Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/15

 8,9] DISPOSITION OF THE ATHENIAN TROOPS 7 be a possibility of landing. For on the shore of Pylos itself, outside the entrance of the strait, and where the land faced the open sea, there were no harbours, and the Athenians would find no position from which they could assist their countrymen. Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians, avoiding the risk of an engagement at sea, might take the fort, which had been occupied in a hurry and was not provisioned. Acting on this impression they conveyed their hoplites over to the island, selecting them by lot out of each division of the army. One detachment relieved another ; those who went over last and were taken in the island were four hundred and twenty men, besides the Helots who attended them ; they were under the command of Epitadas the son of Molobrus. Demosthenes, seeing that the Lacedaemonians were 9 about to attack him both by sea and by c; •//• ; j 1 •' -^ Sktlfiil use made by land, made his own preparations. He Dcmostiicncs of the drew up on shore under the fort the small means at his dis- three triremes remaining* to him out ^°^" • of the five which had not gone on to Corcyra, and pro- tected them by a stockade ; their crews he armed with shields, but of a poor sort, most of them made of wicker- work. In an uninhabited country there was no possibility of procuring arms, and these were only obtained from a thirty-oared privateer and a light boat belonging to some Messenians who had just arrived. Of these Messenians about forty were hoplites, whom Demosthenes used with the others. He placed the greater part of his forces, armed and unarmed, upon the side of the place which looks towards the mainland and was stronger and better fortified ; these he ordered, if they should be attacked, to repel the land forces, while he himself selected out of the whole body of his troops sixty hoplites and a few archers, and marched out of the fort to the sea-shore at the point where the Lacedaemonians seemed most likely to attempt a landing. The spot which he chose lay towards the " Reading ai wtpiTJaav avrcu. VOL. II. C