History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

slain was

also Procles, the colleague of Demosthenes. Meanwhile the Athenians

took up their dead under truce from the Aetolians, and retired to

Naupactus, and from thence went in their ships to Athens;

Demosthenes staying behind in Naupactus and in the neighbourhood,

being afraid to face the Athenians after the disaster.

 

About the same time the Athenians on the coast of Sicily sailed to

Locris, and in a descent which they made from the ships defeated the

Locrians who came against them, and took a fort upon the river Halex.

 

The same summer the Aetolians, who before the Athenian expedition

had sent an embassy to Corinth and Lacedaemon, composed of Tolophus,

an Ophionian, Boriades, an Eurytanian, and Tisander, an Apodotian,

obtained that an army should be sent them against Naupactus, which had

invited the Athenian invasion. The Lacedaemonians accordingly sent off

towards autumn three thousand heavy infantry of the allies, five

hundred of whom were from Heraclea, the newly founded city in Trachis,

under the command of Eurylochus, a Spartan, accompanied by Macarius

and Menedaius, also Spartans.

 

The army having assembled at Delphi, Eurylochus sent a herald to the

Ozolian Locrians; the road to Naupactus lying through their territory,

and he having besides conceived the idea of detaching them from

Athens. His chief abettors in Locris were the Amphissians, who were

alarmed at the hostility of the Phocians. These first gave hostages

themselves, and induced the rest to do the same for fear of the

invading army; first, their neighbours the Myonians, who held the most

difficult of the passes, and after them the Ipnians, Messapians,

Tritaeans, Chalaeans, Tolophonians, Hessians, and Oeanthians, all of

whom joined in the expedition; the Olpaeans contenting themselves with

giving hostages, without accompanying the invasion; and the Hyaeans

refusing to do either, until the capture of Polis, one of their

villages.

 

His preparations completed, Eurylochus lodged the hostages in

Kytinium, in Doris, and advanced upon Naupactus through the country of

the Locrians, taking upon his way Oeneon and Eupalium, two of their

towns that refused to join him. Arrived in the Naupactian territory,

and having been now joined by the Aetolians, the army laid waste the

land and took the suburb of the town, which was unfortified; and after

this Molycrium also, a Corinthian colony subject to Athens.

Meanwhile the Athenian Demosthenes, who since the affair in Aetolia

had remained near Naupactus, having had notice of the army and fearing

for the town, went and persuaded the Acarnanians, although not without

difficulty because of his departure from Leucas, to go to the relief

of Naupactus. They accordingly sent with him on board his ships a

thousand heavy infantry, who threw themselves into the place and saved

it; the extent of its wall and the small number of its defenders

otherwise placing it in the greatest danger. Meanwhile Eurylochus

and his companions, finding that this force had entered and that it

was impossible to storm the town, withdrew, not to Peloponnese, but to

the country once called Aeolis, and now Calydon and Pleuron, and to

the places in that neighbourhood, and Proschium in Aetolia; the

Ambraciots having come and urged them to combine with them in

attacking Amphilochian Argos and the rest of Amphilochia and

Acarnania; affirming that the conquest of these countries would

bring all the continent into alliance with Lacedaemon. To this

Eurylochus consented, and dismissing the Aetolians, now remained quiet

with his army in those parts, until the time should come for the

Ambraciots to take the field, and for him to join them before Argos.

 

Summer was now over. The winter ensuing, the Athenians in Sicily

with their Hellenic allies, and such of the Sicel subjects or allies

of Syracuse as had revolted from her and joined their army, marched

against the Sicel town Inessa, the acropolis of which was held by

the Syracusans, and after attacking it without being able to take

it, retired. In the retreat, the allies retreating after the Athenians

were attacked by the Syracusans from the fort, and a large part of

their army routed with great slaughter. After this, Laches and the

Athenians from the ships made some descents in Locris, and defeating

the Locrians, who came against them with Proxenus, son of Capaton,

upon the river Caicinus, took some arms and departed.

 

The same winter the Athenians purified Delos, in compliance, it

appears, with a certain oracle. It had been purified before by

Pisistratus the tyrant; not indeed the whole island, but as much of it

as could be seen from the temple. All of it was, however, now purified

in the following way. All the sepulchres of those that had died in

Delos were taken up, and for the future it was commanded that no one

should be allowed either to die or to give birth to a child in the

island; but that they should be carried over to Rhenea, which is so

near to Delos that Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, having added Rhenea to

his other island conquests during his period of naval ascendancy,

dedicated it to the Delian Apollo by binding it to Delos with a chain.

 

The Athenians, after the purification, celebrated, for the first

time, the quinquennial festival of the Delian games. Once upon a time,

indeed, there was a great assemblage of the Ionians and the

neighbouring islanders at Delos, who used to come to the festival,

as the Ionians now do to that of Ephesus, and athletic and poetical

contests took place there, and the cities brought choirs of dancers.

Nothing can be clearer on this point than the following verses of

Homer, taken from a hymn to Apollo:

 

Phoebus, wherever thou strayest, far or near,

Delos was still of all thy haunts most dear.

