as had accompanied them in larger parties, seeing
them going on, pushed on in their turn, and began running in order to
catch them up. The Acarnanians at first thought that all alike were
departing without permission, and began to pursue the Peloponnesians;
and believing that they were being betrayed, even threw a dart or two at
some of their generals who tried to stop them and told them that leave
had been given. Eventually, however, they let pass the Mantineans and
Peloponnesians, and slew only the Ambraciots, there being much dispute
and difficulty in distinguishing whether a man was an Ambraciot or a
Peloponnesian. The number thus slain was about two hundred; the rest
escaped into the bordering territory of Agraea, and found refuge with
Salynthius, the friendly king of the Agraeans.

Meanwhile the Ambraciots from the city arrived at Idomene. Idomene
consists of two lofty hills, the higher of which the troops sent on by
Demosthenes succeeded in occupying after nightfall, unobserved by the
Ambraciots, who had meanwhile ascended the smaller and bivouacked under
it. After supper Demosthenes set out with the rest of the army, as soon
as it was evening; himself with half his force making for the pass, and
the remainder going by the Amphilochian hills. At dawn he fell upon the
Ambraciots while they were still abed, ignorant of what had passed,
and fully thinking that it was their own countrymen--Demosthenes having
purposely put the Messenians in front with orders to address them in
the Doric dialect, and thus to inspire confidence in the sentinels,
who would not be able to see them as it was still night. In this way he
routed their army as soon as he attacked it, slaying most of them where
they were, the rest breaking away in flight over the hills. The roads,
however, were already occupied, and while the Amphilochians knew their
own country, the Ambraciots were ignorant of it and could not tell which
way to turn, and had also heavy armour as against a light-armed enemy,
and so fell into ravines and into the ambushes which had been set for
them, and perished there. In their manifold efforts to escape some even
turned to the sea, which was not far off, and seeing the Athenian ships
coasting alongshore just while the action was going on, swam off to
them, thinking it better in the panic they were in, to perish, if perish
they must, by the hands of the Athenians, than by those of the barbarous
and detested Amphilochians. Of the