Classical literature; Greece -- History -- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.; Greece -- History -- Spartan and Theban Supremacies, 404-362 B.C.
of this intention, began collecting a large army and despatching cavalry
with a summons to the inhabitants one and all to rally to the defence of
the goddess Artemis at Ephesus.
(1) The MSS. here give a suspected passage, which may be rendered
thus: "The first of Olympiad 93, celebrated as the year in which
the newly-added two-horse race was won by Evagorias the Eleian,
and the stadion (200 yards foot-race) by the Cyrenaean Eubotas,
when Evarchippus was ephor at Sparta and Euctemon archon at
Athens." But Ol. 93, to which these officers,and the addition of
the new race at Olympia belong, is the year 408. We must therefore
suppose either that this passage has been accidentally inserted in
the wrong place by some editor or copyist, or that the author was
confused in his dates. The "stadium" is the famous foot-race at
Olympia, 606 3/4 English feet in length, run on a course also
called the "Stadion," which was exactly a stade long.
(2) Peltasts, i.e. light infantry armed with the "pelta" or light
shield, instead of the heavy {aspis} of the hoplite or heavy
infantry soldiers.
On the seventeenth day after the incursion above mentioned Thrasylus
sailed to Ephesus. He disembarked his troops in two divisions, his heavy
infantry in the neighbourhood of Mount Coressus; his cavalry, peltasts,
and marines, with the remainder of his force, near the marsh on the
other side of the city. At daybreak he pushed forward both divisions.
The citizens of Ephesus, on their side, were not slow to protect
themselves. They had to aid them the troops brought up by Tissaphernes,
as well as two detachments of Syracusans, consisting of the crews of
their former twenty vessels and those of five new vessels which had
opportunely arrived quite recently under Eucles, the son of Hippon,
and Heracleides, the son of Aristogenes, together with two Selinuntian
vessels. All these several forces first attacked the heavy infantry
near Coressus; these they routed, killing about one hundred of them, and
driving the remainder down into the sea. They then turned to deal with
the second division on the marsh. Here, too, the Athenians were put to
flight, and as many as three hundred of them perished. On this spot the
Ephesians erected a trophy, and another at Coressus. The valour of the
Syracusans and Selinuntians had been so conspicuous that the citizens
presented many of them, both publicly and privately, with prizes for
distinction in the field, besides offering the right of residence in
their city with certain immunities to all who at any time might wish to
live there. To the Selinuntians, indeed, as their own city had lately
been destroyed, they offered full citizenship.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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