At about the same time Dorimachus, the Aetolian strategus, dispatched to the Eleans Agelaus and Scopas with five hundred Neo-Cretans. The Eleans, afraid of Philip\'s attempting to besiege <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Cyllene&groupId=515&placeId=972">Cyllene</a>, were collecting mercenaries, preparing their civic force and carefully strengthening <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Cyllene&groupId=515&placeId=972">Cyllene</a>.
Philip, aware of this, collected a force consisting of the Achaeans\' mercenaries, a few of his own Cretans, some Gaulish horse and about two thousand picked infantry from <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Achaea&groupId=272&placeId=533">Achaea</a>, and left it in Dyme to act both as a reserve and as a protection against the danger from <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Elis&groupId=560&placeId=1048">Elis</a>.
He himself, after first writing to the Messenians, Epirots, and Acarnanians and to Scerdilaïdas to man their ships and meet him at <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Cephallenia&groupId=450&placeId=838">Cephallenia</a>, put out from Patrae, as he had agreed, and reached <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Pronni&groupId=915&placeId=1643">Pronni</a> on the coast of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Cephallenia&groupId=450&placeId=838">Cephallenia</a>.
Observing that this small town was difficult to take by siege, and that the position was a confined one, he sailed past it with his fleet and anchored off <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Palus&groupId=830&placeId=1500">Palus</a>,
where, finding the country full of corn and capable of providing subsistence for an army, he disembarked his forces and encamped before the town. Beaching his ships close together and surrounding them with a trench and palisade he sent out the Macedonians to gather in the corn.
He himself made the circuit of the city to see how the wall could be attacked by siege-works and machines.
He intended to wait here for his allies and at the same time to take the town, in order in the first place to deprive the Aetolians of their most indispensable aid — for they used the Cephallenian ships to cross to the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Peloponnese&groupId=861&placeId=1552">Peloponnese</a> and to plunder the coasts of Epirus and <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Acarnania&groupId=270&placeId=527">Acarnania</a> — and next to provide for himself and his allies a base favourably situated from which to descend on the enemy\'s territory.
For <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Cephallenia&groupId=450&placeId=838">Cephallenia</a> lies off the Gulf of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Corinth&groupId=493&placeId=928">Corinth</a>, stretching out to the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicilian Sea&groupId=972&placeId=1723">Sicilian Sea</a>, and overlooks the north-western part of the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Peloponnese&groupId=861&placeId=1552">Peloponnese</a>, especially <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Elis&groupId=560&placeId=1048">Elis</a> and the south-western districts of Epirus, Aetolia, and <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Acarnania&groupId=270&placeId=527">Acarnania</a>.
Walbank Commentary