HKB
[Sidenote: Philip is joined by the Acarnanians, and marches to the Achelous.]
+6.+ Before they started, Aristophanes the Acarnanian Strategus arrived with the full levy of his people. For having in former times suffered many severe injuries at the hands of the Aetolians, they were now inspired with a fierce determination to be revenged upon them and damage them in every possible way: they gladly therefore seized this opportunity of getting the help of the Macedonians; and the men who now appeared in arms were not confined to those forced by law to serve, but were in some cases past the military age. The Epirotes were quite as eager to join, and for the same motives; but owing to the wide extent of their country, and the suddenness of the Macedonian arrival, they had not been able to muster their forces in time. As to the Aetolians, Dorimachus had taken half their army with him, as I have said, while the the other half he had left at home, thinking that it would be an adequate reserve to defend the towns and district against unforeseen contingencies. The king, leaving a sufficient guard for his baggage, started from Limnaea in the evening, and after a march of sixty stades pitched his camp: but, having dined and given his men a short rest, he started again; and marching right through the night, arrived just as the day was breaking at the river Achelous, between the towns of Stratus and Conope, being anxious that his entrance into the district of Thermus should be sudden and unexpected.
[Sidenote: Leontius tries to hinder the march.]
+7.+ Leontius saw that it was likely that the king would attain his object, and the Aetolians be unable to resist him, for the double reason of the speed and unexpectedness of the Macedonian attack, and of his having gone to Thermus; for the Aetolians would never suppose him likely to venture to expose himself so rashly, seeing the strongly fortified nature of the country, and would therefore be sure to be caught off their guard and wholly unprepared for the danger. Clinging still to his purpose, therefore, he advised the king to encamp on the Achelous, and rest his army after their night’s march; being anxious to give the Aetolians a short respite to make preparations for their defence. But Aratus, seeing clearly that the opportunity for action was fleeting, and that Leontius was plainly trying to hinder their success, conjured Philip not to let slip the opportunity by delaying.
[Sidenote: The king crosses the Achelous and advances against Thermus.]
The king was now thoroughly annoyed with Leontius: and accepting the advice of Aratus, continued his march without interruption; and, after crossing the Achelous, advanced rapidly upon Thermus, plundering and devastating the country as he went, and marching so as to keep Stratus, Agrinium, and Thestia on his left, Conope, Lysimachia, Trichonium, and Phytaeum on his right. Arrived at the town of Metapa, which is on the borders of the Trichonian Lake, and close to the narrow pass along it, about sixty stades from Thermus, he found it abandoned by the Aetolians, and occupied it with a detachment of five hundred men, with a view of its serving as a fortress to secure both ends of the pass: for the whole shore of the lake is mountainous and rugged, closely fringed with forest, and therefore affording but a narrow and difficult path. He now arranged his order of march, putting the mercenaries in the van, next them the Illyrians, and then the peltasts and the men of the phalanx, and thus advanced through the pass; his rear protected by the Cretans: while the Thracians and light-armed troops took a different line of country, parallel to his own, and kept up with him on his right: his left being secured by the lake for nearly thirty stades.
[Sidenote: The plundering of Thermus.]