History of the Peloponnesian War

During the same summer different parties, as they might severally happen, made war in Sicily; both the Siceliots themselves against each other, and the Athenians in concert with their allies; but I shall [only] mention the most memorable actions achieved by the Athenians and their allies, or against the Athenians by the enemy.

Charaeades then, the Athenian commander, having already been killed in war by the Syracusans, Laches, who was now in sole command of the fleet, turned his arms, in concert with his allies, against Myle, a town belonging to the Messanians. Now there were two divisions of the Messanians in garrison at Mylae, and they had laid an ambush for the party coming from their ships.

But the Athenians and their allies routed the troops in ambush, and slew many of them, and having assaulted the fortifications, compelled them to surrender the citadel, and to march with them against Messana.

Afterwards, on the attack of the Athenians and their allies, the Messanians too capitulated, giving hostages and all other securities.

The same summer the Athenians despatched thirty ships to cruise about the Peloponnese, under the command of Demosthenes son of Alcisthenes, and Procles son of Theodorus, and sixty ships and two thousand heavy-armed against Melos, under the command of Nicias son of Niceratus.

For as the Melians were islanders, and yet would not submit to them nor join their confederacy, they wished to reduce them.

When, however, they did not surrender to them on the wasting of their territory, they sailed to Oropus, on the coast opposite Attica; and having landed at night, the heavy-armed immediately marched from their ships to Tanagra in Boeotia;

while the Athenians in the city, on a given signal, met them at the same place by land in full force, under the command of Hipponicus son of Callias, and Eurymedon son of Thucles.

Having pitched their camp for that day in the territory of Tanagra, they laid it waste, and passed the night there. The next day, after defeating in battle those of the Tanagraeans and the Thebans who had come out against them, and after taking some arms, and erecting a trophy, they returned, one party to the city, the other to their fleet.

And Nicias, with his sixty ships, coasted along and ravaged the maritime parts of Locris, and then returned home.

About this time the Lacedaemonians prepared to found their colony of Heraclea, in Trachiniae, with the following purpose.

The Melians form, in all, three tribes, the Paralians, Hiereans, and Trachinians. Of these, the Trachinians, having been reduced to great weakness by the Aetaeans, who border on them, intended at first to give themselves up to the Athenians; but afterwards, fearing that they could not be trusted by them, they sent to Lacedaemon, having chosen Tisamenus as their envoy.

They were joined in the embassy by the Dorians also, the mother-state of the Lacedaemonians, with the same petition; for they, too, were much injured by the Aetaeans.

On hearing their request, the Lacedaemonians determined to send out this colony, from a wish to assist both the Trachinians and the Dorians. Besides, they thought the town would be placed advantageously for them with respect to the war with the Athenians; for a fleet might be equipped so as to have a short passage to Euboea, and it would be useful for marching to Thrace. Indeed on all accounts they were anxious to found the place. They first consulted therefore the god at Delphi;

and on his advising them to do it, they despatched the settlers, taken both from their own citizens and from the Perioeci, and gave permission to any of the rest of the Greeks that wished to accompany them, except Ionians, Achaeans, and some other races. Three of the Lacedaemonians led them as founders of the colony, Leon, Alcidas, and Damagon.

When they had established themselves in the country, they fortified anew the city which is now called Heraclea, distant about forty stades from Thermopylae, and twenty from the sea. They also provided themselves with docks, beginning to build the at Thermopylae, just by the pass, that they might the more easily be defended by them.

When this town was being thus jointly founded, the Athenians were at first alarmed, thinking that it was being set up chiefly for the annoyance of Euboea, because the passage to Cinaeum in that island is a short one. The event, however, proved contrary to their expectations for no danger arose from it. And the reason was this.

The Thessalians, who had dominion in these parts, and to the injury of whose territory the place was being founded, fearing they might prove very powerful neighbours, continually harassed and made war upon the new settlers, till they wore down their strength, though at first they had been very numerous; for as the Lacedaemonians were the founders of the town, every one went to it with confidence, thinking it a place of security. It was, however, the Lacedaemonian officers themselves, who went to it, that chiefly contributed to ruining its interests, and reducing it to a scanty population, by frightening away the greater part, and governing harshly, and in some cases not fairly, so that their neighbours then prevailed over them more easily.

The same summer, and about the same time that the Athenians were detained at Melos, the forces on board the thirty ships that were cruising about the Peloponnese first of all laid an ambush at Ellomenus in Leucadia, and cut off some garrison troops; and afterwards came against Leucas with a larger force, and with all the Acarnanians, who accompanied them in a body, except the Aeniadae, and with the Zacynthians and Cephallenians, and fifteen ships of the Corcyraeans.

