History of the Peloponnesian War

as the city was at the height of its strength, and not yet afflicted with the plague; for of the Athenians themselves there were not fewer than ten thousand heavy-armed, (besides which they had the three thousand at Potidaea,) and of resident aliens who joined them in the incursion not fewer than three thousand heavy-armed; and added to these, there was all the crowd of light-armed in great numbers. After ravaging the greater part of the territory, they returned.

Other incursions into the Megarid were also afterwards made annually by the Athenians in the course of the war, both with their cavalry and with all their force, until Nisaea was taken by them.

Moreover Atalanta, the island near the Opuntian Locrians, which had previously been unoccupied, was fortified by the Athenians as a stronghold at the close of this summer, to prevent privateers from sailing out from Opus and the rest of Locris, and plundering Euboea. These were the events which occurred in the course of this summer, after the return of the Peloponnesians from Attica.

The following winter Evarchus the Acarnanian, wishing to return to Astacus, persuaded the Corinthians to sail with forty ships and fifteen hundred heavy-armed and restore him, he himself hiring some auxiliaries besides : the commanders of the army were Euphamidas son of Aristonymus, Timoxenus son of Timocrates, and Eumachus son of Chrysis. So they sailed and restored him;

and wishing to gain certain places in the rest of Acarnania, along the coast, and having made an attempt without being able to succeed, they sailed back homeward.

Having landed, as they coasted along, on Cephallenia, and made a descent on the territory of the Cranians, they were deceived by them after an arrangement that they had come to, and lost some of their men in an unexpected attack of the Cranians; then, having put out to sea with some precipitation, they returned home.

In the course of this winter the Athenians, in accordance with the custom of their forefathers, buried at the public expense those who had first fallen in this war, after the following manner.

Having erected a tent, they lay out the bones of the dead three days before, and each one brings to his own relative whatever [funeral offering] he pleases.

When the funeral procession takes place, cars convey coffins of cypress wood, one for each tribe; in which are laid the bones of every man, according to the tribe to which he belonged; and one empty bier is carried, spread in honour of the missing, whose bodies could not be found to be taken up.