History of the Peloponnesian War

The next day there came to them a herald from the Ambraciots who had fled from Olpae into Agraea, to ask permission to take up the dead whom they had slain after the first engagement, when they left the camp without permission with the Mantineans and those who had received it.

At sight of the arms taken from the Ambraciots from the city, the herald was astonished at their number; for he was not acquainted with the disaster, but imagined that they had belonged to their own party.

And some one asked him why he was so astonished; and how many of them had been killed; his interrogator again supposing him to be the herald from the troops at Idomene. He said,

About two hundred.

These then are evidently not the arms [of such a number], but of more than a thousand.

The herald said in reply,

Then they are not the arms of those who fought with us.

Yes, they are; if at least it was you that fought yesterday at Idomene.

We fought with no one yesterday; but the day before, on our retreat.

Ay, but we fought yesterday with these, who had come as a reinforcement from the city of the Ambraciots.

When the herald heard that, and learned that the reinforcement from the city had been cut off, breaking out into wailing, and astounded at the magnitude of the present evils, he returned without executing his commission, and no longer asked back the bodies.

For this was the greatest disaster that befell any one Grecian city in an equal number of days during the course of this war: and I have not recorded the numbers of the slain, because the multitude said to have fallen is incredible, in comparison with the size of the city. I know, however, that if the Acarnanians and Amphilochians had wished, in compliance with the advice of Demosthenes, to take Ambracia, they would have done so on the first assault: but as it was, they were afraid that the Athenians, if they had possession of it, might prove more troublesome neighbours to themselves.