yet bring himself to submit to the same terms for his division as Demosthenês. Accordingly the Syracusans recommenced their attacks, which the Athenians, in spite of hunger and fatigue, sustained as they best could until night. It was the intention of Nikias again to take advantage of the night for the purpose of getting away. But on this occasion the Syracusans were on the watch, and as soon as they heard movement in the camp, they raised the pæan or war-shout; thus showing that they were on the look-out, and inducing the Athenians again to lay down the arms which they had taken up for departure. A detachment of 300 Athenians, nevertheless, still persisting in marching off, apart from the rest, forced their way through the posts of the Syracusans. These men got safely away, and nothing but the want of guides prevented them from escaping altogether'. 2 Nikias gets Asinarus to the river intolerable thirst and suffering of the soldiers his division become prisoners. During all this painful retreat, the personal resolution displayed by Nikias was exemplary. His sick and feeble frame was made to bear up, and even to hearten up stronger men, against the extremity of hardship, exhausting the last fragment he and of hope or even possibility. It was now the sixth day of the retreat-six days of constant privation, suffering, and endurance of attack-yet Nikias early in the morning attempted a fresh march, in order to get to the river Asinarus, which falls into the same sea, south of the Erineus, but is a more considerable stream, flowing deeply imbedded between lofty banks. This was a last effort of de 1 Thucyd. vii. 83. * Plutarch (Nikias, c. 27) says eight days, inaccurately. spair, with little hope of final escape, even if they did reach it. Yet the march was accomplished, in spite of renewed and incessant attacks all the way, from the Syracusan cavalry; who even got to the river before the Athenians, occupying the ford, and lining the high banks near it. Here the resolution of the unhappy fugitives at length gave way: when they reached the river, their strength, their patience, their spirit, and their hopes for the future, were all extinct. Tormented with raging thirst, and compelled by the attacks of the cavalry to march in one compact mass, they rushed into the ford all at once, treading down and tumbling over each other in the universal avidity for drink. Many thus perished from being pushed down upon the points of the spears; or lost their footing among the scattered articles of baggage, and were thus borne down under water'. Meanwhile the Syracusans from above poured upon the huddled mass showers of missiles, while the Peloponnesian hoplites even descended into the river, came to close quarters with them, and slew considerable numbers. So violent nevertheless was the thirst of the Athenians, that all other suffering was endured in order to taste relief by drinking. And even when dead and wounded were heaped in the river-when the water was tainted and turbid with blood, as well as thick with the mud trodden up-still the newcomers pushed their way in and swallowed it with voracity 2. 1 Thucyd. vii. 85; see Dr, Arnold's note. ...... 2 Thucyd. vii. 84. ..ἔβαλλον ἄνωθεν τοὺς ̓Αθηναίους, πίνοντάς τε τοὺς πολλοὺς ἀσμένους, καὶ ἐν κοίλῳ ὄντι τῷ ποτάμῳ ἐν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ταρασσομένους. ance. Wretched, helpless, and demoralised as the army now was, Nikias could think no farther of resistHe accordingly surrendered himself to Gylippus, to be dealt with at the discretion of that general and of the Lacedæmonians'; earnestly imploring that the slaughter of the defenceless soldiers might be arrested. Accordingly Gylippus gave orders that no more should be killed, but that the rest should be secured as captives. Many were slain before this order was understood; but of those who remained, almost all were made captive, very few escaping. Nay, even the detachment of 300, who had broken out in the night, having seemingly not known whither to go, were captured and brought in by troops sent forth for the purpose 2. The triumph of the Syracusans was in every way complete they hung the trees on the banks of the Asinarus with Athenian panoplies as trophy, and carried back their prisoners in joyous procession to the city. The number of prisoners thus made is not positively specified by Thucydidês, as in the case of the division of Demosthenês, which had capitulated and laid down their arms in a mass within the walls of the olive-ground. Of the captives from the division of Nikias, the larger proportion were seized by private individuals, and fraudulently secreted for their own profit; the number obtained for the state being comparatively small, seemingly not more than 10003. The various Sicilian towns became soon Thucyd. vii. 85, 86; Philistus, Fragm. 46, ed. Didot; Pausanias, i. 29, 9. 'Thucyd. vii. 85; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 27. 3 Thucydidês states, roughly and without pretending to exact means full of these prisoners, sold as slaves for private account. Not less than 40,000 persons in the aggregate had started from the Athenian camp to commence the retreat, six days before. Of these probably many, either wounded or otherwise incompetent even when the march began, soon found themselves unable to keep up, and were left behind to perish. Each of the six days was a day of hard fighting and annoyance from an indefatigable crowd of light troops, with little, and at last seemingly nothing, to eat. The number was thus successively thinned, by wounds, privations, and straggling; so that the 6000 taken with Demosthenês, and perhaps 3000 or 4000 captured with Nikias, formed the melancholy remnant. Of the stragglers during the march, however, we are glad to learn that many contrived to escape the Syracusan cavalry and get to Katana-where also those who afterwards ran away from their slavery under private masters, found a refuge'. These fugitive Athenians served as auxiliaries to repel the attacks of the Syracusans upon Katana2. It was in this manner, chiefly, that Athens came to receive again within her bosom a few of those of knowledge, that the total number of captives brought to Syracuse under public supervision, was not less than 7000—èλýplnoɑv dè oi ξύμπαντες, ἀκριβείᾳ μὲν χαλεπὸν ἐξειπεῖν, ὅμως δὲ οὐκ ἐλάσσους ἑπτακισxıλíwv (vii. 87). As the number taken with Demosthenês was 6000 (vii. 82), this leaves 1000 as having been obtained from the division of Nikias. 1 Thucyd. vii. 85. πολλοὶ δὲ ὅμως καὶ διέφυγον, οἱ μὲν καὶ παραύτικα, οἱ δὲ καὶ δουλεύσαντες καὶ διαδιδράσκοντες ὕστερον. The word παραύτικα means, during the retreat. Lysias pro Polystrato, Orat. xx. sect. 26-28. c. 6. p. 686 R. ment and of the Athe soners at ill-fated sons whom she had drafted forth in two Hard treatsuch splendid divisions to Sicily. For of those who sufferings were carried as prisoners to Syracuse, fewer yet nian pricould ever have got home. They were placed, for Syracuse. safe custody, along with the other prisoners, in the stone-quarries of Syracuse-of which there were several, partly on the southern descent of the outer city towards the Nekropolis, or from the higher level to the lower level of Achradina-partly in the suburb afterwards called Neapolis, under the southern cliff of Epipolæ. Into these quarries-deep hollows, of confined space, with precipitous sides, and open at the top to the sky-the miserable prisoners were plunged, lying huddled one upon another, without the smallest protection or convenience. For subsistence they received each day a ration of one pint of wheaten bread (half the daily ration of a slave) with no more than half a pint of water, so that they were not preserved from the pangs either of hunger or of thirst. Moreover the heat of the midday sun, alternating with the chill of the autumn nights, was alike afflicting and destructive; while the wants of life having all to be performed where they were, without relief-the filth and stench presently became insupportable. Sick and wounded even at the moment of arrival, many of them speedily died; and happiest was he who died the first, leaving an unconscious corpse, which the Syracusans would not take the trouble to remove, to distress and infect the survivors. Under this condition and treatment they remained for seventy days; probably serving as a spectacle for the triumphant Syracusan population, with their wives and children, |