History of the Peloponnesian War

The next day there came a herald from those Ambraciotes which fled from Olpae into Agrais to demand leave to carry away the bodies of those dead which were slain after the first battle, when without truce they went away together with the Mantineans and with those that had truce.

But when the herald saw the armours of those Ambraciotes that came from the city, he wondered at the number, for he knew nothing of this last blow but thought they had been armours of those with them.

Then one asked him what he wondered at and how many he thought were slain; for he that asked him the question thought, on the other side, that he had been a herald sent from those at Idomene. And he answered, about two hundred. Then he that asked replied and said: Then these are not the armours of them, but of above a thousand. —

Then, said he again, they belong not to them that were in battle with us. The other answered: Yes, if you fought yesterday in Idomene. — But we fought not yesterday at all, but the other day in our retreat. — But we yet fought yesterday with those Ambraciotes that came from the city to aid the rest.

When the herald heard that and knew that the aid from the city was defeated, he burst out into Aimees, and astonished with the greatness of the present loss, forthwith went his way without his errand and required the dead bodies no farther.

For this loss was greater than, in the like number of days, happened to any one city of Greece in all this war. I have not written the number of the slain because it was said to be such as is incredible for the quantity of the city. But this I know: that if the Acarnanians and Amphilochians, as Demosthenes and the Athenians would have had them, would have subdued Ambracia, they might have done it even with the shout of their voices. But they feared now that if the Athenians possessed it, they would prove more troublesome neighbours unto them than the other.

After this, having bestowed the third part of the spoils upon the Athenians, they distributed the other two parts according to the cities. The Athenians' part was lost by sea. For those three hundred complete armours which are dedicated in the temples in Attica, were picked out for Demosthenes [himself], and he brought them away with him. His return was withal the safer for this action, after his defeat in Aetolia. And the Athenians that were in the twenty galleys returned to Naupactus.

The Acarnanians and Amphilochians, when the Athenians and Demosthenes were gone, granted truce at the city of the Oeniades to those Ambraciotes and Peloponnesians that were fled to Salynthius and the Agraeans to retire, the Oeniades being gone over to Salynthius and the Agraeans likewise.

And for the future, the Acarnanians and Amphilochians made a league with the Ambraciotes for a hundred years, upon these conditions: That neither the Ambraciotes with the Acarnanians should make war against the Peloponnesians, nor the Acarnanians with the Ambraciotes against the Athenians; that they should give mutual aid to one another's country; that the Ambraciotes should restore whatsoever towns or bordering fields they held of the Amphilochians; and that they should at no time aid Anactorium, which was in hostility with the Acarnanians. And upon this composition the war ended.

After this, the Corinthians sent a garrison of about three hundred men of arms of their own city to Ambracia under the conduct of 114enocleides, the son of Euthycles, who, with much difficulty passing through Epirus, at length arrived. Thus passed the business in Ambracia.

The same winter the Athenians that were in Sicily invaded Himeraea by sea, aided by the Sicilians that invaded the skirts of the same by land. They sailed also to the islands of Aeolus. Returning afterwards to Rhegium, they found there Pythodorus, the son of Isolochus, [with certain galleys], come to receive charge of the fleet commanded by Laches.

For the Sicilian confederates had sent to Athens and persuaded the people to assist them with a greater fleet.