ART

.

Tolmides was an Athenian general, who in 455 BC persuaded the people to send him with a fleet to cruize round the Peloponnesus, arid ravage the enemy's country. If we may believe Diodorus, 1000 men were voted to him, to be selected by himself; but he first prevailed on 3000 to join him as volunteers, by assuring them that he meant at any rate to name them for the service, and, having thus secured these, he proceeded to act on the vote of the assembly, and chose 1000 more. In his expedition he burnt the Lacedaemonian arsenal at Gythium, took Chalcis, a town of the Corinthians, and disembarking on the Sicyonian territory, defeated the troops that came against him. According to Diodorus, he had previously captured Methone, which, however, by the arrival of Spartan succours, he was soon obliged to relinquish. He also took Naupactus from the Ozolian Locrians, and settled there the Messenians, who had been besieged and recently conquered by the Lacedaemonians at Ithome. After the return of Tolmides to Athens, we hear of his leading Athenian settlers (klirouchoi) to Euboea and Naxos; and in 447 BC, when the Boeotian exiles had returned and seized Chaeroneia and Orchomenus, he proposed that he should, be sent at once with a body of volunteers to quell the rising. Pericles objected in vain to the expedition as hasty and ill-timed, and Tolmides, having carried his point, marched into Boeotia with 1000 Athenians and some allied troops, and took Chaeroneia, where he left a garrison. But near Coroneia he fell in with a force consisting of the Boeotian exiles who had gathered together at Orchomenus, some Locrians and Euboean exiles, and others of the same party. A battle (447 BC) ensued , in which the Athenians were utterly defeated, and Tolmides himself was skin. (Thucyd. i, 103, 108, 113 ; Diod. xi. 84, 85, xii. 6 ; Aesch. de Fals. Leg. p. 38 ; Pausanias. i. 27 ; Plut. Agesilaos. 19, Pericles. 16, 18.)

Pausanias 1.27.5

On the pedestal are also statues of Theaenetus, who was seer to Tolmides, and of Tolmides himself, who when in command of the Athenian fleet inflicted severe damage upon the enemy, especially upon the Peloponnesians who dwell along the coast, burnt the dock-yards at Gythium and captured Boeae, belonging to the “provincials,” and the island of Cythera. He made a descent on Sicyonia, and, attacked by the citizens as he was laying waste the country, he put them to flight and chased them to the city. Returning afterwards to Athens, he conducted Athenian colonists to Euboea and Naxos and invaded Boeotia with an army. Having ravaged the greater part of the land and reduced Chaeronea by a siege, he advanced into the territory of Haliartus,where he was killed in battle and all his army worsted. Such was the history of Tolmides that I learnt.

See Battle of Haliartus

Ancient Greeks

Ancient Greeks Portraits

Greeks:

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M -
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/"
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License