om Lacedaemon and Sicyon, whom they persuaded to accompany
them, and bade her recall the garrison and settlers, as she had nothing
to do with Epidamnus. If, however, she had any claims to make, they were
willing to submit the matter to the arbitration of such of the cities in
Peloponnese as should be chosen by mutual agreement, and that the colony
should remain with the city to whom the arbitrators might assign it.
They were also willing to refer the matter to the oracle at Delphi. If,
in defiance of their protestations, war was appealed to, they should be
themselves compelled by this violence to seek friends in quarters where
they had no desire to seek them, and to make even old ties give way to
the necessity of assistance. The answer they got from Corinth was that,
if they would withdraw their fleet and the barbarians from Epidamnus,
negotiation might be possible; but, while the town was still being
besieged, going before arbitrators was out of the question. The
Corcyraeans retorted that if Corinth would withdraw her troops from
Epidamnus they would withdraw theirs, or they were ready to let both
parties remain in statu quo, an armistice being concluded till judgment
could be given.

Turning a deaf ear to all these proposals, when their ships were manned
and their allies had come in, the Corinthians sent a herald before them
to declare war and, getting under way with seventy-five ships and two
thousand heavy infantry, sailed for Epidamnus to give battle to the
Corcyraeans. The fleet was under the command of Aristeus, son of
Pellichas, Callicrates, son of Callias, and Timanor, son of Timanthes;
the troops under that of Archetimus, son of Eurytimus, and Isarchidas,
son of Isarchus. When they had reached Actium in the territory of
Anactorium, at the mouth of the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia, where
the temple of Apollo stands, the Corcyraeans sent on a herald in a light
boat to warn them not to sail against them. Meanwhile they proceeded
to man their ships, all of which had been equipped for action, the old
vessels being undergirded to make them seaworthy. On the return of the
herald without any peaceful answer from the Corinthians, their ships
being now manned, they put out to sea to meet the enemy with a fleet of
eighty sail (forty were engaged in the siege of Epidamnus), formed
line, and went into action, and gained a decisive victory, and destroyed
fifteen of the Corinthian vessels. The same day had seen Epidamnus
co