Retreat by land was the only escape. A strategem planned by Hermocrates and Nicias' superstitious terrors delayed the departure long enough to enable the Syracusans to secure the passes in the interior. When the army moved away the scene was one of shame and agony; the sick vainly pleaded with their comrades to save them; the whole force contrasted the proud hopes of their coming with their humiliating end and refused to be comforted by Nicias, whose courage shone brightest in this hour of defeat. Demosthenes' force was isolated and was quickly captured; Nicias' men with great difficulty reached the River Assinarus, parched with thirst. Forgetting all about their foes, they rushed to the water and fought among themselves for it though it ran red with their own blood. At last the army capitulated and was carried back to Syracuse. Thrown into the public quarries, the poor wretches remained there for ten weeks, scorched by day, frost-bitten by night. The survivors were sold into slavery. "This was the greatest achievement in the war and, I think, in Greek history the most creditable to the victors, the most lamentable to the vanquished. In every way they were utterly defeated; their sufferings were mighty; they were destroyed hopelessly; ships, men, everything perished, few only returning from the great host." So ends the most heartrending story in Greek history, told with absolute fidelity by a son of Athens and a former general of her army. The last book is remarkable for the absence of speeches; it is a record of the continued intrigues which followed the Sicilian disaster. Upheavals in Asia Minor brought into the swirl of plots Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap, anxious to recover control of Ionia hitherto saved by Athenian power. In 412 the Athenian subjects began to revolt, seventeen defections being recorded in all. At Samos a most important movement began; the democrats rose against their nobles, being guaranteed independence by Athens. Soon they made overtures to Alcibiades who was acting with the Spartan fleet; he promised to detach Tissaphernes from Sparta if Samos eschewed democracy, a creed odious to the Persian monarchy. The Samians sent a delegation to Athens headed by Pisander, who boldly proposed Alcibiades' return, the dissolution of the democracy in Samos and alliance with Tissaphernes. These proposals were rejected, but the democracy at Athens was not destined to last much longer, power being usurped by the famous Four Hundred in 411. The Samian democracy eventually appointed Alcibiades general, while in Athens the extremists were anxious to come to terms with Sparta. This movement split the Four Hundred, the constitution being changed to that of the Five Thousand, a blend of democracy and oligarchy which won Thucydides' admiration; the history concludes with the victory of the Athenians in the naval action at Cynossema in 410.