Siracusa Ortigia 2025: The Island City That Was Once Bigger Than Athens

How Athens lost 45,000 men in Sicily — and why it never recovered

The Athenian Expedition to Sicily (415-413 BC) was the greatest military disaster in the history of democratic Athens — and the event that directly precipitated Athens's final defeat in the Peloponnesian War (404 BC). Athens sent approximately 27,000 soldiers and sailors in 134 ships to besiege Syracuse in 415 BC, motivated by the Athenian demos's enthusiasm for an expansive strategy promoted by the charismatic but unreliable Alcibiades. The specific failure: the siege of Syracuse became a prolonged stalemate; Spartan and Corinthian reinforcements arrived to defend the Syracusans; the Athenian fleet was defeated in the harbor (the Syracusans had modified their ships to grapple and fight at close quarters, neutralizing the Athenian ramming advantage in open water); and the Athenian land retreat was cut off. The final casualty: approximately 45,000 Athenians killed or captured in two years — nearly the entire expeditionary force. The approximately 7,000 survivors were confined in the Latomie quarries (the stone caves still visible in the Parco Archeologico della Neapolis), where they died of thirst, exposure, and disease over several weeks. Athens never fully recovered the military and financial resources lost in Sicily — the defeat was the beginning of the end of Athenian hegemony in the Greek world.