Such was the state of affairs in the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Peloponnese&groupId=861&placeId=1552">Peloponnese</a>. Meanwhile King Philip, after passing through <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Thessaly&groupId=1028&placeId=1816">Thessaly</a>, had arrived in Epirus.
Uniting with his Macedonians the complete levy of the Epirots, three hundred slingers who had joined him for <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Achaea&groupId=272&placeId=533">Achaea</a> and five hundred Cretans sent by the Polyrrhenians, he advanced and passing through Epirus reached Ambracia.
Had he only not turned aside but advanced rapidly into the interior of Aetolia, he would by thus suddenly and unexpectedly invading with so formidable a force have put an end to the whole war.
But as it was, letting himself be persuaded by the Epirots to take Ambracus in the first place, he gave the Aetolians leisure to collect themselves, to take precautionary measures and to make preparations for the future.
For the Epirots, setting their own particular advantage above all that of the allies and exceedingly eager to get Ambracus into their possession, implored Philip to besiege and capture this place in the first instance.
They regarded it as of the highest importance to recover Ambracia from the Aetolians, and the only way they hoped to do so was by making themselves masters of this place and laying siege to the city of Ambracia from it.
For Ambracus is a place strongly fortified by outworks and a wall and lies in a lake with only one narrow approach from the town, and it is so situated as to command effectually both the country and the town.
Philip, then, acting as the Epirots wished and encamping before Ambracus, began to make preparations for the siege.
Walbank Commentary