History of the Peloponnesian War

The Athenians, however, did not go to the temple, but collecting their own dead and placing them on a pyre they passed the night where they were. But on the next day they gave back under truce the Syracusan dead, of whom and of their allies about two hundred and sixty were slain; then gathering up the bones of their own dead—of themselves and their allies about fifty—and taking with them the spoils of the enemy, they sailed back to Catana.

For it was winter, and it seemed as yet impossible to carry on the war from this base until they should send to Athens for horsemen, besides collecting them from their allies in Sicily, that they might not be altogether at the mercy of the enemy's cavalry. And they wanted at the same time to collect money from the island itself, and to have a supply come from Athens; also to bring over some of the cities, which they hoped would be more ready to listen to them since the battle; and to prepare other things, both food and whatever was needed, with a view to attacking Syracuse the next spring.

With this purpose they sailed away to Naxos and Catana to spend the winter. The Syracusans, on the other hand, after burying their own dead, called an assembly.

And there came before them Hermocrates son of Hermon,[*](cf. 4.58.; 6.33.) a man who was in general second to none in point of intelligence, and had shown himself in this war both competent by reason of experience and conspicuous for courage. He encouraged them and protested against their giving way because of what had happened: