The Epirots, having met with this misfortune and lost all hope in themselves, sent embassies to the Aetolians and to the Achaean league imploring their succour.
Both leagues took pity on their situation and consented, and shortly afterwards this relieving force reached Helicranum.
The Illyrians holding Phoenice at first united with Scerdilaïdas, and advancing to Helicranum encamped opposite the Achaeans the Aetolians who had come to the rescue, and were anxious to give battle.
But the ground was very difficult and unfavourable to them, and just at this time a dispatch came from Teuta ordering them to return home by the quickest route, as some of the Illyrians had revolted to the Dardanians.
They therefore, after plundering Epirus, made a truce with the Epirots.
By the terms of this they gave up to them the city and its free population on payment of a ransom; the slaves and other goods and chattels they put on board their boats, and while the one force sailed off home, Scerdilaïdas marched back through the pass near Antigonia.
They had caused the Greek inhabitants of the coast no little consternation and alarm;
for, seeing the most strongly situated and most powerful town in Epirus thus suddenly taken and its population enslaved, they all began to be anxious not, as in former times, for their agricultural produce, but for the safety of themselves and their cities.
The Epirots, thus unexpectedly saved, were so far from attempting to retaliate on the wrongdoers or from thanking those who had come to their relief, that, on the contrary, they sent an embassy to Teuta, and together with the Acarnanians entered into an alliance with <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Illyria&groupId=647&placeId=1186">Illyria</a>,
engaging in future to co-operate with the Illyrians and work against the Achaeans and Aetolians.
Their whole conduct showed them not only to have acted now towards their benefactors without judgement, but to have blundered from the outset in the management of their own affairs.
Walbank Commentary