Athenagoras of Syracuse

Athenagoras of Syracuse (Greek: Ἀθηναγόρας) an elusive character who is only commented on in Thucydides (6, 36–40). The context of his speech in Thucydides is 415 BC, during the Peloponnesian War, when Athens was about to invade Sicily (Magna Graecia). He denies the invasion, rudely retorting to Hermocrates' speech that no invasion was imminent.

Quotes

Speech of Athenagoras to the Syracusans, on the imminent Athenian invasion of Sicily, 415 BC

• If a man does not strike first, he will be the first struck.
  • Thucydides, 6, 38 (tr. Benjamin Jowett)
  • Reported in: Robert Debs Heinl, Jr., Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations (1966), Preemptive War

• When dealing with an enemy it is not only his actions but his intentions that have to be watched, since if one does not act first, one will suffer first.
  • Thucydides, 6, 38 (tr. Rex Warner)
  • Reported in: Athanasios G. Platias; Constantinos Koliopoulos, Thucydides on Strategy (2017), Appendix, Defense planning

• For the Athenians, he who does not wish that they may be as misguided as they are supposed to be, and that they may come here to become our subjects, is either a coward or a traitor to his country; while as for those who carry such tidings and fill you with so much alarm, I wonder less at their audacity than at their folly if they flatter themselves that we do not see through them.
  The fact is that they have their private reasons to be afraid, and wish to throw the city into consternation to have their own terrors cast into the shade by the public alarm. In short, this is what these reports are worth; they do not arise of themselves, but are concocted by men who are always causing agitation here in Sicily.
  However, if you are well advised, you will not be guided in your calculation of probabilities by what these persons tell you, but by what shrewd men and of large experience, as I esteem the Athenians to be, would be likely to do.
  Now it is not likely that they would leave the Peloponnesians behind them, and before they have well ended the war in Hellas wantonly come in quest of a new war quite as arduous, in Sicily; indeed, in my judgment, they are only too glad that we do not go and attack them, being so many and so great cities as we are.
  However, if they should come as is reported, I consider Sicily better able to go through with the war than Peloponnese, as being at all points better prepared, and our city by itself far more than a match for this pretended army of invasion, even were it twice as large again. I know that they will not have horses with them, or get any here, except a few perhaps from the Egestaeans; or be able to bring a force of heavy infantry equal in number to our own, in ships which will already have enough to do to come all this distance, however lightly laden, not to speak of the transport of the other stores required against a city of this magnitude, which will be no slight quantity.
  In fact, so strong is my opinion upon the subject, that I do not well see how they could avoid annihilation if they brought with them another city as large as Syracuse, and settled down and carried on war from our frontier; much less can they hope to succeed with all Sicily hostile to them, as all Sicily will be, and with only a camp pitched from the ships, and composed of tents and bare necessaries, from which they would not be able to stir far for fear of our cavalry.
  But the Athenians see this as I tell you, and as I have reason to know are looking after their possessions at home, while persons here invent stories that neither are true nor ever will be.
  Nor is this the first time that I see these persons, when they cannot resort to deeds, trying by such stories and by others even more abominable to frighten your people and get into their hands the government: it is what I see always. And I cannot help fearing that trying so often they may one day succeed, and that we, as long as we do not feel the smart, may prove too weak for the task of prevention, or, when the offenders are known, of pursuit.
  The result is that our city is rarely at rest, but is subject to constant troubles and to contests as frequent against herself as against the enemy, not to speak of occasional tyrannies and infamous cabals.
  However, I will try, if you will support me, to let nothing of this happen in our time, by gaining you, the many, and by chastising the authors of such machinations, not merely when they are caught in the act—a difficult feat to accomplish—but also for what they have the wish though not the power to do; as is necessary to punish an enemy not only for what he does, but also beforehand for what he intends to do, if the first to relax precaution would not be also the first to suffer. I shall also reprove, watch, and on occasion warn the few—the most effectual way, in my opinion, of turning them from their evil courses.
  And after all, as I have often asked—What would you have, young men? Would you hold office at once? The law forbids it, a law enacted rather because you are not competent than to disgrace you when competent. Meanwhile you would not be on a legal equality with the many! But how can it be right that citizens of the same state should be held unworthy of the same privileges?
  It will be said, perhaps, that democracy is neither wise nor equitable, but that the holders of property are also the best fitted to rule. I say, on the contrary, first, that the word “demos,” or people, includes the whole state, oligarchy only a part; next, that if the best guardians of property are the rich, and the best counsellors the wise, none can hear and decide so well as the many; and that all these talents, severally and collectively, have their just place in a democracy.
  But an oligarchy gives the many their share of the danger, and not content with the largest part takes and keeps the whole of the profit; and this is what the powerful and young among you aspire to, but in a great city cannot possibly obtain.
  But even now, foolish men, most senseless of all the Hellenes that I know, if you have no sense of the wickedness of your designs, or most criminal if you have that sense and still dare to pursue them,—even now, if it is not a case for repentance, you may still learn wisdom, and thus advance the interest of the country, the common interest of us all. Reflect that in the country's prosperity the men of merit in your ranks will have a share and a larger share than the great mass of your fellow-countrymen, but that if you have other designs you run a risk of being deprived of all; and desist from reports like these, as the people know your object and will not put up with it.
  If the Athenians arrive, this city will repulse them in a manner worthy of itself; we have, moreover, generals who will see to this matter. And if nothing of this be true, as I incline to believe, the city will not be thrown into a panic by your intelligence, or impose upon itself a self-chosen servitude by choosing you for its rulers; the city itself will look into the matter, and will judge your words as if they were acts, and instead of allowing itself to be deprived of its liberty by listening to you, will strive to preserve that liberty, by taking care to have always at hand the means of making itself respected.’
  • Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 6, 36–40 (tr. Richard Crawley)

