Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/331

Rh incurable disease,—life at Athens had neither charm nor honor left. Hence, as much as from any other reason, he was induced to withhold the order for departure ; clinging to the hope that some unforeseen boon of fortune might yet turn up, and yielding to the idlest delusions from correspondents in the interior of Syracuse.

Nearly a month after the night-battle on Epipolaæ, Gylippus and Sikanus both returned to Syracuse. The latter had been unsuccessful at Agrigentum, where the philo-Syracusan party had been sent into banishment before his arrival; but Gylippus brought with him a considerable force of Sicilian Greeks, together with those Peloponnesian hoplites who had started from Cape Tænarus in the early spring, and who had made their way from Kyrênê first along the coast of Africa, and then across to Selinus. Such increase of strength immediately determined the Syracusans to resume the aggressive both by land and by sea. In the Athenians, as they saw the new allies marching in over Epipolæ, it produced a deeper despondency, combined with bitter regret that they had not adopted the proposition of departing immediately after the battle of Epipolæ, when Demosthenês first proposed it, The late interval of lingering hopeless inaction with continued sickness, had farther weakened their strength, and Demosthenês now again pressed the resolution for immediate departure. Whatever fancies Nikias may have indulged about Syracusan embarrassments, were dissipated by the arrival of Gylippus; nor did he venture to persist in his former peremptory opposition, though even now he seems to have assented against his own conviction. He however insisted, with good reason, that no formal or public vote should be taken on the occasion, but that the order