Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/187

 105-107] remained at home. A battle was fought, which hung equally in the balance; and when the two armies separated, they both thought that they had gained the victory. The Athenians, who did however get rather the better, on the departure of the Corinthians erected a trophy. And then the Corinthians, irritated by the reproaches of the aged men in the city, after about twelve days' preparation came out again, and, claiming the victory, raised another trophy. Hereupon the Athenians sallied out of Megara, killed those who were erecting the trophy, and charged and defeated the rest of the army.

The Corinthians now retreated, but a considerable number of them were hard pressed,

and missing their way got into an enclosure belonging to a private person, which was surrounded by a great ditch and had no exit. The Athenians, perceiving their situation, closed the entrance in front with heavy-armed troops, and, placing their light troops in a circle round, stoned all who had entered the enclosure. This was a great blow to the Corinthians. The main body of their army returned home.

About this time the Athenians began to build their

Long Walls extending to the sea, one to the harbour of Phalerum, and the other to the Piraeus. The Phocians made an expedition against the Dorians, who inhabit Boeum, Cytinium, and Erineum, and are the mother people of the Lacedaemonians; one of these towns they took. Thereupon the Lacedaemonians under the command of Nicomedes the son of Cleombrotus, who was general in the place of the king Pleistoanax the son of Pausanias (he being at that time a minor), came to the assistance of the Dorians with fifteen hundred hoplites of their own, and, of their allies, ten thousand, and compelled the Phocians to make terms and to restore the town. They then thought of returning; but there were difficulties. Either they might go by sea across the