Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/366

348 348 HISTORY OF GREECE Such was tl.e close of the expedition, or rather of tho two ex- peditions, undertaken by Athens against Syracuse. Never in Grecian history had a force so large, so costly, so efficient, and so full of promise and confidence, been turned out ; never in Gre- cian history had ruin so complete and sweeping, or victory so glorious and unexpected, been witnessed. 1 Its consequences were felt from one end of the Grecian world to the other, as will appear in the coming chapters. . The esteem and admiration felt at Athens towards Nikias had been throughout lofty and unshaken ; after his death it was ex- changed for disgrace. His name was omitted, while that of his colleague Demosthenes was engraved, on the funereal pillar erected to commemorate the fallen warriors. This difference Pausanias explains by saying that Nikias was conceived to have disgraced himself as a military man by his voluntary surrender, which Demosthenes had disdained. 2 affirm that the day of the slaughter of the Asinarus was the 16th of the At- tic month Metageitnion. We know that the civil months of different cities seldom or never exactly coincided. See the remarks of Franz on this point, in his comment on the valuable Inscriptions of Tauromenium, Corp. Inscr. Gr. No. 5640, part xxxii, sect 3, p. 640. The surrender of Nikias must have taken place, I think, not less than twenty-four or twenty-five days after the eclipse, which occurred on the 27th of August, that is, about Sept. 21. Mr. Fynes Clinton (F. H. ad ann. 413 B.C.) seems to me to compress too much the interval between the eclipse and the retreat ; considering that that interval included two great battles, with a certain delay before, between, and after. The [iSToirupov noticed by Thucyd. vii, 79. suits with Sept. 21 : compare Plutarch, Nikias, c. 22. 1 Thucyd. vii, 87. Justin erroneously says that Demosthenes actually did kill himself, rather than submit to surrender, before the surrender of Nikias ; who, he says, did not choose to follow the example : " Demosthenes, amisso exercitu a captivitate gladio et voluntarii morte se vindicat : Nicias autem, ne Dcinosthenis quidem exemplo, ut sibi consu- leret, admouitus, cladem suorum auxit dedecore captivitatis." (Justin, iv, 5.) Philistus, whom Pausanias announces himself as following, is an excel- lent witness for the actual facts in Sicily ; though not so good a witness fol the impression at Athens respecting those facts. It seems certain, even from Thucydidfis, that Nikiaj, in surrendering him elf to Gylippus, thought that he had considerable chance of saving his life
 * Pausan. i, 29, 9 ; Philist. Fragm. 46, ed. Didot.