History of the Peloponnesian War

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:

their spirit, he told them, was not defeated; it was their lack of discipline that had done mischief. They had not, however, been so much inferior as might have been expected, especially as they had been pitted against troops who were the foremost among the Hellenes in experience, mere tiros so to speak against skilled craftsmen.