History of the Peloponnesian War

They, however, were grasping at greater advantages, and though they often went to them, sent them back without effecting any thing. These then were the things that happened about Pylus.

The same summer, immediately after these events, the Athenians made an expedition against the Corinthian territory with eighty ships, two thousand heavy-armed of their own people, and two hundred cavalry on board horse-transports; the Milesians, Andrians, and Carystians, from amongst the allies, accompanying them, and Nicias the son of Niceratus taking the command, with two colleagues.

Setting sail, they made land in the morning between [*]( i. e. the peninsula and the stream; the former running out into the sea, from the ridge of Mount Oneum. See the sketch of the coast in Arnold, vol. ii.) the Chersonesus and Rheitus, on the beach adjoining to the spot above which is the Solygian hill, on which the Dorians in early times established themselves, and carried on war against the Corinthians in the city, who were Aeolians; and on which there now stands a village called Solygia. From this beach, where the ships came to land, the village is twelve stades off, the city of Corinth sixty, and the Isthmus twenty.

The Corinthians, having heard long before from Argos that the armament of the Athenians was coming, went with succours to the Isthmus, all but those who lived above it: there were absent too in Ambracia and Leucadia five hundred of them, serving as a garrison; but the rest, with all their forces, were watching where the Athenians would make the land.

But when they had come to during the night unobserved by them, and the appointed signals were raised to tell them of the fact, they left half their forces at Cenchreae, in case the Athenians should advance against Crommyon, and went to the rescue with all speed.

And Battus, one of the generals, (for there were two present in the engagement,) took a battalion, and went to the village of Solygia to defend it, as it was unwalled; while Lycophron gave them battle with the rest.

First, the Corinthians attacked the right wing of the Athenians, immediately after it had landed in front of Chersonesus; then the rest of their army also. And the battle was an obstinate one, and fought entirely hand to hand.

The right wing of the Athenians and Carystians (for these had been posted in the extremity of the line) received the charge of the Corinthians, and drove them back after some trouble; but after retreating to a wall (for the ground was all on a rise) they assailed them with stones from the higher ground, and singing the paean, returned to the attack; which being received by the Athenians, the battle was again fought hand to hand.

Meanwhile a battalion of the Corinthians, having gone to the relief of their left wing, broke the right of the Athenians, and pursued them to the sea; but the Athenians and Carystians from the ships drove them back again.

The rest of the army on both sides was fighting without cessation, especially the right wing of the Corinthians, in which Lycophron was opposed to the left of the Athenians, and acting on the defensive; for they expected them to try for the village of Solygia.

For a long time then they held out without yielding to each other; but afterwards (the Athenians having a serviceable force on their side in their cavalry, while the others had no horse) the Corinthians turned and retired to the hill, where they piled their arms, and did not come down again, but remained quiet.

It was in this rout of the right wing that the greater part of them fell, and Lycophron their general. The rest of the army, whose flight, when it was broken, was effected in this manner—with neither hot pursuit nor hurry—withdrew to the higher ground, and there took up its position.