“This night it was concluded by Nicias and Demosthenes, seeing the miserable estate of their army, and the want already of all necessaries, and that many of their men in many assaults of the enemy were wounded, to leave as many fires lighted as they could, and lead away the army,—not the road they purposed before, but toward the sea, which was the contrary way to that which the Syracusans guarded. Now this whole journey of the army lay not towards Catana, but towards the other side of Sicily, Camarina and Gela, and the cities, as well Grecian as Barbarian, that way. When they had made many fires accordingly, they marched in the night, and (as usually it falleth out in all armies, and most of all in the greatest, to be subject to affright and terror, especially marching by night, and in hostile ground, and the enemy near) were in confusion. The army of Nicias leading the way, kept together and got far before; but that of Demosthenes, which was the greater half, was both severed from the rest, and marched more disorderly. Nevertheless, by the morning betimes they got to the sea side, and entering into the Helorine way, they went on towards the river Cacyparis, to the end when they came thither to march upwards along the river side, through the heart of the country. For they hoped that this way the Siculi, to whom they had sent, would meet them. When they came to the river, here also they found a certain guard of the Syracusans stopping their passage with a wall and with piles. When they had quickly forced this guard they passed the river, and again marched on to another river called Erineus, for that was the way which the guides directed them.[151]
“In the mean time the Syracusans and their confederates, as soon as day appeared, and that they knew the Athenians were gone, most of them accusing Gylippus, as if he had let them go with his consent, followed them with speed the same way, which they easily understood they were gone, and about dinner–time overtook them. When they were come up to those with Demosthenes, who were the hindmost, and had marched more slowly and disorderly than the other part had done, as having been put into disorder in the night, they fell upon them and fought. And the Syracusan horsemen hemmed them in, and forced them up into a narrow compass, the more easily now, because they were divided from the rest. Now the army of Nicias was gone by this time one hundred[152] and fifty furlongs further on. For he led away the faster, because he thought not that their safety consisted in staying and fighting voluntarily, but rather in a speedy retreat, and then only fighting when they could not choose. But Demosthenes was both in greater and in more continual toil, in respect that he marched in the rear, and consequently was pressed by the enemy. And seeing the Syracusans pursuing him, he went not on, but put his men in order to fight, till by his stay he was encompassed and reduced, he and the Athenians with him, into great disorder. For being shut up within a place enclosed round with a wall, through which there was a road from side to side, and in it a considerable number of olive–trees, they were charged from all sides at once with the enemies’ shot. For the Syracusans assaulted them in this kind, and not in close battle, upon very good reason. For to hazard battle against men desperate was not so much for theirs, as for the Athenians’ advantage. And besides, their success being now manifest, they spared themselves that they should not waste men, and thought by this kind of fight, to subdue and take them alive.
“Whereupon after they had plied the Athenians and their confederates all day long from every side with shot, and saw that with their wounds and other annoyance, they were already tired, Gylippus and the Syracusans and their confederates first made proclamation that if any of the islanders would come over to them, they should be at liberty; and the men of some few cities went over. And by and by they made agreement with all the rest that were with Demosthenes, ‘that they should deliver up their arms, and none of them be put to death, neither violently nor by bonds, nor by want of the necessaries of life.’ And they all yielded, to the number of 6000 men, and the silver they had they laid it all down, casting it into the hollow of targets, and filled with the same four targets. And these men they carried presently into the city.
“Nicias and those that were with him attained the same day to the river Erineus, which passing, he caused his army to sit down upon a certain ground, more elevated than the rest; where the Syracusans the next day overtook and told him, that those with Demosthenes had yielded themselves, and willed him to do the like. But he, not believing it, took truce for a horseman to inquire the truth. Upon return of the horseman, and word that they had yielded, he sent a herald to Gylippus and the Syracusans, saying that he was content to compound on the part of the Athenians, to repay whatsoever money the Syracusans had laid out, so that his army might be suffered to depart; and that till payment of the money were made, he would deliver them hostages, Athenians, every hostage rated at a talent. But Gylippus and the Syracusans refusing the condition, charged them, and having hemmed them in, plied them with shot, as they had done the other army, from every side, till evening. This part also of the army, was pinched with the want both of victual and other necessaries. Nevertheless, waiting for the quiet of the night, they were about to march; but no sooner took they their arms up, than the Syracusans perceiving it gave the alarm. Whereupon the Athenians finding themselves discovered, sat down again, all but 300, who, breaking by force through the guards, marched as far as they could that night.
