History of the Peloponnesian War

At the close of the summer, the Athenians at Naupactus and the Acarnanians made an expedition, and took Anactorium, a city belonging to the Corinthians, which is situated at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, and was betrayed to them. And having turned out the Corinthians, Acarnanian settlers from all parts of the country themselves kept possession of the place. And so the summer ended.

The following winter Aristides son of Archippus, a commander of the Athenian ships which had been sent out to the allies to levy contributions, arrested at Eion on the Strymon Artaphernes, a Persian, on his way from the king to Lacedaemon.

On his being conveyed to Athens, they got his despatches translated out of the Assyrian character, and read them: the substance of which, as regarded the Lacedaemonians, (though many other things were mentioned in them,) was, that the king did not understand what they would have; for though many ambassadors had come to him, no one ever made the same statement as another; if then they would but speak plainly, they might send men to him in company with this Persian.

The Athenians afterwards sent back Artaphernes in a trireme to Ephesus, and ambassadors with him; but on hearing there that king Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, was lately dead, (for it was at that time that he died,) they returned home.

The same winter also the Chians dismantled their new fortifications, at the command of the Athenians, and in consequence of their suspecting that they would form some new designs against them: they obtained, however, pledges from the Athenians, and security (as far as they could) for their making no change in their treatment of them. And so the winter ended and the seventh year of this war, of which Thucydides wrote the history.

At the very commencement of the following summer, there was an eclipse of the sun at the time of a new moon, and in the early part of the same month an earthquake.