History of the Peloponnesian War

Meanwhile Demosthenes also, seeing that the Lacedaemonians intended to attack him by sea and by land at the same time, set about making his preparations. He drew ashore, close up under the fortification, the triremes[*](Only three: five had been left him (4.5.2), but two of these he had sent to warn the squadron at Zacynthus.) remaining to him out of those which had been left in his charge and enclosed them in a stockade; he then armed their crews with shields—poor ones. indeed, most of which were made of plaited willow; for it was not possible to procure arms in an uninhabited country, and such as they had they took from a thirty-oared privateer and a light boat belonging to some Messenians who chanced to come along, and included among them about forty hoplites, whom Demosthenes used along with the rest.

He then posted the greater part of his troops, the unarmed as well as the armed, at the best fortified and strongest points of the place, on the side toward the mainland, giving them orders to ward off the enemy's infantry if it should attack. But he himself selected from the whole body of his troops sixty hoplites and a few archers, and with them sallied forth from the fort to the point on the seashore where he thought that the enemy would be most likely to attempt a landing. The ground, indeed, was difficult of access and rocky where it faced the sea, yet since the Athenian wall was weakest at this place the enemy would, he thought, be only too eager to make an assault there;

in fact the Athenians themselves had left their fortification weak at this spot merely because they never expected to be defeated at sea, and Demosthenes knew that if the enemy could force a landing there the place could be taken.

Accordingly he posted his hoplites at this point, taking them to the very brink of the sea, determined to keep the enemy off if he could; and then he exhorted them as follows: