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Seeing this, the troops on the heights retired in haste, and the whole army of the Syracusans re-entered the city, thinking that with their present force they would no longer be able to hinder the wall reaching the sea. After this the Athenians set up a trophy and restored to the Syracusans their dead under truce, receiving in return Lamachus and those who had fallen with him.
"Never, in Grecian history," says THUCYDIDES, "had ruin so complete and sweeping, or victory so glorious and unexpected, been witnessed." Both Nicias and Demosthenes were captured and put to death, and the Syracusans also captured seven thousand prisoners and sold them as slaves.
This caused them also to withdraw their objections to remaining; but when another army came to assist the Syracusans, and the Athenians began to perish from malaria, even Nikias himself agreed that it was time to retreat, and issued orders to his men to hold themselves in readiness to embark.
Meanwhile the Athenians, having received warning that Camarina was about to be betrayed to the Syracusans by Archias and his party, sailed thither; and the Messinese took this opportunity to attack by sea and land with all their forces their Chalcidian neighbour, Naxos.
On came the Syracusans, bearing down all before them; but the Athenians, as they strove to escape, were flung back upon the enemy by fresh bodies of their own men, who were still thronging by thousands up the northern path of Euryelus.
The Syracusans also wished to try their fortune at sea, seeing that the Athenians had only a few ships actually at Rhegium, and hearing that the main fleet destined to join them was engaged in blockading the island.
Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans, who were most like the Athenians in character, and also most successful in combating them.
Indeed Hermocrates had always been at enmity with him about the pay not being restored in full; and eventually when he was banished from Syracuse, and new commanders Potamis, Myscon, and Demarchus had come out to Miletus to the ships of the Syracusans, Tissaphernes, pressed harder than ever upon him in his exile, and among other charges against him accused him of having once asked him for money, and then given himself out as his enemy because he failed to obtain it.
Meanwhile the Syracusans immediately began to sail freely along the harbour, and determined to close up its mouth, so that the Athenians might not be able to steal out in future, even if they wished.
For, as there had been no regular capitulation, large numbers of the prisoners were secretly conveyed away by the Syracusans, who afterwards sold them into slavery for their own profit. As for the three hundred who had broken out of camp on the previous night, they were presently brought in by a party of cavalry despatched in pursuit.
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