Demosthenes then urged Nicias at least to leave the harbour and sail to a point where their supplies could not be stopped by the enemy. This too, Nicias refused to do.
But soon after his refusal, large reinforcements reached the Spartans, and the general’s obstinacy gave way. He ordered the fleet to prepare to leave the harbour.
The men were glad to desert their unhealthy quarters and got ready in haste, but secretly, that the Syracusans might not suspect their plans.
All was ready, when, on 27th August 413 B.C., the night before the fleet was to sail, an eclipse of the moon took place.
Nicias was filled with superstitious fears. What might the eclipse not portend? He sent to the soothsayers, who said that the fleet must on no account leave the harbour for twenty-seven days. To disobey the oracle would be fatal, so Nicias believed, and he at once forbade the fleet to sail until the twenty-seven days had passed.
CHAPTER LXXV
THE ATHENIAN ARMY IS DESTROYED
The Athenians made their preparations to retreat as secretly as possible, but the Syracusans soon discovered their plans. When they heard that their departure was delayed for twenty-seven days, they determined to attack the Athenian fleet once more, and again they were successful.
On land the Athenians repulsed Gylippus, but they gained little by this success, for the Syracusans had made up their mind that the whole Athenian army should be destroyed.
So, as Demosthenes had foreseen, they barricaded the entrance to the Great Harbour, drawing their ships across it and lashing them together with chains.