History of the Peloponnesian War

The Athenians that watched for them with twenty galleys at Megara took one of them and the men that were in her, but could not take the rest, so that they escaped through to Syracuse.

There was also a light skirmish in the haven of Syracuse, about the piles which the Syracusians had driven down before their old harbour, to the end that the galleys might ride within and the Athenians not annoy them by assault. The Athenians, having brought to the place a ship of huge greatness, fortified with wooden turrets and covered against fire, caused certain men with [little] boats to go and fasten cords unto the piles, and so broke them up with craning.

Some also the divers did cut up with saws. In the meantime the Syracusians from the harbour and they from the great ship shot at each other, till in the end the greatest part of the piles were by the Athenians gotten up. But the greatest difficulty was to get up those piles which lay hidden.