Kitap 2
while the land-forces of the Messenians at the same time came to support him. When the Peloponnesians saw them coasting along in a single file, and already within the gulf and near the shore, (which was just what they wished,) at one signal they suddenly brought their ships round and sailed in a line, as fast as each could, against the Athenians, hoping to cut off all their ships.
Eleven of them, however, which were taking the lead, escaped the wing of the Peloponnesians and their sudden turn into the open gulf; but the rest they surprised, and drove them on shore, in their attempt to escape, and destroyed them, killing such of the crews as had not swum out of them.
Some of the ships they lashed to their own and began to tow off empty, and one they took men and all; while in the case of some others, the Messenians, coming to their succour, and dashing into the sea with their armour, and boarding them, fought from the decks, and rescued them when they were already being towed off.
To this extent then the Peloponnesians had the advantage, and destroyed the Athenian ships; while their twenty vessels in the right wing were in pursuit of those eleven of the enemy that had just escaped their turn into the open gulf. They, with the exception of one ship, got the start of them and fled for refuge to Naupactus; and facing about, opposite the temple of Apollo, prepared to defend themselves, in case they should sail to shore against them.
Presently they came up, and were singing the paean as they sailed, considering that they had gained the victory; and the one Athenian vessel that had been left behind was chased by a single Leucadian far in advance of the rest.
Now there happened to be a merchant-vessel moored out at sea, which the Athenian ship had time to sail round, and struck the Leucadian in pursuit of her amid-ship, and sunk her.
The Peloponnesians therefore were panic-stricken by this sudden and unlooked for achievement; and moreover, as they were pursuing in disorder, on account of the advantage they had gained, some of the ships dropped their oars, and stopped in their course, from a wish to wait for the rest—doing what was unadvisable, considering that they were observing each other at so short a distance—while others even ran on the shoals, through their ignorance of the localities.
The Athenians, on seeing this, took courage, and at one word shouted for battle, and rushed upon them. In consequence of their previous blunders and their present confusion, they withstood them but a short time, and then fled to Panormus, whence they had put out.
The Athenians pursued them closely, and took six of the ships nearest to them, and recovered their own, which the enemy had disabled near the shore and at the beginning of the engagement. and had taken in tow. Of the men, they put some to death, and made others prisoners.
Now on board the Leucadian ship, which went down off the merchant-vessel, was Timocrates the Lacedaemonian; who, when the ship was destroyed, killed himself, and falling overboard was floated into the harbour of Naupactus.
On their return the Athenians erected a trophy at the spot from which they put out before gaining the victory; and all the dead and the wrecks that were near their coast they took up, and gave back to the enemy theirs under truce.
The Peloponnesians also erected a trophy, as victors, for the defeat of the ships they had disabled near the shore;
and the ship they had taken they dedicated at Rhium, in Achaea, by the side of the trophy. Afterwards, being afraid of the reinforcement from Athens, all but the Leucadians sailed at the approach of night into the Crisaean Bay and the port of Corinth.
Not long after their retreat, the Athenians from Crete arrived at Naupactus, with the twenty ships that were to have joined Phormio before the engagement. And thus ended the summer.
Before, however, the fleet dispersed which had retired to Corinth and the Crisaean Bay, Cnemus, Brasidas, and the rest of the Peloponnesian commanders wished, at the suggestion of the Megareans, to make an attempt upon Piraeus, the port of Athens; which, as was natural from their decided superiority at sea, was left unguarded and open.
It was determined, therefore, that each man should take his oar, and cushion, and Supposed to have been a thong, or rope, wound round the loom of a portlock oar, and serving the triple purpose of a counterpoise, a nut, and a loop. See Arnold, vol. i. Appendix 3. tropoter, and go by land from Corinth to the sea on the side of Athens; and that after proceeding as quickly as possible to Megara, they should launch from its port, Nisaea, forty vessels that happened to be there, and sail straightway to Piraeus. For there was neither any fleet keeping guard before it, nor any thought of the enemy ever sailing against it in so sudden a manner;
and as for their venturing to do it openly and deliberately, they supposed that either they would not think of it, or themselves would not fail to be aware beforehand, if they should. Having adopted this resolution, they proceeded immediately [to execute it];
and when they had arrived by night, and launched the vessels from Nisaea, they sailed, not against Athens as they had intended, for they were afraid of the risk, ( τις is here used, I think, with that signification of contempt which it sometimes conveys; to mark the writer's utter disbelief of the report alluded to. some wind or other was also said to have prevented them,) but to the headland of Salamis looking towards Megara; where there was a fort, and a guard of three ships to prevent any thing from being taken in or out of Megara. So they assaulted the fort, and towed off the triremes empty; and making a sudden attack on the rest of Salamis, they laid it waste.
Now fire-signals of an enemy's approach were raised towards Athens, and a consternation was caused by them not exceeded by any during the whole war. For those in the city imagined that the enemy had already sailed into Piraeus; while those in Piraeus thought that Salamis had been taken, and that they were all but sailing into their harbours: which indeed, if they would but have not been afraid of it, might easily have been done; and it was not a wind that would have prevented it.
But at day-break the Athenians went all in a body to Piraeus to resist the enemy; and launched their ships, and going on board with haste and much uproar, sailed with the fleet to Salamis, while with their land-forces they mounted guard at Piraeus.
