An aggression so unwarrantable as the assault on Platæa tended doubtless to strengthen the unanimity of the Athenian assembly, to silence the opponents of Periklês, and to lend additional weight to those frequent exhortations,[211] whereby the great statesman was wont to sustain the courage of his countrymen. Intelligence was sent round to forewarn and hearten up the numerous allies of Athens, tributary as well as free: the latter, with the exception of the Thessalians, Akarnanians, and Messenians at Naupaktus, were all insular,—Chians, Lesbians, Korkyræans, and Zakynthians: to the island of Kephallênia also they sent envoys, but it was not actually acquired to their alliance until a few months afterwards.[212] With the Akarnanians, too, their connection had only been commenced a short time before, seemingly during the preceding summer, arising out of the circumstances of the town of Argos in Amphilochia. That town, situated on the southern coast of the Ambrakian gulf, was originally occupied by a portion of the Amphilochi, a non-Hellenic tribe, whose lineage apparently was something intermediate between Akarnanians and Epirots. Some colonists from Ambrakia, having been admitted as co-residents with the Amphilochian inhabitants of this town, presently expelled them, and retained the town with its territory exclusively for themselves. The expelled inhabitants, fraternizing with their fellow tribes around as well as with the Akarnanians, looked out for the means of restoration; and in order to obtain it, invited the assistance of Athens. Accordingly, the Athenians sent an expedition of thirty triremes, under Phormio, who, joining the Amphilochians and Akarnanians, attacked and carried Argos, reduced the Ambrakiots to slavery, and restored the town to the Amphilochians and Akarnanians. It was on this occasion that the alliance of the Akarnanians with Athens was first concluded, and that their personal attachment to the Athenian admiral, Phormio, commenced.[213] [211] Thucyd. ii, 13. ἅπερ καὶ πρότερον, etc., ἔλεγε δὲ καὶ ἄλλα, ~οἷάπερ εἰώθει~, Περικλῆς ἐς ἀπόδειξιν τοῦ περιέσεσθαι τῷ πολέμῳ. [212] Thucyd. ii, 7, 22, 30. [213] Thucyd. ii, 68. The time at which this expedition of Phormio and the capture of Argos happened, is not precisely marked by Thucydidês. But his words seem to imply that it was before the commencement of the war, as Poppo observes. Phormio was sent to Chalkidikê about October or November 432 B.C. (i, 64); and the expedition against Argos probably occurred between that event and the naval conflict of Korkyræans and Athenians against Corinthians with their allies, Ambrakiots included,—which conflict had happened in the preceding spring.