Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/443

 LARGE PROJECTS OF BRAS [DAS. 421 palisade work, 1 connecting the walls of the city with the bridge. He thus made himself permanently master of the crossing of the Strymon, so as to shut the door by which he himself had entered, and at the same time to keep an easy communication with Argilus and the western bank of the Strymon. He also made some acquisitions on the eastern side of the river. Pittakus, prince of the neighboring Edonian-Thracian township of Myr- kinus, had been recently assassinated by his wife Brauro, and by some personal enemies : he had probably been the ally of Athens, and his assassins now sought to strengthen themselves by courting the alliance of the new conqueror of Amphipolis. The Thasian continental colonies of Galepsus and OEsyme also declared their adhesion to him. While he sent to Lacedasmon, communicating his excellent position as well as his large hopes, he at the same time, without waiting for the answer, began acting for himself, with all the allies whom he could get together. He marched first against the peninsula called Akte, the narrow tongue of land which stretches out from the neighborhood of Akanthus to the mighty headland called Mount Athos, near thirty miles long, and between four and five miles for the most part in breadth. 2 The long, rugged, woody ridge, covering this peninsula so as to leave but narrow spaces for dwelling or cultivation, or feeding of cattle, v,-as at this time occupied by many distinct petty communities, some of them divided in race and language. Sane, a colony from Andros, was situated in the interior gulf, called the Singitic gulf, between Athos and the Sithonian peninsula, near the Xerxeian canal : the rest of the Akte was distributed among Bisaltians, Krestonians, and Edonians, sill fractions of the Thra- cian name ; Pelasgians, or Tyrrhenians, of the race which had once occupied Lemnos and Imbros, and some Chalkidians. Some of these little communities spoke habitually two languages. Thys- sus, Ifleone, Olophyxus, and others, all submitted on the arrival 1 This is the aravpu/ja, mentioned (v, 10) as existing a year and a half afterwards, at the time of the battle of Amphipolis. I shall say mor respecting the topography of Amphipolis, when I come to describe thai battle.
 * See Grisebach, Reise durch Rumclien und Brnra, vol. i, ch. viii, p. 226.