Quotes about Athenagoras

• Athenagoras [was] the leader of the people [Syracusans] and very powerful at that time with the masses.
  • Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 6, 35, 2 (tr. Richard Crawley)
• It may be observed that when Thucydides reports the speech of the Syracusan demagogue Athenagoras, he marks his manner by a certain violence of expression.
  E.g. vi. 40, ἀλλ' ἔτι καὶ νῦν, ὦ πάντων ἀξυνετώτατοι, εἰ μὴ μανθάνετε κακὰ σπεύδοντες, ἢ ἀμαθέστατοί ἐστε ὧν ἐγὼ οἶδα Ἑλλήνων, ἢ ἀδικώτατοι, εἰ εἰδότες τολμᾶτε.
  In a Mémoire sur Thucydide, by M. Meierotto (in the Memoirs of the Berlin Academy for 1790–91, p. 530), the writer observes, with reference to the discrimination of character in the speeches: "Cléon et Athénagore parlent ordinairement d'un ton dur, offensant et grossier, dont pourtant ils s'écartent quelquefois." We have only one speech of Cleon and one of Athenagoras; so far as these go, however, the striking thing, it seems to me, is not the resemblance, but the contrast.
  • R. C. Jebb, "The Speeches of Thucydides", Essays and Addresses (Cambridge, 1907), p. 389

• As if to leave no doubt about the iron of Athenagoras’ fraudulent democratic rhetoric, Thucydides reports that following the debate the Syracusan assembly was prevented from making any decision at all.
• In the case of Athenagoras we are shown a politician who virtually succeeds in turning a deliberation assembly into a mob.
• Athenagoras dismisses the invasion issue and seeks to inflame passions by gratuitously raising the spectre of an oligarchic revolt.
  • Harvey Yunis, "How do the People Decide? Thucydides on Periclean Rhetoric and Civic Instruction", American Journal of Philology, vol. 112, no. 2 (Summer 1991), pp. 193, 194