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After a few days Gylippus led forth his troops together with the Syracusans against the Athenians. A fierce battle took place and Lamachus, the Athenian general, died in the fighting; and although many were slain on both sides, victory lay with the Athenians. [2] After the battle, when thirteen triremes had arrived from Corinth, Gylippus, after taking the crews of the ships, with them and the Syracusans attacked the camp of the enemy and sought to storm Epipolae. When the Athenians came out, they joined battle and the Syracusans, after slaying many Athenians, were victorious and they razed the wall throughout the length of Epipole; at this the Athenians abandoned the area of Epipolae and withdrew their entire force to the other camp. [3]

After these events the Syracusans dispatched ambassadors to Corinth and Lacedaemon to get help; and the Corinthians together with the Boeotians and Sicyonians sent them one thousand men and the Spartans six hundred. [4] And Gylippus went about the cities of Sicily and persuaded many peoples to join the alliance, and after gathering three thousand soldiers from the Himeraeans and Sicani he led them through the interior of the island. When the Athenians learned that these troops were near at hand, they attacked and slew half of them; the survivors, however, got safely to Syracuse. [5]

Upon the arrival of the allies the Syracusans, wishing to try their hand also in battles at sea, launched the ships they already possessed and fitted out additional ones, giving them their trials in the small harbour. [6] And Nicias, the Athenian general, dispatched letters to Athens in which he made known that many allies were now with the Syracusans and that they had fitted out no small number of ships and had resolved upon offering battle at sea; he therefore asked them to send speedily both triremes and money and generals to assist him in the conduct of the war, explaining that with the flight of Alcibiades and the death of Lamachus he was the only general left and at that was not in good health. [7] The Athenians dispatched to Sicily ten ships with Eurymedon the general and one hundred and forty talents of silver, at the time of the winter solstice1; meantime they busied themselves with preparations to dispatch a great fleet in the spring. Consequently they were enrolling soldiers everywhere from their allies and gathering together money. [8]

In the Peloponnesus the Lacedaemonians, being spurred on by Alcibiades, broke the truce with the Athenians, and the war which followed continued for twelve years.2

1 22nd December.

2 Ten years, 413-404 B.C. inclusive.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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