he removed the dejection of the Athenians, exhorting them, before they embarked, "to remember the vicif"fitudes of war, and the instability of fortune. Though "hitherto unsuccessful, they had every thing to expect "from the strength of their actual preparations; nor

ought men, who had tried and furmounted fo many "dangers, to yield to the weak prejudices of inexperi"ence and folly, and cloud the profpect of future vic"tory, by the gloomy remembrance of past defeat."

When GYLIPPUS and the Syracufan commanders were apprifed of the defign of the enemy, they haftened to prevent it. An engagement foon took place in the harbour; and in this narrow space more than two hundred gallies fought, during the greatest part of the day, with an obftinate and perfevering valour. The battle was not long confined to the shock of adverse prows, and to diftant hoftility of darts and arrows. The nearest veffels grappled, and closed with each other, and their decks were foon deluged with blood. While the heavy armed troops boarded the enemy's fhips, they left their own expofed to a fimilar misfortune; the fleets were divided into maffive clusters of adhering gallies; and the confufion of their mingled shouts overpowered the voice of authority; the Athenians exhorting, "not to abandon

"an

an element on which their republic had ever acquired "victory and glory, for the dangerous protection of an "hoftile fhore;" and the Syracufans encouraging each other "not to fly from an enemy whose weakness or "cowardice had long meditated a flight."

The fingular and tremendous fpectacle of an engage-. ment more fierce and obftinate than any that had ever been beheld in the Grecian feas, restrained the activity, and totally suspended the powers of the numerous and adverse battalions which encircled the coaft. The spectators and actors were equally interested in the important fcene; but the former, the current of whofe fenfibility was undiverted by any exertion of body, felt more deeply, and expreffed more forcibly, the various emotions by which they were agitated. Hope, fear, the shouts of victory, the shrieks of despair, the anxious folicitude of doubtful fuccefs, animated the countenance, the voice, and the gefture of the Athenians, whofe reliance centered in their fleet. When at length their gallies evidently gave way on every fide, the contrast of alternate, and the rapid tumult of fucceffive paffions, subfided into a melancholy calm. This dreadful paufe of aftonishment and terror was followed by the difordered trepidation

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trepidation of flight and fear: and many escaped to the camp, which protected their landing.

In this well-fought battle, the vanquished had loft fifty, and the victors forty veffels. It was incumbent on the Athenians to recover the dead bodies of their friends, that they might be honoured with the facred and indispensable rites of funeral. But they abandoned to infult and indignity the bodies of the flain; and when NICIAS proposed to them to accomplish this neceffary duty, which before under no circumstances they had ever neglected, yet did they decline to encounter again the armament of Syracufe. Their only defire was to escape by land, under cover of the night, from a foe whom they had not courage to oppose, and from a place where every object was offensive to their fight, and most painful to their reflections.

The day was far spent; the strength of the Syracufan failors had been exhausted by a long continuance of unremitted labour and both they and their companions on shore were more defirous to return to Syracufe to enjoy the fruits of victory, than to irritate the dangerous defpair of the vanquished Athenians. The evening of the battle was the vigil of the feaft of HERCULES; and the

ftill agitated combatants awakened, after a fhort and feverish repose, to celebrate the memory of their favourite hero, to whofe propitious influence they probably ascribed the merit of the moft fplendid trophy that ever adorned the fame of Syracufe. The coincidence of a festival and a victory excited the utmost extravagance of licentious joy, and the exceffes of fenfual indulgence. Amidst these giddy tranfports, the Syracufans loft all remembrance of an enemy whom they despised; even the foldiers on guard joined the diffolute and frivolous amusement of their companions; and, during the greateft part of the night, Syracufe prefented a mixed scene of fecure gaiety, of thoughtless jollity, and of mad and dangerous diforder.

The camp of the Athenians was raised the next morning. Thirty thousand men, of whom many were afflicted with wounds and disease, and all exhausted by fatigue, and dejected by calamity, prefented on this occafion a most doleful fight. They had miferably fallen from the lofty expectations with which they failed in triumph to the harbour of Syracuse.-They had abandoned their fleet, their tranfports, the hopes of victory, and the glory of the Athenian name; and these collective fufferings were enhanced and exasperated by the painful

images which struck the eyes and the fancy of each unfortunate individual.-The mangled bodies of their companions and friends, deprived of the facred rites of funeral, affected them with a fentiment of religious horror, on which the weakness of human nature is happily unable to dwell.-They removed their attention from this dreadful fight; but they could not divert their compaffion from a spectacle still more melancholy, the numerous crowds of fick and wounded, who followed them with enfeebled and unequal steps, intreating, in the accent and attitude of unutterable anguish, to be delivered from the rage of an exasperated foe. Amidit such affecting scenes, the heart of a stranger would have melted with tender fympathy; but how much more muft it have afflicted the Athenians, to fee their parents, brothers, and friends, involved in unexampled misery ! to hear, without the poffibility of relieving, their lamentable complaints! and reluctantly to throw the clinging victims from their wearied necks and arms! Yet the care of perfonal fafety prevailed over every other care; for the foldiers were not only encumbered by their armour, but oppreffed by the weight of their provifions.

The fuperior rank of NICIAS entitled him to a preeminence

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