History of the Peloponnesian War

for some little time, however, they nevertheless did hold their own, but afterwards turned to flight and were pursued to shore. And such of them as took refuge in the city of Eretria, assuming that it was friendly, suffered a most cruel fate, being butchered by the inhabitants; but those who escaped to the fort in Eretrian territory which the Athenians themselves held were saved, as also all the ships that reached Chalcis.

The Peloponnesians, having captured twenty-two Athenian ships and having either slain or taken prisoner their crews, set up a trophy. And not long afterwards they succeeded in persuading all Euboea to revolt except Oreus, which the Athenians themselves held, and proceeded to set in order the general affairs of the island.

When the report of what had happened in Euboea reached Athens, there was greater consternation than ever before. For neither the disaster in Sicily, great though it seemed at the time, nor any other event had ever yet so frightened them.

At a time when their army at Samos was in revolt, when there were no more ships to be had nor men to man them, when they were in a state of sedition at home and there was no telling when a conflict might break out among themselves, when, to crown all, a disaster had now come upon them of this magnitude, in which they had lost both their fleet and, worst of all, Euboea, from which they derived more benefit than from Attica—had they not every reason to be despondent?

But what alarmed them most and touched them most nearly was the possibility that the enemy, now victorious, might dare to make straight for Athens and attack the Peiraeus, which was now without ships to defend it; and they believed that they were all but there already.