35.37
On
hearing of the tyrant's death Philopoemen went to Lacedaemon, where he
found universal panic and confusion. He invited the principal men to meet
him, and after addressing them as Alexamenus ought to have done,
incorporated the city in the Achaean league. This was rendered all the easier
by the fact that just at that time A. Atilius arrived at Gytheum with
four-and-twenty quinqueremes. Thoas was far from meeting with the same
success at Chalcis as was achieved at Demetrias through the agency of
Eurylochus. He had enlisted the services of two men -Euthymidas, one of
the leading men in Chalcis who had been expelled through the influence of
the Roman party, strengthened by the visit of T. Quinctius and the fleet, and
Herodorus, a trader from Chios whose wealth gave him considerable weight
in the city. Through their instrumentality Thoas had arranged with the
adherents of Euthymidas to betray the city into his hands. Euthymidas had
taken up his residence at Athens, from there he went to Thebes, and then on
to Salganeus. Herodorus went to Thronium. Not far from this place Thoas
had a force of 2000 infantry and 200 cavalry, as well as thirty light transports
in the Maliac Gulf. Herodorus was to take these vessels with a complement
of 600 infantry to the island of Atalanta with the object of sailing across to
Chalcis as soon as he learnt that the land force was nearing Aulis and the
Euripus. Thoas himself marched with this force as rapidly as possible, mostly
by night, to Chalcis.