History of the Peloponnesian War

When the forces of the Syracusans and their allies had been brought together, they took with them as many of the captives as they could and the booty and returned to the city.

All the rest of the prisoners they had taken of the Athenians and their allies they sent down into the stone-quarries, thinking it the safest way to keep them; but Nicias and Demosthenes they put to the sword, though against the wish of Gylippus. For he thought that it would be a glorious achievement if, in addition to his other successes, he could also bring the generals of the enemy home to the Lacedaemonians.

And it so happened that the one, Demosthenes, was regarded by the Lacedaemonians as their bitterest foe, on account of what had taken place on the island of Sphacteria and at Pylos; the other, for the same reason, as a very good friend; for Nicias had eagerly desired[*](cf. v. xvi. 1.) that the Lacedaemonian prisoners taken on the island should be released, when he urged the Athenians to make peace.

For these reasons the Lacedaemonians were friendly towards him, and it was not least on that account that he trusted in Gylippus and surrendered himself to him. But it was said that some of the Syracusans were afraid, seeing that they had been in communication with him, lest, if he were subjected to torture on that account, he might make trouble for them in the midst of their success; and others, especially the Corinthians, were afraid, lest, as he was wealthy,[*](He was worth 100 talents, according to Lysias, xix. 47. His property was chiefly in silver mines. He employed 1000 slaves in the mines at Laurium (Xen., De Vect. iv. 14).) he might by means of bribes make his escape and cause them fresh difficulties; they therefore persuaded their allies and put him to death.

For this reason, then, or for a reason very near to this, Nicias was put to death—a man who, of all the Hellenes of my time, least deserved to meet with such a calamity, because of his course of life that had been wholly regulated in accordance with virtue.