Page:The story of Greece told to boys and girls.djvu/301

 down the hill, and fell over the cliffs. Others were pushed back upon their comrades who were still climbing upwards, so that soon the whole army was in confusion.

This disaster crushed the spirit of the Athenians. Many of the soldiers, too, had fever caused by the marshy ground on which their camp was pitched. Many more were ill or wounded.

Eurymedon and Demosthenes advised Nicias to order the whole army to sail away before the entrance to the Great Harbour was entirely blockaded, but to this he would not consent. It seemed that he was afraid to return to Athens to tell that the expedition had failed.

Demosthenes then urged Nicias at least to leave the harbour and sail to a point where their supplies could not be stopped by the enemy. This too, Nicias refused to do.

But soon after his refusal, large reinforcements reached the Spartans, and the general's obstinacy gave way. He ordered the fleet to prepare to leave the harbour.

The men were glad to desert their unhealthy quarters and got ready in haste, but secretly, that the Syracusans might not suspect their plans.

All was ready, when, on 27th August 413, the night before the fleet was to sail, an eclipse of the moon took place.

Nicias was filled with superstitious fears. What might the eclipse not portend? He sent to the soothsayers, who said that the fleet must on no account leave the harbour for twenty-seven days. To disobey the oracle would be fatal, so Nicias believed, and he at once forbade the fleet to sail until the twenty-seven days had passed.