74.
After resting a day they fought again, and the people, who had the advantage in numbers
and1 in the strength of their positions, gained the victory.
Their women joined vigorously in the fray, hurling tiles from the housetops, and
showing amid the uproar a fortitude beyond their sex.
[2]
The conflict was decided towards evening; the oligarchy, fearing lest the people should
take the arsenal with a sudden rush and so make an end of them, set fire to the private
houses which surrounded the Agora, as well as to the larger blocks of buildings, sparing
neither their own property nor that of any one else in their determination to stop them.
Much merchandise was burnt, and the whole city would have been destroyed if the wind
had carried the flame in that direction.
[3]
Both parties now left off fighting, and kept watch in their own positions during the
night.
When the popular cause triumphed, the Corinthian vessel stole away and most of the
auxiliaries crossed over unobserved to the continent.
1 In a second conflict the people are victorious.
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
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