History of the Peloponnesian War

Then the battle grew sore on the Lacedaemonians' side, for their jacks now gave way to the arrows, and the darts that were thrown stuck broken in them, so as they could not handle themselves, as neither seeing before them, nor hearing any direction given them for the greater noise of the enemy, but danger being on all sides, were hopeless to save themselves upon any side by fighting.

In the end, many of them being now wounded, for that they could not shift their ground, they made their retreat in close order to the last guard of the island and to the watch that was there.

When they once gave ground, then were the lightarmed soldiers much more confident than before and pressed upon them with a mighty noise; and as many of the Lacedaemonians as they could intercept in their retreat they slew; but the most of them recovered the fort and together with the watch of the same put themselves in order to defend it in all parts that were subject to assault.

The Athenians following could not now encompass and hem them in, for the strong situation of the place, but, assaulting them in the face, sought only how to put them from the wall.