affair of hoplites against light armed, there was probably not a large body of auxiliaries present to the Spartans; but allowing the maximum, the opposing forces were in a proportion of five to one. If, however, the light armed attendants were lacking, the proportion was about fifty to one. Never in all Spartan history did their splendid fighting machine better show its superiority than in the slow march from the well at the centre of the island to the "old fort" at the north end. Demosthenes had distributed his light armed, in detachments of several hundred each, all along the line of march. His small force of hoplites, every time it was confronted by the Spartans, fell back at once and gave place to the light armed, who, with arrows and javelins, inflicted severe losses, easily keeping out of reach of the Spartan spears. There was, in fact, no serious loss to chronicle on the Athenian side. But that the little company led by Epitidas should move steadily toward its goal during the whole of a long summer day, half stifled with ashes and smoke, oppressed by raging thirst, surrounded by yelling thousands and pelted by every kind of missile, without the slightest thought of surrender, is perhaps the most brilliant page in the annals of Sparta. However much we may be inclined to throw up our cap at every success of Athens, we must here assign the honors to the vanquished. The movement of the Spartans over that mile and a half reminds us of a lion worried by a pack of yelping hounds. Epitidas, and after him the second in command, had been killed before the little band reached the fort, which is made in a semicircle around the west side of the peak to which the island rises on the northeast. When they got inside this the attack slackened. But the end came by a turn that one can hardly understand, even with all the explanation afforded by an exact knowledge of the lay of the land. A Messenian captain told the Athenian leaders that they were wasting time and men, but that he knew a way to approach the Spartans in the rear. His suggestion being accepted, he, with a few desperate men, scrambled up a precipice and appeared suddenly on the summit in the rear of the Spartans.