Greece -- History -- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.
The same summer the Athenian general, Demosthenes, arrived at Naupactus
with forty ships immediately after the return from the Megarid.
Hippocrates and himself had had overtures made to them by certain men
in the cities in Boeotia, who wished to change the constitution and
introduce a democracy as at Athens; Ptoeodorus, a Theban exile, being
the chief mover in this intrigue. The seaport town of Siphae, in the
bay of Crisae, in the Thespian territory, was to be betrayed to them by
one party; Chaeronea (a dependency of what was formerly called the
Minyan, now the Boeotian, Orchomenus) to be put into their hands by
another from that town, whose exiles were very active in the business,
hiring men in Peloponnese. Some Phocians also were in the plot,
Chaeronea being the frontier town of Boeotia and close to Phanotis in
Phocia. Meanwhile the Athenians were to seize Delium, the sanctuary of
Apollo, in the territory of Tanagra looking towards Euboea; and all
these events were to take place simultaneously upon a day appointed, in
order that the Boeotians might be unable to unite to oppose them at
Delium, being everywhere detained by disturbances at home. Should the
enterprise succeed, and Delium be fortified, its authors confidently
expected that even if no revolution should immediately follow in
Boeotia, yet with these places in their hands, and the country being
harassed by incursions, and a refuge in each instance near for the
partisans engaged in them, things would not remain as they were, but
that the rebels being supported by the Athenians and the forces of the
oligarchs divided, it would be possible after a while to settle matters
according to their wishes.
Such was the plot in contemplation. Hippocrates with a force raised at
home awaited the proper moment to take the field against the Boeotians;
while he sent on Demosthenes with the forty ships above mentioned to
Naupactus, to raise in those parts an army of Acarnanians and of the
other allies, and sail and receive Siphae from the conspirators; a day
having been agreed on for the simultaneous execution of both these
operations. Demosthenes on his arrival found Oeniadae already compelled
by the united Acarnanians to join the Athenian confederacy, and himself
raising all the allies in those countries marched against and subdued
Salynthius and the Agraeans; after which he devoted himself to the
preparations necessary to enable him to be at Siphae by the time
appointed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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