History of The Peloponnesian War - Book III   

them; and rearing ladders from the wall, sent several men up on the
towers, and from their summit and base kept in check all of the
enemy that came up, with their missiles, while their main body planted
a number of ladders against the wall, and knocking down the
battlements, passed over between the towers; each as soon as he had
got over taking up his station at the edge of the ditch, and plying
from thence with arrows and darts any who came along the wall to
stop the passage of his comrades. When all were over, the party on the
towers came down, the last of them not without difficulty, and
proceeded to the ditch, just as the three hundred came up carrying
torches. The Plataeans, standing on the edge of the ditch in the dark,
had a good view of their opponents, and discharged their arrows and
darts upon the unarmed parts of their bodies, while they themselves
could not be so well seen in the obscurity for the torches; and thus
even the last of them got over the ditch, though not without effort
and difficulty; as ice had formed in it, not strong enough to walk
upon, but of that watery kind which generally comes with a wind more
east than north, and the snow which this wind had caused to fall
during the night had made the water in the ditch rise, so. that they
could scarcely breast it as they crossed. However, it was mainly the
violence of the storm that enabled them to effect their escape at all.
Starting from the ditch, the Plataeans went all together along the
road leading to Thebes, keeping the chapel of the hero Androcrates
upon their right; considering that the last road which the
Peloponnesians would suspect them of having taken would be that
towards their enemies' country. Indeed they could see them pursuing
with torches upon the Athens road towards Cithaeron and
Druoskephalai or Oakheads. After going for rather more than half a
mile upon the road to Thebes, the Plataeans turned off and took that
leading to the mountain, to Erythrae and Hysiae, and reaching the
hills, made good their escape to Athens, two hundred and twelve men in
all; some of their number having turned back into the town before
getting over the wall, and one archer having been taken prisoner at
the outer ditch. Meanwhile the Peloponnesians gave up the pursuit
and returned to their posts; and the Plataeans in the town, knowing
nothing of what had passed, and informed by those who had turned
back that not a man had escaped, sent out a herald as soon as it was
day to make a truce for the recovery of the dead bodies, and then,
learning the truth, desisted. In this way the Plataean party got
over and were saved.
Towards the close of the same winter, Salaethus, a Lacedaemonian,
was sent out in a galley from Lacedaemon to Mitylene. Going by sea
to Pyrrha, and from thence overland, he passed along the bed of a
torrent, where the line of circumvallation was passable, and thus
entering unperceived into Mitylene told the magistrates that Attica
would certainly be invaded, and the forty ships destined to relieve
them arrive, and that he had been sent on to announce this and to
superintend matters generally. The Mitylenians upon this took courage,
and laid aside the idea of treating with the Athenians; and now this
winter ended, and with it ended the fourth year of the war of which
Thucydides was the historian.
The next summer the Peloponnesians sent off the forty-two ships
for Mitylene, under Alcidas, their high admiral, and themselves and
their allies invaded Attica, their object being to distract the
Athenians by a double movement, and thus to make it less easy for them
to act against the fleet sailing to Mitylene. The commander in this
invasion was Cleomenes, in the place of King Pausanias, son of
Pleistoanax, his nephew, who was still a minor. Not content with
laying waste whatever had shot up in the parts which they had before
devastated, the invaders now extended their ravages to lands passed
over in their previous incursions; so that this invasion was more
severely felt by the Athenians than any except the second; the enemy
staying on and on until they had overrun most of the country, in the
expectation of hearing from Lesbos of something having been achieved