knock it down before it could become stronger, the same logic that had dragged the Peloponnesians into launching their war against Athens. Eventually the Athenians voted for the operation and invested massive amounts of money into equipment, soldiers, and sailors for what was the largest Hellenic expedition up to that point.
However, as soon as the Athenians arrived off the coast of Italy and Sicily, things started to go wrong. Their “allies” had assured them that most Sicilians would greet the Athenians as liberators, yet no Sicilian city would open its gates and house the expeditionary force. They also discovered the island was far bigger than they believed it was. Lastly, they had no cavalry to speak of. This meant that Syracusan cavalry constantly harassed the Athenians as they tried to forage for supplies, and that the Sicilians could match Athenian naval mobility, especially since the Athenian sailors could not bring their ships on land and clean them of barnacles.
The Athenians did manage to partially besiege Syracuse but also wrote back to Athens for more troops and supplies. The Athenians had assembled a Homeric expeditionary force, but logistics are often an army’s Achilles’ heel, and Paris was sharpening his arrow.
If you’re interested in the final discussion of the book, check out my Substack.
The History Doctor 
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