While the Syracusans thus began to despair of their situation, the prospects of the Athenians were better than ever, promising certain and not very distant triumph. The reports circulating through the neighboring cities all represented them as in the full tide of success, so that many Sikel tribes, hitherto wavering, came in to tender their alliance, while three armed pentekonters also arrived from the Tyrrhenian coast. Moreover, abundant supplies were furnished from the Italian Greeks generally. Nikias, now sole commander since the death of Lamachus, had even the glory of receiving and discussing proposals from Syracuse for capitulation, a necessity which was openly and abundantly canvassed within the city itself. The ill-success of Hermokratês and his colleagues had caused them to be recently displaced from their functions as generals, to which Herakleidês, Euklês, and Tellias, were appointed. But this change did not give them confidence to hazard a fresh battle, while the temper of the city, during such period of forced inaction, was melancholy in the extreme. Though several propositions for surrender, perhaps unofficial, yet seemingly sincere, were made to Nikias, nothing definitive could be agreed upon as to the terms.[382] Had the Syracusan government been oligarchical, the present distress would have exhibited a large body of malcontents upon whom he could have worked with advantage; but the democratical character of the government maintained union at home in this trying emergency.[383] [382] Thucyd. vi, 103. πολλὰ ἐλέγετο πρός τε ἐκεῖνον καὶ πλείω ἔτι κατὰ τὴν πόλιν. [383] Thucyd. vii, 55.