fleet which they designed for this service, and to keep them in readiness to sail when opportunity should require. Having so far concerted measures, the embassadors departed from Lacedæmon.

The Athenian trireme, also, dispatched from Sicily by the generals on that post to demand supplies of money and a body of horse, was by this time arrived at Athens. And the Athenians, on hearing their demands, drew up a decree, to send away supplies to that armament, and a body of horsemen.

And here the winter ended; and the seventeenth year of this war, of which Thucydides hath compiled the history, came also to an end.

YEAR XVIII.

ON the earliest approach of the spring which led on the following summer, the Athenians in Sicily, hoisting from Catana, shewed themselves on the coast of Megara in Sicily, of which the Syracusans, having dispossessed the inhabitants in the time of Gelon, the tyrant, (as I have already related,) continued masters of the soil. Having landed here, they ravaged the country; till, approaching a fortress belonging to the Syracusans, and attempting it without success, they retired, some by land and the rest on board the fleet, into the river Tereas; from whence going again on shore, they ravaged the plains and set fire to the growing corn. They also fell in with a small party of Syracusans, some of whom they slew; and then, erecting a trophy, went again on board. They next returned to Catana; and, after victualling there, proceeded from thence, with their whole force, to the attack of Centoripa, a strong fort belonging to the Siculi; and, having made themselves masters of it by a capitulation, they stood away, burning down in their passage the corn of the Inesséans and Hybléans. Upon returning to Catana, they find there two hundred

and fifty horsemen arrived from Athens, though without horses, yet with all the proper furniture as if they could be better supplied with the former in Sicily; as also thirty archers mounted, and three hundred talents in şilver*.

In the same spring the Lacedæmonians also took the field against Argos, and advanced as far as Cleonæ; but, the shock of an earthquake being felt there, they again retired. And, after this, the Argives, making an irruption into the Thyreatis, which borders upon themselves, took a vast booty from the Lacedæmonians, which sold for no less than twenty-five talents.

And not long after, in the same spring, the popular party at Thespiæ assaulted those in power, but without success. And, though the Athenians marched away to their succour, some of them were apprehended, and others were obliged to take refuge at Athens.

In the same summer, the Syracusans had no sooner received intelligence of the arrival of a body of horsemen amongst the Athenians, and the design of advancing immediately to assault them, than it occurred to their reflections, that, "in case the Athenians could not possess them"selves of Epipolæ, (a spot of ground which is only one "continued crag, and lies directly above the city of Syra'cuse,) it would be difficult to inclose them completely "round with works of circumvallation, even though they "should be defeated in open battle." They applied themselves therefore to the guard of all the approaches to Epipolæ, that the enemy might not on a sudden gain the eminence; for by other methods it was impossible for them. to carry that post. Excepting those approaches, the rest of the tract is an impracticable steep, inclining gradually quite down to the city, and commanding the view of every thing within it. Hence, therefore, because it riseth

* 58,1257.

VOL. II.

† 4,843/. 158.

2 A

with a continual ascent, it was called by the Syracusans

Epipola.

As Hermocrates and his colleagues had now formally taken upon them the command, the whole force of Syracuse marched out, by break of day, into a meadow, on the banks of the Anapus, to pass under review; where the first thing they did was to select seven hundred of the choicest men amongst the heavy-armed, to be commanded by Diomilus, an exile from Andrus. These were appointed for the guard of Epipolæ, and to be ready for service, as they were always to keep in a body, on any sudden emergence. But the Athenians, who had mustered their forces on the preceding day, had stood away from Catana, and were come in the night undiscovered to the spot called Leon, which is distant six or seven stadia* from Epipolæ, where they disbarked their land-forces, and then sent their ships to lie in the station of Thapsus. Thapsus is a peninsula, joined to the main land by a narrow isthmus, and jutting out into the sea, at no great distance from the city of Syracuse either by land or water. The naval force of the Athenians, having secured their station by a palisade across the isthmus, lay quiet in their posts: But the land-army, without loss of time made a running march towards Epipole; and mounted by the pass of Euryalus, before the Syracusans, who were yet in the meadow busied in their review, discovered or were able to advance to prevent them. And now their whole force was in motion to dislodge them; each man with all possible alacrity, and more particularly the seven hundred commanded by Diomilus: But, from the meadow to the nearest spot where they could come up with the enemy, was a march of no less than twenty-five stadia. To this it was owing that the Syracusans came to the charge in a disorderly manner; and, being plainly repulsed in battle at Epipolæ, were forced to retire within the city. Diomilus Two miles and a half.

Above half a mile.

also and about three hundred more lose their lives in this en

gagement.

In pursuance of this, the Athenians, having erected a trophy, and given up the bodies of the slain under truce to the Syracusans, marched down the next day in order of battle to the very gates of the city: But, as the Syracusans refrained from sallying out against them, they again drew off, and raised a fort at Labdalum, on the very steepest edge of Epipolæ, looking towards Megara, which they intended as a repository for their baggage and money, whilst themselves might be called off, either to fight or to carry on the works of a siege.

Soon after this they were joined by a body of three hundred Egestéan horse, and one hundred more consisting of Siculi and Naxians, and some others in their alliance. The Athenian cavalry was in all two hundred and fifty: They had procured some horses from the Egestéans and Catanéans, and had purchased the rest; so that now they had got together a body of horse amounting in all to six hundred and fifty.

A garrison was no sooner settled in the fort of Labdalum, than the Athenians approached to Tyche; where, taking post, they built a wall in circle with great expedition, and by the rapidity of their work struck consternation into the Syracusans. Upon this they sallied out with the fixed design of hazarding an engagement, as they saw the danger of dallying any longer. The armies on both sides were now beginning to face each other; but the Syracusan generals, observing that their own army was in disarray and could not easily be formed into proper order, made them all wheel off again into the city, except a party of their horse: These, keeping the field, prevented the Athenians from carrying stones and straggling to any distance from their posts. But, at length, one Athenian band of heavy-armed, supported by the whole body of their cavalry, attacked and put to flight these Syracusan horsemen. They made some slaughter amongst them, and

erected a trophy for this piece of success against the enemy's cavalry.

On the day following, some of the Athenians began to raise a wall along the northern side of their circle; whilst others were employed in carrying stones and timber, which they laid down in heaps all along the place called Trogilus, near to the line marked out for the circumvallation, which was to reach, by the shortest compass, from the great harbour on one side to the sea on the other. But the Syracusans, who were principally guided by the advice of Hermocrates, gave up all thoughts of sallying out for the future, with the whole strength of the city, to give battle to the Athenians. It was judged more advisable to run along a wall in length, which should cut the line in which the Athenian works were designed to pass, and which (could they effect it in time) must entirely exclude the enemy from perfecting their circumvallation. Nay, farther, in case the enemy should come up in a body to interrupt the work, they might give them full employ with one division of their force, whilst another party might raise palisades to secure the approaches; at least, as the whole of the Athenian force must be drawn out to oppose them, they would be obliged to discontinue their own works. To raise, therefore, the projected work, they issued out of the city; and, beginning at the foot of the city-wall from below the Athenian circle, they carried on from thence a transverse wall, cutting down the olive trees in the sacred grove, of which they built wooden turrets to cover their work. The Athenian shipping was not yet come round from Thapsus into the great harbour, but the Syracusans continued masters of all the posts upon the sea, and consequently the Athenians were obliged to fetch up all necessary stores from Thap'sus across the land.

When it appeared to the Syracusans that all their palisades and the transverse-wall were sufficiently completed, in which the Athenians had given them no manner of interruption, as they were under apprehensions that, should they