History of the Peloponnesian War

When the light-armed from Spartolus saw these, being encouraged by the accession to their force, and by the fact that they were not worsted before, in conjunction with the Chalcidian horse and the late reinforcement they attacked the Athenians again; who retired to the two divisions they had left with the baggage.

Whenever the Athenians advanced against them, they gave way; but on their beginning to retreat, they pressed them close, and harassed them with their darts. The cavalry of the Chalcidians also rode up and charged them wherever they pleased;

and having struck the greatest panic into them, routed and pursued them to a great distance. The Athenians fled for refuge to Potidaea, and having subsequently recovered their dead by truce, returned to Athens with the remnant of the army; four hundred and thirty of them having been killed, and all the generals. The Chalcidians and Bottiaeans erected a trophy, and after taking up their dead, separated to their different cities.

Tile same summer, not long after these events, the Ambraciots and Chaonians wishing to subdue the whole of Acarnania, and to separate it from its connexion with Athens, persuaded the Lacedaemonians to equip a fleet from their confederacy, and to send one thousand heavy-armed to Acarnania; saying that if they were to join them with both a naval and land force, while the Acarnanians on the coast were unable to succour [their countrymen], after gaining possession of Acarnania, they would easily make themselves masters of Zacynthus and Cephallenia; and so the Athenians would no longer find the circumnavigation of the Peloponnese what it had hitherto been. They suggested too that there was a hope of taking Naupactus also.