At these words of Alcibiades the sluggish Spartans took fire, and recognizing the importance of his advice they determined to follow the course which he had indicated. Gylippus, a Spartan of high rank, received orders to proceed at once to Syracuse, and assume the control of the war, and the Corinthians were directed to provide ships for the conveyance of troops. But after this brief display of energy the Spartans relapsed into their wonted torpor. Many months elapsed before Gylippus was able to embark for Sicily, and meanwhile important events had been occurring at the seat of war. We return, therefore, to the head-quarters of Nicias, which had once more been removed from Naxos to Catana.
For the next year and a half [Footnote: Spring 414--autumn 413 B.C.] the scene of our narrative lies almost entirely in the immediate neighbourhood of Syracuse, so that it now becomes necessary to describe in some detail the site of that city, and the character of the adjacent country. Mention has already been made of the island of Ortygia, the site of the original colony, connected with the mainland of Sicily by a bridge or causeway. At the southern extremity of Ortygia there is a narrow strip of land, pointing like a finger towards the rocky peninsula of Plemmyrium; and between these two points lies the entrance to a spacious bay, already alluded to under the name of the Great Harbour. At the western end of the bay there is a long stretch of low, marshy ground, intersected by the little rivers Cyana and Anapus, and infested with fever during the heats of summer. On a rising ground, south of the Anapus, stood the suburb of Polichne, with its great temple, sacred to the Olympian Zeus. A little to the north of Ortygia the coast rises abruptly in a bold line of cliffs, facing eastwards, and forming the base of a triangular plateau, which slopes upwards from the sea, and gradually grows narrower until it ends in a point, called the hill of Euryelus. This plateau, which bore the name of Epipolae, is guarded on all its three sides by rocky precipices, only to be ascended at two or three places. Its eastern end, called Acheadina, from the wild pear-trees which once flourished there, was occupied by a new city, now included with Ortygia in the same wall of defence. Here were situated the famous stone-quarries, which afterwards acquired so tragic an interest from the sufferings of the captive Athenians; and southwards from this district the ground shelves gently to the shores of the Little Harbour, a sheltered inlet at the northern end of Ortygia.