meet us at the border, at least when they see us in their territory ravaging and destroying their property. All men exposed to any unusual indignity become incensed, and act more under passion than under calculation, when it is actually brought under their eyes: much more will the Athenians do so, accustomed as they are to empire, and to ravage the territory of others rather than to see their own so treated.” [222] Thucyd. ii, 10-12. [223] Thucyd. ii, 11. ὥστε χρὴ καὶ πάνυ ἐλπίζειν διὰ μάχης ἰέναι αὐτοὺς, εἰ μὴ καὶ νῦν ὥρμηνται, ἐν ᾧ οὔπω πάρεσμεν, ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν ἐν τῇ γῇ ὁρῶσιν ἡμᾶς δῃοῦντάς τε καὶ τἀκείνων φθείροντας. These reports of speeches are of great value as preserving a record of the feelings and expectations of actors, apart from the result of events. What Archidamus so confidently anticipated, did _not_ come to pass. Immediately on the army being assembled, Archidamus sent Melêsippus as envoy to Athens to announce the coming invasion, being still in hopes that the Athenians would yield. But a resolution had been already adopted, at the instance of Periklês, to receive neither herald nor envoy from the Lacedæmonians when once their army was on its march: so that Melêsippus was sent back without even being permitted to enter the city. He was ordered to quit the territory before sunset, with guides to accompany him and prevent him from addressing a word to any one. On parting from his guides at the border, Melêsippus exclaimed,[224] with a solemnity but too accurately justified by the event: “This day will be the beginning of many calamities to the Greeks.” [224] Thucyd. ii, 12. Archidamus, as soon as the reception of his last envoy was made known to him, continued his march from the isthmus into Attica,—which territory he entered by the road of Œnoê, the frontier Athenian fortress of Attica towards Bœotia. His march was slow, and he thought it necessary to make a regular attack on the fort of Œnoê, which had been put into so good a state of defence, that after all the various modes of assault, in which the Lacedæmonians were not skilful, had been tried in vain,[225]—and after a delay of several days before the place,—he was compelled to renounce the attempt. [225] Thucyd. ii, 18. πᾶσαν ἰδέαν πειράσαντες οὐκ ἐδύναντο ἑλεῖν. The situation of Œnoê is not exactly agreed upon by topographical inquirers: it was near Eleutheræ, and on one of the roads from Attica into Bœotia (Harpokration, v, Οἰνόη; Herodot. v, 74). Archidamus marched, probably, from the isthmus over Geraneia, and fell into this road in order to receive the junction of the Bœotian contingent after it had crossed Kithæron.