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Courage of the Abydenians

This would justify us in saying that the gallantry of the
Comparison of this resolution of the Abydenians with similar ones of the Phocians and Acarnanians.
Abydenians outdid the proverbial Phocian recklessness and Acarnanian courage.1 For the Phocians have the reputation of having adopted a similar resolution as to their families, but not because they despaired of victory, for they were about to fight a pitched battle with the Thessalians in the open field. So too the Acarnanians, upon the mere prospect of an Aetolian invasion, adopted a like resolution; the details of which I have already narrated. But the Abydenians, at a time when they were closely invested and in all but complete despair of being saved, elected by a unanimous resolution to meet their fate along with their children and wives, rather than to live any longer with the knowledge that their children and wives would fall into the power of the enemy. Therefore one might justly complain of Fortune for having, in the former cases, given victory and safety to those who despaired of them, while she adopted the opposite decision in regard to the Abydenians. For the men were killed, and the city was taken, but the children with their mothers fell into the hands of the enemy.

1 For the Phocians see Pausan. 10.1.6. For the Acarnanians see supra. 9, 40.

Histories. Polybius. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh. translator. London, New York. Macmillan. 1889. Reprint Bloomington 1962.

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    • Pausanias, Description of Greece, 10.1.6
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