220 HISTORY OF GREECE. when they concerted with him the joint attack upon the Chalkid- ians, intended that it should be in a better time of the year : having probably waited to hear that his army was in motion, and waited long in vain, they began to despair of his coming at all, and thought it not worthwhile to despatch any force of their own to the spot. 1 Some envoys and presents only were sent as com- pliments, instead of the cooperating armament ; and this disap- pointment, coupled with the severity of the weather, the naked- ness of the country, and the privations of his army at that season, induced Sitalkes soon to enter into negotiations with Perdikkas ; who, moreover, gained over Seuthes, nephew of the Odrysian prince, by promising his sister Stratonike in marriage, together with a sum of money, on condition that the Thracian host should be speedily withdrawn. This was accordingly done, after it had been distributed for thirty days over Macedonia : during eight of those days his detachment had ravaged the Chalkidic lands. But the interval had been quite long enough to diffuse terror all around : such a host of fierce barbarians had never before been brought together, and no one knew in what direction they might be disposed to carry their incursions. The independent Thracian tribes (Panaei, Odomante, Droi, and Dersaei) in the plains on the northeast of the Strymon, and near Mount Pangaeus, not far from Amphipolis, were the first to feel alarm lest Sitalkes should take the opportunity of trying to conquer them ; on the other eide, the Thessalians, Magnetes, and other Greeks north of Ther- mopylae, anticipated that he would carry his invasion farther south, and began to organize means for resisting him : even the general Peloponnesian confederacy heard with uneasiness of this new ally whom Athens was bringing into the field, perhaps against them. All such alarms were dissipated, when Sitalkes, after remaining thirty days, returned by the way he came, and the formidable avalanche was thus seen to melt away without falling on them. The faithless Perdikkas, on this occasion, performed his promise to Seuthes, having drawn upon himself much mis- chief by violating his previous similar promise to Sitalkes. 2 Thucyd. ii, 101. ixeidi) oi 'Adqvatoi cv Kaoqaav rale vavalv, <l;nerroi vrrj
v, etc, * Thucyd. ii, 101.
