gth retired to the same camp,
where they had no longer provisions as before, it being impossible to
leave their position by reason of the cavalry.

Early next morning they started afresh and forced their way to the
hill, which had been fortified, where they found before them the enemy's
infantry drawn up many shields deep to defend the fortification, the
pass being narrow. The Athenians assaulted the work, but were greeted
by a storm of missiles from the hill, which told with the greater
effect through its being a steep one, and unable to force the passage,
retreated again and rested. Meanwhile occurred some claps of thunder and
rain, as often happens towards autumn, which still further disheartened
the Athenians, who thought all these things to be omens of their
approaching ruin. While they were resting, Gylippus and the Syracusans
sent a part of their army to throw up works in their rear on the way by
which they had advanced; however, the Athenians immediately sent some
of their men and prevented them; after which they retreated more towards
the plain and halted for the night. When they advanced the next day the
Syracusans surrounded and attacked them on every side, and disabled many
of them, falling back if the Athenians advanced and coming on if they
retired, and in particular assaulting their rear, in the hope of routing
them in detail, and thus striking a panic into the whole army. For a
long while the Athenians persevered in this fashion, but after advancing
for four or five furlongs halted to rest in the plain, the Syracusans
also withdrawing to their own camp.

During the night Nicias and Demosthenes, seeing the wretched condition
of their troops, now in want of every kind of necessary, and numbers of
them disabled in the numerous attacks of the enemy, determined to light
as many fires as possible, and to lead off the army, no longer by the
same route as they had intended, but towards the sea in the opposite
direction to that guarded by the Syracusans. The whole of this route was
leading the army not to Catana but to the other side of Sicily, towards
Camarina, Gela, and the other Hellenic and barbarian towns in that
quarter. They accordingly lit a number of fires and set out by night.
Now all armies, and the greatest most of all, are liable to fears and
alarms, especially when they are marching by night through an enemy's
country and with the enemy near; and the Athenians falling into one of
these panics, the