ascending to the Euryalus by a narrow and winding path, was so difficult, that even Demosthenes, naturally sanguine, despaired of being able to force his way up in the daylight, against an enemy seeing the attack. He was therefore constrained to attempt a night-surprise, for which, Nikias and his other colleagues consenting, he accordingly made preparations on the largest and most effective scale. He took the command himself, along with Menander and Eurymedon (Nikias being left to command within the lines),[1] conducting hoplites and light troops, together with masons and carpenters, and all other matters necessary for establishing a fortified post; lastly, giving orders that every man should carry with him provisions for five days.
Fortune so far favored him, that not only all these preliminary arrangements, but even his march itself, was accomplished without any suspicion of the enemy. At the beginning of a moonlight night, he quitted the lines, moved along the low ground on the left bank of the Anapus and parallel to that river for a considerable distance, then following various roads to the right, arrived at the Euryalus, or highest pitch of Epipolae, where he found himself in the same track by which the Athenians in coming from Katana a year and a half before—and Gylippus in coming from the interior of the island about ten months before had passed, in order to get to the slope of Epipolæ above Syracuse. He reached, without being discovered, the extreme Syracusan fort on the high ground, assailed it completely by surprise, and captured it after a feeble resistance. Some of the garrison within it were slain ; but the greater part escaped, and ran to give the alarm to the three fortified camps of Syracusans and allies, which were placed one below another behind the long continuous wall,[2] on the declivity of Epipolæ, as well as to a
- ↑ Thucyd. vii, 43. Diodorus tells us tKat Demosthenes took with him ten thousand hoplites, and ten thousand light troops, numbers which are not at all to be trusted (xiii, 11). Plutarch (Nikias, c. 21) says that Nikias was extremely averse to the attack on Epipolæ : Thucydides notices nothing of the kind, and the assertion seems improbable.
- ↑ Thucyd. vii, 42, 43. (
Greek characters) (Demosthenes) (Greek characters)
