Greece -- History -- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.
The same summer the Aetolians, who before the Athenian expedition had
sent an embassy to Corinth and Lacedaemon, composed of Tolophus, an
Ophionian, Boriades, an Eurytanian, and Tisander, an Apodotian,
obtained that an army should be sent them against Naupactus, which had
invited the Athenian invasion. The Lacedaemonians accordingly sent off
towards autumn three thousand heavy infantry of the allies, five
hundred of whom were from Heraclea, the newly founded city in Trachis,
under the command of Eurylochus, a Spartan, accompanied by Macarius and
Menedaius, also Spartans.
The army having assembled at Delphi, Eurylochus sent a herald to the
Ozolian Locrians; the road to Naupactus lying through their territory,
and he having besides conceived the idea of detaching them from Athens.
His chief abettors in Locris were the Amphissians, who were alarmed at
the hostility of the Phocians. These first gave hostages themselves,
and induced the rest to do the same for fear of the invading army;
first, their neighbours the Myonians, who held the most difficult of
the passes, and after them the Ipnians, Messapians, Tritaeans,
Chalaeans, Tolophonians, Hessians, and Oeanthians, all of whom joined
in the expedition; the Olpaeans contenting themselves with giving
hostages, without accompanying the invasion; and the Hyaeans refusing
to do either, until the capture of Polis, one of their villages.
His preparations completed, Eurylochus lodged the hostages in Kytinium,
in Doris, and advanced upon Naupactus through the country of the
Locrians, taking upon his way Oeneon and Eupalium, two of their towns
that refused to join him. Arrived in the Naupactian territory, and
having been now joined by the Aetolians, the army laid waste the land
and took the suburb of the town, which was unfortified; and after this
Molycrium also, a Corinthian colony subject to Athens. Meanwhile the
Athenian Demosthenes, who since the affair in Aetolia had remained near
Naupactus, having had notice of the army and fearing for the town, went
and persuaded the Acarnanians, although not without difficulty because
of his departure from Leucas, to go to the relief of Naupactus. They
accordingly sent with him on board his ships a thousand heavy infantry,
who threw themselves into the place and saved it; the extent of its
wall and the small number of its defenders otherwise placing it in the
greatest danger. Meanwhile Eurylochus and his companions, finding that
this force had entered and that it was impossible to storm the town,
withdrew, not to Peloponnese, but to the country once called Aeolis,
and now Calydon and Pleuron, and to the places in that neighbourhood,
and Proschium in Aetolia; the Ambraciots having come and urged them to
combine with them in attacking Amphilochian Argos and the rest of
Amphilochia and Acarnania; affirming that the conquest of these
countries would bring all the continent into alliance with Lacedaemon.
To this Eurylochus consented, and dismissing the Aetolians, now
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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