Kitap 3
After Charoeades, the Athenian general, had been slain in battle by the Syracusans, Laches, being now in sole command of the fleet, made an expedition with the allies against Mylae, a town belonging to the Messenians. It so happened that two divisions of the Messenians were in garrison at Mylae, and that these had laid an ambush against the men who had landed from the ships.
The Athenians and their allies, however, put to rout the ambushing troops, slaying many of them; then, assaulting the fortification, they compelled its defenders to surrender the acropolis by agreement and march with them against Messene.
After this, on the approach of the Athenians and their allies, the Messenians also submitted, giving hostages and offering the other customary pledges of good faith.
That same summer the Athenians sent thirty ships round the Peloponnesus under the command of Demosthenes son of Alcisthenes and Procles son of Theodorus, and sixty ships and two thousand hoplites under the command of Nicias son of Niceratus, to Melos.
For the Melians, although they were islanders,The Melians and Theraeans, as Laconian colonists (v. lxxxiv. 2), alone in the Cyclades held aloof from the Athenian alliance. were unwilling to be subject to Athens or even to join their alliance, and the Athenians wished to bring them over.
But when they would not submit, even after their land had been ravaged, the Athenians left Melos and sailed to Oropus in the territory of Graïa, and the hoplites, landing there at nightfall, proceeded at once by land to Tanagra in Boeotia.
There they were met by the Athenians from the city in full force, who, under the command of Hipponicus son of Callias and Eurymedon son of Thucles, came overland upon a concerted signal and joined them. And after they had made camp they spent that day in ravaging the territory of Tanagra, and also passed the night there.
On the next day they defeated in battle the men of Tanagra who came out against them, as well as some Thebans who had come to their aid, then taking possession of the arms of the fallen and setting up a trophy they returned, the one party to the city, the other to the ships.
And Nicias sailed along the coast with his sixty ships, ravaged the seaboard of Locris, and then returned home.
It was about this time that the Lacedaemonians established Heracleia, their colony in Trachinia, with the following object in view.
The people of Malia, considered as a whole, consist of three divisions, Paralians, Hiereans, and Trachinians. Of these the Trachinians, after they had been ruined in war by their neighbours the Oetaeans, at first intended to attach themselves to the Athenians, but, fearing that these might not be loyal, sent to Lacedaemon, choosing Teisamenus as their envoy.
And envoys from Doris, the mother city of the Lacedaemonians, also took part in the embassy, making the same request, for they too were being ruined by the Oetaeans.
After hearing their appeal, the Lacedaemonians were of the opinion that they should send out the colony, wishing to aid both the Trachinians and the Dorians. At the same time, the site of the proposed city seemed to them well adapted for carrying on the war against Athens; for a fleet could be equipped there for an attack upon Euboea and the crossing thus made from a short distance away, and the place would also be useful for expeditions along the coast towards Thrace. In short, they were eager to found the settlement.
They therefore first consulted the god at Delphi, and at his bidding sent out the colonists, consisting of both Spartans and Perioeci,The old inhabitants, chiefly of Achaean stock, who had been reduced to a condition of dependence (not slavery) by the Dorians. and they invited any other Hellenes who so desired to accompany them, except Ionians and Achaeans and certain other races. The founders of the colony in charge of the expedition were three Lacedaemonians, Leon, Alcidas, and Damagon.
When they had established themselves they built a new wall about the city, which is now called Heracleia, and is about forty stadia distant from Thermopylae and twenty from the sea. They then proceeded to build dockyards, and in order that the place might be easy to guard fenced off the approach on the side toward Thermopylae by a wall across the pass itself.
As for the Athenians, while the colonists were being gathered for this city, they at first became alarmed, thinking it was being established chiefly as a menace to Euboea, because it is only a short distance across from here to Cenaeum in Euboea. Afterwards, however, the matter turned out contrary to their expectations; for no harm came from the city.
