History of the Peloponnesian War

And when all these had reached the other side, the men who had held the towers, the last of whom descended with difficulty, advanced toward the ditch; and at the same time the three hundred bore down upon them, carrying torches.

Now the Plataeans, as they stood on the edge of the ditch, saw them better out of the darkness, and kept launching arrows and javelins at their uncovered sides, while they themselves, being in the shadow, were rendered less visible by the enemy's torches. Consequently even the last of the Plataeans got safely across the ditch, though only with difficulty and after a hard struggle;

for in the ditch ice had formed that was not firm enough to walk on but mushy, such as is formed when the wind is east instead of north; and since the night, the wind being from that quarter, was somewhat snowy, the water in the ditch had become so deep that they could scarcely keep their heads above it as they crossed. It was, however, chiefly the violence of the storm that enabled them to escape at all.