After taking this step, having spent no time at all in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Corinth&groupId=493&placeId=928">Corinth</a>, he ordered the Macedonians to break up their camp, and marching through <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Argos&groupId=361&placeId=689">Argos</a> reached <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Tegea&groupId=1011&placeId=1780">Tegea</a> on the second day.
Picking up there the Achaeans who had assembled, he advanced through the hilly country with the object of invading <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Laconia&groupId=662&placeId=1211">Laconia</a> by surprise.
Taking a circuitous route through an uninhabited district he seized on the fourth day the hills opposite <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sparta&groupId=660&placeId=1208">Sparta</a> and passing the city with the Menelaïum on his right made straight for Amyclae.
The Lacedaemonians seeing from the city the army as it marched past were thunderstruck and in great fear, as they were completely surprised by what was happening.
For they were still in a state of excitement over the news that had arrived about the doings of Philip in Aetolia and his destruction of Thermus, and there was some talk among them of sending Lycurgus to help the Aetolians,
but no one ever imagined that the danger would descend on their heads so swiftly from such a long distance, the king's extreme youth still tending to inspire contempt for him. Consequently, as things fell out quite contrary to their expectations, they were naturally much dismayed;
for Philip had shown a daring and energy beyond his years in his enterprises, and reduced all his enemies to a state of bewilderment and helplessness.
For putting to sea from the centre of Aetolia, as I above narrated, and traversing the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Ambracian Gulf&groupId=316&placeId=615">Ambracian Gulf</a> in one night, he had reached Leucas,
where he spent two days, and setting sail on the morning of the third day he came to anchor next day in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Lechaeum&groupId=675&placeId=1234">Lechaeum</a> after pillaging the coast of Aetolia on his voyage.
After thus marching without a break he gained upon the seventh day the hills near the Menelaïum that look down on <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sparta&groupId=660&placeId=1208">Sparta</a>. So that most of Spartans though they saw what had happened, could not believe their eyes.
The Lacedaemonians, then, were in a state of the utmost terror at this unexpected invasion and quite at a loss how to meet it.
Walbank Commentary