78.
Nicias, as he used this hortative, went withal about the army, and where he saw any man straggle and not march in his rank, he brought him about and set him in his place.
Demosthenes, having spoken to the same or like purpose, did as much to those soldiers under him.
[2]
And they marched forward, those with Nicias in a square battalion, and then those with Demosthenes in the rear.
And the men of arms received those that carried the baggage and the other multitude within them.
[3]
When they were come to the ford of the river Anapus, they there found certain of the Syracusians and their confederates embattled against them on the bank;
but these they put to flight, and having won the passage marched forward.
But the Syracusian horsemen lay still upon them, and their light-armed plied them with their darts in the flank.
[4]
This day the Athenians marched forty furlongs, and lodged that night at the foot of a certain hill.
The next day, as soon as it was light, they marched forwards about twenty furlongs, and descending into a certain champaign ground, encamped there, with intent both to get victual at the houses (for the place was inhabited) and to carry water with them thence;
for before them, in the way they were to pass, for many furlongs together there was but little to be had.
[5]
But the Syracusians in the meantime got before them and cut off their passage with a wall.
This was at a steep hill, on either side whereof was the channel of a torrent with steep and rocky banks;
[6]
and it is called Acraeum Lepas.
The next day the Athenians went on;
and the horsemen and darters of the Syracusians and their confederates, being a great number of both, pressed them so with their horses and darts that the Athenians after long fight were compelled to retire again into the same camp, but now with less victual than before, because the horsemen would suffer them no more to straggle abroad.
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Thucydides. Thomas Hobbes. translator. London. Bohn. 1843.
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