ABSTRACT
The Aetolians, who had already come as far as Aigitium in support, attacked the Athenians and their allies by charging down from the hills from all directions and throwing their javelins; they retreated whenever the Athenian army advanced and attacked again when it retired. The battle went on like this for a long time with alternate advances and withdrawals in both of which the Athenians came off worse. (98) As long as the archers had arrows and were able to use them the Athenians held out, since the light-armed Aetolians retreated in the face of showers of arrows. But the archers scattered on the death of their commander, and the soldiers had become worn out through carrying out the same exhausting manoeuvre for so long; when the Aetolians attacked with volleys of javelins they were routed and fled. Since they blundered into gullies from which there was no way out and into unfamiliar areas they were destroyed, for Chromon, their Messenian guide, had been killed in the fighting. The Aetolians, who were fast-moving and lightly equipped, keeping up the barrage of javelins, caught and killed many on the spot where the rout occurred. Most of the Athenians, however, lost their way and entered a wood from which there was no way out, and which the enemy set on fire so that it burned all around them.
