Perhaps no passage of ancient prose narrative is as powerfully written and as immediately accessible to the modem reader as the account of the Athenians' withdrawal after their defeat in the harbor at Syracuse. Of all the Histories, this section least needs explication--indeed here the critic's intervention may distract and impede the reader's comprehension of the text. Yet if sustained explication is inappropriate, attention to some of the techniques and implications of the passage is still essential to appreciate fully the progress of thought and feeling in the work.