History of the Peloponnesian War

After saying this these men departed, and those who had heard reported it to the Athenian generals.

So the Athenians, in view of the announcement, in which they saw no trickery, stayed on for that night. And since, even as things were,[*](ie., though an immediate departure seemed forced on them by the circumstances.) they had not set out immediately, it seemed to them best to wait during the following day also, in order that the soldiers might pack up what was most useful, as well as they could in the circumstances, and then be off, leaving everything else behind and taking along only such of the supplies on hand as would serve for the sustenance of the body.

But the Syracusans and Gylippus went out ahead of them with their infantry and blocked up the roads in the country by which it was likely that the Athenians would travel, set guards at the fords across the streams and rivers, and posted themselves, at such points as seemed favourable, for the reception of the Athenian army, with the intention of opposing its progress. They also sailed up with their ships and began to haul down the Athenian ships from the beach and tow them away; the Athenians themselves had already, it is true, burned some few of their ships, as had been their purpose with the whole fleet,[*](cf. 7.60.2.) but all the rest the Syracusans, at their leisure and without opposition, taking them one at a time according as they happened to have run aground, lashed to their own ships and brought to the city.

After this, when it seemed to Nicias and Demosthenes that adequate preparations had been made, the departure of the army at last took place —on the third day following the sea-fight.

And it was terrible, not in one aspect only of their fortunes, in that they were going away after losing all their ships, and, in place of high hopes, with danger threatening both themselves and their State, but also in that, on the abandonment of their camp, it fell to the lot of each man to see things that were painful both to sight and mind.

The corpses were still unburied, and whenever a man saw one of his own friends lying dead, he was plunged into grief commingled with fear; and the living who were being left behind, wounded or sick, far more than the dead seemed piteous to the living, and were more wretched than those that had perished.

For turning to entreaty and lamentation, they drove the men to distraction; begging to be taken along and calling aloud upon each one if they saw anywhere a comrade or a kinsman, clinging to their tent-mates now going away and following after them as long as they were able, and then, when the bodily strength of one or another failed, falling behind, though not without faint[*](“Faint” is Classen's interpretation of ὸλίγων, as used of the weak, scarcely audible voice of the dying, in their last complaints and appeals to the gods. Cf. Od. xiv. 492, φθεγξάμενος ὀλίγῃ ὸπί, speaking with faint voice. On the other hand, μέγας is often used of a loud shout. But most editors object to ὀλίγων. Arnold thinks that the negative must be repeated, as if we had οὐκ ἄνευ οὐκ ὀλίγων and Valla translates, non sine multis obtestationibus ac ploratibus. Various conjectures have been offered as substitutes, e.g. λυγρῶν (Heilmann), συχνῶν (Poppo), οἰκτρῶν (van Herwerden), ἀλόγων (Madvig). Stahl deletes ὀλίγων as arising from a gloss, ὀλολυγῶν) appeals to the gods and lamentations; so that the whole army, being filled with grief and in such perplexity, found it hard to depart, even out of a country that was hostile, and though they had endured already sufferings too great for tears and feared for the future what they might still have to suffer.