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97. On the very same morning the Athenians were likewise holding a muster of their army. They1 had come from Catana with their whole force, and had put in unobserved near a place called Leon, which is dis. tant from Epipolae not quite a mile; there they disembarked their troops. Their ships cast anchor at Thapsus, which is a peninsula with a narrow isthmus, running out into the sea, and not far from Syracuse either by land or water. [2] The Athenian sailors made a stockade across the isthmus and remained at Thapsus, while the troops ran to Epipolae, and gained the summit by the way of the Euryelus before the Syracusans saw them or could come up to them from the meadow where the review was going on. [3] Nevertheless Diomilus with his six hundred hurried to the spot, accompanied by the rest of the army, each man running as fast he could; but the distance from the meadow which they had to traverse before they could engage was not less than three miles; [4] consequently they were in disorder when they closed with the Athenians. They were defeated in the engagement which ensued on Epipolae, and retired into the city. Diomilus and about three hundred others were slain. [5] The Athenians erected a trophy, and gave up to the Syracusans the bodies of the dead under a flag of truce. On the following day they went down to the city itself, but as the Syracusans did not come out against them, they retired and built a fort upon Labdalum, at the edge of the cliffs of Epipolae looking towards Megara, in order that when they advanced either to fight or to construct lines, the place might serve as a depository for their baggage and their property.

1 who land, unobserved, north of the city. They gain the summit of Epipolae and put to flight the Syracusan hoplites.

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load focus Notes (Charles F. Smith)
load focus Notes (E.C. Marchant, 1909)
load focus English (1910)
load focus English (Thomas Hobbes, 1843)
load focus Greek (1942)
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