DIONYSIUS AND SICILY. We have already seen how the Athenian fleet was destroyed at the siege of Syracuse, where Nicias and Demosthenes were so lamentably defeated, which defeat resulted in the humiliation of Athens and the loss of her power as the leading State of Greece. The destruction of this great Athenian armament in September, B.C. 413, created an intoxication of triumph in the Sicilian cities. Nearly all of them had joined Syracuse, except Naxos and Catana, which sided with Athens. Agrigentum was neutral. (M654) The Syracusans were too much exhausted by the contest to push their victory to the loss of the independence of these cities, but they assisted their allies, the Lacedæmonians, with twenty triremes against Athens, under Hermocrates, while Rhodes furnished a still further re-enforcement, under Dorieus. But the Peloponnesian war was not finished as soon as the Syracusans anticipated. Even the combined Peloponnesian and Syracusan fleets sustained two defeats in the Hellespont. The battle of Cyxicus was even still more calamitous, since the Spartan admiral Mindarus was slain, and the whole of his fleet was captured and destroyed. The Syracusans suffered much by this latter defeat, and all their triremes were burned to prevent them falling into the hands of their enemies, and the seamen were left destitute on the Propontis, in the satrapy of Pharnabazus. These adverse events led to the disgrace of Hermocrates, who stimulated the movement and promised what he could not perform. But his conduct had been good, and his treatment was unjust and harsh. War recognizes only success, whatever may be the virtues and talents of the commanders; and this is one of the worst phases of war, when accident and circumstances contribute more to military rewards than genius itself. (M655) The banishment of Hermocrates was followed by the triumph of the democratical party, and Diocles, an influential citizen, was named, with a commission of ten, to revise the constitution and the laws. The laws of Diocles did not remain in force long, and were exceeding severe in their penalties. But they were afterward revived, and copied by other Sicilian cities, and remained in force to the Grecian conquest of the island.