“Non enim (observes Cicero, in the fifth oration against Verres, c. 36), sicut erat nuper consuetudo, prædonum adventum significabat _ignis è speculà sublatus aut tumulo_: sed flamma ex ipso incendio navium et calamitatem acceptam et periculum reliquum nuntiabat.” Meanwhile, the escaping Platæans, masters of the two adjoining towers,—on the top of which some of them mounted, while others held the doorway through, so as to repel with spears and darts all approach of the blockaders,—prosecuted their flight without interruption over the space between, shoving down the battlements in order to make it more level and plant a greater number of ladders. In this manner they all successively got over and crossed the outer ditch; every man, immediately after crossing, standing ready on the outer bank, with bow and javelin, to repel assailants and maintain safe passages for his comrades in the rear. At length, when all had descended, there remained the last and greatest difficulty,—the escape of those who occupied the two towers and kept the intermediate portion of wall free: yet even this was accomplished successfully and without loss. The outer ditch was, however, found embarrassing,—so full of water from the rain as to be hardly fordable, yet with thin ice on it also, from a previous frost: for the storm, which in other respects was the main help to their escape, here retarded their passage of the ditch by an unusual accumulation of water. It was not, however, until all had crossed except the defenders of the towers,—who were yet descending and scrambling through,—that the Peloponnesian reserve of three hundred were seen approaching the spot with torches. Their unshielded right side was turned towards the ditch, and the Platæans, already across and standing on the bank, immediately assailed them with arrows and javelins,—in which the torches enabled them to take tolerable aim, while the Peloponnesians on their side could not distinguish their enemies in the dark, and had no previous knowledge of their position. They were thus held in check until the rearmost Platæans had surmounted the difficulties of the passage: after which the whole body stole off as speedily as they could, taking at first the road towards Thebes, while their pursuers were seen with their torch-lights following the opposite direction, on the road which led by the heights called Dryos-Kephalæ to Athens: after having marched about three quarters of a mile on the road to Thebes, leaving the chapel of the Hero Androkratês on their right hand, the fugitives quitted it, and striking to the eastward towards Erythræ and Hysiæ, soon found themselves in safety among the mountains which separate Bœotia from Attica at that point; from whence they passed into the glad harbor and refuge of Athens.[392] [392] Thucyd. iii, 24. Diodorus (xii, 56) gives a brief summary of these facts, without either novelty or liveliness.