This defeat, so disgraceful to the Athenian commanders, so complete and thorough, was a death-blow to the dominion of Athens. That city was left at the mercy of its foes. When news of the disaster reached the city, such a night of wailing and woe, of fear and misery, came upon the Athenians as few cities had ever before gone through. Their fleet gone, all was gone. On it depended their food. Their land-supplies had long been cut off. No corn-ships could now reach them from the Euxine Sea, and few from other quarters. They might fight still, but the end was sure. The victor at Salamis would soon be a prisoner within her own walls. Lysander was in no hurry to sail to Athens. That city could wait. He employed himself in visiting the islands and cities in alliance with or dependent upon Athens, and inducing them to ally themselves with Sparta. The Athenian garrisons were sent home. Lysander shrewdly calculated that the more men the walls of Athens held, the sooner must their food-supply be exhausted and the end come. At length, in November of 405 B.C., Lysander sailed with his fleet to Piraeus and blockaded its harbor, while the land army of the Peloponnesus marched into Attica and encamped at the gates of Athens. That great and proud city was now peopled with despair. The plague which had desolated it twenty-five years before now threatened to be succeeded by a still more fatal plague, that of famine. Yet pride and resolution remained. The walls had been strengthened; their defenders could hold out while any food was left; not until men actually began to die of hunger did they ask for peace. The envoys sent to Sparta were refused a hearing. Athens wished to preserve her walls. Sparta sent word that there could be no peace until the Long Walls were levelled with the earth. These terms Athens proudly refused. Suffering and privation went on. For three months longer the siege continued. Though famine dwelt within every house, and numbers died of starvation, the Athenians held out with heroic endurance, and refused to surrender on humiliating terms. But there could be only one end. Where famine commands man must obey. Peace must be had at any price, or death would end all, and an envoy was sent out with power to make peace on any terms he could obtain. It was pitiable that glorious Athens should be brought to this sad pass. She was so cordially hated by many of the states of Greece that they voted for her annihilation, demanding that the entire population should be sold as slaves, and the city and the very name of Athens be utterly swept from the earth.