Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

CHAPTER XXV.

And when they got Naupactus, they were not content with the town and region that they had got through the Athenians, but a strong desire came upon them to get a place for themselves by their own valour. And as they knew that the Œniadæ, who had a rich soil in Acarnania, had been for all time at variance with the Athenians, they marched against them. And being not superior in point of numbers, but far superior in respect to bravery, they won a victory over them, and shut them up in their fort and blockaded them. And the Messenians employed every human invention for taking cities, they tried to get over the walls by scaling ladders, and undermined the fort, and bringing up such engines as they could get at short notice kept battering away at the walls. And those in the town, fearing that if the town was taken they would be undone, and their wives and children sold into slavery, preferred to surrender upon conditions. And for about a year the Messenians occupied the town and enjoyed the produce of the country, but the year after the Acarnanians gathering a force together from all their towns planned a march upon Naupactus. But they changed their minds about this when they saw that their march would be through the country of the Ætolians, who were always hostile to them, and at the same time they expected the Naupactians had a navy, as indeed they had, and as they were masters of the sea it would not be possible to subdue them with a land army. So they changed their plan with alacrity, and marched against the Messenians at Œniadæ. And they began to lay siege to the town: for they did not suppose that so few men would come to such a pitch of recklessness as to sally out and fight against them. And the Messenians had got together a store of corn and other provisions, expecting a long siege: but they thought before the blockade commenced they would have one good fight in the open, and as they were Messenians, who had only been inferior to the Lacedæmonians in luck not in courage, they would not be frightened at this mob that had come from Acarnania. And the Athenians remembered the action at Marathon, how thirty myriads of Medes were slain by less than 10,000. So they determined to fight the Acarnanians, and the battle was fought as follows. The Acarnanians inasmuch as they were far more numerous easily surrounded the Messenians, except where the gates at the back of the Messenians checked them, and the men on the walls stoutly defended their comrades. Here they could not be surrounded. But both their flanks were sore pressed by the Acarnanians, and they shot at them from all sides. And the Messenians being a compact body, wherever they made a general attack on the Acarnanians, threw the enemy’s ranks into confusion, and killed and wounded many, yet could not bring about a complete rout. For wherever the Acarnanians observed that their lines were pierced by the Messenians, there they brought up large detachments of men, and beat the Messenians back by sheer force of numbers. And whenever the Messenians were unsuccessful in an attack, and tried in some other place to break the Acarnanian line, the same result would follow. At whatever point they attacked they produced confusion and something like a rout, but the Acarnanians came swarming up, and so the Messenians had very unwillingly to retire. And the struggle being very evenly poised till night came on, and the attacking force of the Acarnanians being augmented the following evening from several towns, a regular blockade of the Messenians commenced. And they had no fear that the town would be taken by storm, either by the Acarnanians getting over the walls, or by their being compelled to desert their garrison duty. But by the 8th month all their supplies were consumed. To the Acarnanians they jeeringly cried out that their provisions would last even a ten years’ siege: but about the time of first sleep they quietly slipped out of Œniadæ, and being compelled to fight their way through directly the Acarnanians got to know of this flitting, lost about 300 but killed a still greater number of the enemy, and most of them succeeded in cutting their way through, and by the assistance of the Ætolians who were friendly to them got safe to Naupactus.