Book 7
49.2
Demosthenes, however, would not at all listen to the proposal for continuing the siege; but if it were necessary for them not to withdraw the forces without a decree from the Athenians, but to remain in the country, he said that they should either remove to Thapsus and do so, or to Catana, where they could overrun with their troops a large part of the country, and support themselves by ravaging their enemies' property, and so might injure them; while at the same time with their fleet they would fight their battles on the open deep, and not in a confined space, which was more in favour of the enemy, but rather with spacious sea-room, where their skill would be of service to them, and they would have an opportunity of retreating and advancing in no narrow and circumscribed space, both on putting out and coming to land.
49.3
In a word, he did not, he said, at all approve of remaining in their present position, but of removing immediately without delay. Eurymedon also supported him in this view.
49.4
But as Nicias objected to it, a degree of diffidence and hesitation was produced in them, and a suspicion also that Nicias might be so positive from knowing something more than he expressed. The Athenians, then, in this way lingered on, and remained where they were.
50.1
In the mean time, Gylippus and Sicanus had come to Syracuse; and though Sicanus had failed in winning Acragas, (for while he was still at Gela, the party Literally, the party for the Syracusans, for friendship with them, as Arnold renders it. See his note. friendly to the Syracusans had been driven out;) yet Gylippus came with fresh troops raised from the rest of Sicily, and with the heavy-armed which had been sent out from the Peloponnese in the spring, on board the merchantmen, and had arrived at Selinus from Libya.
