4.
When the consul arrived before Ambracia, the siege seemed to him to involve great toil.
[2]
Ambracia lay at the foot of a rugged hill; the natives call it Perranthes. The city, where the wall turns towards the plains and the river, looks west; the citadel, which is situated on the hill, faces east.
[3]
The river Aretho, rising in Athamania, empties into the gulf of the sea which is called “the Ambracian” from the name of the neighbouring city.
[4]
In addition to the fact that the river on one side and the hills on the other defended the city, it was also protected by a strong wall, extending in circumference a little more than four miles.
[5]
Fulvius established two camps on the side of the plain, separated from one another by a moderate distance, and one redoubt on a high spot facing the citadel;
[6]
all these he planned so to connect by means of a wall and ditch that no [p. 15]egress from the city might be allowed the besieged1 nor ingress from without to a relieving force. At the report of the siege of Ambracia the Aetolians had already assembled at Stratus in response to the edict of the praetor Nicander.
[7]
It had been their first intention to march from there with their entire force to prevent the siege; then, when they saw that the city was already in large part hemmed in by siege-works, and that the camp of the Epirotes lay on level ground across the river, they decided to divide their forces.
[8]
Eupolemus with a thousand light-armed troops, setting out for Ambracia, entered the city through the fortifications which had not yet been joined together.
[9]
It had been the original plan that Nicander, with the rest of the troops, should make a night attack on the camp of the Epirotes, which could not readily be aided by the Romans because the river was between them;
[10]
later, thinking that there was in the enterprise the danger that the Romans might somehow learn of it and he have no escape to a place of safety, he abandoned that design and turned aside to plunder Acarnania.
1 B.C. 189
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