History of the Peloponnesian War

While they were in the country, the Athenians despatched round the Peloponnese the hundred ships they were preparing, [when I last mentioned them,] with a thousand heavy-armed on board, and four hundred bowmen under the command of Caranus son of Xenotimus, Proteas son of Epicles, and Socrates son of Antigenes.

So they weighed anchor, and were cruising round with this armament; while the Peloponnesians, after staying in Attica the time for which they had provisions, retired through Boeotia, (not by the same way they had made their inroad,) and passing by Oropus ravaged the Piraic territory, as it is called, which the Oropians inhabit as subjects of the Athenians. On arriving at the Peloponnese, they were disbanded, and returned to their several cities.

When they had retired, the Athenians set guards by land and by sea, as they intended to keep them through the whole war. And they resolved to take out and set apart a thousand talents from the money in the Acropolis, and not to spend them, but to carry on the war with their other resources; and if any one should move or put to the vote a proposition for applying that money to any other purpose, except in case of the enemy sailing against the city with a naval armament, and its being necessary to defend themselves, they declared it a capital offence.

Together with this sum of money, they also laid by a hundred triremes, the best they had each year, and trierarchs for them; none of which were they to use except with the money, and in the same peril [as that was reserved for], should any such necessity arise.

The Athenians on board the hundred ships around Peloponnese, and the Corcyraeans with them, who had come to their aid with fifty ships, and some others of the allies in those parts, ravaged other places as they cruised round, and landed at Methone in Laconia, and assaulted the wall, which was weak and had no [*]( i. e. no garrison for its defence.) men within it.

Now Brasidas, son of Tellis, a Spartan, happened to be in command of a guard for the defence of those parts; and, on hearing of the attack, he came to the assistance of those in the place with a hundred heavy-armed. Dashing, therefore, through the army of the Athenians, which was scattered over the country, and had its attention directed towards the wall, he threw himself into Methone; and having lost a few of his own men in entering it, both saved the city, and from this daring deed was the first that received praise at Sparta in the course of the war.

Upon this the Athenians weighed anchor, and coasted along; and landing at Pheia in Elis, they ravaged the territory for two days, and conquered in battle three hundred picked men, who had come to the rescue from the inhabitants of [*]( Or the valley of the Peneus, in which Elis itself was situated. This, as the richest of the whole territory, was naturally occupied by the conquering Aetolians, when they came in with the Dorians at what is called the return of the Heraclidae. The neighbourhood of Pheia, on the other hand, was inhabited by the descendants of the older people, who were conquered by the Aetolians, and now formed, as in so many Peloponnesian states, the subordinate class called περίοικοι. —Arnold.) the Vale of Elis, and from the Eleans in the immediate neighbourhood.