History of the Peloponnesian War

It was with the following views that Archidamus is said to have remained in order of battle at Acharnae, and not to have gone down to the plain during that incursion.

He hoped that the Athenians, abounding as they were in numbers of young men, and prepared for war as they had never before been, would perhaps come out against him, and not stand still and see their land ravaged.

Since, then, they had not met him at Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, he pitched his camp at Acharnae, and tried whether they would now march out against him.

For he thought the post a favourable one for encamping in, and moreover that the Acharnians, forming as they did a large part of the state, (for they amounted to three thousand heavy-armed,) would not overlook the destruction of what belonged to them, but would stir up the whole army also to an engagement. If, on the other hand, the Athenians should not come out against him during that incursion, he would then lay waste the plain with less fear in future, and advance to the city itself; for the Acharnians, after losing their own property, would not be so forward to run into danger for that of other people, but there would be a division in their counsels.

It was with this view of the case that Archidamus remained at Acharnae.