The History of the Peloponnesian War
By Thucydides
Written about 431 BC
Translated by Richard Crawley
London 1910.The Eighth Book
Chapter XXIV
Nineteenth and Twentieth Years of the War - Revolt of Ionia - Intervention
of Persia - The War in Ionia.
Such were the events in Sicily. When the news was brought to Athens, for a
long while they disbelieved even the most respectable of the soldiers who had
themselves escaped from the scene of action and clearly reported the matter, a
destruction so complete not being thought credible. When the conviction was forced
upon them, they were angry with the orators who had joined in promoting the expedition,
just as if they had not themselves voted it, and were enraged also with the reciters
of oracles and soothsayers, and all other omen-mongers of the time who had encouraged
them to hope that they should conquer Sicily. Already distressed at all points
and in all quarters, after what had now happened, they were seized by a fear and
consternation quite without example. It was grievous enough for the state and
for every man in his proper person to lose so many heavy infantry, cavalry, and
able-bodied troops, and to see none left to replace them; but when they saw, also,
that they had not sufficient ships in their docks, or money in the treasury, or
crews for the ships, they began to despair of salvation. They thought that their
enemies in Sicily would immediately sail with their fleet against Piraeus, inflamed
by so signal a victory; while their adversaries at home, redoubling all their
preparations, would vigorously attack them by sea and land at once, aided by their
own revolted confederates. Nevertheless, with such means as they had, it was determined
to resist to the last, and to provide timber and money, and to equip a fleet as
they best could, to take steps to secure their confederates and above all Euboea,
to reform things in the city upon a more economical footing, and to elect a board
of elders to advise upon the state of affairs as occasion should arise. In short,
as is the way of a democracy, in the panic of the moment they were ready to be
as prudent as possible.
These resolves were at once carried into effect. Summer was now over. The winter
ensuing saw all Hellas stirring under the impression of the great Athenian disaster
in Sicily. Neutrals now felt that even if uninvited they ought no longer to stand
aloof from the war, but should volunteer to march against the Athenians, who,
as they severally reflected, would probably have come against them if the Sicilian
campaign had succeeded. Besides, they considered that the war would now be short,
and that it would be creditable for them to take part in it. Meanwhile the allies
of the Lacedaemonians felt all more anxious than ever to see a speedy end to their
heavy labours. But above all, the subjects of the Athenians showed a readiness
to revolt even beyond their ability, judging the circumstances with passion, and
refusing even to hear of the Athenians being able to last out the coming summer.
Beyond all this, Lacedaemon was encouraged by the near prospect of being joined
in great force in the spring by her allies in Sicily, lately forced by events
to acquire their navy. With these reasons for confidence in every quarter, the
Lacedaemonians now resolved to throw themselves without reserve into the war,
considering that, once it was happily terminated, they would be finally delivered
from such dangers as that which would have threatened them from Athens, if she
had become mistress of Sicily, and that the overthrow of the Athenians would leave
them in quiet enjoyment of the supremacy over all Hellas.
Their king, Agis, accordingly set out at once during this winter with some
troops from Decelea, and levied from the allies contributions for the fleet, and
turning towards the Malian Gulf exacted a sum of money from the Oetaeans by carrying
off most of their cattle in reprisal for their old hostility, and, in spite of
the protests and opposition of the Thessalians, forced the Achaeans of Phthiotis
and the other subjects of the Thessalians in those parts to give him money and
hostages, and deposited the hostages at Corinth, and tried to bring their countrymen
into the confederacy. The Lacedaemonians now issued a requisition to the cities
for building a hundred ships, fixing their own quota and that of the Boeotians
at twenty-five each; that of the Phocians and Locrians together at fifteen; that
of the Corinthians at fifteen; that of the Arcadians, Pellenians, and Sicyonians
together at ten; and that of the Megarians, Troezenians, Epidaurians, and Hermionians
together at ten also; and meanwhile made every other preparation for commencing
hostilities by the spring.