“And Nicias when it was day led his army forward, the Syracusans and their confederates still pressing them in the same manner, shooting and darting at them from every side. The Athenians hasted to get the river Asinarus, not only because they were urged on every side by the assault of the many horsemen, and other multitude, and thought to be more at ease when they were over the river, but out of weariness also and desire to drink. When they were come unto the river, they rushed in without any order, every man striving who should first get over. But the pressing of the enemy made the passage now more difficult; for being forced to take the river in heaps, they fell upon and trampled one another under their feet: and falling amongst the spears and utensils of the army, some perished presently, and others, catching hold of one another, were carried away together down the stream. And not only the Syracusans standing along the farther bank, being a steep one, killed the Athenians with their shot from above, as they were many of them greedily drinking, and troubling one another in the hollow of the river, but the Peloponnesians came also down and slew them with their swords, and those especially that were in the river.[153] And very soon the water was corrupted; nevertheless they drunk it, foul as it was with blood and mire, and many also fought for it.
“In the end, when many dead lay heaped in the river, and the army was utterly defeated, part at the river, and part (if any got away) by the horsemen, Nicias yielded himself unto Gylippus (having more confidence in him than in the Syracusans), ‘to be for his own person at the discretion of him and the Lacedæmonians, and no further slaughter to be made of the soldiers.’ Gylippus from thenceforth commanded to take prisoners. So the residue, except such as they secreted[154] (which were many), they carried alive into the city. They sent also to pursue the 300, which had broken out from the camp in the night, and took them. That which was left together of this army to the public was not much; but they that were conveyed away by stealth were very many: and all Sicily was filled with them, because they were not taken as those with Demosthenes were, upon terms of capitulation. Besides, a great part of these were slain; for the slaughter at this time was exceeding great, none greater in all the Sicilian war. They were also not a few that died in those other assaults in their march. Nevertheless many also escaped, some then presently, and some by running away after servitude, the rendezvous of whom was Catana.[155]
“The Syracusans and their confederates being come together, returned with their prisoners, all they could get, and with the spoil, into the city. As for all the other prisoners of the Athenians and their confederates, they put themselves into the quarries, as the safest custody. But Nicias and Demosthenes they killed against Gylippus’s will. For Gylippus thought the victory would be very honourable, if, over and above all his other success, he could carry home both the generals of the enemy of Lacedæmon. And it fell out that the one of them, Demosthenes, was their greatest enemy, for the things he had done in the island,[156] and at Pylus; and the other, upon the same occasion, their greatest friend. For Nicias had earnestly laboured to have those prisoners which were taken in the island to be set at liberty, by persuading the Athenians to the peace. For which cause the Lacedæmonians were inclined to love him; and it was principally in confidence of that that he surrendered himself to Gylippus. But certain Syracusans (as it is reported), some of them for fear (because they had been tampering with him), lest being examined upon this matter, he should disclose something to disturb their present enjoyment; and others (especially the Corinthians) fearing he might get away by corruption of one or other (being wealthy), and work them some mischief afresh, having persuaded their confederates to the same, killed him. For these, or for causes near unto these, was he put to death; being the man that, of all the Grecians of my time, had least deserved to be brought to so great a degree of misery, on account of his regular observance and respect towards the gods.
“As for those in the quarries, the Syracusans handled them at first but ungently; for in this hollow place, first the sun and suffocating air (being without roof), annoyed them one way; and on the other side, the nights coming upon that heat, autumnal and cold, put them (by reason of the alteration) into strange diseases. Especially because for want of room they did all things in one and the same place, and the carcases of such as died of their wounds, or vicissitudes of weather, or the like, lay there in heaps. Also the smell was intolerable, besides that they were afflicted with hunger and thirst. For for eight months together they allowed them no more but to every man a cotyle[157] of water by the day, and two cotyles of corn: and whatsoever misery is probable that men in such a place may suffer, they suffered. Some seventy days they lived thus thronged. Afterwards retaining the Athenians, and such Sicilians and Italians as were of the army with them, they sold the rest. How many were taken in all, it is hard to say exactly; but they were seven thousand[158] at the fewest. And this, in my opinion, was the greatest action that happened in all this war, or at all, that we have heard of among the Grecians, being to the victors most glorious, and most calamitous to the vanquished. For being wholly overcome in every kind, and receiving small loss in nothing, their army and fleet, and all that ever they had, perished (as they used to say) with an universal destruction. Few of many returned home. And thus passed the business concerning Sicily.”
A pleasing anecdote, related by Plutarch, relieves in part the fate of these unhappy men. Many Athenians, who fell into the hands of private masters, found the means of procuring kinder treatment by recitations of the masterpieces of literature, with which the minds even of the poorest Athenians were usually stored; especially the tragedies of Euripides, the favourite dramatic poet of the Sicilian Greeks. Many are said to have visited him on their return to Attica, to own themselves indebted to him for liberty, granted as a recompense for communicating what they recollected of his works. This is strong testimony to the scarcity of manuscripts, and the consequent value of knowledge to its possessor. The same cause enabled these captive Athenians to purchase freedom, and the philosophers and sophists to reap such golden harvests from their lectures; literature was entirely dependent upon oral communication.