BATTLE OF OLP.E. 303 among their own numerous petty townships, it procured for him the means of retrieving his own reputation at Athens. De- mosthenes, not backward in seizing this golden opportunity, came speedily into the Ambrakian gulf with the twenty Athenian tri- remes, conducting two hundred Messenian hoplites and sixty Athenian bowmen. He found the whole Akarnanian force con- centrated at the Amphilochian Argos, and was named general along with the Akarnanian generals, but in reality enjoying the whole direction of the operations. He found also the whole of the enemy's force, both the three thousand Ambrakiot hoplites and the Peloponnesian division under Eurylochus, already united and in position at Olpse, about three miles off. For Eurylochus, as soon as he was apprized that the Ambrakiots had reached Olpae, broke up forthwith his camp at Proschium in jEtolia, knowing that his best chance of travers- ing the hostile territory of Akarnania consisted in celerity : the whole Akarnanian force, however, had already gone to Argos, so that his march was unopposed through that country. He crossed the Achelous, marched westward of Stratus, through the Akar- nanian townships of Phytia, Medeon, and Limnaea, then quitting both Akarnania and the direct road from Akarnania to Argos, he struck rather eastward into the mountainous district of Thyamus, in the territory of the Agraeans, who were enemies of the Akar nanians. From hence he descended at night into the territory of Argos, and passed unobserved under cover of the darkness between Argos itself, and the Akarnanian force at Krenae ; so as to join in safety the three thousand Ambrakiots at Olpa3 ; to their great joy, for they had feared that the enemy at Argos and Krenae would have arrested his passage ; and feeling their force inadequate to contend alone / they had sent pressing mes- sages home to demand large reinforcements for themselves and their own protection. 1 Demosthenes thus found an united and formidable enemy, superior in number to himself, at Olpae, and conducted his troops from Argos and Krenas to attack them. The ground was rugged and mountainous, and between the two armies lay a steep ravine which neither liked to be the first to pass, so that they lay for five
1 Thucyd. iii, 105. 106, 107.
