Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/89

 108,109] EXCITEMENT AMONG ATHENIAN SUBJECTS 81 pleasurable excitement of the moment; they were now for the first time going to find out of what the Lacedaemonians were capable when in real earnest, and therefore they were willing to risk anything. The Athenians were aware of their disaffection, and as far as they could, at short notice and in winter time, sent garrisons to the different cities. Brasidas also despatched a message to the Lacedaemonians requesting them to let him have additional forces, and he himself began to build triremes on the Strymon. But they would not second his efforts because their leading men were jealous of him, and also because they preferred to recover the prisoners taken in the island and bring the war to an end. In the same winter the Megarians recovered their Long 109 Walls which had been in the hands of the Athenians ", and razed them to the „, ^i?^,"Z nJ"^ """^ ' Vi all soy t lie Megarians. ground. After the taking of Amphipolis, Brasidas and his allies marched to the so-called Acte, or coast- „ ■..■ r ^ .• ' Descnption of Acte land, which runs out from the canal „ndits cities. Brasidas made by the Persian King and extends uiarches thither, and is into the peninsula; it ends in Athos, JO"'e'i by most 0/ thenu a high mountain projecting into the Aegean sea''. There are cities in the peninsula, of which one is Sane, an Andrian colony on the edge of the canal looking towards the sea in the direction of Euboea ; the others are Thyssus, Cleonae, Acrothoi, Olophyxus, and Dium ; their inhabitants are a mixed multitude of barbarians, speaking Greek as well as their native tongue. A few indeed arc Chalcidian; but the greater part are Pelasgians (sprung from the Tyrrhenians who once inhabited Lemnos and Athens), or Bisaltians, Crestonians, Edonians. They all dwell in small cities. Most of them joined Brasidas, but Sane and Dium held out ; whereupon he remained there for a time and wasted their territory. Cp. iv. 68, 69. ^ Cp. Herod, vii. 22.