History of the Peloponnesian War

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.

Athos. Of the cities it contains, one is Sane, an Andrian colony close to the canal, facing the sea which is toward Euboea; the others are Thyssus, Cleonae, Acrothoi, Olophyxus and Dium, which are inhabited by mixed barbarian tribes speaking two languages.

There is in it also a small Chalcidic element; but the greatest part is Pelasgic—belonging to those Etruscans that once inhabited Lemnos and Athens[*](According to Herodotus (vi. 137 ff.), they were expelled from Attica, and afterwards, by Miltiades, from Lemnos.)—Bisaltic, Crestonic, and Edonian; and they live in small towns.

Most of these yielded to Brasidas, but Sane and Dium held out against him; so he waited there with his army and laid waste their territory.

Since, however, they would not yield he marched at once against Torone,[*](The chief town on the Sithonian peninsula.) in Chalcidice, which was held by the Athenians; for a few men, who were ready to betray the town, had invited him over. Arriving with his army toward dawn, but while it was still dark, he encamped near the temple of the Dioscuri, which is about three stadia distant from the city.

The rest of the town of Torone and the Athenians of the garrison were unaware of his approach, but his partisans, knowing that he would come, and some few of them having secretly gone forward to meet him, were watching for his approach; and when they perceived that he was there, they introduced into the town seven light-armed men with daggers, under the command of Lysistratus an Olynthian, these men alone of the twenty first assigned to the task not being afraid to enter. These slipped through the seaward wall and escaping the notice of the guard at the uppermost watch-post of the town, which is on the slope of a hill, went up and slew these sentinels, and broke open the postern on the side towards the promontory of Canastraeum.

Meanwhile Brasidas, having gone forward a little, kept quiet with the rest of his army, but sent forward one hundred targeteers, in order that as soon as any gates were opened and the signal agreed upon was raised they might rush in first.

These now, as time elapsed, were wondering at the delay and had come up little by little close to the town. Meanwhile the Toronaeans inside who were co-operating with the party which had entered, when the postern had been broken down and the gates near the market-place had been opened by cutting the bar, first brought some men around to the postern and let them in, in order that they might take the townsmen unawares by a sudden attack in their rear and on both sides and throw them into a panic; after that they raised the fire-signal agreed upon and received the rest of the targeteers through the gates near the market-place.

Brasidas, on seeing the signal, set off at a run, calling up his force, and they with one voice raised a shout and caused great dismay to the townsmen.

Some burst in immediately by the gates, others over some square beams which chanced to have been placed, for the purpose of drawing up stones, against the wall that had fallen in and was now being rebuilt.

Brasidas, then, and the main body made at once for the high points of the town, wishing to make its capture complete and decisive; but the rest of the multitude[*](Macedonian and Thracian irregulars.) scattered in all directions.

While the capture was being effected, most of the Toronaeans, who knew nothing of the plot, were in a tumult, but the conspirators and such as were in sympathy with the movement at once joined those who had entered.

When the Athenians became aware of it—for about fifty of their hoplites happened to be sleeping in the market-place—though some few of them were slain in hand-to-hand conflict, the rest fled, some by land, others to the two ships which were on guard, and got safely into the fort of Lecythus, which had been occupied and was held by their own men. It is the citadel of the city, projecting into the sea—a separate section[*](There was probably a wall across the isthmus.) on a narrow isthmus.

And such of the Toronaeans as were friendly to the Athenians took refuge there also.