Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/401

 PLANS OF ATHENS AGAINST BCEOTIA. 379 as to enable the Athenians to carry Nisaea, one of the posts which they had surrendered by the thirty years' truce, and of considerable positive value to them : so that it counted on the whole as a victory, leaving the generals with increased encourage- ment to turn their activity elsewhere. Accordingly, very soon after the troops had been brought back from the Megarid, 1 Hip- pokrates and Demosthenes concerted a still more extensive plan for the invasion of Boeotia, in conjunction with some malcontents in the Boeotian towns, who desired to break down and democratize the oligarcliical governments, and especially through the agency of a Theban exile named Ptceodorus. Demosthenes, with forty triremes, was sent round Peloponnesus to Naupaktus, with in- structions to collect an Akarnanian force, to sail into the inmost recess of the Corinthian or Krissaean gulf, and to occupy Siphse, a maritime town belonging to the Boeotian Thespiae, where intel ligences had been already established. On the same day, deter- mined beforehand, Hippokrates engaged to enter Boeotia, with the main force of Athens, at the southeastern corner of the ter- ritory near Tanagra, and to fortify Delium, the temple of Apollo, on the coast of the Euboean strait : while at the same time it was concerted that some Boeotian and Phocian malcontents should make themselves masters of Chaeroneia on the borders of Phocis. Boeotia would thus be assailed on three sides at the same moment, so that the forces of the country would be distracted and unable to cooperate. Internal movements were farther expected to take place in some of the cities, such as perhaps to establish democrat- ical governments and place them at once in alliance with tho Athenians. Accordingly, about the month of August, Demosthenes sailed from Athens to Naupaktus, where he collected his Akarnanian allies, now stronger and more united than ever, since the re- fractory inhabitants of CEniadoe had been at length compelled to join their Akarnanian brethren : moreover, the neighboring Agraeans with their prince Salynthius were also brought into the Athenian alliance. On the appointed day, seemingly about the beginning of October, he sailed with a strong force of these allies 1 Thucyd. iv, 76. cvi?t)c neru rrjv in T% Meyip5of uvaxupi/aiv, et*J