Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/274

 266 DEFEAT AND VICTORY OF GYLIPPUS [vil myrium from coming out and doing mischief. About this time Nicias was informed that the rest of the Corinthian fleet a was on the point of arriving, and he sent twenty ships, which were ordered to he in wait for them about Locri and Rhegium and the approach to Sicily. 5 While Gylippus was building the wall across Epipolae, Gyiippns, cgagiug employing the stones which the Athen- the Athenians tn a con- 'ans had previously laid there for fined space between the their own usc, he at the same time iva s, ti e/eaie. constantly led out and drew up in front of the wall the Syracusans and their allies, and the Athen- ians on their part drew up in face of them. When he thought that the moment had arrived he offered battle; the two armies met and fought hand to hand between the walls. But there the Syracusan cavalry was useless ; the Syracusans and their allies were defeated, and received their dead under a flag of truce, while the Athenians raised a trophy. Gylippus then assembled his army and confessed that the fault was his own and not theirs ; for by confining their ranks too much between the walls he had rendered useless both their cavalry and their javelin- men. So he would lead them out again. And he reminded them that in material force they were equal to their enemies, while as for resolution they ought to be far superior. That they, who were Peloponnesians and Dorians*', should allow a mixed rabble of lonians and islanders to remain in the country and not determine to master them and drive them out, was a thing not to be thought of. 6 On the first opportunity he led them out again. Nicias and the Athenians had determined that, whether the Syracusans would offer battle or not, they must not allow them to carry on their counter-work. For already it had almost passed the end of the Athenian wall, and if the " Cp. vii 2 init. ^ Cp. i. 124 init. ; v. 9 init. ; vi. 77 mcd. ; viii. 25 mcd.