rce he could bring.
Polysperchon, too, though separate from Olympias, made every effort to
strengthen himself against his coming enemy. Things were in this state
when Cassander entered Macedon.

Cassander immediately divided his troops into two distinct bodies, and
sending one, under the command of an able general, to attack
Polysperchon, he himself went in pursuit of Olympias. Olympias
retreated before him, until at length she reached the city of Pydna, a
city situated in the southeastern part of Macedon, on the shore of the
AEgean Sea.[G] She knew that the force under her command was not
sufficient to enable her to offer her enemy battle, and she
accordingly went into the city, and fortified herself there.
Cassander advanced immediately to the place, and, finding the city
too strongly fortified to be carried by assault, he surrounded it with
his army, and invested it closely both by land and sea.

[Footnote G: See map.]

The city was not well provided for a siege, and the people within very
soon began to suffer for want of provisions. Olympias, however, urged
them to hold out, representing to them that she had sent to Epirus for
assistance, and that AEacides, the king, was already on his way, with a
large force, to succor her. This was very true; but, unfortunately for
Olympias, Cassander was aware of this fact as well as she, and,
instead of waiting for the troops of AEacides to come and attack him,
he had sent a large armed force to the confines between Epirus and
Macedon, to intercept these expected allies in the passes of the
mountains. This movement was successful. The army of AEacides found,
when they reached the frontier, that the passages leading into
Macedonia were all blocked up by the troops of the enemy. They made
some ineffectual attempts to break through; and then the leading
officers of the army, who had never been really willing to embark in
the war, revolted against AEacides, and returned home. And as, in the
case of deeds of violence and revolution, it is always safest to go
through and finish the work when it is once begun, they deposed
AEacides entirely, and raised the other branch of the royal family to
the throne in his stead. It was on this occasion that the infant
Pyrrhus was seized and carried away by his friends, to save his life,
as mentioned in the opening paragraphs of this history. The
particulars of this revolution, and of the flight of Pyrrhus, will be
given more fully in the next c