72.
Thus, after a fierce battle and a great destruction of ships and men on both sides, the Syracusans1 and their allies gained the victory. They gathered up the wrecks and bodies of the dead, and sailing back to the city, erected a trophy.
[2]
The Athenians, overwhelmed by their misery, never so much as thought of recovering their wrecks or of asking leave to collect their dead. Their intention was to retreat that very night.
[3]
Demosthenes came to Nicias and proposed that they should once more man their remaining vessels and endeavour to force the passage at daybreak, saying that they had more ships fit for service than the enemy. For the Athenian fleet still numbered sixty, but the enemy had less than fifty. Nicias approved of his proposal, and they would have manned the ships, but the sailors refused to embark;
[4]
for they were paralysed by their defeat, and had no longer any hope of succeeding. So the Athenians all made up their minds to escape by land.
1 Demosthenes desires to renew the conflict. But the sailors are paralysed and refuse to embark. So it is decided to depart by land.
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
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