Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/364

346 346 HISTORY OF GREECE. and the few Italian or Sicilian Greeks among them. All thosa so removed were sold for slaves j 1 while the dead bodies were probably at the same time taken away, and the prison rendered somewhat le,is loathsome. What became of the remaining prison ers, we are not told ; it may he presumed that those who could survive so great an extremity of suffei'ing might after a certain time be allowed to get back to Athens on ransom. Perhaps some of them may have obtained their release ; as was the case, we are told, with several of those who had been sold to private masters, by the elegance of their accomplishments and the dignity of their demeanor. The dramas of Euripides were so peculiarly popular throughout all Sicily, that those Athenian prisoners who knew by heart considerable portions of them, won the affections of their masters. Some even of the stragglers from the army are affirmed to have procured for themselves, by the same attrac- tion, shelter and hospitality during their flight. Euripides, we are informed, lived to receive the thanks of several among these unhappy sufferers, after their return to Athens. 2 I cannot refrain from mentioning this story, though I fear its trustworthi- ness as matter of fact is much inferior to its pathos and interest. Upon the treatment of Nikias and Demosthenes, not merely the Syracusans, but also the allies present, were consulted, and much difference of opinion was found. To keep th?m in con- finement simply, without putting them to death, was apparently the opinion advocated by Hermokrates. 3 But Gylippus, then in 1 Thucyd. vii, 87. Diodorus (xiii, 20-32) gives two long orations pur- porting to have been held in the Syracasan assembly, in discussing how the prisoners were to be dealt with. An old citizen, named Nikolaus, who has lost his two sons in the war, is made to advocate the side of humane treat- ment; while Gylippus is introduced as the orator recommending harshness and revenge. From whom Diodorus borrowed this, I do not know ; but his whole account of the matter appears to me untrustworthy. One may judge of his accuracy when one finds him stating that the prisoners received each two dicenikes of barley-meal, instead of two kotylce ; the chcenix being four times as much as the kotyle (Diodor. xiii, 19). Carthaginians treated the Grecian prisoners whom they took in Sicily, Sr Diodor. xiii, 111.
 * Plutarch, Nikias, c. 29 ; Diodor. xiii, 33. The reader will see how the
 * Plutarch, Nikias, c. 28 ; Diodor. xiii, 19.