Philip Arrives in Epirus
Such was the state of things in the Peloponnese when
note
King Philip, after crossing Thessaly, arrived
in Epirus. Reinforcing his Macedonians by
a full levy of Epirotes, and being joined by
three hundred slingers from Achaia, and the five hundred
Cretans sent him by the Polyrrhenians, he continued his
march through Epirus and arrived in the territory of the
Ambracians. Now, if he had continued his march without
interruption, and thrown himself into the interior of Aetolia, by
the sudden and unlooked-for attack of so formidable an
army he would have put an end to the whole campaign: but
as it was, he was over-persuaded by the Epirotes to take
Ambracus first; and so gave the Aetolians an interval in which
to make a stand, to take precautionary measures, and to prepare
for the future. For the Epirotes, thinking more of their own
advantage than of that of the confederacy, and being very
anxious to get Ambracus note into their power, begged Philip to
invest the town and take it before doing anything else: the
fact being that they regarded it as a matter of the utmost
importance to recover Ambracia from the Aetolians; and
thought that the only way of doing this was to become
masters of this place, Ambracus, and besiege the town of
Ambracia from it. For Ambracus is a place strongly fortified
by walls and out-works, standing in the midst of marshes, and
approached from the land by only one narrow raised causeway;
and commanding by its situation both the district and town
of Ambracia.
