the time he slew his mother; all else being to him polluted ground.
Perplexed at this, the story goes on to say, he at last observed this
deposit of the Achelous, and considered that a place sufficient to
support life upon, might have been thrown up during the long interval
that had elapsed since the death of his mother and the beginning of
his wanderings. Settling, therefore, in the district round Oeniadae, he
founded a dominion, and left the country its name from his son Acarnan.
Such is the story we have received concerning Alcmaeon.

The Athenians and Phormio putting back from Acarnania and arriving at
Naupactus, sailed home to Athens in the spring, taking with them the
ships that they had captured, and such of the prisoners made in the late
actions as were freemen; who were exchanged, man for man. And so ended
this winter, and the third year of this war, of which Thucydides was the
historian.

BOOK III

CHAPTER IX

_Fourth and Fifth Years of the War--Revolt of Mitylene_

The next summer, just as the corn was getting ripe, the Peloponnesians
and their allies invaded Attica under the command of Archidamus, son
of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and sat down and ravaged
the land; the Athenian horse as usual attacking them, wherever it was
practicable, and preventing the mass of the light troops from advancing
from their camp and wasting the parts near the city. After staying
the time for which they had taken provisions, the invaders retired and
dispersed to their several cities.

Immediately after the invasion of the Peloponnesians all Lesbos, except
Methymna, revolted from the Athenians. The Lesbians had wished to revolt
even before the war, but the Lacedaemonians would not receive them; and
yet now when they did revolt, they were compelled to do so sooner than
they had intended. While they were waiting until the moles for their
harbours and the ships and walls that they had in building should be
finished, and for the arrival of archers and corn and other things that
they were engaged in fetching from the Pontus, the Tenedians, with whom
they were at enmity, and the Methymnians, and some factious persons in
Mitylene itself, who were proxeni of Athens, informed the Athenians
that the Mitylenians were forcibly uniting the island under their
sovereignty, and that the preparations about which they were so
active, were all concerted with the Boeotians their kindred and the
Lacedaemonians with a view t