70.
After they were come to hand-strokes, they fought long on both sides.
But in the meantime there happened some claps of thunder and flashes of lightning together with a great shower of rain;
insomuch as it added to the fear of the Syracusians, that were now fighting their first battle and not familiar with the wars;
whereas to the other side that had more experience, the season of the year seemed to expound that accident;
[2]
and their greatest fear proceeded from the so long resistance of their enemies, in that they were not all this while overcome.
When the Argives first had made the left wing of the Syracusians to give ground, and after them the Athenians had also done the like to those that were arranged against them, then the rest of the Syracusian army was presently broken and put to flight.
[3]
But the Athenians pursued them not far, because the Syracusian horsemen, being many and unvanquished, whensoever any men of arms advanced far from the body of the army, charged upon them and still drave them in again;
[4]
but having followed as far as safely they might in great troops, they retired again and erected a trophy.
The Syracusians, having rallied themselves in the Helorine way and recovered their order as well as they could for that time, sent a guard into Olympieium, lest the Athenians should take the treasure there, and returned with the rest of the army into the city.
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Thucydides. Thomas Hobbes. translator. London. Bohn. 1843.
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