The fleet sailed on to the territory of Pallene where they went ashore to plunder. [2] This district, by far the most fertile of all those on the coast along which they had sailed, belonged to Cassandrea. Here Eumenes, who had sailed from Elaea, met them with twenty decked ships, and five had also been sent by Prusias. [3] This accession of strength emboldened the praetor to attempt the capture of Cassandrea. This city was built by Cassander on the narrow isthmus which connects the district of Pallene with the rest of Macedonia, and is washed on one side by the Toronaic Gulf and on the other by the Gulf of Macedonia. [4] The tongue of land on which it stands projects into the sea, forming a promontory equal in extent to the towering Mount Athos. In the direction of Magnesia it has two headlands; the larger one is called the Posideum, the smaller the Cape of Canastra. The attack was commenced on two sides. [5] The Roman commander, at a place called Clitae, carried his lines through from the Macedonian to the Toronaic Gulf and hedged them with forked poles to cut off all communication with the north. On the other side there was a canal, and here Eumenes was operating. The Romans had a very heavy task in filling up a fosse which Perseus had recently excavated for the defence of the town. The praetor, seeing no heaps lying about anywhere, enquired where the earth out of the fosse had been carried. [6] Some arches were pointed out to him which had been built, not up to the thickness of the old wall, but to that of a single brick. The consul formed the design of breaking through these and penetrating into the city, and he thought he might do this unobserved, if the scaling parties assaulted the walls elsewhere and called off the defenders to these threatened points. [7] The garrison of Cassandrea consisted of a far from contemptible force of able-bodied townsmen, and in addition 800 Agrianes and 2000 Illyrians sent by Pleuratus from Peneste, all keen fighters. [8] Whilst these were defending the walls where the Romans were doing their utmost to surmount them, the brickwork of the arches was broken down in a moment and the city laid open. If those who had made the breaches had been armed, they would have taken the place at once. [9] When the soldiers heard that this had been effected, they were so delighted that they raised a sudden cheer and prepared to break into the city at various points.