When the Peloponnesians saw them coming to the rescue, after overrunning the greater part of Salamis, and taking both men and booty, and the three ships from the port of Budorum, they sailed for Nisaea as quickly as they could; for their vessels too caused them some alarm, as they had been launched after lying idle a long time, and were not at all water-tight. On their arrival at Megara they returned again to Corinth by land.
When the Athenians found them no longer on the coast of Salamis, they also sailed back; and after this alarm they paid more attention in future to the safety of Piraeus, both by closing the harbours, and by all other precautions.
About the same period, in the beginning of this winter, Sitalces son of Teres, the king of the Odrysian Thracians, made an expedition against Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, and the Thrace-ward Chalcidians; of two promises wishing to enforce the one, and himself to perform the other.
For Perdiccas had made him certain promises if he would effect a reconciliation between him and the Athenians, when he was hard pressed by the war at its commencement, and if he would not restore his brother Philip, who was at enmity with him, to place him on the throne; but he was not disposed to perform what he had promised. On the other hand, Sitalces had pledged himself to the Athenians, when he entered into alliance with them, to bring the Chalcidian war in Thrace to a successful issue.
It was with both these objects then that he made the invasion; in which he took with him Philip's son Amyntas, to set him on the throne of Macedonia, and some envoys from Athens, who happened to be at his court on this business, and Hagnon as commander; for the Athenians also were to join him against the Chalcidians with a fleet, and as large an army as they could raise.
Setting out then from the Odrysians, he summoned to his standard, first the Thracians within Mount Haemus and Rhodope, as many as were subject to him, as far as the coast of the Euxine and the Hellespont; next the Getae beyond Haemus, and all the other hordes that were settled Literally, within the Danube. south of the Danube, more towards the sea-board of the Euxine; the Getae and the tribes in this part being both borderers on the Scythians, and equipped in the same manner, for they are all mounted bowmen.
He also invited many of the Highland Thracians, who are independent, and armed with swords; they are called the Dii, and are mostly inhabitants [of the valleys] of Haemus: some of these he engaged as mercenaries, while others followed him as volunteers.
Moreover, he summoned the Agrianians and Laeaemans and all the other Paeonian tribes that acknowledged his sway. And these were the last people in his dominion, for at the Graaeans and Laeaeans, both of them Paeonian tribes, and at the river Strymon, which flows from Mount Scomius through their country, his empire terminated on the side of the Paeonians, who from this point were independent.
On the side of the Triballi, who were also independent, the border tribes were the Treres and Tilataeans, who live to the north of Mount Scombrus, and stretch towards the west as far as the river Oscius. This river flows from the same mountain as the Nestus and the Hebrus, an uninhabited and extensive range, joining on to Rhodope.
The extent then of the Odrysian dominion, taking the line of its sea-coast, was from the city of Abdera to the Euxine, up to the mouth of the Danube. This tract is by the shortest way a voyage of four days and nights for a merchant-vessel, supposing the wind to be always steady astern. By land, taking the shortest way from Abdera to the [mouth of] the Danube, a quick traveller performs the journey in eleven days.
Such was the extent of its sea-board. As for the in terror, from Byzantium to the Laeaeans and the Strymon, (for at this point it reached its greatest extent up the country from the sea,) for a quick traveller it was a journey of thirteen days.
The tribute raised from all the barbarian dominions and the Grecian cities, taking the sum which they paid under Seuthes, who was successor of Sitalces, and raised it to its greatest amount, was about 400 talents in gold and silver. Presents were also made to no less an amount in gold and silver; and besides these there was all the clothing, both figured and plain, and other articles for use; and that not only for himself, but for those of the Odrysians also who were his lords and nobles.
For they established their custom the very reverse of that in the Persian kingdom, (though it prevails amongst the rest of the Thracians also,) namely, to receive rather than to give; and it was considered more disgraceful not to give when asked, than not to succeed by asking. But [though the other Thracians practised the same thing], still the Odrysians, owing to their greater power, practised it to a greater extent; for it was impossible to get any thing done without making presents.
The kingdom then had reached a high pitch of power. For of all those in Europe between the Ionian Gulf and the Euxine Sea, it was the greatest in amount of revenue and general prosperity; while in military power and number of troops it was decidedly next to that of the Scythians.
But with this not only is it impossible for those in Europe to vie, but even in Asia, putting one nation against another, there is none that can stand up against the Thracians, if they are all unanimous. Not, however, that they are on a level with other men in general good management and understanding in the things of common life.
Sitalces, then, being king over all this extent of country, prepared his army to take the field. And when all was ready for him, he set out and marched against Macedonia; at first through his own dominions, then over Cercine, a desert mountain, which forms the boundary between the Sintians and Paeonians, crossing it by a road which he had himself before made, by felling the timber, when he turned his arms against the Paeonians.
In crossing this mountain from the Odrysians, they had the Paeonians on their right, and on their left the Sintians and Maedians; and after crossing it they arrived at Doberus in Paeonia.
While he was on the march, there was no diminution of his army, (except by disease,) but accessions to it; for many of the independent Thracians, though uninvited, followed him for plunder; so that the whole number is said to have been not less than one hundred and fifty thousand, of which the greater part was infantry, but about a third cavalry.
Of the cavalry the Odrysians themselves furnished the largest portion; next to them, the Getae. Of the infantry, the most warlike were those armed with swords, the independent tribe that came down from Rhodope; the rest of the mixed multitude that followed him, was far more formidable for its numbers than any thing else.
They mustered, then, at Doberus, and made their preparations for bursting from the highland down upon the lower Macedonia, which formed the dominion of Perdiccas.