History of the Peloponnesian War

After bivouacking with the army in the sacred precinct of the Nemean Jupiter, in which Hesiod the poet is said to have been killed by the people of this country, an oracle having before declared that he should meet with this fate at Nemea; in the morning he set out and marched into Aetolia.

On the first day he took Potidanea; on the second, Crocyleum; and on the third, Tichium, where he halted, and sent off his booty to Eupalium in Locris: for he intended, when he had subdued the other parts, to make a subsequent expedition against the Ophionians, if they would not surrender, after returning to Naupactus.

But the Aetolians were both aware or these preparations when he first formed his designs against them, and when the army had invaded their country they came to the rescue with a great force, all of them, so that even the most distant of the Ophionians, who stretch towards the Melian Gulf, the Borniensians and Calliensians, joined in bringing aid.

Now the Messenians gave Demosthenes the following advice, as they also did at first. Assuring him that the reduction of the Aetolians was easy, they urged him to go as quickly as possible against their villages, and not wait till the whole people should unite and oppose him, but to endeavour successively to make himself master of each village [*]( Or, as it came in his way. Literally, at his feet. Compare He rodotus, 3. 79, πάντα τινὰ τῶν μάγων τὸν ἐν ποσὶ γινόμενον.) before him.