with javelins, short swords, and the pelta, or small shield,—but it was presently shut in, harassed on all sides by superior numbers, and compelled to think only of retreat and extrication.[367] [366] See Gatterer (De Herodoti et Thucydidis Thraciâ), sects. 44-57; Poppo (Prolegom. ad Thucydidem), vol. ii, ch. 31, about the geography of this region, which is very imperfectly known, even in modern times. We can hardly pretend to assign a locality to these ancient names. Thucydidês, in his brief statements respecting this march of Sitalkês, speaks like one who had good information about the inland regions; as he was likely to have from his familiarity with the coasts, and resident proprietorship in Thrace (Thucyd. ii, 100; Herodot. v, 16). [367] Thucyd. ii, 100; Xenophon, Memorab. iii, 9, 2. Luckily for the enemies of the Odrysian king, his march was not made until the beginning of winter, seemingly about November or December. We may be sure that the Athenians, when they concerted with him the joint attack upon the Chalkidians, intended that it should be in a better time of the year: having probably waited to hear that his army was in motion, and waited long in vain, they began to despair of his coming at all, and thought it not worth while to despatch any force of their own to the spot.[368] Some envoys and presents only were sent as compliments, instead of the coöperating armament; and this disappointment, coupled with the severity of the weather, the nakedness of the country, and the privations of his army at that season, induced Sitalkês soon to enter into negotiations with Perdikkas; who, moreover, gained over Seuthes, nephew of the Odrysian prince, by promising his sister Stratonikê in marriage, together with a sum of money, on condition that the Thracian host should be speedily withdrawn. This was accordingly done, after it had been distributed for thirty days over Macedonia: during eight of those days his detachment had ravaged the Chalkidic lands. But the interval had been quite long enough to diffuse terror all around: such a host of fierce barbarians had never before been brought together, and no one knew in what direction they might be disposed to carry their incursions. The independent Thracian tribes (Panæi, Odomantê, Drôi, and Dersæi) in the plains on the northeast of the Strymon, and near Mount Pangæus, not far from Amphipolis, were the first to feel alarm lest Sitalkês should take the opportunity of trying to conquer them; on the other side, the Thessalians, Magnêtes, and other Greeks north of Thermopylæ, anticipated that he would carry his invasion farther south, and began to organize means for resisting him: even the general Peloponnesian confederacy heard with uneasiness of this new ally whom Athens was bringing into the field, perhaps against them. All such alarms were dissipated, when Sitalkês, after remaining thirty days, returned by the way he came, and the formidable