In one of the most famous pronouncements about the confusing nature of Greek infantry battle, Thucydides concluded of the nocturnal Athenian calamity on Epipolae that “it was not easy to ascertain from either side what precisely had transpired; of course, things are clearer in the daytime, but even then those who are present hardly know everything that goes on—except what each person senses with difficulty in his own vicinity.”
