History of the Peloponnesian War

Gylippus in the meantime went on with the wall through Epipolae, using the stones laid ready there by the Athenians, and withal drew out the Syracusians and their confederates beyond the point of the same, and ever as he brought them forth put them into their order;

and the Athenians, on the other side, embattled themselves against them. Gylippus, when he saw his time, began the battle; and being come to hands, they fought between the fortifications of them both, where the Syracusians and their confederates had no use at all of their horsemen.

The Syracusians and their confederates being overcome, and the Athenians having given them truce to take up their dead and erected a trophy, Gylippus assembled the army and told them that this was not theirs, but his own fault, who, by pitching the battle so far within the fortifications, had deprived them of the use both of their cavalry and darters;

and that therefore he meant to bring them on again, and wished them to consider that for forces they were nothing inferior to the enemy; and for courage, it were a thing not to be endured that, being Peloponnesians and Dorians, they should not master and drive out of the country Ionians, islanders, and a rabble of mixed nations.