occasions of need, went without the wall, and made towards the place of the clamour. They also held up the fires by which they used to make known the approach of enemies, towards Thebes. But then the Platæans likewise held out many other fires from the wall of the city, which for that purpose they had before prepared, to confound the meaning of the enemy’s signal–fires, and that the Thebans, apprehending the matter otherwise than it was, might forbear to send help till their men were over, and had recovered some place of safety. “In the mean time those Platæans, which having scaled the wall first and slain the watch, were now masters of both the towers, not only guarded the passages by standing themselves in the entries, but also applying ladders from the wall to the towers, and conveying many men to the top, kept the enemies off with shot both from above and below. In the mean space the greatest number of them having reared to the wall many ladders at once, and beaten down the battlements, passed quite over between the towers, and ever as any of them got to the other side, they stood still upon the brink of the ditch, and with arrows and darts kept off those that came along the wall to hinder the passage of their companions. And when the rest were over, then last of all, and with much ado, came they also which were in the two towers down to the ditch. And by this time the three hundred, that were to assist the watch, came and set upon them, and had lights with them; by which means the Platæans that were on the further brink of the ditch discerned them the better from out of the dark, and aimed their arrows and darts at their most disarmed parts; for, standing in the dark, the light of the enemy made the Platæans the less discernible: insomuch as the last of them passed the ditch in time, though with difficulty and force; for the water in it was frozen over, though not so hard as to bear, but watery, and such as when the wind is at east rather than at north; and the snow which fell that night, together with so great a wind as there was, had very much increased the water, which they waded through, with scarce their heads above. But yet the greatness of the storm was the principal means of their escape.