Histories

Then the Lacedaemonians, when the same command was ever revealed to them, sent Anchimolius the son of Aster, a citizen of repute, to drive out the sons of Pisistratus with an army despite the fact that the Pisistratidae were their close friends, for the god's will weighed with them more than the will of man.

They sent these men by sea on shipboard. Anchimolius put in at Phalerum and disembarked his army there. The sons of Pisistratus, however, had received word of the plan already, and sent to ask help from the Thessalians with whom they had an alliance. The Thessalians, at their entreaty, joined together and sent their own king, Cineas of Conium, with a thousand horsemen. When the Pisistratidae got these allies, they devised the following plan.

First they laid waste the plain of Phalerum so that all that land could be ridden over and then launched their cavalry against the enemy's army. Then the horsemen charged and slew Anchimolius and many more of the Lacedaemonians, and drove those that survived to their ships. Accordingly, the first Lacedaemonian army drew off, and Anchimolius' tomb is at Alopecae in Attica [23.5,38.83] (department), Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Attica, near to the Heracleum in Cynosarges.[*](The sites of Alopecae and Cynosarges are doubtful; recent research places them(but with no certainty) south of the +Ilisos Potamos (brook), Attica, Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Ilissus towards Phalerum. See How and Wells ad loc.)

After this the Lacedaemonians sent out a greater army to attack Athens [23.7333,37.9667] (Perseus)Athens, appointing as its general their king Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides. This army they sent not by sea but by land.

When they broke into Attica [23.5,38.83] (department), Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Attica, the Thessalian horsemen were the first to meet them. They were routed after only a short time, and more than forty men were slain. Those who were left alive made off for +Thessaly [22.25,39.5] (region), Greece, Europe Thessaly by the nearest way they could. Then Cleomenes, when he and the Athenians who desired freedom came into the city, drove the tyrants' family within the Pelasgic wall[*](An ancient fortification on the N.W. slope of the Acropolis.) and besieged them there.