History of the Peloponnesian War

And it was for his conduct here that Archidamus was most severely censured, though it was thought that in the levying of the war, too, he had been slack and had played into the hands of the Athenians when he did not advise the Peloponnesians to make war with vigour. Again, when the army was being collected, he was criticized for the delay which occurred at the Isthmus, and afterwards for the leisurely way in which the march was made, but most of all for the halt at Oenoe.

For in the interval the Athenians continued to bring their property into the city and the Peloponnesians believed that but for his procrastination they could have advanced quickly and found everything still outside.

Such was the resentment felt by the army toward Archidamus while they were sitting still. But the reason, it is said, whiy he kept holding back was that he expected the Athenians would make some concession while their territory was still unravaged and would be loath to see it laid waste.

When, however, after assaulting Oenoe and trying in every way to take it they were not able to do so, the Athenians meanwhile making no overtures, then at length they set off from there, about eighty days after the events at Plataea, when it was midsummer[*](The reference is to the Attic summer, which included spring. The date was about the end of May, the average time for cutting grain in Attica.) and the corn was ripe, and invaded Attica, under the command of Arehidamus son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians.

Making a halt they proceeded to ravage, first of all, the territory of Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, and they routed the Athenian cavalry near the streams called Rheiti; then they advanced, keeping Mount Aegaleos on their right through Cropia,[*](A deme between Aegaleos and Parnes.) until they came to Acharnae, the largest of the demes of Attica, as they are called. Halting in the town they made a camp, where they remained for a long time ravaging the country.