30.
When the news reached the Thebans they hastened to the rescue. Coming upon the Thracians1 before they had gone far, they took away the spoil and, putting them to flight, pursued them to the Euripus, where the ships which had brought them were moored.
[2]
Of those who fell, the greater number were slain in the attempt to embark; for they did not know how to swim, and the men on board, seeing what was happening, had anchored their vessels out of bow-shot2. In the retreat itself the Thracians made a very fair defence against the Theban cavalry which first attacked them, running out and closing in again, after the manner of their country; and their loss was trifling. But a good many who remained for the sake of plunder were cut off within the city and slain. The whole number who fell was two hundred and fifty, out of thirteen hundred.
[3]
They killed, however, some of the Thebans and others who came to the rescue, in all about twenty, both horsemen and hoplites. Scirphondas, one of the Theban Boeotarchs, was slain. A large proportion of the Mycalessians perished. Such was the fate of Mycalessus; considering the size of the city, no calamity more deplorable occurred during the war.3
1 The Thebans soon come upon them and they are driven back with loss to their ships.
2 Reading τοξεύματος with Valla's translation.
3 Cp. 3.113 fin.
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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