In the meantime the Athenians were not idle. During this same winter, as they
had determined, they contributed timber and pushed on their ship-building, and
fortified Sunium to enable their corn-ships to round it in safety, and evacuated
the fort in Laconia which they had built on their way to Sicily; while they also,
for economy, cut down any other expenses that seemed unnecessary, and above all
kept a careful look-out against the revolt of their confederates.
While both parties were thus engaged, and were as intent upon preparing for
the war as they had been at the outset, the Euboeans first of all sent envoys
during this winter to Agis to treat of their revolting from Athens. Agis accepted
their proposals, and sent for Alcamenes, son of Sthenelaidas, and Melanthus from
Lacedaemon, to take the command in Euboea. These accordingly arrived with some
three hundred Neodamodes, and Agis began to arrange for their crossing over. But
in the meanwhile arrived some Lesbians, who also wished to revolt; and these being
supported by the Boeotians, Agis was persuaded to defer acting in the matter of
Euboea, and made arrangements for the revolt of the Lesbians, giving them Alcamenes,
who was to have sailed to Euboea, as governor, and himself promising them ten
ships, and the Boeotians the same number. All this was done without instructions
from home, as Agis while at Decelea with the army that he commanded had power
to send troops to whatever quarter he pleased, and to levy men and money. During
this period, one might say, the allies obeyed him much more than they did the
Lacedaemonians in the city, as the force he had with him made him feared at once
wherever he went. While Agis was engaged with the Lesbians, the Chians and Erythraeans,
who were also ready to revolt, applied, not to him but at Lacedaemon; where they
arrived accompanied by an ambassador from Tissaphernes, the commander of King
Darius, son of Artaxerxes, in the maritime districts, who invited the Peloponnesians
to come over, and promised to maintain their army. The King had lately called
upon him for the tribute from his government, for which he was in arrears, being
unable to raise it from the Hellenic towns by reason of the Athenians; and he
therefore calculated that by weakening the Athenians he should get the tribute
better paid, and should also draw the Lacedaemonians into alliance with the King;
and by this means, as the King had commanded him, take alive or dead Amorges,
the bastard son of Pissuthnes, who was in rebellion on the coast of Caria.
While the Chians and Tissaphernes thus joined to effect the same object, about
the same time Calligeitus, son of Laophon, a Megarian, and Timagoras, son of Athenagoras,
a Cyzicene, both of them exiles from their country and living at the court of
Pharnabazus, son of Pharnaces, arrived at Lacedaemon upon a mission from Pharnabazus,
to procure a fleet for the Hellespont; by means of which, if possible, he might
himself effect the object of Tissaphernes' ambition and cause the cities in his
government to revolt from the Athenians, and so get the tribute, and by his own
agency obtain for the King the alliance of the Lacedaemonians.
The emissaries of Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes treating apart, a keen competition
now ensued at Lacedaemon as to whether a fleet and army should be sent first to
Ionia and Chios, or to the Hellespont. The Lacedaemonians, however, decidedly
favoured the Chians and Tissaphernes, who were seconded by Alcibiades, the family
friend of Endius, one of the ephors for that year. Indeed, this is how their house
got its Laconic name, Alcibiades being the family name of Endius. Nevertheless
the Lacedaemonians first sent to Chios Phrynis, one of the Perioeci, to see whether
they had as many ships as they said, and whether their city generally was as great
as was reported; and upon his bringing word that they had been told the truth,
immediately entered into alliance with the Chians and Erythraeans, and voted to
send them forty ships, there being already, according to the statement of the
Chians, not less than sixty in the island. At first the Lacedaemonians meant to
send ten of these forty themselves, with Melanchridas their admiral; but afterwards,
an earthquake having occurred, they sent Chalcideus instead of Melanchridas, and
instead of the ten ships equipped only five in Laconia. And the winter ended,
and with it ended also the nineteenth year of this war of which Thucydides is
the historian.
