whom was Niconidas from Larissa, a friend of
Perdiccas. It was never very easy to traverse Thessaly without an
escort; and throughout all Hellas for an armed force to pass without
leave through a neighbour's country was a delicate step to take. Besides
this the Thessalian people had always sympathized with the Athenians.
Indeed if instead of the customary close oligarchy there had been a
constitutional government in Thessaly, he would never have been able
to proceed; since even as it was, he was met on his march at the
river Enipeus by certain of the opposite party who forbade his further
progress, and complained of his making the attempt without the consent
of the nation. To this his escort answered that they had no intention
of taking him through against their will; they were only friends in
attendance on an unexpected visitor. Brasidas himself added that he came
as a friend to Thessaly and its inhabitants, his arms not being directed
against them but against the Athenians, with whom he was at war,
and that although he knew of no quarrel between the Thessalians and
Lacedaemonians to prevent the two nations having access to each other's
territory, he neither would nor could proceed against their wishes; he
could only beg them not to stop him. With this answer they went away,
and he took the advice of his escort, and pushed on without halting,
before a greater force might gather to prevent him. Thus in the day that
he set out from Melitia he performed the whole distance to Pharsalus,
and encamped on the river Apidanus; and so to Phacium and from thence to
Perrhaebia. Here his Thessalian escort went back, and the Perrhaebians,
who are subjects of Thessaly, set him down at Dium in the dominions
of Perdiccas, a Macedonian town under Mount Olympus, looking towards
Thessaly.

In this way Brasidas hurried through Thessaly before any one could
be got ready to stop him, and reached Perdiccas and Chalcidice. The
departure of the army from Peloponnese had been procured by the
Thracian towns in revolt against Athens and by Perdiccas, alarmed at the
successes of the Athenians. The Chalcidians thought that they would be
the first objects of an Athenian expedition, not that the neighbouring
towns which had not yet revolted did not also secretly join in the
invitation; and Perdiccas also had his apprehensions on account of his
old quarrels with the Athenians, although not openly at war with them,
and above all wished to reduce Arrhaba