Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/397

 THE ATHENIANS CAPTURE NIS.EA. 375 to surrender themselves as prisoners to the Athenians, to be held at their disposal. On these terms Nissea was surrendered to the Athenians, who cut off its communication with Megara, by keep- Ing the intermediate space between the Long Walls effectively blocked up, walls, of which they had themselves, in former days, been the original authors. 1 Such interruption of communication by the Long Walls indi- cated in the minds of the Athenian generals a conviction that Megara was now out of their reach. But the town in its present distracted state, would certainly have fallen into their hands, 9 had it not been snatched from them by the accidental neighbor hood and energetic intervention of Brasidas. That officer, occu- pied in the levy of troops for his Thracian expedition, was near Corinth and Sikyon, when he first learned the surprise and cap- ture of the Long Walls. Partly from the alarm which the news excited among these Peloponnesian towns, partly from his own personal influence, he got together a body of two thousand seven hundred Corinthian hoplites, six hundred Sikyonian and four hun dred Phliasian, besides his own small army, and marched with this united force to Tripodiskus, in the Megarid, half-way between Megara and Pegae, on the road over Mount Geraneia ; having first despatched a pressing summons to the Boeotians to request that they would meet him at that point with reinforcements. He trusted by a speedy movement to preserve Megara, and perhaps 1 Thucyd. i, 103 ; iv, 69. K.al ol 'A-drivaloi, T& fiaKpa relxr] u^oppfj^avTef anb rfjf TUV T&eyapeuv TroAewj- nai TTJV Niaaiav Trapa/la/Jovref, rd/l/la irapecf- I cannot think, with Poppo and Goller, that the participle uTrop is to be explained as meaning that the Athenians PULLED DOWN the por- tion of the Long Walls near Megara. This may have been done, but it would be an operation of no great importance ; for to pull down a portion of the wall would not bar the access from the city, which it was the object of the Athenians to accomplish. "They broke off" the communication along the road between the Long Walls from the city to Nissea, by building across or barricading the space between : similar to what is said a little above, 6 ioiKoSo[ir]ou[j. voi rd Trpof Meyapeaf, etc. Diodorns (xii, 66) abridges Thucydides. troops) OVK av kv rvxy yiyvea&ai atyiaiv, (M.& aatytif uv uoTtep eit9i>c rjj'c Totawr
 * Thucyd. iv, 73. el fiev yap fir/ u(f>-&rjaav th&ovrec (Brasidas with hfs