History of the Peloponnesian War

Having spent much of the day in charging and retiring and trying each other, and performed nothing worth the mentioning, save that the Syracusians sank a galley or two of the Athenians, they parted again; and the land soldiers retired at the same time from the wall of the Athenian camp.

The next day the Syracusians lay still without showing any sign of what they meant to do. Yet Nicias, seeing that the battle by sea was with equality and imagining that they would fight again, made the captains to repair their galleys, such as had been torn, and two great ships to be moored without those piles which he had driven into the sea before his galleys, to be instead of a haven enclosed.

These ships he placed about two acres' breadth asunder, to the end, if any galley chanced to be pressed, it might safely run in and again go safely out at leisure. In performing of this the Athenians spent a whole day from morning until night.