Athens seemed inexhaustible, and resistance to her
hopeless. They had been told that she was reduced to the last
extremities, and that her territory was occupied by an enemy; and yet
here they saw her sending forth, as if in prodigality of power, a second
armament, to make foreign conquests, not inferior to that with which
Nicias had first landed on the Sicilian shores.

With the intuitive decision of a great commander, Demosthenes at once
saw that the possession of Epipolae was the key to the possession of
Syracuse, and he resolved to make a prompt and vigorous attempt to
recover that position while his force was unimpaired and the
consternation which its arrival had produced among the besieged remained
unabated. The Syracusans and their allies had run out an outwork along
Epipolae from the city walls, intersecting the fortified lines of
circumvallation which Nicias had commenced, but from which he had been
driven by Gylippus. Could Demosthenes succeed in storming this outwork,
and in reestablishing the Athenian troops on the high ground, he might
fairly hope to be able to resume the circumvallation of the city and
become the conqueror of Syracuse; for when once the besiegers' lines
were completed, the number of the troops with which Gylippus had
garrisoned the place would only tend to exhaust the stores of provisions
and accelerate its downfall.

An easily repelled attack was first made on the outwork in the daytime,
probably more with the view of blinding the besieged to the nature of
the main operations than with any expectation of succeeding in an open
assault, with every disadvantage of the ground to contend against. But,
when the darkness had set in, Demosthenes formed his men in columns,
each soldier taking with him five days' provisions, and the engineers
and workmen of the camp following the troops with their tools and all
portable implements of fortification, so as at once to secure any
advantage of ground that the army might gain. Thus equipped and
prepared, he led his men along by the foot of the southern flank of
Epipolae, in a direction toward the interior of the island, till he came
immediately below the narrow ridge that forms the extremity of the high
ground looking westward. He then wheeled his vanguard to the right, sent
them rapidly up the paths that wind along the face of the cliff, and
succeeded in completely surprising the Syracusan outposts, and in
placing his troops fairly on the extreme summ