The Leucadians, on the wasting of their territory, both without and within the isthmus, on which stands Leucas and the temple of Apollo, being overpowered by such numbers, remained quiet; while the Acarnanians requested Demosthenes, the general of the Athenians, to cut them off by a wall, thinking that they might then easily take them by storm, and so be rid of a city which was always hostile to them.

But Demosthenes was persuaded at the same time by the Messenians that it was a fine opportunity for him, with so large an army collected together, to attack the Aetolians, who were hostile to Naupactus, and by reducing whom he would easily win for Athens the rest of the continent in these parts.

For they represented to him that the nation of the Aetolians, though numerous and warlike, were yet not difficult to subdue before succours reached them, as they lived in unfortified villages, and those far apart, and used but light armour.

And they advised him to attack in the first place the Apodotians, next the Ophioneans, and after them the Eurytanians, which are the largest division of the nation, speaking, it is said, the most unintelligible language, and being cannibals; for if these were subdued, the rest would readily surrender.

He consented to do so, out of regard for the Messenians, and still more because he thought, that without employing the forces of Athens, with only continental tribes as his allies, and with the Aetolians, he would be able to go by land against the Boeotians, through the Locri Ozolae to Cytinium in Doris, keeping Parnassus on his right hand till he reached the Phocians, who, he thought, would eagerly join him, for the friendship they had always borne the Athenians, or might be brought over by force; and to Phocis Boeotia is at once the bordering state. Starting therefore with all his armament from Leucas, in opposition to the wishes of the Acarnanians, lie coasted along to Sollium.

There he communicated his plan to the Acarnanians; and when they did not assent to it in consequence of his refusal to invest Leucas, he himself with the remainder of the force, the Cephallenians, Messenians, Zacynthians, and the three hundred epibatae from his own ships, (for the fifteen Corcyraean vessels had gone away,) made an expedition against the Aetolians, having his head-quarters at Aeneon in Locris.

Now the Locri Ozolae were allies or the Athenians, and were to meet them in full force in the heart of the country: for as they bordered on the Aetolians, and were similarly equipped, they were thought likely to prove of great service in acting with them, from their acquaintance both with the Aetolian mode of fighting and with the localities.

After bivouacking with the army in the sacred precinct of the Nemean Jupiter, in which Hesiod the poet is said to have been killed by the people of this country, an oracle having before declared that he should meet with this fate at Nemea; in the morning he set out and marched into Aetolia.

On the first day he took Potidanea; on the second, Crocyleum; and on the third, Tichium, where he halted, and sent off his booty to Eupalium in Locris: for he intended, when he had subdued the other parts, to make a subsequent expedition against the Ophionians, if they would not surrender, after returning to Naupactus.

But the Aetolians were both aware or these preparations when he first formed his designs against them, and when the army had invaded their country they came to the rescue with a great force, all of them, so that even the most distant of the Ophionians, who stretch towards the Melian Gulf, the Borniensians and Calliensians, joined in bringing aid.

Now the Messenians gave Demosthenes the following advice, as they also did at first. Assuring him that the reduction of the Aetolians was easy, they urged him to go as quickly as possible against their villages, and not wait till the whole people should unite and oppose him, but to endeavour successively to make himself master of each village before him.

Being thus persuaded by them, and relying on his fortune, because nothing ever went against him, without waiting for those who should have reinforced him (for he was most in want of light-armed dartmen) he advanced for Aegitium, and took it by assault, the inhabitants flying before him, and posting themselves on the hills round the town; for it stood on high ground, at the distance of about eighty stades from the sea.

The Aetolians (for they had now come to the rescue of Aegitium) charged the Athenians and their allies, running down from the hills in different directions, and plied them with darts; retreating when the Athenian force advanced against them, and pressing it close when it retired. And for a long time this was the character of the engagement—repeated pursuing and retreating—in both of which the Athenians had the worse.

Now so long as they saw that their archers had their arrows and were able to use them, they continued to resist; for, when harassed by the bowmen, the Aetolians, being a light-armed force, retired. But when, after the fall of their leader, the archers were dispersed, and they themselves distressed by enduring for a long time the same labour, and the $Atolians were pressing hard on them, and pouring their darts on them; then indeed they turned and fled, and falling into pathless ravines and places with which they were unacquainted, were cut off: for the guide who showed them the way, Chromon the Messenian, had been killed.

And the Aetolians, still plying them with missiles, by their rapid movements (for they are swift of foot and light-armed) took many of them there in the rout, and put them to the sword; but the greater part missing their way and rushing into the forest, from which there were no roads out, they brought fire and burnt it round them.

Indeed the Athenian forces were subjected to every form of flight and death, and it was with difficulty that the survivors escaped to the sea and to Oeneon in Locris, the same place from which they had set out.

