25 o HISTORY OF GRKECK. Circle lay completely apart and at considerable distance from t-ho battle, they hoped to find the garrison unprepared for attack, and thus to curry it by surprise. Their manoeuvre, bold and well- timed, was on the point of succeeding. They carried with little difficulty the covering outwork in front, and the Circle itself, prob- ably stripped of part of its garrison to reinforce the combatants in the lower ground, was only saved by the presence of mind and resource of Nikias. who was lying ill within it. He directed Jic attendants immediately to set fire to a quantity of wood which lay, together with the battering engines of the army, in front of the circle-wall, so that the flames prevented all farther advance on the part of the assailants, and forced them to retreat. The same flames also served as a signal to the Athenians engaged in the battle beneath, who immediately sent reinforcements to the relief of their general ; while at the same time the Athenian fleet, just arrived from Thapsus, was seen sailing into the Great Har- bor. This last event, threatening the Syracusans on a new side, drew oft' their whole attention to the defence of their city, so that both their combatants from the field and their detachment from the Circle were brought back within the walls. 1 Had the recent attempt on the Circle succeeded, carrying with it the death or capture of Nikias, and combined with the death of Lamachus in the field on that same day, it would have greatly brightened the prospects of the Syracusans, and might even have arrested the farther progress of the siege, from the want of an authorized commander. But in spite of such imminent hazard, the actual result of the day left the Athenians completely victorious, and the Syracusans more discouraged than ever. What materially contributed to their discouragement, was, the recent entrance of the Athenian fleet into the Great Harbor, wherein it was hence- forward permanently established, in cooperation with the army in a station near the left bank of the Anapus. Both the army and the fleet now began to occupy themselves seriously with the construction of the southernmost part of the wall of circumvallation ; beginning immediately below the Athe- nian fortified point of descent from the southern cliff of Epipola?,
1 Thucyd. vi, 102.
