After the Syracusan disaster all the Athenian army was taken captive.
The conquerors began by slaughtering all the generals and many of the
soldiers. The remainder were consigned to the quarries which served as
prison. They were left there crowded together for seventy days,
exposed without protection to the burning sun of summer, and then to
the chilly nights of autumn. Many died from sickness, from cold and
hunger--for they were hardly fed at all; their corpses remained on the
ground and infected the air. At last the Syracusans drew out the
survivors sold them into slavery.
Ordinarily when an army invaded a hostile state it levelled the
houses, felled the trees, burned the crops and killed the laborers.
After battle it made short shrift of the wounded and killed prisoners
in cold blood. In a captured city everything belonged to the captor:
men, women, children were sold as slaves. Such was at this time the
right of war. Thucydides sums up the case as follows:[80] "Business is
regulated between men by the laws of justice when there is obligation
on both sides; but the stronger does whatever is in his power, and the
weaker yields.
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