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The natural setting of the city greatly aided the besieged Perinthians towards a decisive victory. It lies by the sea on a sort of high peninsula with an isthmus one furlong across, and its houses are packed close together and very high. [2] In their construction along the slope of the hill they overtop one another and thus give the city the general aspect of a theatre. In spite of the constant breaches in the fortifications, consequently, the Perinthians were not defeated, for they blocked up the alley-ways and utilized the lowest tier of houses each time as though it were a wall of defence. [3] When Philip with much labour and hard fighting mastered the city wall, he found that the houses afforded a stronger one, ready made by Fortune. Since, in addition, the city's every need was promptly met by supplies coming to Perinthus from Byzantium, he split his forces in two, and leaving one division under his best officers to continue the operations before Perinthus, marched himself with the other and, making a sudden attack on Byzantium, enclosed that city also in a tight siege. [4] Since their men and weapons and war equipment were all at Perinthus, the people of Byzantium found themselves seriously embarrassed.

Such was the situation at Perinthus and Byzantium.1 [5]

Ephorus of Cyme, the historian, closed his history at this point with the siege of Perinthus, having included in his work the deeds of both the Greeks and the barbarians from the time of the return of the Heracleidae. He covered a period of almost seven hundred and fifty years,2 writing thirty books and prefacing each with an introduction. [6] Diyllus3 the Athenian began the second section of his history with the close of Ephorus's and made a connected narrative of the history of Greeks and barbarians from that point to the death of Philip.4

1 The sieges were given under the year 340/39 B.C. by Philochorus (Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, no. 328, T 54); they may well have extended over more than one archon year.

2 Diodorus nowhere mentions the beginning of Ephorus's history, perhaps because it began as far back as his own. In chap. 14.3 he referred to its continuation by his son Demophilus. According to Clement of Alexandria (Stromateis, 1.139.4), Ephorus reckoned 735 years between the Return of the Heracleidae and the archonship of Evaenetus, 335/4 B.C. On that basis, B. ten Brinck (Philologus, 6 (1851), 589) suggested correcting "fifty" here to "thirty".

3 His history was referred to above, chap. 14.5.

4 That is, Philip the son of Cassander, who died in 297/6 B.C.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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