Book 2
4.2
Presently Thrasybulus set out from Thebes with about seventy companions and seized Phyle, a strong fortress. And the Thirty marched out from the city against him with the Three Thousand and the cavalry, the weather being very fine indeed. When they reached Phyle, some of the young men were so bold as to attack the fortress at once, but they accomplished nothing and suffered some wounds themselves before they retired.
4.3
And while the Thirty were planning to invest the place, so as to force them to surrender by shutting off their avenues for receiving provisions, a very heavy snow storm came on during the night and continued on the following day. So they came back to the city in the snow, after losing a goodly number of their camp-followers by the attacks of the men in Phyle.
4.4
Then the Thirty, knowing that the enemy would also gather plunder from the farms if there were no force to protect them, sent out all but a few of the Laconian guardsmen and two divisions of the cavalry to the outlying districts about fifteen stadia from Phyle. These troops made their camp in a bushy spot and proceeded to keep guard.
4.5
Now by this time about seven hundred men were gathered at Phyle, and during the night Thrasybulus marched down with404 B.C. them; and about three or four stadia from the guardsmen he had his troops ground their arms and keep quiet.
4.6
Then when it was drawing towards day and the enemy were already getting up and going away from their camp whithersoever each one had to go, and the grooms were keeping up a hubbub as they curried their horses, at this moment Thrasybulus and his men picked up their arms and charged on the run. They struck down some of the enemy and turned them all to flight, pursuing them for six or seven stadia; and they killed more than one hundred and twenty of the hoplites, and among the cavalry Nicostratus, nicknamed the beautiful, and two more besides, catching them while still in their beds.
