to come and look down upon, and to congratulate themselves on their own narrow escape from sufferings similar in kind at least, if not in degree. After that time, the novelty of the spectacle had worn off; while the place must have become a den of abomination and a nuisance intolerable even to the citizens themselves. Accordingly they now removed all the surviving prisoners, except the native Athenians and the few Italian or Sicilian Greeks among them. All those so removed were sold for slaves'. The dead bodies were probably at the same time taken away, and the prison rendered somewhat less loathsome. What became of the remaining prisoners, we are not told. It may be presumed that those who could survive so great an extremity of suffering might after a certain time be allowed to get back to Athens on ransom. Perhaps some of them may have obtained their release-as was the case (we are told) with several of those who had been sold to private masters-by the elegance of their accomplishments and the dignity of their demeanour. The dramas of Euripidês were so peculiarly popular throughout all Sicily, that those Athenian prisoners who knew by heart considerable portions of them,

1 Thucyd. vii. 87. Diodorus (xiii. 20-32) gives two long orations purporting to have been held in the Syracusan assembly, in discussing how the prisoners were to be dealt with. An old citizen, named Nikolaus, who has lost his two sons in the war, is made to advocate the side of humane treatment; while Gylippus is introduced as the orator recommending harshness and revenge.

From whom Diodorus borrowed this, I do not know; but his whole account of the matter appears to me untrustworthy.

One may judge of his accuracy when one finds him stating that the prisoners received each two chanikes of barley-meal-instead of two kotyle; the choenix being four times as much as the kotylê (Diodor. xiii. 19).

won the affections of their masters. Some even of the stragglers from the army are affirmed to have procured for themselves, by the same attraction, shelter and hospitality during their flight. Euripidês, we are informed, lived to receive the thanks of several among these unhappy sufferers, after their return to Athens'. I cannot refrain from mentioning this story, though I fear its trustworthiness as matter of fact is much inferior to its pathos and interest.

of Nikias

sthenês

among the

Upon the treatment of Nikias and Demosthenês, Treatment not merely the Syracusans, but also the allies and Demopresent, were consulted, and much difference of difference opinion was found. To keep them in confinement of opinion simply, without putting them to death, was ap- conquerors. parently the opinion advocated by Hermokratês2. But Gylippus, then in full ascendency and an object of deep gratitude for his invaluable services, solicited as a reward to himself to be allowed to conduct them back as prisoners to Sparta. To achieve this would have earned for him signal honour in the eyes of his countrymen; for while Demosthenês, from his success at Pylus, was their hated enemy-Nikias had always shown himself their friend, as far as an Athenian could do so. It was to him that they owed the release of their prisoners taken at Sphakteria; and he had calculated upon this obligation when he surrendered himself prisoner to Gylippus, and not to the Syracusans.

In spite of all his influence, however, Gylippus could not carry this point. First, the Corinthians

1 Plutarch, Nikias, c. 29; Diodor. xiii. 33. The reader will see how the Carthaginians treated the Grecian prisoners whom they took in Sicily-in Diodor. xiii. 111.

2 Plutarch, Nikias, c. 28; Diodor. xiii. 19.

Influence

of the Co.

efforts of Gylippusboth the generals are slain.

both strenuously opposed him themselves, and prerinthians vailed on the other allies to do the same. Afraid that the wealth of Nikias would always procure for him the means of escaping from imprisonment, so as to do them farther injury-they insisted on his being put to death. Next, those Syracusans, who had been in secret correspondence with Nikias during the siege, were yet more anxious to get him put out of the way; being apprehensive that, if tortured by their political opponents, he might disclose their names and intrigues. Such various influences prevailed, so that Nikias, as well as Demosthenês, was ordered to be put to death by a decree of the public assembly, much to the discontent of Gylippus. Hermokratês vainly opposed the resolution, but perceiving that it was certain to be carried, he sent to them a private intimation before the discussion closed; and procured for them, through one of the sentinels, the means of dying by their own hands. Their bodies were publicly exposed before the city gates to the view of the Syracusan citizens'; while the day on which the final capture of Nikias and his army was accomplished, came to be celebrated as an annual festival, under the title of the Asinaria, on the twenty-sixth day of the Dorian month Karneius2.

1 Thucyd. vii. 86; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 28. The statement which Plutarch here cites from Timæus respecting the intervention of Hermokratês, is not in any substantial contradiction with Philistus and Thucydidês. The word keλevo@évras seems decidedly preferable to KATAλEVOÔÉVTAs, in the text of Plutarch.

