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Brasidas, confiding in the multitude of his soldiers, now advanced with his army against the city known as Amphipolis. This city Aristagoras of Miletus at an earlier time had undertaken to found as a colony,1 when he was fleeing from Darius, the king of the Persians; [2] after his death the colonists were driven out by the Thracians who are called Edones, and thirty-two years after this event the Athenians dispatched ten thousand colonists to the place. In like manner these colonists also were utterly destroyed by Thracians at Drabescus,2 and two years later3 the Athenians again recovered the city, under the leadership of Hagnon. [3] Since the city had been the object of many a battle, Brasidas was eager to master it. Consequently he set out against it with a strong force, and pitching his camp near the bridge,4 he first of all seized the suburb of the city and then on the next day, having struck terror into the Amphipolitans, he received the formal surrender of the city on the condition that anyone who so wished could take his property and leave the city. [4]

Immediately after this Brasidas brought over to his side a number of the neighbouring cities, the most important of which were Oesyme and Galepsus, both colonies of the Thasians, and also Myrcinus, a small Edonian city. He also set about building a number of triremes on the Strymon River and summoned soldiers from both Lacedaemon and the rest of the allies. [5] Also he had many complete suits of armour made, which he distributed among the young men who possessed no arms, and he gathered supplies of missiles and grain and everything else. And when all his preparations had been made, he set out from Amphipolis with his army and came to Acte,5 as it is called, where he pitched his camp. In this area there were five cities, of which some were Greek, being colonies from Andros, and the others had a populace of barbarians of Bisaltic6 origin, which were bilingual. [6] After mastering these cities Brasidas led his army against the city of Torone, which was a colony of the Chalcidians but was held by Athenians. Since certain men were ready to betray the city, Brasidas was by night admitted by them and got Torone in his power without a fight.

To such a height did the fortunes of Brasidas attain in the course of this year.

1 In 497 B.C.; cp. Hdt. 5.126.

2 Cp. Book 11.70.5.

3 Twenty-nine years later, according to Thuc. 4.102.3.

4 Over the Strymon River and not far from the city.

5 The region about Mt. Athos.

6 A Thracian tribe.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), OESYME
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), THASOS
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