XXIX. Of the Athenians, the most part perished in the stone quarries of disease and insufficient food, for they received only a pint of barley-meal and half-a-pint of water each day. Not a few, however, were sold into slavery, being stolen for that purpose by Syracusans, or having escaped disguised as slaves. The rest were at length branded upon their foreheads with the figure of a horse, and sold into slavery. Yet even in this extremity their well-bred and dignified behaviour came to their aid; for they soon either obtained their freedom, or gained the confidence and respect of their masters. Some gained their freedom by their knowledge of Euripides. It appears that the dramas of Euripides were especially popular in Sicily, but that only a few fragments of his works had hitherto reached the Greek cities in that island. We are told that many of these captives on their return to Athens affectionately embraced Euripides, and told him how some of them had been sold into slavery, but had been set free after they had taught their masters as much of his poetry as they could remember, while others, when wandering about the country as fugitives after the battle, had obtained food and drink by reciting passages from his plays. We need not then wonder at the tale of the people of Kaunus, who, when a ship pursued by pirates was making for their harbour at first refused to admit it, but afterwards enquired whether any on board knew the plays of Euripides; and on hearing that they did, allowed them to enter the harbour and save themselves. XXX. At Athens the news of the catastrophe was at first disbelieved, because of the unsatisfactory way in which it reached the city. A stranger, it is said, disembarked at Peiræus, went into a barber's shop, and began to converse about what had happened as upon a theme which must be uppermost in every man's mind. The astonished barber, hearing for the first time such fearful tidings, ran up to Athens to communicate it to the archons, and to the public in the market-place. All were shocked and astonished at hearing this, and the archons immediately convoked the public assembly, and brought the barber before it. When he was asked to explain from whom he had heard this intelligence, as he could give no satisfactory account, he was regarded as a disturber of the public tranquillity by fabricating idle tales, and was even put to the torture. Soon, however, men arrived who confirmed his tale, and described all the details of the catastrophe as far as they had witnessed them. Then at last the countrymen of Nikias believed, after his death, what he had so often foretold to them during his life. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: In North Africa, the modern oasis of Siwah.] [Footnote 2: Plemmyrium on one side, and the city of Syracuse on the other, command the entrance of the gulf known as the Great Harbour, inside of which lay the Athenian fleet and camp.] [Footnote 3: Grote.]