222 HISTORY OF GI;EECK. with which they continued the fight. At length the Syracusan army was broken, dispersed, and fled ; first, hefore the Argeians on the right, next, before the Athenians in the centre. The victors pursued as far as was safe and practicable, without dis- ordering their ranks : for the Syracusan cavalry, which had not yet been engaged, checked all who pressed forward, and enabled their own infantry to retire in safety behind the Helorine road. 1 So little were the Syracusans dispirited with this defeat, thai they did not retire within their city until they had sent an ade- quate detachment to guard the neighboring temple and sacred precinct of the Olympian Zeus, wherein there w r as much deposited wealth, which they feared that the Athenians might seize. Nikias, however, without approaching the sacred ground, contented himself with occupying the field of battle, burnt his own dead, and stripped the arms from the dead of the enemy. The Syracusans and their allies lost two hundred and fifty men, the Athenians fifty. 2 On the morrow, having granted to the Syracusans their dead bodies for burial, and collected the ashes of his own dead, Jsikias reembarked his troops, put to sea, and sailed back to his former station at Katana. He conceived it impossible, without cavalry and a farther stock of money, to maintain his position near Syra- cuse or to prosecute immediate operations of siege or blockade. And as the winter was now approaching, he determined to take up winter quarters at Katana ; though considering the mild win- ter at Syracuse, and the danger of marsh fever near the Great Harbor in summer, the change of season might well be regarded as a questionable gain. But he proposed to employ the interval 1 Thucyd. vi, 70. 8 Thucyd. vi, 71. Plutarch (Nikias, c.16) states that Nikias refused from religious scruples to invade the sacred precinct, though his soldiers were eager to seize its contents. Diodorus (xiii, 6) affirms erroneously that the Athenians became masters of the Olympieion. Pausanias too says the same thing (x, 28, 3), adding that Nikias abstained from disturbing cither the treasures or the offerings, and left them still under the care of the Syracusan priests. Plutarch farther states that Nikias stayed some days in his position before nc returned to Katana. But the language of Thncydides indicates that th
Athenians returned on the day after the battle.
