Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/273

255 BATTLE, AND DEATH OF LAMACHUS. 255 palisade and ditch had been carried, and its defenders driven off A large Syracusan force came out from the city to sustain them, and retake it, so that a gsneral action now ensued, in the low ground between the cliff of Epipolse, the harbor, and the river Anapus. The superior discipline of the Athenians proved suc- cessful: the Syracusans were defeated and driven back on a. 1 ! sides, so that their right wing fled into the city, and their left (including the larger portion of their best force, the horsemen), along the banks of the river Anapus, to reach the bridge. Flushed with victory, the Athenians hoped to cut them off from this retreat, and a chosen body of three hundred hoplites ran fast in hopes of getting to the bridge first. In this hasty movement they fell into disorder, so that the Syracusan cavalry turned upon them, put them to flight, and threw them back upon the Athenian right wing, to which the fugitives communicated their own panic and disorder. The fate of the battle appeared to be turning against the Athenians, when Lamachus, who was on the left wing, hastened to their aid with the Argeian hoplites and as many bowmen as he could collect. His ardor carried him incautiously forward, so that he crossed a ditch with very few followers, before the remaining troops could follow him. He was here attacked and slain, 1 in single combat with a horseman named Kallikrates : but the Syracusans were driven back when his soldiers came up, and had only just time to snatch and carry off his dead body, with which they crossed the bridge and retreated behind the Anapus. The rapid movement of this gallant officer was thus crowned with complete success, restoring the victory to his own right wing : a victory dearly purchased by the forfeit of his own life. 2 Meanwhile the visible disorder and temporary flight of the Athenian right wing, and the withdrawal of Lamachus from the left to reinforce it, imparted fresh courage to the Syracusan right, which had fled into the town. They again came forth to renew the contest ; while their generals attempted a diversion by send- ing out a detachment from the northwestern gates of the city to attack the Athenian circle on the mid-slope of Epipolaa. As thia 1 Thucycl. vi. 102; Plutarch, Nikias, c. IS. Diodoras c/roncously places Uifi battle, in which Lamachus was slain, zfter the arrival of Gjlippus Jaiii, 8). * Thucycl. ri, 102