Polybius, Histories

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Euripidas Intends to Attack Sicyon

Meanwhile Euripidas, with two companies of Eleans,—

B. C. 218, Jan.-Feb. Destruction of a marauding army of Eleans under Euripidas.

who combined with the pirates and mercenaries made up an army of two thousand two hundred men, besides a hundred horse,—started from Psophis and began marching by way of Pheneus and Stymphalus, knowing nothing about Philip's arrival, with the purpose of wasting the territory of Sicyon. The very night in which it chanced that Philip had pitched his camp near the temple of the Dioscuri, he passed the royal quarters, and succeeded in entering the territory of Sicyon, about the time of the morning watch. But some Cretans of Philip's army who had left their ranks, and were prowling about on the track of prey, fell into the hands of Euripidas, and being questioned by him informed him of the arrival of the Macedonians. Without saying a word of his discovery to any one, he at once caused his army to face about, and marched back by the same road as that by which he had come; with the intention and hope of getting through Stymphalia, and reaching the difficult ground beyond it, before the Macedonians could catch him. But the king knowing nothing at all about the proceedings of the enemy, at daybreak broke up his camp and began his advance in pursuance of his original plan, determining to march by way of Stymphalus itself to Caphyae: for it was at that town that he had written to the Achaeans to meet him.