Pausanias Analysis

Seven days after the battle, a band of Galatians attempted to ascend Mount Oeta by way of Heraclea. There is a narrow pathway there, running upwards past the ruins of Trachis. At that time, there stood above the city of Trachis a sanctuary of Athena, where offerings had been dedicated. The Galatians hoped both to ascend Mount Oeta using this pathway and, as a secondary goal, to seize the valuables from the sanctuary, believing that its guard under Telesarchus would be easily overcome. The Greeks prevailed over the barbarians in the ensuing combat, but Telesarchus himself fell, a man—if ever there was one—exceptionally devoted to the cause of Greece.

Indeed, the other commanders of the barbarians were amazed at the Greek forces and were at a loss concerning the future, realizing that their own plans were making no further progress. Brennus, however, reasoned that if he could compel the Aetolians to withdraw homeward into Aetolia, the war against the Greeks would become easier for him. Thus, having selected from his army forty thousand foot soldiers and about eight hundred cavalry, he placed Orestorius and Combutis as their commanders, who then moved back towards the bridges across the Spercheius.

Then, marching once again through Thessaly, they invaded Aetolia. Those who committed the atrocities against Callium were Combutes and Orestorius; indeed, these actions were the most impious of all that we have ever heard of, unmatched by any human daring. They exterminated the entire male population, killing alike the old men and the infants at their mothers' breasts; indeed, even the babies still nourished by milk—the Galatians, slaughtering them, drank their blood and feasted upon their flesh.

But the women and maidens of marriageable age—those among them who possessed courage took their own lives as soon as the city was taken. Those who remained were dragged away forcibly into every imaginable sort of outrage by necessity and violence, by men equally devoid of both pity and natural affection. Many of the women, as they encountered the swords of the Gauls, voluntarily surrendered their lives by their own hands. For those who survived a short while longer, hunger and sleeplessness brought about their end, while homeless barbarians insulted and abused them in turn without respite. Some of these barbarians violated the women even as they were expiring, and some did so even after they were already dead.

The Aetolians had received from messengers word of the disasters that had overtaken them; immediately, with all the speed they could manage, they withdrew their forces from Thermopylae and hastened homeward to Aetolia, both angry over the sufferings of the people of Kallion and even more eager still to save those cities which had not yet been captured. From every city those of military age marched forth to war; compelled both by necessity and by their own valour, even the elderly joined ranks alongside them. Also their women willingly accompanied them into the field, and surpassed even the men in their furious courage against the Gauls.

When the barbarians, after plundering the houses and sanctuaries, set fire to them and were returning by the same route towards Kallion, in that very place the Patraeans, the only Achaeans helping the Aetolians, opposed the foreigners head-on, being trained in hoplite warfare; they suffered greatly due both to the number of the Galatians and especially owing to their reckless ferocity in battle. But the Aetolians, including their women, ambushed the barbarians throughout the entire length of the road, hurling javelins at them; and since these possessed only their native shields, very few casts missed their mark. They easily fled when pursued, and whenever the enemy withdrew from pursuit, quickly resumed their attacks upon them.

Though the Callians suffered such terrible things that even the scenes Homer composed about the Laestrygonians and the Cyclops seem not beyond belief, nevertheless justice was done upon them according to their deserts. For out of the forty thousand and eight hundred barbarians who attacked them, fewer than half escaped back to the camp near Thermopylae.

At the same time as this, other such events happened among the Greeks at Thermopylae. There is a path through Mount Oeta: one above Trachis, mostly precipitous and exceedingly steep; another through the land of the Aenianians, easier for an army to traverse. It was by this route that once the Mede Hydarnes attacked from behind the Greeks under Leonidas.

Along this route the Heracleots and the Aenianians promised to guide Brennus, not from ill-will toward the Greeks, but because they greatly desired the Celts to depart from their own territory and not to ravage it by remaining encamped there. And it seems to me that in this regard, too, Pindar spoke the truth, when he declared that every person is oppressed by his own misfortunes but remains untouched by the troubles of others.

Then the promise from the Aenianians and the Heracleots encouraged Brennus. He left Acichorius behind in charge of the army, instructing him that when they themselves had surrounded the Greeks, then it would be the proper time for them to make an attack. Selecting forty thousand from his force, he himself set out along the narrow mountain path.

And so it happened on that day that a dense mist settled upon the mountain and caused the sun to be dimmed; as a result, the Phocians guarding the path did not perceive the advancing barbarians until they were already near at hand. At this point, some of the enemy began an attack, whereas the Phocians bravely defended themselves, but in the end they were overwhelmed and withdrew from the path. Nevertheless, running down quickly to their allies, they were able to report the events just before the encirclement of the Greeks became complete and fully secured on all sides.

At that point the Athenians, who were serving on board the triremes, arrived first, having already evacuated the Greek forces from Thermopylae. Each contingent then scattered to their own homelands. Brennus, without delaying any longer until the forces from the camp under Acichorius could arrive, began his march against Delphi. Terrified, the Delphians fled to the oracle for refuge, but the god forbade them to be afraid, reassuring them that he himself would defend what was his own.

The number of the Greeks who came to defend the god was as follows: from Phocis, men from all the cities; from Amphissa, four hundred hoplites. A few of the Aetolians came immediately, as soon as they heard that the barbarians were advancing farther inland, but later Philomelus brought twelve hundred more. The pick of the Aetolians turned especially against the army of Acichorius, and although they did not initiate regular combat, they continually harassed the rear line on its march, seizing goods from those who carried the baggage and killing the men themselves, thus making the march particularly slow for this reason. Acichorius also left behind at Heracleia a contingent whose task was to guard the treasure stored within the camp.