And the reasons were as follows: the Thessalians, who were the paramount power in those regions and whose territory was being menaced by the settlement, fearing that their new neighbours might become very powerful, began to harry and make war continually upon the new settlers, until they finally wore them out, although they had at first been very numerous; for, since the Lacedaemonians were founding the colony, everybody came boldly, thinking the city secure. One of the principal causes, however, was that the governors sent out by the Lacedaemonians themselves ruined the undertaking and reduced the population to a handful, frightening most of the settlers away by their harsh and sometimes unjust administration, so that at length their neighbours more easily prevailed over them.
During the same summer, and at about the time when the Athenians were detained at Melos, the troops of the thirty Athenian ships that were cruising round the Peloponnesus first set an ambush at Ellomenus in Leucadia and killed some of the garrison, and then, later on, went against Leucas with a greater armament, which consisted of all the Acarnanians, who joined the expedition with their entire forces (with the exception of the people of Oeniadae), some Zacynthians and Cephallenians, and fifteen ships from Corcyra.
The Leucadians, finding themselves outnumbered, were obliged to remain quiet, although their lands were being ravaged both without and within the isthmus,This isthmus, which at this time connected the island with the mainland, had been previously cut through by the Corinthians (Strabo, p. 452 c); but it had been filled with sand before the Peloponnesian war, as is evident from constant allusions to hauling ships across. It is clear from the context that the territory of the Leucadians included a part of the mainland of Acarnania. where stands Leucas and the temple of Apollo; but the Acarnanians tried to induce Demosthenes, the Athenian general, to shut them in by a wall, thinking they could easily reduce them by siege and thus rid themselves of a city that was always hostile to them.
But just at this time Demosthenes was persuaded by the Messenians that it was a fine opportunity for him, seeing that so large an army was collected, to attack the Aetolians, because they were hostile to Naupactus, and also because, if he defeated them, he would find it easy to bring the rest of the mainland in that region into subjection to the Athenians.
The Aetolians, they explained, were, it was true, a great and warlike people, but as they lived in unwalled villages, which, moreover, were widely separated, and as they used only light armour, they could be subdued without difficulty before they could unite for mutual defence.
And they advised him to attack the Apodotians first, then the Ophioneans, and after them the Eurytanians. These last constitute the largest division of the Aetolians, their speech is more unintelligible than that of the other Aetolians, and, according to report, they are eaters of raw flesh. If these tribes were subdued, they said, the rest would readily yield.
Demosthenes was induced to make this decision, not only by his desire to please the Messenians, but chiefly because he thought that, without help from Athens, he would be able with his allies from the mainland, once the Aetolians had joined him, to make an overland expedition against the Boeotians by passing through the country of the Ozolian Locrians to Cytinium in Doris, keeping Parnassus on the right, until he should descend into Phocian territory. The Phocians would presumably be eager to join the expedition in view of their traditional friendship with Athens, or else could be forced to do so; and Phocis is on the very borders of Boeotia. So he set sail from Leucas with his whole armament in spite of the unwillingness of the Acarnanians and went along the coast to Sollium.
There he made his plan known to the Acarnanians, but they would not agree to it because of his refusal to invest Leucas; he therefore set out upon his expedition against the Aetolians without them, taking the rest of his army, which consisted of Cephallenians, Messenians, Zacynthians, and three hundred Athenian marines from his own ships—for the fifteen Corcyraean ships had gone back home. The base from which he started was Oeneon in Locris.
The people of this country, Ozolian Locris, were allies, and they with their whole force were to meet the Athenians in the interior; for since they were neighbours of the Aetolians and used the same sort of arms, it was believed that their help would be of great service on the expedition on account of their knowledge both of the Aetolian manner of fighting and of the country.
He bivouacked with his army in the precinct of Nemean Zeus, where the poet HesiodFor the particulars of the tradition, cf. Plut. Sept. Sap. Conv. xix. is said to have been killed by the men of that region, an oracle having foretold to him that he should suffer this fate at Nemea; then he set out at daybreak for Aetolia.
