Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/288

 266 HISTORY OF GREECE. made him seven hundred strong. 1 Though the weather wrw such that the Thirty did not choose to keep their main force in the neighborhood of Phyle, and perhaps the Three Thousand themselves were not sufficiently hearty in the cause to allow it, yet they sent their Lacedaemonians and two tribes of Athenian horsemen to restrain the excursions of the garrison. This body Thrasybulus contrived to attack by surprise. Descending from Phyle by night, he halted within a quarter of a mile of their position until a little before daybreak, when the night-watch had just broken up, 2 and when the grooms were making a noise in rubbing down the horses. Just at that moment, the hoplites from Phyle rushed upon them at a running pace, found every man unprepared, and some even in their beds, and dispersed them with scarcely any resistance. One hundred and twenty hoplites and a few horsemen were slain, while abundance of arms and stores were captured and carried back to Phyle in triumph. 3 News of the defeat was speedily conveyed to the city, from whence the remaining horsemen immediately came forth to the rescue, but could do nothing more than protect the carrying off of the dead. This successful engagement sensibly changed the relative situ- ation of parties in Attica ; encouraging the exiles as much as it depressed the Thirty. Even among the partisans of the latter at Athens, dissension began to arise ; the minority which had sympathized with Theramenes, as well as that portion of the Three Thousand who were least compromised as accomplices in the recent enormities, began to waver so manifestly in theb allegiance, that Kritias and his colleagues felt some doubt ol being able to maintain themselves in the city. They resolved k secure Eleusis and the island of Salamis, as places of safety and resource in case of being compelled to evacuate Athens. They accordingly w^nt to Eleusis with a considerable number of 1 Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 2, 5, 14. Thebans at this dangerous hour, Xenoph. Hellen. vii, i, 16; compara Xenoph. Magistr. Equit. vii, 12. 3 Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 5, 7. Diodoras (xiv, 32, 33) represents th occasion of this battle somewhat differently. I follow the amount of Xeuophon.
 * See an analogous case of a Lacedaemonian army surprised by tb