2 Plutarch, Nikias, c. 28. Though Plutarch says that the month Karneius is "that which the Athenians call Metageitnion," yet it is not safe to affirm that the day of the slaughter of the Asinarus was the 16th of the Attic month Metageitnion. We know that the civil months of

Such was the close of the expedition, or rather of the two expeditions, undertaken by Athens against Syracuse. Never in Grecian history had a force so large, so costly, so efficient, and so full of promise and confidence, been turned out; never in Grecian history had ruin so complete and sweeping, or victory so glorious and unexpected, been witnessed'. Its consequences were felt from one end of the Grecian world to the other, as will appear in the coming chapters.

of Nikias

un

after his

death, at

dis

Athens

continued

respect for

the memory

of Demo

The esteem and admiration felt at Athens to- Disgrace wards Nikias had been throughout lofty and shaken after his death it was exchanged for grace. His name was omitted, while that of his colleague Demosthenês was engraved, on the funereal pillar erected to commemorate the fallen warriors. This difference Pausanias explains by saying that Nikias was conceived to have disgraced himself as a military man by his voluntary surrender, which Demosthenês had disdained2.

different cities seldom or never exactly coincided. See the remarks of Franz on this point in his comment on the valuable Inscriptions of Tauromenium, Corp. Inser. Gr. No. 5640, part xxxii. sect. 3. p. 640.

The surrender of Nikias must have taken place, I think, not less than twenty-four or twenty-five days after the eclipse (which occurred on the 27th of August)—that is about Sept. 21. Mr. Fynes Clinton (F. H. ad ann. 413 B.C.) seems to me to compress too much the interval between the eclipse and the retreat; considering that that interval included two great battles, with a certain delay, before, between, and after. The μеróпрov noticed by Thucyd. vii. 79 suits with Sept. 21: compare Plutarch, Nikias, c. 22.

1

1 Thucyd. vii. 87.

2 Pausan. i. 29, 9; Philist. Fragm. 46, ed. Didot.

Justin erroneously says that Demosthenês actually did kill himself, rather than submit to surrender-before the surrender of Nikias; who (he says) did not choose to follow the example :

66

'Demosthenês, amisso exercitu, a captivitate gladio et voluntariâ morte se vindicat: Nicias autem, ne Demosthenis quidem exemplo, ut

sthenês.

Opinion of

Thucydidês

Nikias.

The opinion of Thucydidês deserves special about notice, in the face of this judgment of his countryWhile he says not a word about Demosthenês, beyond the fact of his being put to death, he adds in reference to Nikias a few words of marked

men.

sympathy and commendation. Such, or nearly such, (he says) were the reasons why Nikias was put to death; though he assuredly, among all Greeks of my time, least deserved to come to so extreme a pitch of ill-fortune, considering his exact performance of established duties to the divinity1."

sibi consuleret, admonitus, cladem suorum auxit dedecore captivitatis” (Justin, iv. 5).

Philistus, whom Pausanias announces himself as following, is an excellent witness for the actual facts in Sicily; though not so good a witness for the impression at Athens respecting those facts.

It seems certain, even from Thucydidês, that Nikias, in surrendering himself to Gylippus, thought that he had considerable chance of saving his life-Plutarch too so interprets the proceeding, and condemns it as disgraceful (see his comparison of Nikias and Crassus, near the end). Demosthenês could not have thought the same for himself: the fact of his attempted suicide appears to me certain, on the authority of Philistus, though Thucydidês does not notice it.

1 Thucyd. vii. 86. Καὶ ὁ μὲν ταιαύτῃ ἢ ὅτι ἐγγύτατα τούτων αἰτία ἐτεθνήκει, ἥκιστα δὴ ἄξιος ὢν τῶν γε ἐπ ̓ ἐμοῦ Ἑλλήνων ἐς τοῦτο δυστυ χίας ἀφικέσθαι, διὰ τὴν νενομισμένην ἐς τὸ θεῖον ἐπιτήδευσιν.

So stood the text of Thucydidês, until various recent editors e hangd the last words, on the authority of some MSS., to dià Thy mâσav ἐς ἀρετὴν νενομισμένην ἐπιτήδευσιν.

Though Dr. Arnold and some of the best critics prefer and adopt the latter reading, I confess it seems to me that the former is more suitable to the Greek vein of thought, as well as more conformable to truth about Nikias.

A man's good or bad fortune, depending on the favourable or unfavourable disposition of the gods towards him, was understood to be determined more directly by his piety and religious observances, rather than by his virtue (see passages in Isokratês de Permutation. Orat. xv. sect. 301; Lysias, cont. Nikomach. c. 5. p.854)—though undoubtedly the two ideas went to a certain extent together. Men might differ about the virtue of Nikias; but his piety was an incontestable fact; and his "good fortune" also (in times prior to the Sicilian expedition) was recognised