History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗
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dashed at the enemy, who, embarrassed by his mistakes and the disorder
in which he found himself, only stood for an instant, and then fled
for Panormus, whence he had put out. The Athenians following on his
heels took the six vessels nearest them, and recovered those of
their own which had been disabled close inshore and taken in tow at
the beginning of the action; they killed some of the crews and took
some prisoners. On board the Leucadian which went down off the
merchantman, was the Lacedaemonian Timocrates, who killed himself when
the ship was sunk, and was cast up in the harbour of Naupactus. The
Athenians on their return set up a trophy on the spot from which
they had put out and turned the day, and picking up the wrecks and
dead that were on their shore, gave back to the enemy their dead under
truce. The Peloponnesians also set up a trophy as victors for the
defeat inflicted upon the ships they had disabled in shore, and
dedicated the vessel which they had taken at Achaean Rhium, side by
side with the trophy. After this, apprehensive of the reinforcement
expected from Athens, all except the Leucadians sailed into the
Crissaean Gulf for Corinth. Not long after their retreat, the twenty
Athenian ships, which were to have joined Phormio before the battle,
arrived at Naupactus.
Thus the summer ended. Winter was now at hand; but dispersing the
fleet, which had retired to Corinth and the Crissaean Gulf, Cnemus,
Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian captains allowed themselves to
be persuaded by the Megarians to make an attempt upon Piraeus, the
port of Athens, which from her decided superiority at sea had been
naturally left unguarded and open. Their plan was as follows: The
men were each to take their oar, cushion, and rowlock thong, and,
going overland from Corinth to the sea on the Athenian side, to get to
Megara as quickly as they could, and launching forty vessels, which
happened to be in the docks at Nisaea, to sail at once to Piraeus.
There was no fleet on the lookout in the harbour, and no one had
the least idea of the enemy attempting a surprise; while an open
attack would, it was thought, never be deliberately ventured on, or,
if in contemplation, would be speedily known at Athens. Their plan
formed, the next step was to put it in execution. Arriving by night
and launching the vessels from Nisaea, they sailed, not to Piraeus
as they had originally intended, being afraid of the risk, besides
which there was some talk of a wind having stopped them, but to the
point of Salamis that looks towards Megara; where there was a fort and
a squadron of three ships to prevent anything sailing in or out of
Megara. This fort they assaulted, and towed off the galleys empty, and
surprising the inhabitants began to lay waste the rest of the island.
Meanwhile fire signals were raised to alarm Athens, and a panic
ensued there as serious as any that occurred during the war. The
idea in the city was that the enemy had already sailed into Piraeus:
in Piraeus it was thought that they had taken Salamis and might at any
moment arrive in the port; as indeed might easily have been done if
their hearts had been a little firmer: certainly no wind would have
prevented them. As soon as day broke, the Athenians assembled in
full force, launched their ships, and embarking in haste and uproar
went with the fleet to Salamis, while their soldiery mounted guard
in Piraeus. The Peloponnesians, on becoming aware of the coming
relief, after they had overrun most of Salamis, hastily sailed off
with their plunder and captives and the three ships from Fort
Budorum to Nisaea; the state of their ships also causing them some
anxiety, as it was a long while since they had been launched, and they
were not water-tight. Arrived at Megara, they returned back on foot to
Corinth. The Athenians finding them no longer at Salamis, sailed
back themselves; and after this made arrangements for guarding Piraeus
more diligently in future, by closing the harbours, and by other
suitable precautions.
About the same time, at the beginning of this winter, Sitalces,
son of Teres, the Odrysian king of Thrace, made an expedition
against Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, and the
Chalcidians in the neighbourhood of Thrace; his object being to
enforce one promise and fulfil another. On the one hand Perdiccas
had made him a promise, when hard pressed at the commencement of the
war, upon condition that Sitalces should reconcile the Athenians to
him and not attempt to restore his brother and enemy, the pretender
Philip, but had not offered to fulfil his engagement; on the other he,
Sitalces, on entering into alliance with the Athenians, had agreed
to put an end to the Chalcidian war in Thrace. These were the two
objects of his invasion. With him he brought Amyntas, the son of
Philip, whom he destined for the throne of Macedonia, and some
Athenian envoys then at his court on this business, and Hagnon as
general; for the Athenians were to join him against the Chalcidians
with a fleet and as many soldiers as they could get together.
Beginning with the Odrysians, he first called out the Thracian
tribes subject to him between Mounts Haemus and Rhodope and the Euxine
and Hellespont; next the Getae beyond Haemus, and the other hordes
settled south of the Danube in the neighbourhood of the Euxine, who,
like the Getae, border on the Scythians and are armed in the same
manner, being all mounted archers. Besides these he summoned many of
the hill Thracian independent swordsmen, called Dii and mostly
inhabiting Mount Rhodope, some of whom came as mercenaries, others
as volunteers; also the Agrianes and Laeaeans, and the rest of the
Paeonian tribes in his empire, at the confines of which these lay,
extending up to the Laeaean Paeonians and the river Strymon, which
flows from Mount Scombrus through the country of the Agrianes and
Laeaeans; there the empire of Sitalces ends and the territory of the
independent Paeonians begins. Bordering on the Triballi, also
independent, were the Treres and Tilataeans, who dwell to the north of
Mount Scombrus and extend towards the setting sun as far as the
river Oskius. This river rises in the same mountains as the Nestus and
Hebrus, a wild and extensive range connected with Rhodope.
