Scopas Destroys Dium
While Philip, then, by the persuasion of the Epirotes,
note
Thepitching his camp near Ambracus, was engaged in making his
preparations for the siege, Scopas raised a general levy of
Aetolians, and marching through Thessaly crossed the frontiers
-- 334 --
of Macedonia; traversed the plain of Pieria, and laid it
waste; and after securing considerable booty,
returned by the road leading to Dium.
inhabitants of that town abandoning the place,
he entered it and threw down its walls, houses,
and gymnasium; set fire to the covered walks
round the sacred enclosure, and destroyed all
the other offerings which had been placed in it, either for
ornament, or for the use of visitors to the public assemblies;
and threw down all the statues of the kings. And this man,
who, at the very beginning and first action of the war, had
thus turned his arms against the gods as well as men, was not
treated on his return to Aetolia as guilty of impiety, but was
honoured and looked up to. For he had indeed filled the
Aetolians with empty hopes and irrational conceit. From
this time they indulged the idea that no one would venture to
set foot in Aetolia; while they would be able without resistance
not only to plunder the Peloponnese, which they were quite
accustomed to do, but Thessaly and Macedonia also.
