The Best of the World's Classics (All 10 Volumes) - Henry Cabot Lodge

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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 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 had died from their wounds, exposure to the weather, and the like lay heaped one upon another. The smells were intolerable; and the prisoners were at the same time afflicted by hunger and thirst. During eight months they were allowed only about half a pint of water and a pint of food a day.[44] Every kind of misery which could befall man in such a place befell them. This was the condition of all the captives for about ten weeks. At length the Syracusans sold them, with the exception of the Athenians and of any Sicilian or Italian Greeks who had sided with them in the war. The whole number of the public prisoners is not accurately known, but they were not less than seven thousand.

      Of all the Hellenic actions which took place in this war, or indeed of all Hellenic actions which are on record, this was the greatest—the most glorious to the victors, the most ruinous to the vanquished; for they were utterly and at all points defeated, and their sufferings were prodigious. Fleet and army perished from the face of the earth; nothing was saved, and of the many who went forth few returned home.

      Thus ended the Sicilian expedition.

      FOOTNOTES:

      [36] From Book VII of the "History of the Peloponnesian War," translated by Benjamin Jowett. "The noblest piece of tragedy in all written history," says John Morley of this book. Gray, the poet, in one of his letters, inquired, "Is it, or is it not, the finest thing you ever read in your life?" Macaulay, in a letter once wrote: "I do assure you that there is no prose composition in the world that I place so high as the Seventh book of Thucydides. Tacitus was a great man, but he was not up to the Sicilian expedition." Praise is given to this chapter by Mahaffy for "the sustained splendor of the narrative." Grote had profound admiration for the famous picture contained in the selection here given. He refers to its "condensed and burning phrases" as imparting an impression which modern historians have sought in vain to convey.

      XENOPHON

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      Born in Athens about 430 b.c.; died after 357; celebrated as historian and essayist, being a disciple of Socrates; joined the expedition of Cyrus the Younger in 401, and after the battle of Cunaxa became the chief leader of ten thousand Greeks in their march to the Black Sea, the story being chronicled in his famous "Anabasis"; fought on the Spartan side in the battle of Coronea; banished from Athens, he settled at Scillus in Eleia; spent his last years in Corinth; among his writings besides the "Anabasis" are the "Hellenica," "Cycropædia," "Memorabilia of Socrates," and essays on hunting and horsemanship.

      I

      THE CHARACTER OF CYRUS THE YOUNGER[45]

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      Here Cyrus, first of all, showed himself most remarkable for modesty among those of his own age, and for paying more ready obedience to his elders than even those who were inferior to him in station; and next he was noted for his fondness for horses, and for managing them in a superior manner. They found him, too, very desirous of learning and most assiduous in practising the warlike exercises of archery and hurling the javelin. When it suited his age, he grew extremely fond of the chase, and of braving dangers in encounters with wild beasts. On one occasion he did not shrink from a she bear that attacked him; however, in grappling with her, he was dragged from his horse, and received some wounds, the scars of which were visible on his body, but at last killed her. The person who first came to his assistance he made a happy man in the eyes of many.

      Whenever any one did Cyrus a kindness or an injury, he showed himself anxious to go beyond him in those respects; and some used to mention a wish of his, that he "desired to live long enough to outdo both those who had done him good, and those who had done him ill, in the requital that he should make." Accordingly, to him alone of the men of

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