He rose, and at daybreak led his troops again to the assault. The Lacedæmonians defended themselves with a spirit and courage beyond what could be expected from their small numbers. The women mingled in the thick of the fight, supplying food, drink, and missile weapons wherever they were needed, and carrying away the wounded. The Macedonians endeavoured to fill up the ditch by flinging large quantities of wood into it, covering the arms and dead bodies which lay at the bottom. As the Lacedæmonians were resisting this attempt, they saw Pyrrhus on horseback trying to cross the line of waggons and the ditch, and force his way into the city. A shout was raised by the garrison at the spot, and the women began to scream and run wildly about. Pyrrhus had made his way through all obstacles and was about to attack the nearest of those who disputed his passage, when his horse, struck in the body by a Cretan javelin, reared in the death-agony, and threw Pyrrhus to the ground. He fell on a steep bank, and his fall caused such consternation among his followers that a timely charge of the Spartans drove them back. Upon this he gave orders to put a stop to the assault, for he imagined that the Lacedæmonians would soon offer terms of surrender, as they were nearly all wounded, and had lost many men. However, the good fortune of the city, which may have wished to test the Spartan courage to the utmost, or to prove its own power to save the city when all hope seemed lost, brought Ameinias the Phokian, one of the generals of Antigonus, with a body of mercenary troops to help the Spartans in this their darkest hour. Shortly after they had received this reinforcement, their king, Areus, arrived from Crete with two thousand men. The women now returned to their homes, not thinking it to be necessary any longer for them to take an active part in the war, while those old men too who had been forced by necessity to take up arms, were relieved by the new comers, who took their places in the line of battle against the enemy.