History of the Peloponnesian War

This Acte is that prominent territory which is disjoined from the continent by a ditch made by the king; and Athos, a high mountain in the same, determineth at the Aegean sea.

Of the cities it hath, one is Sane, a colony of the Andrians, by the side of the said ditch on the part which looketh to the sea towards Euboea;

the rest are Thyssus, Cleone, Acrothoi, Olophyxus, and Dion, and are inhabited by promiscuous barbarians of two languages. Some few there are also of the Chalcidean nation; but the most are Pelasgic, of those Tyrrhene nations that once inhabited Athens and Lemnos, and of the Bisaltic and Chrestonic nations, and Edonians, and dwell in small cities.

The most of which yielded to Brasidas; but Sane and Dion held out, for which cause he stayed with his army and wasted their territories.

But seeing they would not hearken unto him, he led his army presently against Torone of Chalcidea, held by the Athenians. He was called in by the few, who were ready withal to deliver him the city; and arriving there a little before break of day, he sat down with his army at the temple of Castor and Pollux, distant about three furlongs from the city.

So that to the rest of the city and to the Athenian garrison in it, his coming was unperceived. But the traitors, knowing he was to come (some few of them being also privily gone to him), attended his approach; and when they perceived he was come, they took in unto them seven men armed only with daggers (for of twenty appointed at first to that service, seven only had the courage to go in; and were led by Lysistratus of Olynthus); which, getting over the wall towards the main sea unseen, went up (for the town standeth on a hill's side) to the watch that kept the upper end of the town, and having slain the watchmen brake open the postern gate towards Canastraea.

Brasidas this while with the rest of his army lay still, and then coming a little forward, sent a hundred targetiers before, who, when the gates should be opened and sign agreed on be set up, should run in first.

These men, expecting long and wondering at the matter, by little and little were at length come up close to the city. Those Toronaeans within, which helped the men that entered to perform the enterprise, when the postern gate was broken open, and the gate leading to the market-place opened likewise by cutting asunder the bar, went first and fetched some of them about to the postern, to the end that they might suddenly affright such of the town as knew not the matter, both behind and on either side; and then they put up the sign appointed, which was fire, and received the rest of the targetiers by the gate that leadeth to the market-place.

Brasidas, when he saw the sign, made his army rise, and with a huge cry of all at once, to the great terror of those within, entered into the city running.

Some went directly in by the gate, and some by certain squared timber-trees, which lay at the wall (which having been lately down was now again in building) for the drawing up of stone.

Brasidas, therefore, with the greatest number, betook himself to the highest places of the city to make sure the winning of it by possessing the places of advantage. But the rest of the rabble ran dispersed here and there without difference.

When the town was taken, the most of the Toronaeans were much troubled, because they were not acquainted with the matter; but the conspirators, and such as were pleased with it, joined themselves presently with those that entered.

The Athenians (of which there were about fifty men of arms asleep in the market-place), when they knew what had happened, fled all, except some few that were slain upon the place, some by land, some by water in two galleys that kept watch there, and saved themselves in Lecythus, which was a fort which they themselves held, cut off from the rest of the city to the seaward in a narrow isthmus.

And thither also fled all such Toronaeans as were affected to them.