330 HISTORY OF GREECE. would hear of nothing but attempting to escape by land. 1 Prep, arations were therefore made for commencing their march in the darkness of that very night. The roads were still open, and, had they so inarched, a portion of them, at least, might even yet have been saved. 2 But there occurred one more mistake, one farther postponement, which cut off the last hopes of this gallant and fated remnant. The Syracusan Hermokrates, fully anticipating that the Athe- nians would decamp that very night, was eager to prevent their retreat, because of the mischief which they might do if estab- lished in any other part of Sicily. He pressed Gylippus and the military authorities to send out forthwith, and block up the prin- cipal roads, passes, and fords, by which the fugitives would get off. Though sensible of the wisdom of his advice, the generals thought it wholly anexecutable. Such was the universal and unbounded joy which rfow pervaded the city, in consequence of the recent victory, still hwther magnified by the circumstance that the day was sacred to MSrakles, so wild the jollity, the feasting, the intoxication, the congratulations, amidst men rewarding them- selves after their recent effort and triumph, and amidst the neces- sary care for the wounded, mat an order to arm and march out would have been as little listened to as the order to go on shipboard was by the desponding Athenians. Perceiving that he could get nothing done until the next morning, Hermokrates resorted to a stratagem in order to delay the departure of the Athenians for that night. At the moment when darkness was beginning, he sent down some confidential friends on horseback to the Athenian wall. These men, riding up near enough to make themselves heard, and calling for the sentries, addressed them as messengers from the private correspondents of Nikias in Syracuse, who had sent to warn him, they affirmed, not to decamp during the night, inasmuch as the Syracusans had already beset and occupied the roads ; but to begin his march quietly the next morning after adequate preparation. 3 This fraud the same as the Athenians had themselves prac- tised two years before, 4 in order to tempt the Syracusans t<i 1 Thucyd. vii, 72. 2 Diodor. xiii, 18.
Thucyd. vii, 73 ; Diodor. xiii, 18. * Thucyd. vi, 61
