History of the Peloponnesian War

For he and Hippocrates were engaged in negotiations about affairs in Boeotia, at the instance of certain men in several cities who wished to bring about a change in their form of government and to transform it into a democracy, such as the Athenians had. The leading spirit in these transactions was Ptoeodorus, an exile from Thebes, through whom Demosthenes and Hippocrates had brought about the following state of affairs.

Siphae, a town on the shore of the Crisaean Gulf in the territory of Thespiae, was to be betrayed by certain men; and Chaeronea, a city which is tributary to Orchomenus—the city which was formerly called Minyan, but is now called Boeotian—was to be put into the hands of the Athenians by others, the fugitives from Orchomenus, who also took into their pay some Peloponnesians, being especially active in the conspiracy. Some Phocians also had a share in the plot, Chaeronea being on the borders of Boeotia, and adjacent to Phanotis, which is in Phocis.

The Athenians were to occupy Delium, the sanctuary of Apollo which is in the territory of Tanagra and opposite Euboea; and all these events were to take place simultaneously on an appointed day, in order that the Boeotians might not concentrate their forces at Delium, but that the several states might be occupied with their own disaffected districts.

And if the attempt should succeed and Delium should be fortified, they confidently expected, even if no immediate change occurred in the constitutions of the Boeotian states, nevertheless, so long as these places were in their possession, from which Boeotian territory could be ravaged and where everyone might find a convenient place of refuge, the situation would not remain as it was, but in time, when the Athenians should come to the support of the rebels and the forces of the oligarchs were scattered, they could settle matters to their own advantage.

Such was the plot which was then under way. It was the purpose of Hippocrates, when the proper moment should arrive, to take troops from Athens and in person make an expedition into Boeotia; meanwhile he was sending Demosthenes in advance with a fleet of forty ships to Naupactus, in order that he should first collect in this region an army of Acarnanians and of other allies of Athens and then sail to Siphae, in expectation of its being betrayed; and a day was agreed upon between the two generals for doing these two things simultaneously.

Upon his arrival at Naupactus, Demosthenes found that Oeniadae had already been forced by all the rest of the Acarnanians to join the Athenian alliance; he himself then raised all the allied forces in that district, and after first making an expedition against Salynthius and the Agraeans[*](cf. 3.111.4; 3.114.2.) and securing these, proceeded with his other preparations so as to be present at Siphae when needed.