iately upon their arrival the Syracusans
prepared to attack the Athenians again by land and sea at once. The
Athenian generals seeing a fresh army come to the aid of the enemy, and
that their own circumstances, far from improving, were becoming daily
worse, and above all distressed by the sickness of the soldiers, now
began to repent of not having removed before; and Nicias no longer
offering the same opposition, except by urging that there should be
no open voting, they gave orders as secretly as possible for all to be
prepared to sail out from the camp at a given signal. All was at last
ready, and they were on the point of sailing away, when an eclipse of
the moon, which was then at the full, took place. Most of the Athenians,
deeply impressed by this occurrence, now urged the generals to wait; and
Nicias, who was somewhat over-addicted to divination and practices
of that kind, refused from that moment even to take the question of
departure into consideration, until they had waited the thrice nine days
prescribed by the soothsayers.

The besiegers were thus condemned to stay in the country; and the
Syracusans, getting wind of what had happened, became more eager than
ever to press the Athenians, who had now themselves acknowledged
that they were no longer their superiors either by sea or by land, as
otherwise they would never have planned to sail away. Besides which
the Syracusans did not wish them to settle in any other part of Sicily,
where they would be more difficult to deal with, but desired to force
them to fight at sea as quickly as possible, in a position favourable
to themselves. Accordingly they manned their ships and practised for
as many days as they thought sufficient. When the moment arrived they
assaulted on the first day the Athenian lines, and upon a small force of
heavy infantry and horse sallying out against them by certain gates, cut
off some of the former and routed and pursued them to the lines, where,
as the entrance was narrow, the Athenians lost seventy horses and some
few of the heavy infantry.

Drawing off their troops for this day, on the next the Syracusans went
out with a fleet of seventy-six sail, and at the same time advanced with
their land forces against the lines. The Athenians put out to meet
them with eighty-six ships, came to close quarters, and engaged. The
Syracusans and their allies first defeated the Athenian centre, and then
caught Eurymedon, the commander of the right wing,