Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/349

331 RETEEAT OF THE ATHENIANS BY LAND. 331 march out against Katana was perfectly successful : the sin- cerity of the information was believed, and the advice adopted. Had Demosthenes been in command alone, we may doubt whether he would have been so easily duped ; for granting the accuracy of the fact asserted, it was not the less obvious that the difficulties, instead of being diminished, would be increased tenfold on the following day. We have seen, however, on more than one pre- vious occasion, how fatally Nikias was misled by his treacherous advices from the philo- Athenians at Syracuse. An excuse for inaction was always congenial to his character ; and the present recommendation, moreover, fell in but too happily with the tem- per of the army, now benumbed with depression and terror, like those unfortunate soldiers, in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks, who were yielding to the lethargy of extreme cold on the snows of Armenia, and whom Xenophon vainly tried to arouse. 1 Having remained over that night, the generals deter mined also to stay the next day, in order that the army might carry away with them as much of their baggage as possible, send- ing forward a messenger to the Sikels in the interior to request that they would meet the army, and bring with them a supply of provisions. 2 Gylippus and Hermokrates had thus ample time, on the following day, to send out forces and occupy all the posi- tions convenient for obstructing the Athenian march. They at the same time towed into Syracuse as prizes all the Athenian triremes which had been driven ashore in the recent battle, and which now lay like worthless hulks, unguarded and unheeded, 3 seemingly even those within the station itself. It was on the next day but one after the maritime defeat that Nikias and Demosthenes put their army in motion to attempt retreat. The camp had long been a scene of sickness and death from the prevalence of marsh fever ; but since the recent battle the number of wounded men, and the unburied bodies of the slain, had rendered it yet more pitiable. Forty thousand miserable men so prodigious was the total, including all ranks and functions now set forth to quit it, on a march of which few could hope to see the end ; like the pouring forth of the population of a 1 Xenophon. Anab. iv, 5, 15, 19 ; v, 8, 15. 2 Thucyd. vii, 77 " Thucyd. vii, 74