Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/381

 113, im] loss of the AMBRACIOTS 265 later disaster, and he imagined that they belonged to his own division of the army. Some one present thought that the herald had come from the army defeated at Idomene, and asked why he looked so astonished, and how many of their men had fallen ; he replied, ' about two hundred '^ ' ; whereupon the other rejoined, ' These which you see are not the arms of two hundred men, but of more than a thousand.' The herald replied, 'Then they cannot be the arms of our men.' The other answered, ' They must be, if you were fighting yesterday at Idomene.' ' But yesterday we did not fight at all ; it was the day before, in the retreat.' 'All I know is that we fought yesterday with these men, who were marching to your aid from Ambracia.' When the herald heard these words, and knew that the army coming from the city had perished, he uttered a cry of anguish, and, overwhelmed by the greatness of the blow, went away at once without doing his errand, no longer caring to demand the dead. And indeed in the whole war no such calamity happened within so few days to any Hellenic state''. I have not ventured to set down the number of those who fell, for the loss would appear incredible when compared with the size of the city. Of this I am certain, that if the Acarnanians had been willing to destroy Ambracia as Demosthenes and the Athenians desired, they might have taken it at the first onset. But they were afraid that the Athenians, if they once got posses- sion of the place, would be more troublesome neighbours than the Ambraciots ^, After assigning a third part of the spoils to the Athen- "4 ians, the Acarnanians divided the _. . . . . ., ' . . . ry., Divtston of the Spoils. remainder among their cities. The spoils of the Athenians were captured on the voyage. But three hundred panoplies which were allotted to Demosthenes he brought home with him, and they are still preserved in the Athenian temples. This good service Cp. iii. Ill fin. ^ Cp. vii. 30 fin. <= Cp. iii. 92 init.