Note 733 — Chapter LIV · TRUCE FOR ONE YEAR.—RENEWAL OF WAR AND BATTLE OF AMPHIPOLIS.—PEACE OF NIKIAS.

Thucyd. iv, 102. Ἀπὸ τῆς νῦν πόλεως, ἣν Ἀμφίπολιν Ἅγνων ὠνόμασεν, ὅτι ἐπ᾽ ἀμφότερα περιῤῥέοντος τοῦ Στρύμονος, διὰ τὸ περιέχειν αὐτὴν, τείχει μακρῷ ἀπολαβὼν ἐκ ποταμοῦ ἐς ποταμὸν, περιφανῆ ἐς θάλασσάν τε καὶ τὴν ἤπειρον ᾤκισεν.

Ὁ καλλιγέφυρος ποταμὸς Στρύμων, Euripid. Rhesus, 346.

I annex a plan which will convey some idea of the hill of Amphipolis and the circumjacent territory: compare the plan in Colonel Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. iii, ch. xxv, p. 191, and that from Mr. Hawkins, which is annexed to the third volume of Dr. Arnold’s Thucydidês, combined with a Dissertation which appears in the second volume of the same work, p. 450. See also the remarks in Kutzen, De Atheniensium imperio circa Strymonem, ch. ii, pp. 18-21; Weissenborn, Beiträge zur genaueren Erforschung der alt-griechischen Geschichte, pp. 152-156; Cousinéry, Voyage dans la Macédoine, vol. i, ch. iv, p. 124, seq.

Colonel Leake supposes the ancient bridge to have been at the same point of the river as the modern bridge; that is, north of Amphipolis, and a little westward of the corner of the lake. On this point I differ from him, and have placed it, with Dr. Arnold, near the southeastern end of the reach of the Strymon, which flows round Amphipolis. But there is another circumstance, in which Col. Leake’s narrative corrects a material error in Dr. Arnold’s Dissertation. Colonel Leake particularly notices the high ridge which connects the hill of Amphipolis with Mount Pangæus to the eastward (pp. 182, 183, 191-194), whereas Dr. Arnold represents them as separated by a deep ravine (p. 451): upon which latter supposition the whole account of Kleon’s march and survey appears to me unintelligible.

The epithet which Thucydidês gives to Amphipolis, “conspicuous both towards the sea and towards the land,” which occasions some perplexity to the commentators, appears to me one of obvious propriety. Amphipolis was indeed situated on a hill; so were many other towns: but its peculiarity was, that on three sides it had no wall to interrupt the eye of the spectator: one of those sides was towards the sea.

Kutzen and Cousinéry make the long wall to be the segment of a curve highly bent, touching the river at both ends. But I agree with Weissenborn that this is inadmissible; and that the words “long wall” imply something near a straight direction.