History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides, Vol. 1-4. Smith, Charles Foster, translator. London and Cambridge, MA: Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1919-1923.

Since, however, they would not yield he marched at once against Torone,[*](The chief town on the Sithonian peninsula.) in Chalcidice, which was held by the Athenians; for a few men, who were ready to betray the town, had invited him over. Arriving with his army toward dawn, but while it was still dark, he encamped near the temple of the Dioscuri, which is about three stadia distant from the city.

The rest of the town of Torone and the Athenians of the garrison were unaware of his approach, but his partisans, knowing that he would come, and some few of them having secretly gone forward to meet him, were watching for his approach; and when they perceived that he was there, they introduced into the town seven light-armed men with daggers, under the command of Lysistratus an Olynthian, these men alone of the twenty first assigned to the task not being afraid to enter. These slipped through the seaward wall and escaping the notice of the guard at the uppermost watch-post of the town, which is on the slope of a hill, went up and slew these sentinels, and broke open the postern on the side towards the promontory of Canastraeum.