Not content with having placed the Syracusans out of the reach of danger, Gylippus took advantage of their renewed confidence to infuse into them projects of retaliation against the enemy who had brought them so near to ruin. They began to equip their ships in the harbor, and to put their seamen under training, in hopes of qualifying themselves to contend with the Athenians even on their own element; while Gylippus himself quitted the city to visit the various cities of the island, and to get together farther reinforcements, naval as well as military. And as it was foreseen that Nikias on his part would probably demand aid from Athens, envoys, Syracusan as well as Corinthian, were despatched to Peloponnesus, to urge the necessity of forwarding additional troops, even in merchant vessels, if no triremes could be spared to convey them.[401] Should no reinforcements reach the Athenian camp, the Syracusans well knew that its efficiency must diminish by every month’s delay, while their own strength, in spite of heavy cost and effort, was growing with their increased prospects of success. [401] Thucyd. vii, 7. If this double conviction was present to sustain, the ardor of the Syracusans, it was not less painfully felt amidst the Athenian camp, now blocked up like a besieged city, and enjoying no free movement except through their ships and their command of the sea. Nikias saw that if Gylippus should return with any considerable additional force, even the attack upon him by land would become too powerful to resist, besides the increasing disorganization of his fleet. He became fully convinced that to remain as they were was absolute ruin. As all possibility of prosecuting the siege of Syracuse successfully was now at an end, a sound judgment would have dictated that his position in the harbor had become useless as well as dangerous, and that the sooner it was evacuated the better. Probably Demosthenês would have acted thus, under similar circumstances; but such foresight and resolution were not in the character of Nikias, who was afraid, moreover, of the blame which it would bring down upon him at home, if not from his own army. Not venturing to quit his position without orders from Athens, he determined to send home thither an undisguised account of his critical position, and to solicit either reinforcements or instructions to return.