98.
Such was the great country over which Sitalces ruled.
When he had collected his army and1 his preparations were complete he marched into Macedonia, passing first of all
through his own territory, and then through Cercinè, a desert mountain which
lies between the Sinti and the Paeonians.
He went by the road which he had himself constructed when he made his expedition
against the Paeonians and cut down the forest.
[2]
As he left the Odrysian territory in going through the mountain he had on the right
hand the Paeonians and on the left hand the Sinti and Maedi; on quitting the mountain he
arrived at Doberus in Paeonia.
[3]
He lost no part of his army on the march, except by sickness, but rather increased it;
for many of the independent Thracian tribes followed him of their own accord in hopes of
plunder.
The whole number of his forces was estimated at a hundred and fifty thousand, of which
about two-thirds were infantry and the rest cavalry.
[4]
The largest part of the cavalry was furnished by the Odrysae themselves, and the next
largest by the Getae.
Of the infantry, those armed with dirks who came from the independent tribes of Mount
Rhodopè were the most warlike.
The remainder of the army was a mixed multitude, chiefly formidable from its numbers.
1 Sitalces and his army enter Macedonia.
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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