Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/321

 DEFEAT OF DEMOSTHENES. 299, ; on the first day he took Potidania, on the second Kro- kyleium, on the third Teichium, all of them villages unfortified and undefended, for the inhabitants abandoned them and fled to the mountains above. He was here inclined to halt and wait the junction of the Ozolian Lokrians, who had engaged to invade .ZEtolia at the same time, and were almost indispensable to his success, from their familiarity with ^Etolian warfare and similarity of weapons. But the Messenians again persuaded him to ad- vance without delay into the interior, in order that the villages might be separately attacked and taken before any collective force could be gathered together : and Demosthenes was so en- couraged by having as yet encountered no resistance, that he advanced to .^Egitium, which he also found deserted, and captured without opposition. Here however was the term of his good fortune. The moun- tains round ^Egitium were occupied not only by the inhabitants of that village, but also by the entire force of JEtolia, collected even from the distant tribes Bomies and Kallies, who bordered on the Maliac gulf. The invasion of Demosthenes had become known beforehand to the .2Etolians, who not only forewarned all their tribes of the approaching enemy, but also sent ambassadors to Sparta and Corinth to ask for aid. 1 However, they showed themselves fully capable of defending their own territory, with- out foreign aid : and Demosthenes found himself assailed, in his position at .ZEgitium, on all sides at once, by these active high- landers, armed with javelins, pouring down from the neighboring hills. Not engaging in any close combat, they retreated when Thucyd. iii, 100. TLpOTrefi^avre^ irporepov If re Kopiv&ov Kal f Aa- va irpeafiecf xei'dovai.v ware aiai irsftipat arpariav iirl NavTranrov clai TTJV TUV ' A.'&tjvaiuv kitayuyiiv. It is not here meant, I think as Goller and Dr. Arnold suppose -that the ./Etolians sent envoys to Lacedaemon before there was any talk or thought of the invasion of jEtolia, simply in prosecution of the standing antipathy which they bore to Naupaktus : but that they had sent envoys immediately when they heard of the preparations for invading ^Etolia, yet before the invasion actually took place. The words 6iu TT/V ruv 'Ai9^- valuv Eirayuyrjv show that this is the meaning. The word tirayuy^ is rightly construed by Haack, against the Scho- liast: " Because the Naupaktians were bringing in the Athenians to invade