eet and discuss terms of
surrender with Nikias, and were about to attend it, as they thought
that it would be best for them to come to terms before the city was
quite surrounded by the wall of the Athenians. There was now only a
very small portion of this left to be finished, and all the materials
for building it were collected on the spot.

XIX. At this crisis there arrived at Syracuse Gongylus, a Corinthian,
in one trireme. All crowded round him, to hear what news he brought.
He informed them that Gylippus would soon come to their aid by land,
and that other triremes besides his own were on their way by sea. This
intelligence was scarcely believed, until it was confirmed by a
message from Gylippus himself, bidding them march out and meet him.
They now took courage and prepared for battle. Gylippus marched into
the town, and at once led the Syracusans out to attack the Athenians.
When Nikias had likewise brought his army out of their camp, Gylippus
halted his men, and sent a herald to offer them an armistice for five
days, on condition that they would collect their effects and withdraw
from Sicily. Nikias disdained to answer this insulting message; but
some of his soldiers jeeringly enquired whether the presence of one
Spartan cloak and staff had all at once made the Syracusans so strong
that they could despise the Athenians, who used to keep three hundred
such men, stronger than Gylippus and with longer hair, locked up in
prison, and feared them so little that they delivered them up to the
Lacedaemonians again. Timaeus says that the Sicilian Greeks despised
Gylippus for his avaricious and contemptible character, and that when
they first saw him, they ridiculed his long hair and Spartan cloak.
Afterwards, however, he tells us that as soon as Gylippus appeared
they flocked round him as small birds flock round an owl, and were
eager to take service under him. This indeed is the more probable
story; for they rallied round him, regarding his cloak and staff to be
the symbols of the authority of Sparta. And not only Thucydides, but
Philistus, a Syracusan citizen by birth, who was an eye-witness of the
whole campaign, tells us that nothing could have been done without
Gylippus. In the first battle after his arrival, the Athenians were
victorious, and slew some few Syracusans, amongst whom was the
Corinthian Gongylus, but on the following day Gylippus displayed the
qualities of a true general. He used the same arms, horses, a