hope of saving
themselves by land unless events took some extraordinary turn.

Thus, after a fierce battle and great destruction of ships and men on
both sides, the Syracusans and their allies gained the victory. They
gathered up the wrecks and bodies of the dead, and sailing back to the
city, erected a trophy. The Athenians, overwhelmed by their misery,
never so much as thought of recovering their wrecks or of asking leave
to collect their dead. Their intention was to retreat that very
night....

On the third day after the sea-fight, when Nicias and Demosthenes
thought that their preparations were complete, the army began to move.
They were in a dreadful condition; not only was there the great fact
that they had lost their whole fleet, and instead of their expected
triumph had brought the utmost peril upon Athens as well as upon
themselves, but also the sights which presented themselves as they
quitted the camp were painful to every eye and mind. The dead were
unburied, and when any one saw the body of a friend lying on the
ground he was smitten with sorrow and dread, while the sick or wounded
who still survived but had to be left were even a greater trial to the
living, and more to be pitied than those who were gone. Their prayers
and lamentations drove their companions to distraction; they would beg
that they might be taken with them, and call by name any friend or
relative whom they saw passing; they would hang upon their departing
comrades and follow as far as they could, and when their limbs and
strength failed them and they dropt behind, many were the imprecations
and cries which they uttered. So that the whole army was in tears, and
such was their despair that they could hardly make up their minds to
stir altho they were leaving an enemy's country, having suffered
calamities too great for tears already, and dreading miseries yet
greater in the unknown future.

There was also a general feeling of shame and self-reproach--indeed
they seemed, not like an army, but like a fugitive population of a
city captured after a siege, and of a great city too. For the whole
multitude who were marching together numbered not less than forty
thousand. Each of them took with him anything he could carry which was
likely to be of use. Even the heavy-armed and cavalry, contrary to
their practise when under arms, conveyed about their persons their own
food, some because they had no attendants, others because they could
not trust t