Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/267

249 ATHENIAN OPERATIONS OF SIEGE. 249 linn to a new position called Syke, lower down on E p.- poize, seemingly about midway between the northern and southern cliffs, lie here constructed, with as much rapidity as possible, a walled inclosure, called the Circle, intended as a centre from whence the projected wall of circumvallation was to start northward towards the sea at Trogilus, southward towards the Great Harbor. This Circle appears to have covered a considerable space, and was farther protected by an outwork in front covering an area of one thousand square feet. 1 Astounded at the rapidity with which the Athenians executed this construction, 2 the Syracusans inarched their forces out, and prepared to give battle in order to interrupt it. But when the Athenians, relinquishing the work, drew up on their side in battle order, the Syracusan generals were so struck with their manifest superiority in soldierlike array, as compared with the disorderly trim of their own ranks, that they withdrew their soldiers back into the city without venturing to engage ; merely leaving a body of horse to harass the operations of the besiegers, and constrain them to keep in masses. The newly-acquired Athe- nian cavalry, however, were here brought for the first time into effective combat. With the aid of one tribe of their own hoplites, they charged the Syracusan horse, drove them off with some loss, and erected their trophy. This is the only occasion on which we read of the Athenian cavalry being brought into conflict ; though Nikias had made the absence of cavalry the great reason for his prolonged inaction. Interruption being thus checked, Nikias continued his block ading operations ; first completing the Circle, 3 then beginning 1 Thucyd. vi, 97. ex&povv irpbf TT/V 'Zvictjv oi 'Atirjvaioi, Ivairep n irei^iaav ruv KVK'/.OV Jid rd^'oiif. 8 The Athenians seem to have surpassed all other Greeks in the diligence and skill with which they executed fortifications : sec some examples, Thn- cyd. v, 75-82 ; Xenoph. Hellen. iv, 4, 18. 1 Dr. Arnold, in his note on Thucyd. vi, 98, says that the Circle is spoken of, in one passage of Thucydides. as if it had never been completed. I con- strue this one passage differently from him (vii. 2,4) rij uP./.cj TOV KVK^.OM irpbf rijv Tpu-/i}.ov 7ri rijv tripav &u.?.aaaav : where I think T<J u?.Ay roC KVKAOV is equivalent to trtpudi TOV KVK^OV. as plainly appears from the ac- companying mention of Trogilus and the northern sea. I am persuaded that the Circle was finished ; and Dr. Arnold himself indicates two pa? sages in which it is distinctly spoken of as having leer, completed