His task would probably have been difficult, had Nypsius been able to control the troops under his command, in themselves brave and good. But these troops had been for some hours dispersed throughout the streets, satiating their licentious and murderous passions, and destroying a town which Dionysius now no longer expected to retain. Recalling as many soldiers as he could from this brutal disorder, Nypsius marshalled them along the interior fortification, occupying the entrances and exposed points where Dion would seek to penetrate into the city.[235] The battle was thus not continuous, but fought between detached parties at separate openings, often very narrow, and on ground sometimes difficult to surmount, amidst the conflagration blazing everywhere around.[236] Disorganized by pillage, the troops of Nypsius could oppose no long resistance to the forward advance of Dion, with soldiers full of ardor and with the Syracusans around him stimulated by despair. Nypsius was overpowered, compelled to abandon his line of defence, and to retreat with his troops into Ortygia, which the greater number of them reached in safety. Dion and his victorious troops, after having forced the entrance into the city, did not attempt to pursue them. The first and most pressing necessity was to extinguish the flames; but no inconsiderable number of the soldiers of Nypsius were found dispersed through the streets and houses, and slain while actually carrying off plunder on their shoulders. Long after the town was cleared of enemies, however, all hands within it were employed in stopping the conflagration; a task in which they hardly succeeded, even by unremitting efforts throughout the day and the following night.[237] [235] Plutarch, Dion, c. 46. παρατεταγμένων ~παρὰ τὸ τείχισμα~ χαλεπὴν ἔχον καὶ δυσεκβίαστον τὴν πρόσοδον. To a person who, after penetrating into the interior of the wall of Epipolæ, stood on the slope, and looked down eastward, the outer wall of Tycha, Achradina, and Neapolis, might be said to form one τείχισμα; not indeed in one and the same line or direction, yet continuous from the northern to the southern brink of Epipolæ. [236] Plutarch, Dion, c. 46. Ὡς δὲ προσέμιξαν τοῖς πολεμίοις, ἐν χερσὶ μὲν ὀλίγων πρὸς ὀλίγους ἐγένετο μάχη, διὰ τὴν στενότητα καὶ τὴν ἀνωμαλίαν τοῦ τόπου, etc. [237] Plutarch, Dion, c. 45, 46; Diodor. xvi. 20.