|
When this town had fallen, Artabazus pressed the siege of Potidaea
all the more unremittingly; and was pushing his operations with
vigour, when Timoxenus, captain of the Scionaeans, entered into a
plot to betray the town to him. How the matter was managed at first,
I cannot pretend to say, for no account has come down to us: but at
the last this is what happened. Whenever Timoxenus wished to send a
letter to Artabazus, or Artabazus to send one to Timoxenus, the
letter was written on a strip of paper, and rolled round the notched
end of an arrow-shaft; the feathers were then put on over the paper,
and the arrow thus prepared was shot to some place agreed upon. But
after a while the plot of Timoxenus to betray Potidaea was discovered
in this way. Artabazus, on one occasion, shot off his arrow,
intending to send it to the accustomed place, but, missing his mark,
hit one of the Potidaeans in the shoulder. A crowd gathered about the
wounded man, as commonly happens in war; and when the arrow was pulled
out, they noticed the paper, and straightway carried it to the
captains who were present from the various cities of the peninsula.
The captains read the letter, and, finding who the traitor was,
nevertheless resolved, out of regard for the city of Scione, that as
they did not wish the Scionaeans to be thenceforth branded with the
name of traitors, they would not bring against him any charge of
treachery. Such accordingly was the mode in which this plot was discovered.
|
|