49, 5o] N I CIAS REFUSES TO DEPART 30 1 was greater than ever. But Demosthenes would not hear for an instant of persisting in the siege ; if, he said, the army must remain and ought not to be removed without a vote of the assembly, then they should retire to Thapsus or Catana, whence they might overrun the whole country with their land-forces, maintaining themselves at the expense of the enemy and doing him great damage. They would thus fight their battles, not cooped up in the harbour, which gave an advantage to the enemy, but in the open sea, where their skill would be available and their charges and retreats would not be circumscribed by the narrow space which now hampered their movements whenever they had to put in or out. In a word, he wholly dis- approved of the Athenians continuing in their present position ; they should with all speed break up the siege and be gone. Eurymedon took the same side. Still Nicias resisted ; there was delay and hesitation, and a suspicion that he might have some ground which they did not know for his unwillingness to yield. And so the Athenians stayed on where they were. Meanwhile Gylippus and Sicanus returned to Syracuse. 50 Sicanus had not succeeded in his ^ ,. . - 1 •! 1 Gyltppusreturnswith design upon Agngentum ; for while he remforccnents. Faihne was at Gela on his way the party in- 0/ Syraaisan design cm clined to friendship with theSyracusans ^g'-^ge^tn^'^- ^dva,- , . T-> /-^ !• tides of Pclopomusian had been driven out. But Gylippus ^/„^^, ^„ ^j^^^^ ^,^^ ^^ brought back a large army, together Sicily. The Syracusaus with the hoplites who had been sent in /"'/^"^ « "«" "^i"^^'- , r T-> 1 ^■^ Allieiuan generals merchant-vessels from Peloponnesus „^^^ „^,.^^ ^^ ^^^„,./^ in the spring", and had come byway whm the moon is of Libya to Selinus. They had been ^'P'"'^- ^/'f '^'^'":^ ^ . , r 1 ana Niaas refuse to stir. driven to Libya by stress of weather, and the Cyrenaeans had given them two triremes and pilots. On their voyage they had made common cause with the Evesperitae, who were besieged by the Libyans.
- > Cp. vii. 19.
