History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides
Thucydides. The history of the Peloponnesian War, Volume 1-2. Dale, Henry, translator. London: Heinemann and Henry G. Bohn, 1851-1852.
The Syracusans, the same summer, hearing that the cavalry had joined the Athenians, and that they were about to march against them, and thinking that unless the Athenians were masters of Epipolae, a precipitous tract, and lying right above their city, they could not, even if defeated in battle, be easily circumvallated, they determined to guard [*](τὰς προσβάσεις αὐτῶν,] i. e. the openings in the cliff at different points by which the ridge might be ascended, and particularly the ascent by Euryclus. —Arnold. On the topography of Syracuse, and the military operations before it, see his excellent Memoir in his third volume; as well as the other authorities quoted by Poppo in his note on ch. 98. 2.) the approaches to it, that the enemy might not gain the heights without their observation; for in no other way could they, as they thought, effect it.
For the rest of the position rises high, sloping down to the city, and being all visible within it:
and so it is called by the Syracusans, from lying above the rest,
Epipolae,[or
Overton.] They, then, went out at day-break with all their forces into the meadow along the course of the river Anapus, (Hermocrates and his colleagues having just come into office as their generals,) and held a review of their heavy-armed, having first selected from those troops a chosen body of six hundred, under the command of Diomilus, an exile from Andros, to be a guard for Epipole, and quickly to muster and present themselves for whatever other service they might be required.
[*](ἐξητάζοντο, καὶ ἔλαθον, κ. τ. λ.] They had landed their men during the night, and had then stationed their ships at Thapsus; while the soldiers, as soon as it was light, after a brief muster of their force, hastened to ascend to the Hog's Back behind Epipolae. —Arnold.) The Athenians, on the other hand, held a review the day following this night, having already, unobserved by them, made the coast with all their armament from Catana, opposite a place called Leon, about six or seven stades from Epipolae, and having landed their soldiers, and brought their ships to anchor at Thapsus; where there is a peninsula running out into the sea, with a narrow isthmus, being not far from the city of Syracuse, either by land or by water.