g to B.C. 392), we have now
reached B.C. 391.

(2) Or, "having conferred a city organisation on the Calydonians."

(3) See Thuc. ii. 68.

The ephors and the assembly concluded that there was no alternative
but to assist the Achaeans in their campaign against the Acarnanians.
Accordingly they sent out Agesilaus with two divisions and the proper
complement of allies. The Achaeans none the less marched out in full
force themselves. No sooner had Agesilaus crossed the gulf than there
was a general flight of the population from the country districts into
the towns, whilst the flocks and herds were driven into remote districts
that they might not be captured by the troops. Being now arrived on
the frontier of the enemy's territory, Agesilaus sent to the general
assembly of the Acarnanians at Stratus, (4) warning them that unless
they chose to give up their alliance with the Boeotians and Athenians,
and to take instead themselves and their allies, he would ravage their
territory through its length and breadth, and not spare a single thing.
When they turned a deaf ear to this summons, the other proceeded to do
what he threatened, systematically laying the district waste, felling
the timber and cutting down the fruit-trees, while slowly moving on at
the rate of ten or twelve furlongs a day. The Acarnanians, owing to the
snail-like progress of the enemy, were lulled into a sense of security.
They even began bringing down their cattle from their alps, and devoted
themselves to the tillage of far the greater portion of their fields.
But Agesilaus only waited till their rash confidence reached its climax;
then on the fifteenth or sixteenth day after he head first entered the
country he sacrificed at early dawn, and before evening had traversed
eighteen miles (5) or so of country to the lake (6) round which were
collected nearly all the flocks and herds of the Acarnanians, and so
captured a vast quantity of cattle, horses, and grazing stock of all
kinds, besides numerous slaves.

(4) "The Akarnanians had, in early times, occupied the hill of Olpai
as a place for judicial proceedings common to the whole nation"
(see Thuc. iii. 105). "But in Thucydides' own time Stratos had
attained its position as the greatest city of Akarnania, and
probably the Federal Assemblies were already held there" (Thuc.
ii. 80). "In the days of Agesilaos we find Stratos still more
distinctly marked as the place of Federal me