History of the Peloponnesian War

In the end of this summer, the Athenians that lay at Naupactus went forth with an army and took the city of Anactorium, belonging to the Corinthians and lying at the mouth of the Ambracian gulf, by treason. And when they had put forth the Corinthians, the Acarnanians held it with a colony sent thither from all parts of their own nation. And so this summer ended.

The next winter, Aristides, the son of Archippus, one of the commanders of a fleet which the Athenians had sent out to gather tribute from their confederates, apprehended Artaphernes, a Persian, in the town of Eion upon the river Strymon, going from the king to Lacedaemon.

When he was brought to Athens, the Athenians translated his letters out of the Assyrian language into Greek and read them; wherein, amongst many other things that were written to the Lacedaemonians, the principal was this: that he knew not what they meant, for many ambassadors came, but they spake not the same thing; if therefore they had any thing to say certain, they should send somebody to him with this Persian.

But Artaphernes they send afterwards away in a galley, with ambassadors of their own, to Ephesus. And there encountering the news that king Artaxerxes, the son of 50erxes, was lately dead (for about that time he died), they returned home.

The same winter also, the Chians demolished their new wall by command of the Athenians, upon suspicion that they intended some innovation, notwithstanding they had given the Athenians their faith and the best security they could to the intent they should let them be as they were. Thus ended this winter, and the seventh year of this war written by Thucydides.

The next summer, in the very beginning, at a change in the moon the sun was eclipsed in part; and in the beginning of the same month happened an earthquake.