About
noon
We must now return for a moment to the Syracusans under Gylippus , who remained in their camp all night , not far from the pass which they had so successfully defended . When they found in the morning that the Athenians had departed , they were loud in their anger against Gylippus , thinking that he had purposely suffered them to escape . The tracks of so many thousands left no room for doubt as to the direction which the fugitives had taken , and full of rage at the supposed treachery of their leader , the Syracusans set out at once in hot pursuit . About noon , on the sixth day of the retreat , they overtook the division of Demosthenes , which had again lagged behind , and was marching slowly and in disorder separated from the other half of the army by a distance of six miles . Deprived of all hope of succour from his colleague , and hemmed in on all sides by implacable enemies , Demosthenes called a halt , and prepared to make his last stand . But his men , who from the first had held the post of honour and danger , were fearfully reduced in numbers , faint with famine , and exhausted by their long march . Driven to and fro by the incessant charges of the Syracusan cavalry , they could make no effective resistance , and at last they huddled pell-mell into a walled enclosure , planted with olive-trees , and skirted on either side by a road .