94.
During the same summer, and just about the same time when the Athenians were engaged
at1 Melos, the troops which were cruising in the thirty Athenian ships2 about Peloponnesus set an ambuscade at Ellomenus in Leucadia and killed a few of
the guards of the country.
They next attacked Leucas itself with a larger armament, consisting of the Acarnanians,
who followed them with their whole forces, all but the inhabitants of Oeniadae3, and some Zacynthians and Cephallenians, together with fifteen ships from
Corcyra.
[2]
The Leucadians saw their territory both on the mainland and within the isthmus, where
the town of Leucas and the temple of Apollo are situated, ravaged by the enemy; but
being powerless against a superior force, they remained inactive.
The Acarnanians begged Demosthenes, the Athenian general, to cut Leucas off by a wall,
thinking that they could easily take the city and so rid themselves of an old enemy.
[3]
But just then he was persuaded by the Messenians that, having such an army in the
field, it would be a great thing to attack the Aetolians: they were the enemies of
Naupactus, and if he defeated them he would easily subjugate the adjoining
part of the mainland to the Athenians.
[4]
The Aetolians, they said, though a large and warlike people, dwelt in unwalled
villages, which were widely scattered, and as they had only light-armed soldiers, they
would be subdued without difficulty before they could combine.
They told him that he should first attack the Apodotians, then the Ophioneans, and
after them the Eurytanians.
[5]
The last are the largest tribe of the Aetolians; they speak a dialect more
unintelligible than any of their neighbours, and are believed to eat raw flesh.
They said that, if he conquered these, the rest would readily come over to him.
1 Attack upon Leucas. Demosthenes, instead of completing the blockade is persuaded by the Messenians to invade Aetolia.
2 Cp. 3.91 init.
3 Cp. 2.102 init.
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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