Such was the situation at <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sinope&groupId=978&placeId=1730">Sinope</a>. But King Philip starting from <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Macedonia&groupId=723&placeId=428">Macedonia</a> with his army — for it was here that I interrupted my account of operations in the Social War — marched on <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Thessaly&groupId=1028&placeId=1816">Thessaly</a> and Epirus with the view of invading Aetolia from thence.
Alexander and Dorimachus at this time having formed a project for surprising Aegeira, had collected about twelve hundred Aetolians at Oeantheia in Aetolia, which is situated just opposite Aegeira, and having provided transports for this force were waiting for favourable weather to cross and make the attack.
For a certain Aetolian deserter, who had spent some time at Aegeira and had noticed that the guards of the Aegium gate were constantly drunk and neglectful of their watch, had several times at some risk crossed over to Dorimachus and urged him to make the attempt, well knowing that such an enterprise was quite in his line.
Aegeira is situated in the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Peloponnese&groupId=861&placeId=1552">Peloponnese</a> on the gulf of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Corinth&groupId=493&placeId=928">Corinth</a> between Aegium and Sicyon and is built on steep hills difficult of access, looking towards <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Parnassus&groupId=844&placeId=1523">Parnassus</a> and that part of the opposite coast, its distance from the sea being about seven stades.
The weather being now favourable, Dorimachus set sail and anchored while it was still night at the mouth of the river which flows by the town.
Then those with Alexander and Dorimachus and with them Archidamus the son of Pantaleon, now took the main body of the Aetolians and approached the city by the road leading from Aegium.
The deserter with twenty picked men, leaving the path and mounting the precipice quicker than the others as he knew the ground, got in through an aqueduct and found the guard of the gate still asleep.
Having killed them before they could rise from their beds and cut through the bolts with axes, he opened the gates to the Aetolians.
They dashed brilliantly into the city, but afterwards conducted matters with such an entire lack of caution that finally the Aegeiratans were saved and they themselves destroyed.
For considering that the occupation of a foreign city is finished when one is once within the gates, they acted on this principle,
Walbank Commentary