History of the Peloponnesian War

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.

Being thus persuaded, the Lacedaemonians despatched immediately Cnemus, who was still high-admiral, and the heavy-armed on board a few vessels; while they sent round orders for the fleet to prepare as quickly as possible, and sail to Leucas.

Now the Corinthians were most hearty in the cause of the Ambraciots, who were a colony of theirs; and the squadrons from Corinth and Sicyon, and those parts were in preparation; while those from Leucas, Anactorium, and Ambracia had arrived before, and were waiting for them at Leucas.