History of the Peloponnesian War

When the Syracusans thought that those parts of their counter-work which had been completed by means of palisades and masonry were sufficient, and when the Athenians did not come out to stop them, as they feared that the enemy would more easily contend with them when they were divided, and at the same time were hurrying to complete their own wall of circumvallation; the Syracusans, having left one tribe to guard the building, returned into the city. The Athenians, in the mean time, destroyed their pipes which ran under ground into the city, carrying water for drinking; and having watched when the rest of the Syracusans were in their tents at mid-day, and some of them had even gone away into the city, while those in [*](ἐν τῷ σταυρώματι] Apparently a stockade in advance of the cross wall, ὑποτείχισμα, and covering the approach to it. —Arnold.) the stockade were keeping but a careless guard, they appointed three hundred picked men of themselves, and a chosen body of the light troops, armed for the purpose, to run suddenly at full speed to the counter-work, while the rest of the army advanced in two divisions, one with one of the generals to the city, in case they should come to the rescue, the other with the other general to the stockade near the postern.

Accordingly the three hundred assaulted and took the stockade, the guard evacuating it, and taking refuge in the outworks around Temenites. Their pursuers also burst in with them, but, after getting in, were forcibly driven out again by the Syracusans, and some few of the Argives and Athenians were slain there.

And now the whole army having returned, threw down the wall, tore up the palisades, transferred the pales to their own lines, and erected a trophy.