They leapt, rushed on the isle, and hedged it round,
That neither right nor left our men might turn,
But fell in heaps, some struck by rattling stones,
Some pierced by arrows from the twanging bow.
Then, in one onslaught fiercely massed, the Greeks
Our fenceless chiefs in slashing butchery
Mowed down, till not one breath remained to groan.
But Xerxes groaned: for from a height that rose
From the sea-shore conspicuous,[f29] with clear view
He mustered the black fortune of the fight.