The empire of the Odrysians extended along the seaboard from
Abdera to the mouth of the Danube in the Euxine. The navigation of
this coast by the shortest route takes a merchantman four days and
four nights with a wind astern the whole way: by land an active man,
travelling by the shortest road, can get from Abdera to the Danube
in eleven days. Such was the length of its coast line. Inland from
Byzantium to the Laeaeans and the Strymon, the farthest limit of its
extension into the interior, it is a journey of thirteen days for an
active man. The tribute from all the barbarian districts and the
Hellenic cities, taking what they brought in under Seuthes, the
successor of Sitalces, who raised it to its greatest height,
amounted to about four hundred talents in gold and silver. There
were also presents in gold and silver to a no less amount, besides
stuff, plain and embroidered, and other articles, made not only for
the king, but also for the Odrysian lords and nobles. For there was
here established a custom opposite to that prevailing in the Persian
kingdom, namely, of taking rather than giving; more disgrace being
attached to not giving when asked than to asking and being refused;
and although this prevailed elsewhere in Thrace, it was practised most
extensively among the powerful Odrysians, it being impossible to get
anything done without a present. It was thus a very powerful
kingdom; in revenue and general prosperity surpassing all in Europe
between the Ionian Gulf and the Euxine, and in numbers and military
resources coming decidedly next to the Scythians, with whom indeed
no people in Europe can bear comparison, there not being even in
Asia any nation singly a match for them if unanimous, though of course
they are not on a level with other races in general intelligence and
the arts of civilized life.
It was the master of this empire that now prepared to take the
field. When everything was ready, he set out on his march for
Macedonia, first through his own dominions, next over the desolate
range of Cercine that divides the Sintians and Paeonians, crossing
by a road which he had made by felling the timber on a former campaign
against the latter people. Passing over these mountains, with the
Paeonians on his right and the Sintians and Maedians on the left, he
finally arrived at Doberus, in Paeonia, losing none of his army on the
march, except perhaps by sickness, but receiving some augmentations,
many of the independent Thracians volunteering to join him in the hope
of plunder; so that the whole is said to have formed a grand total
of a hundred and fifty thousand. Most of this was infantry, though
there was about a third cavalry, furnished principally by the
Odrysians themselves and next to them by the Getae. The most warlike
of the infantry were the independent swordsmen who came down from
Rhodope; the rest of the mixed multitude that followed him being
chiefly formidable by their numbers.
Assembling in Doberus, they prepared for descending from the heights
upon Lower Macedonia, where the dominions of Perdiccas lay; for the
Lyncestae, Elimiots, and other tribes more inland, though
Macedonians by blood, and allies and dependants of their kindred,
still have their own separate governments. The country on the sea
coast, now called Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the
father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors, originally Temenids from
Argos. This was effected by the expulsion from Pieria of the Pierians,
who afterwards inhabited Phagres and other places under Mount
Pangaeus, beyond the Strymon (indeed the country between Pangaeus
and the sea is still called the Pierian Gulf); of the Bottiaeans, at
present neighbours of the Chalcidians, from Bottia, and by the
acquisition in Paeonia of a narrow strip along the river Axius
extending to Pella and the sea; the district of Mygdonia, between
the Axius and the Strymon, being also added by the expulsion of the
Edonians. From Eordia also were driven the Eordians, most of whom
perished, though a few of them still live round Physca, and the
Almopians from Almopia. These Macedonians also conquered places
belonging to the other tribes, which are still theirs—Anthemus,
Crestonia, Bisaltia, and much of Macedonia proper. The whole is now
called Macedonia, and at the time of the invasion of Sitalces,
Perdiccas, Alexander’s son, was the reigning king.
These Macedonians, unable to take the field against so numerous an
invader, shut themselves up in such strong places and fortresses as
the country possessed. Of these there was no great number, most of
those now found in the country having been erected subsequently by
Archelaus, the son of Perdiccas, on his accession, who also cut
straight roads, and otherwise put the kingdom on a better footing as
regards horses, heavy infantry, and other war material than had been
done by all the eight kings that preceded him. Advancing from Doberus,
the Thracian host first invaded what had been once Philip’s
government, and took Idomene by assault, Gortynia, Atalanta, and
some other places by negotiation, these last coming over for love of
Philip’s son, Amyntas, then with Sitalces. Laying siege to Europus,
and failing to take it, he next advanced into the rest of Macedonia to
the left of Pella and Cyrrhus, not proceeding beyond this into
Bottiaea and Pieria, but staying
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