Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/323

305 NIGHT ATTACK UPON KPIPOL.J. gofl chosen regiment of six hundred Syracusan hoplites under Ilermokrates, 1 who formed a night-watch, or bivouac. This regiment hastened up to the rescue, but Demosthenes and the Athenian vanguard charging impetuously forward, drove them back in disorder upon the fortified positions in their rear. Even Gylippus and the Syracusan troops advancing upwards out of these positions, were at first carried back by the same retreating movement. So far the enterprise of Demosthenes had been successful beyond all reasonable hope. He was master not only of the outer fort of the Syracusan position, but also of the extremity of v, padiuf uv cvrb A^tfev (ovdt yap vxofj.eiva.1 uv a<puf ovdtva) e'i-yeTO tiri&ea'&ai rrj Treipa. vii, 43. Kal rj/Jtspctf pev udi'vara eSuKEi elvai "Ka&dv TtpOcek&QVTOf /in/ e, etc. Dr. Arnold and Goller both interpret this description of Thucydidcs (see their notes on this chapter, and Dr. Arnold's Appendix, p. 275) as if Nikias, immediately that the Syracusan counter-wall had crossed his blockading line, had evacuated his circle and works on the slope of Epipolre, and had retired down exclusively into the lower ground below. Dr. Thirlwall too is of the same opinion (Hist. Gr. vol. iii, ch. xxvi, pp. 432-434). This appears to me unauthorized and incorrect. What conceivable motive can be assigned to induce Nikias to yield up to the enemy so impor- tant an advantage 1 If he had once relinquished the slope of Epipolae, to occupy exclusively the marsh beneath the southern cliff, Gylippus and the Syracusans would have taken good care that he should never again have mounted that cliff; nor could he ever have got near to the vaparei^tfffat. The moment when the Athenians did at last abandon their fortifications on the slope of Epipolie (TU uvu reixn) is specially marked by Thucydides afterwards, vii, 60: it was at the last moment of desperation, when the service of all was needed for the final maritime battle in the Great Harbor. Dr. Arnold (p. 275) misinterprets this passage, in my judgment, evading the direct sense of it. The words of Thucydides, vii, 42 el ETiiKparffffeis TIC TCJV re 'E7n7r rr/f uva/Buaeuf nal av-&i TOV iv avralf orparo7r5cw are more correctly conceived by M. Firmin Didot, in the note to his translation, than by Ar- nold and Goller. The nrpardnedov here indicated does not mcnn the Athe- nian circle, and their partially completed line of circumvallation on the slope of Epipola?. It means the ground higher up than this, which they had partially occupied at first while building the fort of Labdalum, and of which they had been substantially masters until the arrival of Gylipnua who had now converted it into a camp or aTparoxsf.ov of the Syracusans. 1 Diodor. xiii, 11. VOL. vi r. 20oc.