During the time that Philip was in Achaia, Philocles, one of his generals, started from Euboea with 2000 Thracians and Macedonians for the purpose of ravaging the Athenian territory. He crossed the forest of Cithaeron in the neighbourhood of Eleusis, and there he divided his forces. [2] Half were sent forward to harry and plunder the fields in all directions, the other half he concealed in a position suitable for an ambuscade so that if an attack were made from [3??] the fort at Eleusis upon his plunderers he might take the assailants by surprise. [4] His ruse, however, was detected, so he recalled the scattered pillagers and made a regular attack upon the fort. After a fruitless attempt in which many of his men were wounded he retired and joined forces with Philip who was on his way from Achaea. [5] The king himself made an attempt on the same fort but the arrival of the Roman ships from the Piraeus and the presence of a reinforcement which had been thrown into the place compelled him to abandon the undertaking. [6] He then sent Philocles with a part of his army to Athens, and with the rest he proceeded to the Piraeus in order that while Philocles kept the Athenians within their city by approaching the walls and threatening an assault, he might seize the opportunity of storming the Piraeus whilst it was left with a feeble guard. [7] But the assault on the Piraeus proved to be quite as difficult as the one on Eleusis, as practically the same troops defended both. Leaving the Piraeus he hurried up to Athens. [8] Here a force of infantry and cavalry from the city attacked him within the dilapidated Long Walls which connect the Piraeus with Athens and he was repulsed. Seeing that any attempt on the city was hopeless he divided his army with Philocles and set himself to complete the devastation of the country. [9] His former work of destruction had been confined mainly to the sepulchres round the city; [10] now he determined to leave nothing free from profanation and gave orders for the temples which the people had consecrated in every deme to be destroyed and set on fire. [11] The land of Attica was famous for that class of building as well as for the abundance of native marble and the genius of its architects, and therefore it afforded abundant material for this destructive fury. [12] He was not satisfied with overthrowing the temples with their statues, he even ordered the blocks of stone to be broken in pieces lest if they retained their shape they might form imposing ruins. [13] When there was nothing left on which his rage, still insatiate, could wreak itself he left the enemy's territories for Boeotia and did nothing more worth mentioning in Greece.
Livy. History of Rome. English Translation by. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 1. Livy. History of Rome. English Translation. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 2.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.