For a long time, despite the many who were dying, the battle would not come to an end, since not even the men who were in desperate straits would dare flee to the land. For the Athenians would ask those who were breaking off the battle and turning to the land, "Do you think to sail to Athens by land?" and the Syracusan infantry would inquire of any who were bringing their ships towards them, "Why, when we wanted to go aboard the triremes, did you prevent us from engaging in the battle, if now you are betraying the fatherland?" "Was the reason you blocked the mouth of the harbour that, after preventing the enemy from getting out, you might yourselves flee to the beach?" "Since it is the lot of all men to die, what fairer death do you seek than dying for the fatherland, which you are disgracefully abandoning though you have it as a witness of your fighting!" [2] When the soldiers on the land hurled such upbraidings at the sailors who drew near, those who were fleeing for refuge to the beach would turn back again, even though their ships were shattered and they themselves were weighed down by their wounds. [3] But when the Athenians who were engaged near the city had been thrust back and began to flee, the Athenians next in line gave way from time to time and gradually the whole host took to flight. [4] Thereupon the Syracusans with great shouting pursued the ships to the land; and those Athenians who had not been slain out at sea, now that they had come to shallow water, leaped from the ships and fled to the land troops. [5] And the harbour was full of arms and wreckage of boats, since of the Attic ships sixty were lost and of the Syracusan eight were completely destroyed and sixteen badly damaged. The Syracusans drew up on the shore as many of their triremes as they could, and taking up the bodies of their citizens and allies who had died, honoured them with a public funeral.
