History of the Peloponnesian War

Now so long as the Peloponnesian army remained in the neighbourhood of Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, the Athenians retained hope that they would not advance nearer; for they remembered that Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians, when fourteen years before this war he had invaded Attica with an army of Peloponnesians and proceeded as far as Eleusis and Thria, had advanced no farther but had gone back again. (And indeed this was the cause of his banishment from Sparta, since he was thought to have been bribed to retreat.)

But when they saw the army in the neighbourhood of Acharnae, only sixty stadia from the city, they thought the situation no longer tolerable; on the contrary, it naturally appeared to them a terrible thing when their land was being ravaged before their eyes, a sight which the younger men had never seen, or even the older men except in the Persian war; and the general opinion, especially on the part of the younger men, was that they ought to go forth and put a stop to it.

They gathered in knots and engaged in hot disputes, some urging that they should go out, others opposing this course. Oracle-mongers were chanting oracles of every import, according as each man was disposed to hear them. And the Acharnians, thinking that no insignificant portion of the Athenian people lived at Acharnae, insisted most of all upon going out, as it was their land that was being devastated. Thus in every way the city was in a state of irritation; and they were indignant against Pericles, and remembering none of his earlier warnings they abused him because, though their general, he would not lead them out, and considered him responsible for all their sufferings.

Pericles, however, seeing them exasperated at the present moment and that their intentions were not for the best, and convinced that his judgment was right about refusing to go out, would not convoke a meeting of the assembly or any gathering whatever, for fear that if they got together there would be an outbreak of passion without judgment that would end in some serious mistake;

moreover he guarded the city, and as far as he could kept it free from disturbances. He did, however, constantly send out detachments of cavalry to prevent flying parties from the main army from raiding the fields near the city and ravaging them; and there was a cavalry skirmish at Phrygia between a company of Athenian horsemen, assisted by some Thessalians, and the Boeotian cavalry, in which the Athenians and Thessalians fully held their own, until their heavy infantry came to the support of the Boeotians, when they were routed. A few of the Thessalians and the Athenians were killed, but their bodies were recovered the same day without a truce;

and on the next day the Peloponnesians set up a trophy. This auxiliary force of the Thessalians was sent to the Athenians in accordance with an ancient alliance,[*](1.102.4.) and those who came were Larisaeans, Pharsalians, Crannonians, Pyrasians, Gyrtonians, and Pheraeans. And their leaders were, from Larissa, Polymedes and Aristonous, each representing his own faction, and from Pharsalus Menon; and the others had their own commander city by city.

The Peloponesians, on the other hand, when the Athenians did not come out to do battle with them broke up their camp at Acharnae and ravaged some of the demes which lie between Mt. Parnes and Mt. Brilessus.[*](More generally known as Pentelicus, so called from the deme Pentele on its southern slope.)

But while they were still in their territory the Athenians sent out on an expedition round the Peloponnesus the hundred ships[*](2.17.4.) which they had been equipping, and on them a thousand hoplites and four hundred archers; and the generals in command were Carcinus son of Xenotimus, Proteas son of Epicles, and Socrates son of Antigenes.

So they set sail with this force and began their cruise; the Peloponnesians, on the other hand, remained in Attica for as long a time as they were provisioned and then withdrew through Boeotia, taking a different route from that by which they had entered Attica. They passed by Oropus and laid waste the district called Graice,[*](Named after the ancient town of Γραῖα (Hom. Il. 2.498).) which the Oropians occupy as subjects of the Athenians.[*](This was written before 412/11, when Oropus was captured by the Boeotians.) Then on their return to the Peloponnesus they were dismissed to their several cities.