The sincerity of his avowal that he wished to use his present hosts as a means to recover his rights at home; the obvious wisdom of his counsel; the simple eloquence of his whole address, without ornament or flowers of rhetoric, won the confidence of the plain Lakonian people. Indeed, he knew his audience. His apology for the democratic part he had played at home was a masterpiece of pleading, showing how the party of popular freedom at Athens and the strict oligarchic government of Sparta had the same end in view—the hatred, the apprehension, of anything approaching to a despotism; while his plain, pathetic peroration, in which he stood forth as the true friend of Athens, softened towards him the hardest heart, and the most suspicious intellect of his Spartan audience. His words, as far as we can find trace of them, give little notion of the grave solicitude with which he mixed up his cause with that of his hearers, and brought vividly before them his earnest hopes, his heartfelt wrongs. His success is another proof—though no proof is wanting—of the injustice of the charge brought against him by his enemy Thukydides, that he had tricked and meanly cheated the Spartan envoys while they were guests of his at Athens. For he was trusted, and his honest declaration won its end. It vanquished fears and hesitations, and persuaded the Lakonians to join with the Korinthians in sending aid to Syrakuse. This aid came just in time. As long as Lamachos lived some little energy was shown by the Athenians, in spite of the sluggishness and cowardice of Nikias. When the large force under the two remaining generals at length came upon Syrakuse, the citizens could hardly hope to hold out long against it. But Lamachos was killed in an engagement, and from that time Nikias did little but beg for more money, more ships and men from home. Syrakuse, however, was reduced by force of the numbers of its besiegers to the last extremity. It was on the point of surrendering when Gongylos, the Korinthian commander, who had been despatched to Sicily on the advice of Alkibiades, was allowed, by the negligence of Nikias, to enter the port of Syrakuse. He persuaded the people to remain firm a little longer, for a Korinthian fleet was on its way, and Gylippos, a Spartan general, was even now landing in Sicily. By the like negligence of the unfortunate Athenian commander, Gylippos was allowed to land on the north coast of Sicily, march unmolested through the island, and at length enter Syrakuse, almost surrounded, as it was, by the besiegers’ works.