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1.
When the news was told at Athens, they believed not a long time, though it were plainly related and by those very soldiers that escaped from the defeat itself that all was so utterly lost as it was.
When they knew it, they were mightily offended with the orators that furthered the voyage, as if they themselves had never decreed it.
They were angry also with those that gave out prophecies and with the soothsayers and with whosoever else had at first by any divination put them into hope that Sicily should be subdued.
[2]
Every thing, from every place, grieved them;
and fear and astonishment, the greatest that ever they were in, beset them round.
For they were not only grieved for the loss which both every man in particular and the whole city sustained of so many men of arms, horsemen, and serviceable men, the like whereof they saw was not left, but seeing they had neither galleys in their haven nor money in their treasury nor furniture in their galleys, were even desperate at that present of their safety;
and thought the enemy out of Sicily would come forthwith with their fleet into Peiraeus, especially after the vanquishing of so great a navy, and that the enemy here would surely now, with double preparation in every kind, press them to the utmost both by sea and land and be aided therein by their revolting confederates.
[3]
Nevertheless, as far as their means would stretch, it was thought best to stand it out and, getting materials and money where they could have it, to make ready a navy and to make sure of their confederates, especially those of Euboea;
and to introduce a greater frugality in the city, and to erect a magistracy of the elder sort, as occasion should be offered to preconsult of the business that passed.
[4]
And they were ready, in respect of their present fear (as is the people's fashion), to order every thing aright.
And as they resolved this, so they did it.
And the summer ended.
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Thucydides. Thomas Hobbes. translator. London. Bohn. 1843.
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