Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/94

 72 HISTORY OF GREECE. occasion to notice, was now again on the side of the Chalkidiana, and sent two hundred horse to join them, under the command of the objections which I have just urged in reference to Beroea on Mount Ber- mius, made me doubt whether Dr. Arnold and the other commentators have correctly conceived the operations of the Athenian troops between Pydna and Gigonus. The Beroea which Thucydides means cannot bo more distant from Gigonus, at any rate, than a third day's easy march, and therefore cannot be the Beroea on Mount Bermius. But there was another town named Bercea, cither in Thrace or in Emathia, though we do not know its exact site (see Wassi ad Thucyd. i, 61 ; Steph. Byz. v, Espr/f Tafcl, 'Thessalonica, Index). This other Bercea, situated somewhere between Gigonns and Thcrma, and out of the limits of that Macedonia which Per- dikkas governed, may probably be the place which Thucydides here indi- cates. The Athenians, raising the siege of Pydna, crossed the gulf on shipboard to Beroea, and after vainly trying to surprise that town, marched along by land to Gigonus. Whoever inspects the map will see that the Athenians would naturally employ their large fleet to transport the army by the short transit across the gulf from Pydna (see Livy, xliv, 10), and thus avoid the fatiguing land-march round the head of the gulf. More- over, the language of Thucydides would seem to make the land-march begin at Bercea and not at Pydna, uTraviaravTai en r>/f MaKcdoviaf, Kal iKJUKOuevoi if Bepoiav KUKEI&EV }.7ricr-ptyavTf, Kal iretpuffavref irpurov TOV %upiov Kal oi>x thovref, kiropEvovTO Kara, yi]v irpof TlorlSaiav upa 6e rf/ef Trapeirheov i@6ourjK.ovTa. Kar' 62,'r/ov 6e Trpoiov- Tef rpiraloL U^LKOVTO if Tiyuvov not taTpaTOKEdeiiaavro. The change of tense between uiraviaTavTai and ivopevovro, and the connection of the participle uQtKopevoi with the latter verb, seems to divide the whole pro ceeding into two distinct parts ; first, departure from Macedonia to Bercea, as it would seem, by sea, next, a land-march from Beroea to Gigonus, of three short days. This is the best account, as it strikes me, of a passage, the real difficul- ties of which are imperfectly noticed by the commentators. The site of Gigonus cannot be exactly determined, since all that we know of the towns on the coast between Potidaea and JEneia, is derived from their enumerated names in Herodotus (vii, 123) ; nor can we be abso- lutely certain that he has enumerated them all in the exact order in which they were placed. But I think that both Col. Leake and Kiepert's map place Gigonus too far from Potidsea ; for we see, from this passage of Thucydides, that it formed the camp from which the Athenian gen- eral went forth immediately to give battle to an enemy posted between Olynthus and Potidaea ; and the Scholiast says of Gigonus, ov noM unexov Hondaiaf : and Stephan. Byz. Ti-yuvof. nolif Bpfayf ii-poaex*t See Cci>nel Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. iii. ch. xxxi, p. 452