On the first day he took Potidania, on the second Crocyleum, on the third Teichium. There he remained, sending his booty back to Eupalium in Locris; for his intention was to subdue the other places first, and then, in case the Ophioneans would not submit, to return to Naupactus and make a second expedition against them. But all these preparations did not escape the notice of the Aetolians, either when the design was first being formed or afterwards;
indeed his army had no sooner invaded their country than they all began to rally in great force, so that help came even from the remotest tribes of the Ophioneans, who stretch as far as the Maliac Gulf, and from the Bomians and Callians.
The Messenians, however, gave Demosthenes about the same advice as at first: informing him that the conquest of the Aetolians was easy, they urged him to proceed as quickly as possible against the villages, not waiting until they should all unite and array themselves against him, but trying to take the first village in his way.
Yielding to their advice and being hopeful because of his good fortune, since he was meeting with no opposition, he did not wait for the Locrians, who were to have brought him reinforcements—for he was greatly in need of lightarmed men that were javelin-throwers—but advanced against Aegitium and took it by storm at the first onset. For the inhabitants secretly fled and took post on the hills above the city, which stood on high ground about eighty stadia from the sea.
But the Aetolians, who by this time had come to the rescue of Aegitium, attacked the Athenians and their allies, running down from the hills on every side and showering javelins upon them, then retreating whenever the Athenian army advanced and advancing whenever they retreated. Indeed, the battle continued for a long time in this fashion, alternate pursuits and retreats, and in both the Athenians had the worst of it.
Now so long as their bowmen had arrows and were able to use them the Athenians held out, for the Aetolian troops were light-armed and so, while they were exposed to the arrows, they were constantly driven back. But when the captain of the archers had been killed and his men scattered, and the hoplites were worn out, since they had been engaged for a long time in the unremitting struggle and the Aetolians were pressing them hard and hurling javelins upon them, they at last turned and fled, and falling into ravines from which there was no way out and into places with which they were unacquainted, they perished;
for Chromon, the Messenian, who had been their guide on the way, had unfortunately been killed. The Aetolians kept plying their javelins, and being swift of foot and lightly equipped, following at their heels they caught many there in the rout and slew them; but the greater number missed the roads and got into the forest, from which there were no paths out, and the Aetolians brought fire and set the woods ablaze around them.
Then every manner of flight was essayed and every manner of destruction befell the army of the Athenians, and it was only with difficulty that the survivors escaped to the sea at Oeneon in Locris, whence they had set out.
Many of the allies were slain, and of the Athenians themselves about one hundred and twenty hoplites. So great a number of men, and all of the same age, perished here, the best men in truth whom the city of Athens lost in this war; and Procles, one of the two generals, perished also.
When they had received back their dead from the Aetolians under a truce and had retreated to Naupactus, they were afterwards taken back by the fleet to Athens. Demosthenes, however, remained behind in Naupactus and the region round about, for he was afraid of the Athenians because of what had happened.
About the same time the Athenian forces over in Sicily sailed to Locrisie. the territory of the Epizephyrian Locri, north of Rhegium in Italy. and disembarking there defeated the Locrians who came against them and took a guard-house which was situated on the river Halex.
During the same summer the Aetolians, who had previously sent three envoys to Corinth and Lacedaemon, namely Tolophus the Ophionean, Boriades the Eurytanian, and Teisander the Apodotian, urged them to send an army against Naupactus because this city had brought the Athenians against them.
So towards autumn the Lacedaemonians sent three thousand hoplites of their allies, among whom were six hundred from Heracleia, the city which had recently been founded in Trachis. The commander of the expedition was Eurylochus a Spartan, who was accompanied by the Spartans Macarius and Menedaïus.
And when the army was collected at Delphi, Eurylochus sent a herald to the Ozolian Locrians; for the road to Naupactus lay through their territory, and he also wished to induce them to revolt from Athens.