to them, thinking it better in the panic they were in, to perish, if
perish they must, by the hands of the Athenians, than by those of
the barbarous and detested Amphilochians. Of the large Ambraciot force
destroyed in this manner, a few only reached the city in safety; while
the Acarnanians, after stripping the dead and setting up a trophy,
returned to Argos.
The next day arrived a herald from the Ambraciots who had fled
from Olpae to the Agraeans, to ask leave to take up the dead that
had fallen after the first engagement, when they left the camp with
the Mantineans and their companions, without, like them, having had
permission to do so. At the sight of the arms of the Ambraciots from
the city, the herald was astonished at their number, knowing nothing
of the disaster and fancying that they were those of their own
party. Some one asked him what he was so astonished at, and how many
of them had been killed, fancying in his turn that this was the herald
from the troops at Idomene. He replied: "About two hundred"; upon
which his interrogator took him up, saying: "Why, the arms you see
here are of more than a thousand." The herald replied: "Then they
are not the arms of those who fought with us?" The other answered:
"Yes, they are, if at least you fought at Idomene yesterday." "But
we fought with no one yesterday; but the day before in the retreat."
"However that may be, we fought yesterday with those who came to
reinforce you from the city of the Ambraciots." When the herald
heard this and knew that the reinforcement from the city had been
destroyed, he broke into wailing and, stunned at the magnitude of
the present evils, went away at once without having performed his
errand, or again asking for the dead bodies. Indeed, this was by far
the greatest disaster that befell any one Hellenic city in an equal
number of days during this war; and I have not set down the number
of the dead, because the amount stated seems so out of proportion to
the size of the city as to be incredible. In any case I know that if
the Acarnanians and Amphilochians had wished to take Ambracia as the
Athenians and Demosthenes advised, they would have done so without a
blow; as it was, they feared that if the Athenians had it they would
be worse neighbours to them than the present.
After this the Acarnanians allotted a third of the spoils to the
Athenians, and divided the rest among their own different towns. The
share of the Athenians was captured on the voyage home; the arms now
deposited in the Attic temples are three hundred panoplies, which
the Acarnanians set apart for Demosthenes, and which he brought to
Athens in person, his return to his country after the Aetolian
disaster being rendered less hazardous by this exploit. The
Athenians in the twenty ships also went off to Naupactus. The
Acarnanians and Amphilochians, after the departure of Demosthenes
and the Athenians, granted the Ambraciots and Peloponnesians who had
taken refuge with Salynthius and the Agraeans a free retreat from
Oeniadae, to which place they had removed from the country of
Salynthius, and for the future concluded with the Ambraciots a
treaty and alliance for one hundred years, upon the terms following.
It was to be a defensive, not an offensive alliance; the Ambraciots
could not be required to march with the Acarnanians against the
Peloponnesians, nor the Acarnanians with the Ambraciots against the
Athenians; for the rest the Ambraciots were to give up the places
and hostages that they held of the Amphilochians, and not to give help
to Anactorium, which was at enmity with the Acarnanians. With this
arrangement they put an end to the war. After this the Corinthians
sent a garrison of their own citizens to Ambracia, composed of three
hundred heavy infantry, under the command of Xenocleides, son of
Euthycles, who reached their destination after a difficult journey
across the continent. Such was the history of the affair of Ambracia.
The same winter the Athenians in Sicily made a descent from their
ships upon the territory of Himera, in concert with the Sicels, who
had invaded its borders from the interior, and also sailed to the
islands of Aeolus. Upon their return to Rhegium they found the