History of the Peloponnesian War

Above all, they were so moved by the pleasurable anticipations of the moment, and by the fact that they were now for the first time going to have a proof of what the Lacedaemonians would do when on their mettle, that they were ready to take any risk. Being aware of these things, the Athenians, so far as was possible at short notice and in the winter season, sent out garrisons among the cities; while Brasidas sent to Lacedaemon and urgently begged them to send him reinforcements, and was himself making preparations for building ships in the Strymon.

The Lacedaemonians, however, did not comply with his request, partly on account of the jealousy of the foremost men, partly also because they wished rather to recover the men taken on the island and to bring the war to an end.

The same winter the Megarians took and razed to the ground their long walls[*](cf. 4.69.4.) which the Athenians had held; and Brasidas, after the capture of Amphipolis, made an expedition with his allies against the district called Acte.

It is a promontory projecting from the King's canal[*](Xerxes' canal; cf. Hdt. vii. 22 ff.) on the inner side of the isthmus, and its terminus at the Aegean Sea is the lofty Mt.