Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/266

 258 SECOND COUNTER-WORK [vi through the level of the marsh. Meanwhile the Syra- The Athenians pro- cusaiis also Came out, and beginning ceed to cany their wall from the city, proceeded to carry southwards towards the another stockade through the middle of Great Harbour. They. . 1 • i 1 • 1 • take the stockade which the marsh, With a ditch at the side, in is intended to intercept order to prevent the Athenians from them. After defeating completing their line to the sea. The the Syracusans they fall, ,. ^ • 1 t 1 • 1 into partial confusion letter, having finished their work as thetnsehes. Lamachus far as the cliff, attacked the new " ^^"'"- Syracusan stockade and ditch. They ordered the ships to sail round from Thapsus into the Great Harbour of the Syracusans ; with the first break of day they descended themselves from Epipolae to the level ground ; and passing through the marsh where the soil was clay and firmer than the rest, over planks and gates which they laid down, they succeeded at sunrise in taking nearly the whole of the stockade and the ditch, and the remainder not long afterwards. A battle took place in which the Athenians were victorious, and the Syracusans on the right wing fled to the city, those on the left along the riveF. The three hundred chosen Athenian troops pressed on at full speed towards the bridge, intending to stop their passage, but the Syracusans, fearing that they would be cut off, and having most of their horsemen on the spot, turned upon the three hundred, and putting them to flight, charged the right wing of the Athenians. The panic now extended to the whole division^ at the extremity of the wing. Lamachus saw what had happened, and hastened to the rescue from his own place on the left wing, taking with him a few archers and the Argive troops ; but pressing forward across a certain ditch he and a few who had followed him were cut off from the rest, and he fell with five or six others. The Syracusans hastily snatched up their bodies, and carried them across the river out of the reach of the enemy. But when they saw " Reac^iiifj (/.i/Xj).