History of the Peloponnesian War

Gylippus, when the navy was ready, drew out his whole power of land soldiers in the beginning of night, meaning to go himself and assault the fortifications in Plemmyrium; withal the galleys of the Syracusians, by appointment, thirty-five of them came up towards it out of the great haven; and forty-five more came about out of the little haven, where also was their arsenal, with purpose to join with those within and to go together to Plemmyrium that the Athenians might be troubled on both sides.

But the Athenians having quickly manned sixty galleys to oppose them, with twenty-five of them they fought with the thirty-five of the Syracusians in the great haven, and with the rest went to meet those that came about from the little haven. And these fought presently before the mouth of the great haven and held each other to it for a long time, one side endeavouring to force, the other to defend the entrance.

In the meantime, Gylippus (the Athenians in Plemmyrium being now come down to the water side, and having their minds busied upon the fight of the galleys) betimes in the morning and on a sudden assaulted the fortifications before they could come back again to defend them, and possessed first the greatest and afterwards the two lesser; for they that watched in these, when they saw the greatest so easily taken, durst stay no longer.

They that fled upon the losing of the first wall and put themselves into boats and into a certain ship got hardly into the camp; for whilst the Syracusians in the great haven had yet the better in the fight upon the water, they gave them chase with one nimble galley. But by that time that the other two walls were taken, the Syracusians upon the water were overcome; and the Athenians which fled from those two walls got to their camp with more ease.

For those Syracusian galleys that fought before the haven's mouth, having beaten back the Athenians, entered in disorder, and falling foul one on another, gave away the victory unto the Athenians, who put to flight not only them, but also those other by whom they had before been overcome within the haven, and sunk eleven galleys of the Syracusians and slew most of the men aboard them, save only the men of three galleys, whom they took alive.