SIEGE OF PERINTHUS AND BYZANTIUM
[340-339 B.C.]
And that there was still strength and courage in the Greek people, Philip to his great chagrin soon received sensible evidence before Perinthus, a maritime city, built in terrace fashion on the high ridge of a tongue of land on the Propontis, with rows of houses crowded thickly together and which he failed to take after a long siege by land and sea. Supported by the Byzantines and the Persian governor, the brave citizens repelled storm and attack with spirit. And now encouraged by the example of the Perinthians, and with the co-operation of the Athenians who sent first Chares, then Phocion, with ships and men to the aid of their hard-pressed ally, the Byzantines offered a manful resistance; so that here too Philip had to raise the siege and it was only by a stratagem that he succeeded in bringing off his fleet from the Black Sea through the Bosporus and the Hellespont.
The feeble Byzantines would hardly have held out so long against the siege which Philip conducted in similar fashion with battering-rams, machines for flinging projectiles and saps, but Chares, the Athenian, and his squadron drove the Macedonian fleet to the Pontus in a victorious combat, and from his advantageous position at Chrysopolis protected the entrance to the sea, while the valiant Phocion did his utmost to aid in the defensive measures of the Byzantine commander Leon, whom he had previously known in Plato’s school. So here too Philip failed to attain his object, in spite of the skill of his engineers and the bravery of his troops, who once even won an entrance into the town on a rainy, moonless night, but were beaten back in a hot fight by the citizens, who ran up hastily, considerably aided by the appearance of an aurora borealis.