History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides. The history of the Peloponnesian War, Volume 1-2. Dale, Henry, translator. London: Heinemann and Henry G. Bohn, 1851-1852.

and so it is called by the Syracusans, from lying above the rest,

Epipolae,

[or

Overton.

] They, then, went out at day-break with all their forces into the meadow along the course of the river Anapus, (Hermocrates and his colleagues having just come into office as their generals,) and held a review of their heavy-armed, having first selected from those troops a chosen body of six hundred, under the command of Diomilus, an exile from Andros, to be a guard for Epipole, and quickly to muster and present themselves for whatever other service they might be required.

[*](ἐξητάζοντο, καὶ ἔλαθον, κ. τ. λ.] They had landed their men during the night, and had then stationed their ships at Thapsus; while the soldiers, as soon as it was light, after a brief muster of their force, hastened to ascend to the Hog's Back behind Epipolae. —Arnold.) The Athenians, on the other hand, held a review the day following this night, having already, unobserved by them, made the coast with all their armament from Catana, opposite a place called Leon, about six or seven stades from Epipolae, and having landed their soldiers, and brought their ships to anchor at Thapsus; where there is a peninsula running out into the sea, with a narrow isthmus, being not far from the city of Syracuse, either by land or by water.