Book 3
The Ambraciots from the city arrived at Idomene. This town consists of two high hills; the greater of which, after night had come on, the troops sent forward from the camp by Demosthenes preoccupied unobserved; while the Ambraciots had previously ascended the smaller, and bivouaeked on it. Demosthenes, after supper, marched with the rest of the army as soon as it was evening;
himself with half of his force making for the pass, the remainder proceeding over the mountains of Amphilochia.
At dawn of day he fell upon the Ambraciots, while they were yet in their beds, and had had no notice of his measures, but much rather imagined that his forces were their own countrymen.
For Demosthenes had purposely posted the Messenians first, with orders to address them, speaking in the Doric dialect, and so creating confidence in the sentinels; while at the same time they were not visible to the eye, as it was still night.
When therefore he fell upon them, they routed them, and slew the greater part on the spot; the rest rushed in flight over the mountains.
But as the roads were preoccupied, and the Amphilochians, moreover, were well acquainted with their own country, and light-armed against a heavy-armed enemy, whereas the Ambraciots were unacquainted with it, and knew not which way to turn, they perished by falling into ravines, and the ambushes that had been previously laid.
After attempting every mode of escape, some of them also turned to the sea, which was not far off; and when they saw the Athenian ships coasting along shore at the time that the affair happened, they swam to them, in their present alarm thinking it better to be slain, if they must, by those on board, than by their barbarous and most bitter enemies, the Amphilochians.
The Ambraciots then were destroyed in this manner, and only few of many escaped to their city. The Acarnanians, after stripping the dead, and erecting trophies, returned to Argos.
The next day there came to them a herald from the Ambraciots who had fled from Olpae into Agraea, to ask permission to take up the dead whom they had slain after the first engagement, when they left the camp without permission with the Mantineans and those who had received it.
At sight of the arms taken from the Ambraciots from the city, the herald was astonished at their number; for he was not acquainted with the disaster, but imagined that they had belonged to their own party.
And some one asked him why he was so astonished; and how many of them had been killed; his interrogator again supposing him to be the herald from the troops at Idomene. He said, About two hundred. His interrogator, taking him up, said, These then are evidently not the arms [of such a number], but of more than a thousand.
The herald said in reply, Then they are not the arms of those who fought with us. He answered, Yes, they are; if at least it was you that fought yesterday at Idomene. We fought with no one yesterday; but the day before, on our retreat. Ay, but we fought yesterday with these, who had come as a reinforcement from the city of the Ambraciots.
When the herald heard that, and learned that the reinforcement from the city had been cut off, breaking out into wailing, and astounded at the magnitude of the present evils, he returned without executing his commission, and no longer asked back the bodies.
For this was the greatest disaster that befell any one Grecian city in an equal number of days during the course of this war: and I have not recorded the numbers of the slain, because the multitude said to have fallen is incredible, in comparison with the size of the city. I know, however, that if the Acarnanians and Amphilochians had wished, in compliance with the advice of Demosthenes, to take Ambracia, they would have done so on the first assault: but as it was, they were afraid that the Athenians, if they had possession of it, might prove more troublesome neighbours to themselves.
After this, they allotted a third of the spoils to the Athenians, and divided the rest amongst their several cities.
Those given to the Athenians were taken while on their voyage home; and what are now deposited in the temples of Attica, are three hundred full suits of armour, which were reserved for Demosthenes, and with which he sailed back home; his restoration after the disaster in Aetolia being rendered more safe in consequence of this
achievement. The Athenians on board the twenty ships also returned to Naupactus. The Acarnanians and Amphilochians, on the departure of the Athenians and of Demosthenes, granted a truce to the Ambraciots and Peloponnesians who had taken refuge with Salynthus and the Agraeans, to return from Aeniadae, whither they had removed from the country of
Salynthus. And to provide for the future, they also concluded a treaty and alliance for a hundred years with the Ambraciots, on these conditions: that neither the Ambraciots should march with the Acarnanians against the Peloponnesians, nor the Acarnanians with the Ambraciots against the Athenians; but that they should succour each other's country; and that the Ambraciots should restore whatever towns or hostages they held from the Amphilochians, and not go to the assistance of Anactorium, which was hostile to the
Acarnanians. Having made these arrangements, they put an end to the war. Afterwards the Corinthians sent a garrison of their own citizens to Ambracia, consisting of three hundred heavy-armed, under the command of Xenoclides son of Euthycles, who reached their destination by a difficult route through Epirus. Such was the conclusion of the measures in Ambracia.
The Athenians in Sicily the same winter made a descent from their ships on the territory of Himera, in concert with the Sicels, who had made an irruption on its borders from the interior; they also sailed against the islands of Aeolus.
On their return to Rhegium they found that Pythodorus son of Isolochus, a general of the Athenians, had come to succeed to the command of the ships under Laches;
the allies in Sicily having sailed and persuaded the Athenians to assist them with more vessels. For though the Syracusans commanded their land, yet, as they were excluded from the sea by only a few ships, they were making preparations, and raising a fleet, with a determination not to put up with it.
And the Athenians manned forty ships to send to them; thinking that so the war in that quarter would be more speedily brought to a conclusion, and at the same time wishing to practise their men in seamanship.
They despatched therefore one of their commanders, Pythodorus, with a few ships; intending to send out Sophocles son of Sostradides, and Eurymedon son of Thucles, with the larger squadron.
So Pythodorus, being now in command of Laches' ships, sailed at the close of the winter to the fort of the Locrians, which Laches had formerly taken; and returned after being defeated in battle by the Locrians.
Just about the beginning of this spring, the fire flood issued from Aetna, as it had done on former occasions, and destroyed some of the territory of the Catanaeans, who live on Mount Etna, the largest mountain in Sicily.
It is said that this eruption took place fifty years after the preceding one; and that it has occurred three times in all since Sicily has been inhabited by the Greeks.
These were the events of this winter; and so ended the sixth year of this war, of which Thucydides wrote the history.