estoration
of concord.

When the day came for the assembly in the theatre, and they were upon
the point of assembling, news arrived that the forty-two ships under
Agesandridas were sailing from Megara along the coast of Salamis. The
people to a man now thought that it was just what Theramenes and
his party had so often said, that the ships were sailing to the
fortification, and concluded that they had done well to demolish it.
But though it may possibly have been by appointment that Agesandridas
hovered about Epidaurus and the neighbourhood, he would also naturally
be kept there by the hope of an opportunity arising out of the
troubles in the town. In any case the Athenians, on receipt of the news
immediately ran down in mass to Piraeus, seeing themselves threatened
by the enemy with a worse war than their war among themselves, not at
a distance, but close to the harbour of Athens. Some went on board the
ships already afloat, while others launched fresh vessels, or ran to
defend the walls and the mouth of the harbour.

Meanwhile the Peloponnesian vessels sailed by, and rounding Sunium
anchored between Thoricus and Prasiae, and afterwards arrived at Oropus.
The Athenians, with revolution in the city, and unwilling to lose a
moment in going to the relief of their most important possession (for
Euboea was everything to them now that they were shut out from Attica),
were compelled to put to sea in haste and with untrained crews, and sent
Thymochares with some vessels to Eretria. These upon their arrival, with
the ships already in Euboea, made up a total of thirty-six vessels, and
were immediately forced to engage. For Agesandridas, after his crews had
dined, put out from Oropus, which is about seven miles from Eretria by
sea; and the Athenians, seeing him sailing up, immediately began to man
their vessels. The sailors, however, instead of being by their ships, as
they supposed, were gone away to purchase provisions for their dinner
in the houses in the outskirts of the town; the Eretrians having so
arranged that there should be nothing on sale in the marketplace, in
order that the Athenians might be a long time in manning their ships,
and, the enemy's attack taking them by surprise, might be compelled to
put to sea just as they were. A signal also was raised in Eretria to
give them notice in Oropus when to put to sea. The Athenians, forced
to put out so poorly prepared, engaged off the harbour of Eretria, and
after holdin