Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/332

 310 HISTORY OF GREECE. than Leukas, and in its present exhausted state, inspired less fear: but the displeasure arising from the former refusal of Demosthenes had probably never been altogether appeased, nor were they sorry to find an opportunity of mortifying him in a similar manner. In the distribution of the spoil, three hundred panoplies were first set apart as the perquisite of Demosthenes : the remainder were then distributed, one-third for the Athenians, the other two- thirds among the Akarnaniau townships. The immense reserve, personally appropriated to Demosthenes, enables us to make some vague conjecture as to the total loss of Ambrakiots. The fraction of one-third, assigned to the Athenian people, must have been, we may imagine, six times as great, and perhaps even in larger proportion, than the reserve of the general : for the latter was at that time under the displeasure of the people, and anxious above all things to regain their favor, an object which would be frustrated rather than promoted, if his personal share of the arms were not greatly disproportionate to the collective claim of the city. Reasoning upon this supposition, the panoplies assigned to Athens would be eighteen hundred, and the total of Ambra- kiot slain, whose arms became public property, would be five thousand four hundred. To which must be added some Ambra- kiots killed in their flight from Idomene by the Amphilochians, in dells, ravines, and by-places : probably those Amphilochians, who slew them, would appropriate the arms privately, without bring- ing them into the general stock. Upon this calculation, the total number of Ambrakiot slain in both battles and both pursuits, would be about six thousand : a number suitable to the grave expressions of Thucydides, as well as to his statements, that the first detachment which marched to Olpae was three thousand strong, and that the message sent home invoked as reinforce- ment the total force of the city. How totally helpless Ambrakia had become, is still more conclusively proved by the fact 1 hat the Corinthians were obliged shortly afterwards to send by land a detachment of three hundred hoplites for its defence. 1 The Athenian triremes soon returned to their station at Nau- 1 Thucyd. iii, 114. Diodorus (xii, 60) abridges the narrative of Thu