That “habitual quiescence” which Hermokratês here predicates of his countrymen, forms a remarkable contrast with the restless activity, and intermeddling carried even to excess, which Periklês and Nikias deprecate in the Athenians (Thucyd. i, 144; vi, 7). Both of the governments, however, were democratical. This serves as a lesson of caution respecting general predications about _all_ democracies; for it is certain that one democracy differed in many respects from another. It may be doubted, however, whether the attribute here ascribed by Hermokratês to his countrymen was really deserved, to the extent which his language implies. [272] Thucyd. vi, 33-36. Though these opinions of Hermokratês were espoused farther by various other citizens in the assembly, the greater number of speakers held an opposite language, and placed little faith in his warnings. We have already noticed Hermokratês nine years before as envoy of Syracuse and chief adviser at the congress of Gela,—then, as now, watchful to bar the door against Athenian interference in Sicily,—then, as now, belonging to the oligarchical party, and of sentiments hostile to the existing democratical constitution; but brave as well as intelligent in foreign affairs. A warm and even angry debate arose upon his present speech.[273] Though there was nothing, in the words of Hermokratês himself, disparaging either to the democracy or to the existing magistrates, yet it would seem that his partisans who spoke after him must have taken up a more criminative tone, and must have exaggerated that which he characterized as the “habitual quiescence” of the Syracusans, into contemptible remissness and disorganization under those administrators and generals, characterized as worthless, whom the democracy preferred. Amidst the speakers, who, in replying to Hermokratês and the others, indignantly repelled such insinuations and retorted upon their authors, a citizen named Athenagoras was the most distinguished. He was at this time the leading democratical politician, and the most popular orator, in Syracuse.[274] [273] Thucyd. vi, 32-35. τῶν δὲ Συρακοσίων ὁ δῆμος ἐν πολλῇ πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἔριδι ἦσαν, etc. [274] Thucyd. vi, 35. παρελθὼν δ’ αὐτοῖς Ἀθηναγόρας, ὃς δήμου τε προστάτης ἦν καὶ ἐν τῷ παρόντι πιθανώτατος τοῖς πολλοῖς, ἔλεγε τοιάδε, etc. The position ascribed here to Athenagoras seems to be the same as that which is assigned to Kleon at Athens—ἀνὴρ δημαγωγὸς κατ’ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον ὢν καὶ τῷ πλήθει πιθανώτατος, etc. (iv, 21).