Book IV - Sicily (Chapters XXI-XXIV) Summary

Polemides tells of the disaster on Epipolae, the heights above Syracuse. The night time battle seems to go well at first for the Athenians. After a long, hard climb up to the heights, under constatn attack from the Syracusans, they are on the verge of routing the Syracusan troops. The Spartan general, however, has led them into a trap. As the Athenian army pursue the fleeing enemy, they are flanked by reinforcements and soundly defeated. The defeat is a crushing blow for the Athenian hopes of taking Sicily. Little option is left to them but to return home defeated.

The Athenian situation gets worse in Chapter XXII. Nine thousand men had been lost in the defeat on the heights. The Athenian fleet prepares to return home. Gylippus recruits a second army from the...