and gave orders to take the rest of the Athenians alive. It was long,
however, before these orders were understood and obeyed, so that more
Athenians were slain than survived, although many were spared by the
Syracusans in order that they might be sold for slaves.

The prisoners were now assembled together, and their arms and armour
hung upon the trees by the river side, as a trophy of the victory. The
victors next crowned themselves with garlands, decorated their horses,
cut off the manes and tails of the captured horses, and marched back
into their own city, having by their courage and skill won the most
complete victory ever gained by one Greek state over another.

XXVIII. At a public assembly of the Syracusans and their allies which
was shortly afterwards held, the orator Eurykles proposed that the day
on which Nikias was taken should be kept as a festival for ever, upon
which no work should be done, and sacrifice should be offered to the
gods, and that the feast should be called the Asinaria, from the name
of the river where the victory was won. The day was the twenty-sixth
of the Dorian month Karneius, which the Athenians call Metageitnion
(September 21st). Furthermore, he proposed that the Athenian slaves
and allies should be sold, that the Athenians themselves, with what
native Sicilians had joined them, should be confined in the stone
quarries within the city of Syracuse, and that their generals should
be put to death.

These propositions wore accepted by the Syracusans, who treated
Hermokrates with contempt when he urged that to be merciful in victory
would be more honourable to them than the victory itself. Gylippus
too, when he begged that he might carry the Athenian generals alive to
Sparta, was shamefully insulted by the excited Syracusans, who had