98.
While their archers had arrows and were able to use them, the Athenians maintained
their1 ground, for the Aetolians, being lightarmed, were driven back by the arrows.
But at length the captain of the archers was slain, and the forces under his command no
longer kept together.
The Athenians themselves grew weary of the long and tedious struggle.
The Aetolians came closer and closer, add never ceased hurling darts at them.
At last they turned and fled, and falling into ravines, out of which there was no way,
or losing themselves in a strange country, they perished.
Their guide, Chromon the Messenian, had been killed.
[2]
The Aetolians, who were light-armed and swift of foot, followed at their heels, hurling
darts, and caught and slew many of them in the actual rout.
The greater number missed their way and got into the woods, out of which no path led;
[3]
and their enemies brought fire and burnt the wood about them.
So the Athenian army tried every means of escape and perished in all manner of ways.
The survivors with difficulty made their way to the sea at Oeneon in Locris, whence
they had set out.
[4]
Many of the allies fell, and of the Athenian heavyarmed about a hundred and twenty, all
in the flower of their youth; they were the very finest men whom the city of Athens lost
during the war.
Procles, one of the two generals, was also killed.
[5]
When they had received the bodies of their dead under a flag of truce from the
Aetolians, they retreated to Naupactus, and returned in their ships to
Athens.
Demosthenes remained behind in Naupactus and the neighbourhood; for, after what had
happened, he feared the anger of the Athenians.
1 The Aetolians press upon the Athenians, who at length fly. The suitors with difficulty and thence to Athens. Demosthenes remains behind.
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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