Men who knew war well at Athens mostly misjudged the type of forces necessary for victory on Sicily, a distant island whose wide plains and greenery were more like the landscape of Thessaly than that of Attica or the Peloponnese. Intelligence about the nature of Sicilian warfare, the reliability of allies, and the resources of the enemies was either flawed or nonexistent. In perfunctory fashion Nicias had warned the Athenians that they would require mounted troops, but as a traditional soldier he predictably still gave far more attention to the need for hoplites. Even Alcibiades, the
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