Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/108

 CIV THUCYDIDES against the revolted Megarians, which took much booty and won a victory), under Andocides, the grandfather of the orator, general in the Samian wars a few years later. When the Lacedaemonian army advanced into Megara on its way to Attica, the Athenian army was forced to retreat to Pagae. Pericles' willingness to negotiate with Plei- stoanax is partly accounted for by the absence of nearly one-third of the Athenian army. Meanwhile Pythion, a Megarian friendly to Athens, led the Athenians over the dangerous pass by Aegosthena and Crusis on the shore of the Corinthian gulf, capturing numerous Boeotian country- people or slaves on the way ; and crossing Cithaeron from the N. brought them safely back to Athens. The Athenian army was now in full force. Pleistoanax had an additional motive for retreating. Pythion was presented with the Athenian citizenship for his great services ; he lived to a good old age (the inscription is mostly written in Ionic characters and bears the stamp of the end of the fifth century rather than the beginning of the fourth), and his epitaph combined with the tradition preserved in Diodorus enables us to reconstruct the history of the famous events of 446-445 B. c. Surely this interesting story, which bids fair to become a recognized piece of Athenian history, rests on too slender a basis to be accepted. The part played in it by Andocides is taken from a line following those quoted in which Pythion is said to have 'glorified Andocides with 2000 slaves* — the number is admitted to be an exaggeration, and we cannot be sure that the line refers to the same occasion. It is fair to state that Andocides the grandfather of the orator belonged to one of the three tribes mentioned in the inscription, the Pandionis. But apart from the possi- bility of the inscription referring to some event of the fourth century (the counter-arguments of Kohler are not conclusive), and from the patriotic colouring of the story in Diodorus, is it likely that so romantic an exploit as this would have left no trace in literary history ?