History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides. The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Hobbes, Thomas. translator. London: John Bohn, 1843.

In the end of this summer a thousand five hundred men of arms of Athens, and a thousand of Argos (for the Athenians had put armour upon five hundred light-armed of the Argives), and of other confederates a thousand more, with forty-eight galleys, reckoning those which were for transportation of soldiers, under the conduct of Phrynicus, Onomacles, and Scironides, came in to Samos, and crossing over to Miletus encamped before it.

And the Milesians issued forth with eight hundred men of arms of their own, besides the Peloponnesians that came with Chalcideus and some auxiliar strangers with Tissaphernes (Tissaphernes himself being also there with his cavalry) and fought with the Athenians and their confederates.

The Argives, who made one wing of themselves, advancing before the rest and in some disorder, in contempt of the enemy as being Ionians and not likely to sustain their charge, were by the Milesians overcome, and lost no less than three hundred of their men.

But the Athenians, when they had first overthrown the Peloponnesians and then beaten back the barbarians and other multitude and not fought with the Milesians at all (for they, after they were come from the chase of the Argives and saw their other wing defeated, went into the town), sat down with their arms, as being now masters of the field, close under the wall of the city.

It fell out in this battle that on both sides the Ionics had the better of the Dorics. For the Athenians overcame the opposite Peloponnesians, and the Milesians the Argives. The Athenians, after they had erected their trophy, the place being an isthmus, prepared to take in the town with a wall, supposing if they got Miletus, the other cities would easily come in.