Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/215

 oECOND AND THIRD YEARS OF THE WAR. Jg^ fellow-colonists the Leukadians and Anaktorians, assembled near their own city, while their maritime force was collected at Leukas, on the Akarnanian coast. The force at Ambrakia was joined, not only by Knemus, the Lacedaemonian admiral, with one thousand Peloponnesian hoplites, who found means to cross over from Peloponnesus, eluding the vigilance of Phormio, but also by a numerous body of Epirotic and Macedonian auxil- iaries, collected even from the distant and northernmost tribes. A thousand Chaonians were present, under the command of Photyus and Nikanor, two annual chiefs chosen from the regal gens. Neither this tribe, nor the Thesprotians who came along with them, acknowledged any hereditary king. The Molossians and Atintanes, who also joined the force, were under Sabylin- thus, regent on behalf of the young prince Tharypas. There came, besides, the Paranzei, from the banks of the river Aous under their king Oroedus, together with one thousand Orestse, a tribe rather Macedonian than Epirot, sent by their king Antio chus. Even king Perdikkas, though then nominally in alliance with Athens, sent one thousand of his Macedonian subjects, who, however, arrived too late to be of any use. 1 This large and diverse body of Epirotic invaders, a new phenomenon in Gre cian history, and got together doubtless by the hopes of plunder, proves the extensive relations of the tribes of the interior with the city of Ambrakia, a city destined to become in later days the capital of the Epirotic king Pyrrhus. It had been concerted that the Peloponnesian fleet from Cor- inth should join that already assembled at Leukas, and act upon the coast of Akarnania at the same time that the land-force marched into that territory. But Knemus finding the land-force united and ready, near Ambrakia, deemed it unnecessary to await the fleet from Corinth, and marched straight into Akarnania, through Limnaea, a frontier village territory belonging to the Amphilochian Argos. He directed his march upon Stratus, an interior town, and the chief place in Akarnania, the cap- ture of which would be likely to carry with it the surrender of the rest ; especially as the Akarnanians, distracted by the pres- ence of the ships at Leukas, and alarmed by the large body of Thucyd. ii, 80. VOL. vi. 9 13oc.