Textus Originalis

Traduzione

exercised his authority. Timaeus says, moreover, that they denounced his exceeding penuriousness and avarice,—an inherited infirmity, it would seem, since his father, Cleandridas, was convicted of taking bribes and had to flee his country. And Gylippus himself, for abstracting thirty talents from the thousand which Lysander had sent to Sparta, and hiding them in the roof of his house,—as an informer was prompt to show,—was banished in the deepest disgrace. But this has been told with more detail in my Life of Lysander. Timaeus denies that Demosthenes and Nicias were put to death by the orders of the Syracusans, as Philistus and Thucydides state ; but rather, Hermo- crates sent word to them of the decision of the assembly while it was yet in session, and with the connivance of one of their guards they took their own lives. Their bodies, however, he says, were cast out at the prison door, and lay there in plain sight of all who craved the spectacle. And I learn that down to this day there is shown aniong the treasures of a temple in Syracuse a shield which is said to have been the shield of Nicias. It is a welded mosaic of gold and purple interwoven with rare skill. XXIX. Most of the Athenians perished in the stone quarries of disease and evil fare, their daily rations being a pint of barley meal and a half-pint of water; but not a few were stolen away and sold into slavery, or succeeded in passing themselves off for serving men. These, when they were sold, were branded in the forehead with the mark of a lorse,— yes, there were some freemen who actually suffered this indignity in addition to their servitude.