Great numbers of the allies were slain, and of the Athenians themselves about a hundred and twenty heavy-armed—so many in number, and all in the prime of their youth. These were the best men of the city of Athens that fell during this war. One of the generals also, namely, Procles, was slain.

Having taken up their dead under truce, and retired to Naupactus, they afterwards went with their ships to Athens. But Demosthenes staved behind in the neighbourhood of Naupactus and those parts, being afraid of the Athenins in sequence of what had been done.

About the same period the Athenians on the coast of Sicily sailed to Locris, and in a descent which they made on the country, defeated those of the Locrians who came against them, and took a guard-fort which stood on the river Halex.

The same summer the Aetolians, having before [the invasion of their country] sent as envoys to Corinth and Lacedaemon, Tolophus the Ophionean, Boriades the Eurytanian, and Tisander the Apodotian, persuaded them to send them an army to attack Naupactus, because it had brought the Athenians against them.

And the Lacedaemonians despatched about autumn three thousand heavy-armed of the allies; five hundred of whom were from Heraclea, their newly founded city in Trachis. Eurylochus, a Spartan, had the command of the force, accompanied by Macarius and Menedaeus, who were also Spartans;

When the army had assembled at Delphi, Eurylochus sent a herald to the Locri Ozole; for the route to Naupactus was through their territory, and moreover he wished to make them revolt from the Athenians.

Those amongst the Locrians who most forwarded his views were the Amphissians, who were alarmed in consequence of the enmity of the Phocians. These first gave hostages themselves, and persuaded the rest to do so, in their fear of the invading army; first the Myoneans, who were their neighbours, (for on this side Locris is most difficult to enter,) then the Ipneans, Messapians, Tritaens, Chalaeans, Tolophonians, Hessians, and Oeantheans. All these joined the expedition also. The Olpnaean gave hostages, but did not accompany them; while the Hyaeans refused to give hostages, till they took a village belonging to them, called Polis.

When every thing was prepared, and he had placed the hostages at Cytinium in Doris, he advanced with his army against Naupactus, through the territory of the Locrians; and on his march took Oeneon, one of their towns, and Eupalium; for they refused to surrender.

When they had reached the Naupactian territory, and the Aetolians also had now come to their aid, they ravaged the country, and took the suburb of the capital, which was unfortified. They also went against and took Molyenium, which, though a colony from Corinth, was subject to the Athenians.

Now Demosthenes, the Athenian, (for after what had happened in Aetolia, he was still in the neighbourhood of Naupactus) having previous notice of the armament, and being alarmed for the town, went and persuaded the Acarnanians (though with difficulty, on account of his retreat from Leucas) to go to the relief of Naupactus.

Accordingly they sent with him on board his ships a thousand heavy-armed, who threw themselves into the place and saved it. For the walls being extensive, and the garrison small, there was reason to fear that they might not hold out.

When Eurylochus and his colleagues found that this force had entered the town, and that it was impossible to take it by storm, they withdrew, not towards the Peloponnese, but to Aeolis, which is now called Calydon and Pleuron, with the places in that quarter, and to Proschium in Aetolia.

For the Ambraciots had come to them, and urged them to make, in concert with themselves, an attack upon the Amphilochian Argos and the rest of that country, and upon Acarnania at the same time; telling them that if they made themselves masters of these countries, the whole of the continent would be united in alliance with the Lacedaemonians.

So Eurylochus consented, and having dismissed the Aetolians, remained quiet with his army in that neighbourhood, till he should have to assist the Ambraciots, on their taking the field before Argos. And so the summer ended.

The following winter, the Athenians in Sicily having marched with their Grecian allies, and as many of the Sieels as joined them in the war—being either subject by force to the Syracusans or allies who had revolted from them—against Inessa, the Sieel town, the citadel of which was held by the Syracusans, attacked it, and, not being able to take it, retired.

On their return, the Syracusans from the citadel fell on the allies as they were retiring somewhat after the Athenians, and routed a division of their army, and killed no small number.

After this, Laches and the Athenians, with the fleet, made some descents upon the Locrian territory, by the river Coecinus, and defeated in battle those of the Locrians who came out against them with Proxenus the son of Capaton, about three hundred in number, and having taken some arms, departed.

The same winter also the Athenians purified Delos, in obedience, as they professed, to a certain oracle. For Pisistratus the tyrant had also purified it before; not the whole of the island, but as much of it as was within sight of the temple. At this time, however, the whole of it was purified in the following manner.

All the sepulchres of those who had died in Delos they removed, and commanded that in future no one should either die in the island or bear a child, but that [in such cases all should] be carried across to Rhenea. (This Rhenea is so short a distance from Delos, that Polycrates the tyrant of Samos, after being powerful at sea for a considerable time, and ruling over the rest of the islands, and taking Rhenea, dedicated it to the Delian Apollo, by connecting it with Delos by a chain.)

