History of the Peloponnesian War

But the Athenians, when they learned of their approach, took all their own army and such of the Sicels or others as had joined them, and embarking on their ships and boats sailed under cover of night against Syracuse.

And they disembarked at daybreak at a point opposite the Olympieium, where they proposed to occupy a camping-place; but the Syracusan horsemen, who were the first to reach Catana and found there that the whole army was gone, turned about and announced this to the infantry, and all then turned back at once and hastened to bring aid to the city.

Meanwhile the Athenians, undisturbed, as the Syracusans had a long way to go, settled their army in a suitable position, where they could begin a battle whenever they wished and the Syracusan horsemen would annoy them the least either in the actual fighting or before; for on one side walls and houses and trees and a swamp furnished a barrier, on the other side a line of cliffs.