gallies in this engagement, and a great number of Darins soldiers were either killed or taken prisoners.

This loss threw Nicias into the utmost consternation. All the misfortunes he had met with, ever since the time he had first enjoyed the supreme command, came into his mind; and he now is involved in a greater than any of them, by his complying with the advice of his colleagues. Whilst he was revolving these gloomy ideas, Demosthenes's fleet was seen coming forward in great pomp, and with such an air as should fill the enemy with dread: It was now the day after the battle. This fleet consisted of seventy-three gallies, on board of which were five thousand fighting men, and about three thousand archers, slingers, and bowmen. All these gallies were richly trimmed; their prows being adorned with shining streamers, manned with stout rowers, commanded by good officers, and echoing with the sound of clarions and trumpets; Demosthenes having affected an air of pomp and triumph, purposely to strike terror into the enemy.

This gallant sight alarmed them indeed beyond expression. They did not see any end, or even the least suspension of their calamities: All they had hitherto done or suffered was as nothing, and their work was to begin again. What hopes could they entertain of being able to weary out the patience of the Athenians, since, though they had a camp intrenched in the middle of Attica, they were however able to send a second army into Sicily, as considerable as the former; and that their power, as well as their courage, seemed, notwithstanding all their losses, instead of diminishing to increase daily?

Demosthenes having made an exact enquiry into the state of things, imagined that it would not be proper for him to lose time as Nicias had done, who, having spread an universal terror at his first arrival,

4 Thucyd. 1. vii. p. 513-518. p. 141, 142.

Plut. in Nic. p. 537. Diod.

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Darius became afterwards the object of contempt, for his having wintered in Catana, instead of going directly to Syracuse; and had afterwards given Gylippus an opportunity of throwing troops into it. He flattered himself with the hopes, that he should be able to carry the city at the first attack, by taking advantage of the alarm which the news of his arrival would spread in every part of it, and by that means should immediately put an end to the war: Otherwise he intended to raise the siege, and no longer harass and lessen the troops by fighting battles never decisive; nor quite exhaust the city of Athens, by employing its treasures in needless expences.

Nicias, terrified by this bold and precipitate resolution of Demosthenes, conjured him not to be so hasty, but to take time to weigh things deliberately, that he might have no cause to repent of what he should do. He observed to him, that the enemy would be ruined by delays; that their provisions as well as money were entirely exhausted; that their allies were going to abandon them; that they must soon be reduced to such extremity, for want of provisions, as would force them to surrender, as they had before resolved: For there were certain persons in Syracuse who held a secret correspondence with Nicias, and exhorted him not to be impatient, because the Syracusans were tired with the war and with Gylippus; and that should the necessity to which they were reduced be ever so little increased, they would surrender at discretion.

As Nicias did not explain himself clearly, and would not declare in express terms, that sure and certain advices were sent him of whatever was transacted in the city, his remonstrances were considered as an effect of the timidity and slowness with which he had always been reproached. "Such," said they, "are his usual protraction, delays, distrusts, and "fearful precaution, whereby he has deadened all "the vivacity, and extinguished all the ardour of "the troops, in not marching them immediately

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against the enemy; but, on the contrary, by de- Darius ferring to attack them, till his own forces were "weakened and despised." This made the rest of the generals and all the officers come over to Demosthenes's opinion, and Nicias himself was at last forced to acquiesce with it.

Demosthenes, after having attacked to no purpose the wall which cut the contravallation of the besiegers, confined himself to the attack of Epipolæ, from a supposition that should he once be master of it, the wall would be quite undefended. He therefore took provisions for five days, with workmen, impleinents, and every thing necessary for him to defend that post after he should possess himself of it. As there was no going up to it in the day-time undiscovered, he marched thither in the night with all his forces, followed by Eurymedon and Menander; Nicias staying behind to guard the camp. They went up by the way of Euryelus, as before, unperceived by the centinels; attack the first intrenchment, and storm it, after killing part of those who defended it. Demosthenes, not satisfied with this advantage, to prevent the ardour of his soldiers from cooling, and not delay the execution of his design, marches forward. During this interval, the forces of the city, sustained by Gylippus, march under arms out of the intrenchments. Being seized with astonishment, which the darkness of the night increased, they were immediately repulsed and put to flight. But as the Athenians advanced in disorder, to force whatever might resist their arms, lest the enemy might rally again, should time be allowed them to breathe and recover from their surprize, they are stopt on a sudden by the Boeotians, who make a vigorous stand, and marching against the Athenians with their pikes presented, they repulse them with great shouts, and make a dreadful slaughter. This spreads an universal terror through the rest of the army. Those who fled either force along such as were advancing to their assistance, or

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Darius else, mistaking them for enemies, turn their arms against them. They now were all mixed indiscri minately, it being impossible to discover objects in the horrors of a night, which was not so gloomy as entirely to make objects imperceptible, nor yet light enough to distinguish those which were seen. The Athenians sought for one another to no purpose; and from their often asking the word, by which only they were able to know one another, a strange confusion of sounds was heard, which occasioned no little disorder; not to mention that they, by this means, divulged the word to the enemy, and could not learn theirs; because by their being together and in a body, they had no occasion to repeat it. In the mean time, those who were pursued, threw themselves from the top of the rocks, and many were dashed to pieces by the fall; and as most of those who escaped, straggled from one another up and down the fields and woods, they were cut to pieces the next day by the enemy's horse, who pursued them. Two thousand Athenians were slain in this engagement, and a great number of arms were taken; those who fled having thrown them away, that they might be the better able to escape over the precipices.

SECT. XIV. The consternation with which the Athenians are seized. They again hazard a sea-fight, and are defeated. They resolve to retire by land. Being close pursued by the Syracusans, they surrender. Nicias and Demosthenes are sentenced to die, and executed. The effect which the news of the defeat of the army produces in Athens.

'THE Athenian generals, after sustaining so great a loss, were in a prodigious dilemma, and did not know how to act in the present discouragement and

Thucyd. 1. vii. p. 511-520, Plut. in Nic. p. 538-542. Diod. P. 142.

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despair of the troops, who died daily, either by the Darius diseases of the autumn, or by the bad air of the fens near which they were encamped. Demosthenes was of opinion that it would be proper for them to leave the country immediately, since they had been unsuccessful in so important an enterprize; especially as the season was not too far advanced for sailing; and that they had ships enough to force a passage, in case the enemy should dispute it with them. He declared, that it would be of much greater advantage to oblige the enemy to raise their blockade of Athens, than for them to continue that of Syracuse, by which they exhausted themselves to no purpose; that he was certain they would not be reinforced by a new army; and that they could not hope to overcome the enemy with the weak one under their command.

Nicias was sensible, that the arguments his colleague used were very just, and he himself was of his opinion: But at the same time he was afraid, lest so publick a confession of the weak condition to which they were reduced, and their resolution to leave Sicily, (the report of which would certainly reach the enemy) should compleat the ruin of their affairs; and perhaps make them unable to execute their resolution when they should attempt it. Besides, they had some little hopes left that the besieged, being themselves reduced to great extremity by their absolute want of provisions and money, would at last be inclined to surrender upon honourable terms. Thus, although he was in reality uncertain and wavering, he insinuated, that he did not care to quit Sicily, till the Athenians should have first sent orders for that purpose; and that otherwise they would be highly displeased: That as those who were to judge them had not been eye witnesses. of the state of things, they would be of a different opinion; and, at the instigation of some orator, certainly condemn them: That most of those men, who now exclaimed with the greatest vehemence against