A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

222 Sicilian Expedition to End of War
Athenians,
involving
much fighting
and suffering.
Imprisonment
in the
stone quarries.
Thucydides
vii. 87.
home with him to Lacedemon the generals of the enemy,
over and above all his other successes, would be a brilliant
triumph. One of them, Demosthenes, happened to be
the greatest foe, and the other, the greatest friend of the
Lacedemonians, both in the same matter of Pylos and
Sphacteria. For Nicias had taken up their cause, and had
persuaded the Athenians to make the peace which had
set at liberty the prisoners taken in the island. The
Lacedemonians were grateful to him for the service, and
this was the main reason why he trusted Gylippus and
surrendered himself to him. But certain Syracusans,
who had been in communication with him, were afraid
(such was the report) that on some suspicion of their
guilt he might be put to the torture and bring trouble
on them in the hour of their prosperity. Others,
and especially the Corinthians, feared that, being rich,
he might by bribery escape and do them further mischief.
So the Syracusans gained the consent of the
allies and had him executed. For those or the like reasons
he suffered death. No one of the Hellenes in my
time was less deserving of so miserable an end ; for he lived
in
the practice of every virtue.
Those who were imprisoned in the quarries were at the
beginning of their captivity harshly treated by the Syracusans.
There were great numbers of them, and they
were crowded in a deep and narrow place. At first the sun
by day was still scorching and suffocating, for they had no
roof over their heads, while the autumn nights were cold,
and the extremes of temperature engendered violent disorders.
Being cramped for room they had to do everything
on the same spot. The corpses of those who died
from their wounds or exposure to the weather, and the
like, lay heaped one upon another. The smells were in-