Thither the robed Ionians take their way

With wife and child to keep thy holiday,

Invoke thy favour on each manly game,

And dance and sing in honour of thy name.

 

That there was also a poetical contest in which the Ionians went

to contend, again is shown by the following, taken from the same hymn.

After celebrating the Delian dance of the women, he ends his song of

praise with these verses, in which he also alludes to himself:

 

Well, may Apollo keep you all! and so,

Sweethearts, good-bye—yet tell me not I go

Out from your hearts; and if in after hours

Some other wanderer in this world of ours

Touch at your shores, and ask your maidens here

Who sings the songs the sweetest to your ear,

Think of me then, and answer with a smile,

‘A blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle.’

 

Homer thus attests that there was anciently a great assembly and

festival at Delos. In later times, although the islanders and the

Athenians continued to send the choirs of dancers with sacrifices, the

contests and most of the ceremonies were abolished, probably through

adversity, until the Athenians celebrated the games upon this occasion

with the novelty of horse-races.

 

The same winter the Ambraciots, as they had promised Eurylochus when

they retained his army, marched out against Amphilochian Argos with

three thousand heavy infantry, and invading the Argive territory

occupied Olpae, a stronghold on a hill near the sea, which had been

formerly fortified by the Acarnanians and used as the place of assizes

for their nation, and which is about two miles and three-quarters from

the city of Argos upon the seacoast. Meanwhile the Acarnanians went

with a part of their forces to the relief of Argos, and with the

rest encamped in Amphilochia at the place called Crenae, or the Wells,

to watch for Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians, and to prevent their

passing through and effecting their junction with the Ambraciots;

while they also sent for Demosthenes, the commander of the Aetolian

expedition, to be their leader, and for the twenty Athenian ships that

were cruising off Peloponnese under the command of Aristotle, son of

Timocrates, and Hierophon, son of Antimnestus. On their part, the

Ambraciots at Olpae sent a messenger to their own city, to beg them to

come with their whole levy to their assistance, fearing that the

army of Eurylochus might not be able to pass through the

Acarnanians, and that they might themselves be obliged to fight

single-handed, or be unable to retreat, if they wished it, without

danger.

 

Meanwhile Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians, learning that the

Ambraciots at Olpae had arrived, set out from Proschium with all haste

to join them, and crossing the Achelous advanced through Acarnania,

which they found deserted by its population, who had gone to the

relief of Argos; keeping on their right the city of the Stratians

and its garrison, and on their left the rest of Acarnania.

Traversing the territory of the Stratians, they advanced through

Phytia, next, skirting Medeon, through Limnaea; after which they

left Acarnania behind them and entered a friendly country, that of the

Agraeans. From thence they reached and crossed Mount Thymaus, which

belongs to the Agraeans, and descended into the Argive territory after

nightfall, and passing between the city of Argos and the Acarnanian

posts at Crenae, joined the Ambraciots at Olpae.

 

Uniting here at daybreak, they sat down at the place called

Metropolis, and encamped. Not long afterwards the Athenians in the

twenty ships came into the Ambracian Gulf to support the Argives, with

Demosthenes and two hundred Messenian heavy infantry, and sixty

Athenian archers. While the fleet off Olpae blockaded the hill from

the sea, the Acarnanians and a few of the Amphilochians, most of

whom were kept back by force by the Ambraciots, had already arrived at

Argos, and were preparing to give battle to the enemy, having chosen

Demosthenes to command the whole of the allied army in concert with

their own generals. Demosthenes led them near to Olpae and encamped, a

great ravine separating the two armies. During five days they remained

inactive; on the sixth both sides formed in order of battle. The

army of the Peloponnesians was the largest and outflanked their

opponents; and Demosthenes fearing that his right might be surrounded,

placed in ambush in a hollow way overgrown with bushes some four

hundred heavy infantry and light troops, who were to rise up at the

moment of the onset behind the projecting left wing of the enemy,

and to take them in the rear. When both sides were ready they joined

battle; Demosthenes being on the right wing with the Messenians and

a few Athenians, while the rest of the line was made up of the

different divisions of the Acarnanians, and of the Amphilochian

carters. The Peloponnesians and Ambraciots were drawn up pell-mell

together, with the exception of the Mantineans, who were massed on the

left, without however reaching to the extremity of the wing, where

Eurylochus and his men confronted the Messenians and Demosthenes.

 

The Peloponnesians were now well engaged and with their

outflanking wing were upon the point of turning their enemy’s right;

when the Acarnanians from the ambuscade set upon them from behind, and

broke them at the first attack, without their staying to resist; while

the panic into which they fell caused the flight of most of their

army, terrified beyond measure at seeing the division of Eurylochus

and their best troops cut to pieces. Most of the work was done by

Demosthenes and his Messenians, who were posted in this part of the

field. Meanwhile the Ambraciots (who are the best soldiers in those

countries) and the troops upon the right wing, defeated the division

opposed to them and pursued it to Argos. Returning from the pursuit,

they found their main body defeated; and hard pressed by the

Acarnanians, with difficulty made good their passage to Olpae,

suffering heavy loss on the way, as they dashed on without

discipline or order, the Mantineans excepted, who kept their ranks

best of any in the army during the retreat.