For the two or three months immediately succeeding the final resolution taken by the Athenians to invade Sicily, described in the last chapter, the whole city was elate and bustling with preparation. I have already mentioned that this resolution, though long opposed by Nikias with a considerable minority, had at last been adopted—chiefly through the unforeseen working of that which he intended as a counter-manœuvre—with a degree of enthusiasm and unanimity, and upon an enlarged scale, which surpassed all the anticipations of its promoters. The prophets, circulators of oracles, and other accredited religious advisers, announced generally the favorable dispositions of the gods, and promised a triumphant result.[236] All classes in the city, rich and poor,—cultivators, traders, and seamen, old and young, all embraced the project with ardor; as requiring a great effort, yet promising unparalleled results, both of public aggrandizement and individual gain. Each man was anxious to put down his own name for personal service; so that the three generals, Nikias, Alkibiadês, and Lamachus, when they proceeded to make their selection of hoplites, instead of being forced to employ constraint and incur ill-will, as happened when an expedition was unpopular, had only to choose the fittest among a throng of eager volunteers. Every man provided himself with his best arms and with bodily accoutrements, useful as well as ostentatious, for a long voyage and for the exigencies of a varied land-and-sea-service. Among the trierarchs, or rich citizens, who undertook each in his turn the duty of commanding a ship of war, the competition was yet stronger. Each of them accounted it an honor to be named, and vied with his comrades to exhibit his ship in the most finished state of equipment. The state, indeed, furnished both the trireme with its essential tackle and oars, and the regular pay for the crew; but the trierarch, even in ordinary cases, usually incurred various expenses besides, to make the equipment complete and to keep the crew together. Such additional outlay, neither exacted nor defined by law, but only by custom and general opinion, was different in every individual case, according to temper and circumstances. But on the present occasion, zeal and forwardness were universal: each trierarch tried to procure for his own ship the best crew, by offers of additional reward to all, but especially to the thranitæ or rowers on the highest of the three tiers:[237] and it seems that the seamen were not appointed specially to one ship, but were at liberty to accept these offers, and to serve in any ship they preferred. Each trierarch spent more than had ever been known before in pay, outfit, provision, and even external decoration of his vessel. Besides the best crews which Athens herself could furnish, picked seamen were also required from subject-allies, and were bid for in the same way by the trierarchs.[238] [236] Thucyd. viii, 1.