History of the Peloponnesian War

This event proved to be the greatest of all that had happened in the course of this war, and, as it seems to me, of all Hellenic events of which we have record —for the victors most splendid, for the vanquished most disastrous.

For the vanquished, beaten utterly at every point and having suffered no slight ill in any respect—having met, as the saying goes, with utter destruction—land-force and fleet and everything perished, and few out of many came back home.[*](According to Plutarch (Nicias, 29), many of the Athenians obtained their freedom, others who had already escaped got food and shelter by repeating verses from Euripides, who was more popular with the Sicilians than any other foreign author. The thanks of these survivors, many of whom on their return expressed their gratitude to him, were doubtless the sweetest praise the poet ever heard.) Such was the course of events in Sicily.