It was at this time too, after the purification, that the Athenians first celebrated the quinquennial festival of the Delian games. There had been, however, even in very early times, a great assembly of the Ionians and the neighbouring islanders held at Delos; for they used to come to the feast with their wives and children, as the Ionians now do to the Ephesian festivals, and gymnastic and musical contests were held, and the different cities took up bands of dancers.

Homer shows most clearly that such was the case, in the following verses, taken from a hymn to Apollo. Anon to Delos, Phoebus, wouldst thou come,Still most delighting in thine island-home;Where the long-robed Ionians thronging meet,With wives and children, at thy hallow'd seat;With buffets, dance, and song extol thy name,And win thy smile upon their solemn game.

That there was a musical contest also, and that they went to take part in it, he shows again in the following verses, taken from the same hymn. For after mentioning the Delian dance of the women, he ends his praise of the god with these verses, in which he also makes mention of himself. Now be Apollo kind, and Dian too;And ye, fair Delian damsels, all adieu!But in your memory grant me still a home;And oft as to your sacred isle may comeA pilgrim care-worn denizen of earth,And ask, while joining in your social mirth,"Maidens, of all the bards that seek your coast, Who sings the sweetest, and who charms you most? Then answer one and all, with gracious smile,A blind old man who lives in Chios' rocky isle.

Such evidence does Homer afford of there having been, even in early times, a great assembly and festival at Delos. But afterwards, though the islanders and the Athenians sent the bands of dancers with sacrifices, the games and the greater part of the observances were abolished—as is most probable, through adversity—until the Athenians held the games at that time, with horse-races, which before had not been usual.

The same winter the Ambraciots, as they had promised Eurylochus when they retained his army, marched forth against the Amphilochian Argos with three thousand heavy-armed; and entering the Argive territory, occupied Olpae, a strong-hold on a hill near the sea, which the Acarnanians had once fortified, and used as their common place of meeting for judicial purposes; its distance from the city of Argos on the coast being about twenty-five stades.

Now some of the Acarnanians went to the relief of Argos, while others encamped in Amphilochia, in the place called Crenae, being on the watch to prevent the Peloponnesians with Eurylochus passing through unobserved to the Ambraciots.

They also sent for Demosthenes, who had commanded the Athenian expedition against Aetolia, to be their leader; and for the twenty Athenian ships that happened to be cruising about the Peloponnese, under the command of Aristoteles son of Timocrates, and Hierophon son of Antimnestus.

The Ambraciots at Olpae also sent a messenger to their city, desiring them to come in full force to their assistance, fearing that the troops under Eurylochus might not be able to effect a passage through the Acarnanians, and that they themselves might either have to fight unsupported, or, if they wished to retreat, find it unsafe to do so.

The Peloponnesians with Eurylochus, therefore, finding that the Ambraciots at Olpae were come, set out from Proschium and went as quickly as possible to their aid; and having crossed the Acheloüs, proceeded through Acarnania, which was left deserted in consequence of the reinforcement sent to Argos; keeping on their right hand the city of the Stratians with their garrison, and on the left the rest of Acarnania.

After passing the territory of the Stratians, they proceeded through Phytia, and again through Medeon, along the borders; then through Limnaea; and so they entered the territory of the $Aegraeans, which formed no part of Acarnania, but was friendly to themselves.

Then, having reached Mount Thyamus, which is uncultivated, they proceeded across it, and so came down into the Argive country by night, and passing unobserved between the city of Argos and the Acarnanian posts at Crenae, joined the Ambraciots at Olpae.

Having thus effected a union at day-break, they sat down at the place called Metropolis, and formed their encampment. Not long after, the Athenians came with their twenty ships into the Ambracian Gulf to assist the Argives; and Demosthenes arrived with two hundred heavy-armed of the Messenians, and sixty Athenian archers. The fleet therefore at Olpae blockaded the hill from the sea;

while the Acarnanians and a few of the Amphilochians (for the majority were forcibly detained by the Ambraciots) had by this time met at Argos, and were preparing to engage with the enemy, having appointed Demosthenes as commander of the whole army in concert with their own generals. He, having led them near to Olpae, encamped there;

a great ravine separating their armies. For five days they remained still, but on the sixth both sides drew up for battle. And as the force of the Peleponnesians was the larger, and outflanked his, Demosthenes, fearing that he might be surrounded, placed in ambush in a hollow way covered with a thicket, a body of heavy and light-armed troops, four hundred in all, that on the flank of the enemy which reached beyond his own, these troops might rise up in the very midst of the conflict and take them in their rear.