Nicias

and an exceeding great and savage carnage raged in the river itself, men being butchered as they drank. At last Nicias fell down at the feet of Gylippus and cried: Have pity, Gylippus, now that you are victorious, not on me at all, though my great successes have brought me name and fame, but on the rest of these Athenians. Remember that the fortunes of war are common to all, and that the Athenians, when they were in good fortune, used it with moderation and gentleness toward you.

So spake Nicias, and Gylippus felt some compunction, both at the sight of him, and at what he said. For he knew that the Lacedaemonians had been well treated by him when the peace was made, and, besides, he thought it would increase his own fame if he should bring home alive the generals who had opposed him. Therefore he raised Nicias up, gave him words of cheer, and issued command to take the rest of his men alive. But the command made its way slowly along, so that the spared were far fewer than the slain. And yet many were stolen and hidden away by the soldiery.

The public prisoners were collected together, the fairest and tallest trees along the river bank were hung with the captured suits of armour, and then the victors crowned themselves with wreaths, adorned their own horses splendidly while they sheared and cropped the horses of their conquered foes, and so marched into the city. They had brought to successful end a struggle which was the most brilliant ever made by Hellenes against Hellenes, and had won the completest of victories by the most overwhelming and impetuous display of zeal and valor.

At a general assembly of the Syracusans and their allies, Eurycles, the popular leader, brought in a motion, first, that the day on which they had taken Nicias be made a holy day, with sacrifices and abstention from labour, and that the festival be called Asinaria, from the river Asinarus (the day was the twenty-sixth of the month Carneius, which the Athenians call Metageitnion);