History of the Peloponnesian War

During the following winter, there was a battle between the people of Heracleia in Trachis and the Aenianians, Dolopians, Malians, and some of the Thessalians.

For these were neighbouring tribes and hostile to the city of Heracleia, since the fortress there was established as a menace to no other territory but theirs. Accordingly, as soon as the city was founded, they began to show opposition to it, harassing it as much as they could; and at this time they defeated the Heracleotes, Xenares son of Cnidis, a Lacedaemonian and their commander, being killed, as well as some of the Heracleotes. And the winter ended, and with it the twelfth year of this war.

At the very beginning of the following[*](419 B.C.) summer, as Heracleia was in a grievous plight after the battle, the Boeotians took possession of it and dismissed Hegesippidas, the Lacedaemonian, for misgovernment. They occupied the place through fear that, while the Lacedaemonians were disturbed about matters in the Peloponnesus, the Athenians might

take it; the Lacedaemonians, however, were angry at them for this. During the same summer Alcibiades son of Cleinias, who was then a general of the Athenians, acting in concert with the Argives and their allies went into the Peloponnesus with a few Athenian hoplites and bowmen, and taking with him some of the allies from that region helped to settle matters pertaining to the alliance as he passed through the Peloponnesus with his army; coming to Patrae he persuaded the inhabitants to carry their walls down to the sea, and intended himself to build another fort at the Achaean Rhium.[*](A low point of land at the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf; on the opposite side of the strait was the Molycreian Rhium. The fort would have given the Athenians entire control of the entrance to the Gulf.) But the Corinthians, Sicyonians, and all those to whom the fortification of Rhium would have been a menace, went in force and prevented it.

During the same summer war broke out between the Epidaurians and Argives. The alleged ground for this was that the Epidaurians were not sending the sacrifice to Apollo Pythaeus, which it was incumbent on them to render in payment for pasturage, and the Argives exercised chief authority over the sanctuary;[*](Probably the temple of Apollo Pythaeus referred to is that which alone of all the buildings in Asine the Argives spared when they destroyed that town; cf. Paus. II. xxxvi. 5.) but even apart from this motive Alcibiades and the Argives deemed it advisable, if they could, to bring Epidaurus into the Argive alliance, both for the sake of keeping Corinth quiet, and because they thought the Athenians would be able to bring aid to Argos by a shorter way, from Aegina as base, than by sailing round Scyllaeum.[*](A promontory between Hermione and Troezene. The short route was from Aegina to the neighbouring coast of Epidaurus and thence to Argos; if Epidaurus was hostile or neutral, reinforcements had to be carried round Scyllaeum to the Gulf of Nauplia and thence by land to Argos.) The Argives, then, were preparing, as of their own motion, to invade Epidaurus for the exaction of the offering.