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.

The Syracusans, the same summer, hearing that the cavalry had joined the Athenians, and that they were about to march against them, and thinking that unless the Athenians were masters of Epipolae, a precipitous tract, and lying right above their city, they could not, even if defeated in battle, be easily circumvallated, they determined to guard [*](τὰς προσβάσεις αὐτῶν,] i. e. the openings in the cliff at different points by which the ridge might be ascended, and particularly the ascent by Euryclus. —Arnold. On the topography of Syracuse, and the military operations before it, see his excellent Memoir in his third volume; as well as the other authorities quoted by Poppo in his note on ch. 98. 2.) the approaches to it, that the enemy might not gain the heights without their observation; for in no other way could they, as they thought, effect it.

For the rest of the position rises high, sloping down to the city, and being all visible within it:

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.