t harbour; this being also the shortest line for their work to
go down across the plain and the marsh to the harbour. Meanwhile the
Syracusans marched out and began a second stockade, starting from the
city, across the middle of the marsh, digging a trench alongside to make
it impossible for the Athenians to carry their wall down to the sea. As
soon as the Athenians had finished their work at the cliff they again
attacked the stockade and ditch of the Syracusans. Ordering the fleet
to sail round from Thapsus into the great harbour of Syracuse, they
descended at about dawn from Epipolae into the plain, and laying doors
and planks over the marsh, where it was muddy and firmest, crossed over
on these, and by daybreak took the ditch and the stockade, except a
small portion which they captured afterwards. A battle now ensued, in
which the Athenians were victorious, the right wing of the Syracusans
flying to the town and the left to the river. The three hundred picked
Athenians, wishing to cut off their passage, pressed on at a run to the
bridge, when the alarmed Syracusans, who had with them most of their
cavalry, closed and routed them, hurling them back upon the Athenian
right wing, the first tribe of which was thrown into a panic by the
shock. Seeing this, Lamachus came to their aid from the Athenian left
with a few archers and with the Argives, and crossing a ditch, was left
alone with a few that had crossed with him, and was killed with five or
six of his men. These the Syracusans managed immediately to snatch up
in haste and get across the river into a place of security, themselves
retreating as the rest of the Athenian army now came up.

Meanwhile those who had at first fled for refuge to the city, seeing the
turn affairs were taking, now rallied from the town and formed against
the Athenians in front of them, sending also a part of their number to
the Circle on Epipolae, which they hoped to take while denuded of its
defenders. These took and destroyed the Athenian outwork of a thousand
feet, the Circle itself being saved by Nicias, who happened to have been
left in it through illness, and who now ordered the servants to set fire
to the engines and timber thrown down before the wall; want of men, as
he was aware, rendering all other means of escape impossible. This step
was justified by the result, the Syracusans not coming any further on
account of the fire, but retreating. Meanwhile succours were coming up
from the A