United States or Marshall Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Sylla landed in Greece with a reinforcement of twenty-five thousand Romans, and retook Athens; but Mithridates sent in succession two large armies by the Bosporus and the Dardanelles: the first, one hundred thousand strong, was destroyed at Chæronea, and the second, of eighty thousand men, met a similar fate at Orchomenus.
IV. Aided by some allied troops, and especially by his thousand volunteers, Tolmides swept into Boeotia reduced Chaeronea garrisoned the captured town, and was returning homeward, when, in the territory of Coronea, he suddenly fell in with a hostile ambush , composed of the exiled bands of Orchomenus, of Opuntian Locrians, and the partisans of the oligarchies of Euboea.
It was situated near the north-western extremity of the great Bœotian plain, and commanded the entrance into that plain from the mountainous country to the north-west. The Kephisus takes a south-east course past Elateia, Panopeus, Chæronea, and Orchomenus, and near Orchomenus it enters the Lake Kopais. These chariots were useless in the battle between Cyrus and his brother Artaxerxes B.C. 401.
The numerous and excellent cavalry of the latter flung itself impetuously on the Roman infantry, which began to waver and give way: the danger was so urgent, that Sulla seized a standard and advancing with his adjutants and orderlies against the enemy called out with a loud voice to the soldiers that, if they should be asked at home where they had abandoned their general, they might reply at Orchomenus.
The numerous and excellent cavalry of the latter flung itself impetuously on the Roman infantry, which began to waver and give way: the danger was so urgent, that Sulla seized a standard and advancing with his adjutants and orderlies against the enemy called out with a loud voice to the soldiers that, if they should be asked at home where they had abandoned their general, they might reply at Orchomenus.
And already the blame of the other things that were done began to be laid to his account; as that they so lightly gave up Corinth to Antigonus, as if it had been an inconsiderable village; that they had suffered him, after first sacking Orchomenus, then to put into it a Macedonian garrison; that they made a decree that no letters nor embassy should be sent to any other king without the consent of Antigonus, that they were forced to furnish pay and provision for the Macedonian soldiers, and celebrated sacrifices, processions, and games in honor of Antigonus, Aratus's citizens setting the example and receiving Antigonus, who was lodged and entertained at Aratus's house.
To the north are Orchomenus and the Minyan treasure-house, seat of those merchant princes of Phoenicia who brought to Greece the knowledge of letters and the art of working in gold. Thebes is at our feet with the gloom of the terrible legends of Greek tragedy still lingering about it, the birthplace of Pindar, the nurse of Epaminondas and the Sacred Band.
Upon this, Sylla leaped from his horse, and snatching hold of an ensign, rushed through the midst of the rout upon the enemy, crying out aloud, "To me, O Romans, it will be glorious to fall here. As for you, when they ask you where you betrayed your general, remember and say, at Orchomenus."
As Thebans were retreating from Orchomenus towards Tegyrae, the Spartans, at the same time marching from Locris, met them.
The family thus liable to furnish at least one human victim every year was of royal descent, for they traced their lineage to Minyas, the famous old king of Orchomenus, the monarch of fabulous wealth, whose stately treasury, as it is called, still stands in ruins at the point where the long rocky hill of Orchomenus melts into the vast level expanse of the Copaic plain.
Word Of The Day