ent attacks which
were made upon the Athenians during the march. Still many escaped,
some at the time, others ran away after an interval of slavery, and
all these found refuge at Catana.

The Syracusans and their allies collected their forces and returned
with the spoil, and as many prisoners as they could take with them,
into the city. The captive Athenians and allies they deposited in the
quarries, which they thought would be the safest place of confinement.
Nicias and Demosthenes they put to the sword, altho against the will
of Gylippus. For Gylippus thought that to carry home with him to
Lacedaemon the generals of the enemy, over and above all his other
successes, would be a brilliant triumph. One of them, Demosthenes,
happened to be the greatest foe, and the other the greatest friend of
the Lacedaemonians, both in the same matter of Pylos and Sphacteria....

Those who were imprisoned in the quarries were at the beginning of
their captivity harshly treated by the Syracusans. There were great
numbers of them, and they were crowded in a deep and narrow place. At
first the sun by day was scorching and suffocating, for they had no
roof over their heads, while the autumn nights were cold, and the
extremes of temperature engendered violent disorders. Being cramped
for room, they had to do everything on the same spot. The corpses of
those who had died from their wounds, exposure to the weather, and the
like lay heaped one upon another. The smells were intolerable; and the
prisoners were at the same time afflicted by hunger and thirst. During
eight months they were allowed only about half a pint of water and a
pint of food a day.[44] Every kind of misery which could befall man in
such a place befell them. This was the condition of all the captives
for about ten weeks. At length the Syracusans sold them, with the
exception of the Athenians and of any Sicilian or Italian Greeks who
had sided with them in the war. The whole number of the public
prisoners is not accurately known, but they were not less than seven
thousand.

Of all the Hellenic actions which took place in this war, or indeed of
all Hellenic actions which are on record, this was the greatest--the
most glorious to the victors, the most ruinous to the vanquished; for
they were utterly and at all points defeated, and their sufferings
were prodigious. Fleet and army perished from the face of the earth;
nothing was saved, and of the many who went forth few returned