History of the Peloponnesian War

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.

There was also a general feeling of dejection and much self-condemnation. For indeed they looked like nothing else than a city in secret flight after a siege, and that no small city; for in the entire throng no fewer than four myriads were on the march together. And of these, the rest all bore whatever each could that was useful, while the hoplites and the horsemen, contrary to their wont, carried their own food, some for want of attendants, others through distrust of them; for there had been desertions all along and in greatest numbers immediately on their defeat. But even so they did not carry enough, for there was no longer food in the camp.

Furthermore, the rest of their misery and the equal sharing of their ills—although there was in this very sharing with many some alleviation—did not even so seem easy at the moment, especially when one considered from what splendour and boastfulness at first to what a humiliating end they had now come. For this was indeed the very greatest reversal that had ever happened to an Hellenic armament;

for it so fell out that in place of having come to enslave others, they were now going away in fear lest they might rather themselves suffer this, and instead of prayers and paeans, with which they had sailed forth, were now departing for home with imprecations quite the reverse of these; going too as foot-soldiers instead of seamen, and relying upon hoplites rather than a fleet. And yet, by reason of the magnitude of the danger still impending, all these things seemed to them tolerable.