79.
During the same summer, when the corn was in full ear, and about the time of the attack
on Plataea, the Athenians sent an expedition1 against the Chalcidians of Thrace and against the Bottiaeans, consisting of two
thousand heavy-armed troops of their own and two hundred horsemen under the command of
Xenophon the son of Euripides, and two others.
[2]
They came close up to the Bottian Spartolus and destroyed the crops.
They expected that the place would be induced to yield to them by a party within the
walls.
But the opposite party sent to Olynthus and obtained from thence a garrison, partly
composed of hoplites, which sallied out of Spartolus and engaged with the Athenians
under the walls of the town.
[3]
The Chalcidian hoplites and with them certain auxiliaries were defeated and retreated
into Spartolus, but their cavalry and lightarmed troops had the advantage over those of
the Athenians.
[4]
They were assisted by a few targeteers, who came from the district called Crusis.
The engagement was scarcely over when another body of targeteers from Olynthus came up
to their aid.
[5]
Encouraged by the reinforcement and their previous success, and supported by the
Chalcidian horse and the newly-arrived troops, the light-armed again attacked the
Athenians, who began to fall back upon the two companies which they had left with their
baggage: as often as the Athenians charged, the enemy retired;
[6]
but when the Athenians continued their retreat, they pressed upon them and hurled darts
at them.
The Chalcidian cavalry too rode up, and wherever they pleased charged the
Athenians, who now fled utterly disconcerted and were pursued to a considerable
distance.
[7]
At length they escaped to Potidaea, and having recovered their dead under a flag of
truce, returned to Athens with the survivors of their army, out of which they had lost
four hundred and thirty men and all their generals.
The Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, having set up a trophy and carried off their dead,
disbanded and dispersed to their several cities.
1 The Athenians attack Spartolus. An engagement takes place, in which they are at first victorious, but Chalcidian reinforcements arriving, the engagement is renewed and they are defeated with loss.
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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