Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/235

 SKUOND AND THIRD YEARS OF THE WAR. 213 pletely discomfited, and farther, so much in fear of the expected reinforcement from Athens, that they took advantage of the night to retire, and sail into the gulf to Corinth : all except the Leukadians, who returned to their own home. Nor was it long before the reinforcement actually arrived, after that untoward detention which had wellnigh exposed Phormio and his whole fleet to ruin. It confirmed his mastery of the entrance of the gulf and of the coast of Akarnania, where the Feloponnesians had now no naval force at all. To establish more fully the Athenian influence in Akarnania, he undertook during the course of the autumn an expedition, landing at As- takus, and marching into the Akarnanian inland country with four hundred Athenian hoplites and four hundred Messenians. Some of the leading men of Stratus and Koronta, who were attached to the Peloponnesian interest, he caused to be sent into exile, while the chief named Kynes, of Koronta, who seems to have been hitherto in exile, was reestablished in his native town. The great object was, to besiege and take the powerful town of CEniadze, near the mouth of the Achelous ; a town at variance with the other Akarnanians, and attached to the Peloponnesians. But the. great spread of the waters of the Achelous rendered this siege impracticable during the winter, and Phormio returned to the station at Naupaktus. Prom hence he departed to Athens towards the end of the winter, carrying home both his prize- ships and such of his prisoners as were freemen. The latter were exchanged man for man against Athenian prisoners in the hands of Sparta. 1 After abandoning the naval contest at Ehium, and retiring to Corinth, Knemus and Brasidas were prevailed upon by the Megarians, before the fleet dispersed, to try the bold experiment of a sudden inroad upon Peirasus. Such was the confessed superiority of the Athenians at sea, that, while they guarded amply the coasts of Attica against privateers, they never imag- ined the possibility of an attack upon their own main harbor. Accordingly, Peiraeus was not only unprotected by any chain across the entrance, but destitute even of any regular guard- ships manned and ready. The seamen of the retiring Pelopon- Thii"vd. ii, 102, 103