Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/368

 546 HISTORY OF GREECE. nian commanders, though refusing this request, sent themselves and invited Lacedaemonian heralds over from the mainland, through whom communications were exchanged twice or three times between Styphon and the chief Lacedaemonian authorities. At length the final message came : " The Lacedaemonians direct you to take counsel for yourselves, but to do nothing disgrace- ful." l Their counsel was speedily taken ; they surrendered themselves and delivered up their arms ; two hundred and ninety- two in number, the survivors of the original total of four hundred and twenty. And out of these, no less than one hundred and twenty were native Spartans, some of them belonging to the first families in the city. 3 They were kept under guard during that night, and distributed on the morrow among the Athenian trier- archs to be conveyed as prisoners to Athens ; while a truce was granted to the Lacedaemonians on shore, in order that they might carry across the dead bodies for burial. So careful had Epitadas been in husbanding the provisions, that some food was yet found in the island ; though the garrison had subsisted for fifty-two days upon casual supplies, aided by such economies as had been laid by during the twenty days of the armistice, when food of a stip- ulated quantity was regularly furnished. Seventy-two days had thus elapsed, from the first imprisonment in the island to the hour of their surrender. 3 The best troops in modern times would neither incur reproach, nor occasion surprise, by surrendering, under circumstances in all respects similar to this gallant remnant in Sphakteria. Yet in Greece the astonishment was prodigious and universal, when it was learned that the Lacedaemonians had consented to become prisoners :" 4 for the terror inspired by their name, and the deep- struck impression of Thermopylae, had created a belief that they would endure any extremity of famine, and perish in the midst of any superiority of hostile force, rather than dream of giving up their arms and surviving as captives. The events of Sphak- 1 Thucyd. iv. 38. CM hanedaif, jvioi Kehevovaiv vfiuc; avroiif Trepl v/j.u% aiiruv flovTt.EVEa'dai, firjdsv ala%pbv TroiovvTag. 4 -Thucyd. iv, 40. vapa -yvuiiijv re 61] iLukiara riJv /cara rbv TOVTO 'oif'EW.ijaiv eyevsro, etc.
 * Thucyd. iv, 38 ; v, 15. 3 Thucyd. iv, 39.