try took
to headlong flight. But the pursuers presently paused; the Theban army
remained motionless; and both parties returned to their camps. And
now the hope, the confidence strengthened that an attack upon the city
itself would never come; nor did it. The invading army broke up from
their ground, and marched off on the road to Helos and Gytheum. (34)
The unwalled cities were consigned to the flames, but Gytheum, where
the Lacedaemonians had their naval arsenal, was subjected to assault for
three days. Certain of the provincials (35) also joined in this attack,
and shared the campaign with the Thebans and their friends.

(31) For this ancient (Achaean) town, see Paus. III. ii. 6; Polyb. v.
19. It lay only twenty stades (a little more than two miles) from
the city of Sparta.

(32) Or, "hippodrome." See Paus. III. ii. 6.

(33) Paus. III. xvi. 2.

(34) See Baedeker's "Greece," p. 279. Was Gytheum taken? See Grote,
"H. G." x. 305; Curt. "H. G." Eng. trans. iv. 431.

(35) "Perioeci." See above, III. iii. 6; VI. v. 25; below, VII. ii. 2;
Grote, "H. G." x. 301. It is a pity that the historian should
hurry us off to Athens just at this point. The style here is
suggestive of notes ({upomnemata}) unexpanded.

The news of these proceedings set the Athenians deeply pondering
what they ought to do concerning the Lacedaemonians, and they held an
assembly in accordance with a resolution of the senate. It chanced that
the ambassadors of the Lacedaemonians and the allies still faithful
to Lacedaemon were present. The Lacedaemonian ambassadors were Aracus,
Ocyllus, Pharax, Etymocles, and Olontheus, and from the nature of the
case they all used, roughly speaking, similar arguments. They reminded
the Athenians how they had often in old days stood happily together,
shoulder to shoulder, in more than one great crisis. They (the
Lacedaemonians), on their side, had helped to expel the tyrant
from Athens, and the Athenians, when Lacedaemon was besieged by the
Messenians, had heartily leant her a helping hand. (36) Then they fell to
enumerating all the blessings that marked the season when the two states
shared a common policy, hinting how in common they had warred against
the barbarians, and more boldly recalling how the Athenians with the
full consent and advice of the Lacedaemonians were chosen by united
Hellas leaders of the common navy (37) and guardians of all the common
treasure, while they themselves