History of the Peloponnesian War

and a considerable division of them, being hard pressed and having missed their way, rushed into a field belonging to a private person, which had a deep trench enclosing it, and there was no road out. the Athenians, perceiving this, hemmed them in with heavy-armed in front, and having placed their light armed all round, stoned to death all who had gone in; and this was a severe blow for the Corinthians. The main body of their army returned home.

About this time the Athenians began also to build their long walls down to the sea, both that to Phalerus, and that to Piraeus.

And the Phocians having marched against the Dorians, the mother-country of the Lacedaemonians, [whose towns were] Boeum, and Citinium, and Erineum, and having taken one of these places, the Lacedaemonians under the command of Nicomedes, the son of Cleombrotus, in the stead of Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, who was yet a minor, went to the aid of the Dorians with fifteen hundred heavy-armed of their own, and ten thousand of the allies; and having compelled the Phocians to restore the town on certain conditions, they proceeded to return back.

Now by sea, if they should wish to cross over the Crissaean Gulf, the Athenians were ready to stop them, having sailed round with a fleet: while the march over Geranea did not appear safe for them as the Athenians were in possession of Megara and Pega. For Geranea was both [naturally] difficult to cross, and was continually guarded by the Athenians : and at that time they knew they were going to stop them that way, as well [as by sea].

So they determined to wait in Boeotia, and see in what way they might march across most safely. They were also in some measure urged to this in secret by certain of the Athenians, who hoped to put a stop to the democracy, and to the long walls that were building.

But the Athenians sallied out against them with all their citizens, and a thousand Argives, and the several contingents of the other allies. amounting in all to fourteen thousand.

They marched against them because they thought they were at a loss how to effect a passage, and in some measure also from a suspicion of the democracy being put down.

The Athenians were also joined, in accordance with the treaty, by a thousand horse of the Thessalians, who went over during the action to the Lacedaemonians.

A battle having been fought at Tanagra in Boeotia, the Lacedaemonians and their allies were victorious, and there was much bloodshed on both sides.

And the Lacedaemonians, after going into the Megarid and cutting down the fruit trees, returned back home across Geranea and the isthmus:

while the Athenians, on the sixty-second day after the battle, marched, under the command of Myronides, against the Boeotians, and having defeated them in an engagement at oenophyta, made themselves masters of the country of Boeotia and Phocis, and demolished the wall of the Tanagraeans, and took from the Opuntian Locrians their richest hundred men as hostages, and finished their own long walls.

The aegine tans also after this surrendered on condition to the Athenians, demolishing their walls, and giving up their ships, and agreeing to pay tribute in future.