29.
The Corinthians turned a deaf ear to all these overtures,
and, when their vessels were manned1 and their allies had arrived, they sent a herald before them to declare war, and
set sail for Epidamnus with seventyfive ships and two thousand hoplites, intending to
give battle to the Corcyraeans.
[2]
Their fleet was commanded by Aristeus the son of Pellichus, Callicrates the son of
Callias, and Timanor the son of Timanthes; the land forces by Archetimus the son of
Eurytimus, and Isarchidas the son of Isarchus.
[3]
When they arrived at Actium in the territory of Anactorium, at the mouth of the
Ambracian gulf, where the temple of Apollo stands, the Corcyraeans sent a herald to meet
them in a small boat forbidding them to come on.
Meanwhile their crews got on board; they had previously put their fleet in repair, and
strengthened the old ships with cross-timbers, so as to make them serviceable.
[4]
The herald brought back no message of peace from the Corinthians. The
Corcyraean ships, numbering eighty
(for forty out of the hundred and twenty were engaged
in the blockade of Epidamnus, were now fully manned;
[5]
these sailed out against the Corinthians and, forming line, fought and won a complete
victory over them, and destroyed fifteen of their ships.
On the very same day the forces besieging Epidamnus succeeded in compelling the city to
capitulate, the terms being that the Corinthians until their fate was determined should
be imprisoned and the strangers sold.
1 The Corinthians refuse, and declare war. Sailing towards Epidamnus they are met and attacked by the Corcyraeans and completely defeated. On the same day Epidamnus surrenders.
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
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