"But now, turn for a moment and consider with me the actual occurrences which have created the suspicion of misconduct on the part of our late generals. The sea-fight had been fought and won, and the ships had returned to land, when Diomedon urged that the whole squadron should sail out in line and pick up the wrecks and floating crews. Erasinides was in favour of all the vessels sailing as fast as possible to deal with the enemy's forces at Mitylene. And Thrasylus represented that both objects could be effected, by leaving one division of the fleet there, and with the rest sailing against the enemy; and if this resolution were agreed to, he advised that each of the eight generals should leave three ships of his own division with the ten vessels of the taxiarchs, the ten Samian vessels, and the three belonging to the navarchs. These added together make forty-seven, four for each of the lost vessels, twelve in number. Among the taxiarchs left behind, two were Thrasybulus and Theramenes, the men who in the late meeting of this assembly undertook to accuse the generals. With the remainder of the fleet they were to sail to attack the enemy's fleet. Everything, you must admit, was duly and admirably planned. It was only common justice, therefore, that those whose duty it was to attack the enemy should render an account for all miscarriages of operations against the enemy; while those who were commissioned to pick up the dead and dying should, if they failed to carry out the instructions of the generals, be put on trial to explain the reasons of the failure. This indeed I may say in behalf of both parites. It was really the storm which, in spite of what the generals had planned, prevented anything being done. There are witnesses ready to attest the truth of this: the men who escaped as by a miracle, and among these one of these very generals, who was on a sinking ship and was saved. And this man, who needed picking up as much as anybody at that moment, is, they insist, to be tried by one and the same vote as those who neglected to perform their orders! Once more, I beg you, men of Athens, to accept your victory and your good fortune, instead of behaving like the desperate victims of misfortune and defeat. Recognise the finger of divine necessity; do not incur the reproach of stony-heartedness by discovering treason where there was merely powerlessness, and condemning as guilty those who were prevented by the storm from carrying out their instructions. Nay! you will better satisfy the demands of justice by crowning these conquerors with wreaths of victory than by punishing them with death at the instigation of wicked men." At the conclusion of his speech Euryptolemus proposed, as an amendment, that the prisoners should, in accordance with the decree of Cannonus, be tried each separately, as against the proposal of the senate to try them all by a single vote.