At the beginning of the next summer the Chians were urging that the fleet should
be sent off, being afraid that the Athenians, from whom all these embassies were
kept a secret, might find out what was going on, and the Lacedaemonians at once
sent three Spartans to Corinth to haul the ships as quickly as possible across
the Isthmus from the other sea to that on the side of Athens, and to order them
all to sail to Chios, those which Agis was equipping for Lesbos not excepted.
The number of ships from the allied states was thirty-nine in all.
Meanwhile Calligeitus and Timagoras did not join on behalf of Pharnabazus in
the expedition to Chios or give the money- twenty-five talents- which they had
brought with them to help in dispatching a force, but determined to sail afterwards
with another force by themselves. Agis, on the other hand, seeing the Lacedaemonians
bent upon going to Chios first, himself came in to their views; and the allies
assembled at Corinth and held a council, in which they decided to sail first to
Chios under the command of Chalcideus, who was equipping the five vessels in Laconia,
then to Lesbos, under the command of Alcamenes, the same whom Agis had fixed upon,
and lastly to go to the Hellespont, where the command was given to Clearchus,
son of Ramphias. Meanwhile they would take only half the ships across the Isthmus
first, and let those sail off at once, in order that the Athenians might attend
less to the departing squadron than to those to be taken across afterwards, as
no care had been taken to keep this voyage secret through contempt of the impotence
of the Athenians, who had as yet no fleet of any account upon the sea. Agreeably
to this determination, twenty-one vessels were at once conveyed across the Isthmus.
They were now impatient to set sail, but the Corinthians were not willing to
accompany them until they had celebrated the Isthmian festival, which fell at
that time. Upon this Agis proposed to them to save their scruples about breaking
the Isthmian truce by taking the expedition upon himself. The Corinthians not
consenting to this, a delay ensued, during which the Athenians conceived suspicions
of what was preparing at Chios, and sent Aristocrates, one of their generals,
and charged them with the fact, and, upon the denial of the Chians, ordered them
to send with them a contingent of ships, as faithful confederates. Seven were
sent accordingly. The reason of the dispatch of the ships lay in the fact that
the mass of the Chians were not privy to the negotiations, while the few who were
in the secret did not wish to break with the multitude until they had something
positive to lean upon, and no longer expected the Peloponnesians to arrive by
reason of their delay.
In the meantime the Isthmian games took place, and the Athenians, who had been
also invited, went to attend them, and now seeing more clearly into the designs
of the Chians, as soon as they returned to Athens took measures to prevent the
fleet putting out from Cenchreae without their knowledge. After the festival the
Peloponnesians set sail with twenty-one ships for Chios, under the command of
Alcamenes. The Athenians first sailed against them with an equal number, drawing
off towards the open sea. The enemy, however, turning back before he had followed
them far, the Athenians returned also, not trusting the seven Chian ships which
formed part of their number, and afterwards manned thirty-seven vessels in all
and chased him on his passage alongshore into Spiraeum, a desert Corinthian port
on the edge of the Epidaurian frontier. After losing one ship out at sea, the
Peloponnesians got the rest together and brought them to anchor. The Athenians
now attacked not only from the sea with their fleet, but also disembarked upon
the coast; and a melee ensued of the most confused and violent kind, in which
the Athenians disabled most of the enemy's vessels and killed Alcamenes their
commander, losing also a few of their own men.
After this they separated, and the Athenians, detaching a sufficient number
of ships to blockade those of the enemy, anchored with the rest at the islet adjacent,
upon whkh they proceeded to encamp, and sent to Athens for reinforcements; the
Peloponnesians having been joined on the day after the battle by the Corinthians,
who came to help the ships, and by the other inhabitants in the vicinity not long
afterwards. These saw the difficulty of keeping guard in a desert place, and in
their perplexity at first thought of burning the ships, but finally resolved to
haul them up on shore and sit down and guard them with their land forces until
a convenient opportunity for escaping should present itself. Agis also, on being
informed of the disaster, sent them a Spartan of the name of Thermon. The Lacedaemonians
first received the news of the fleet having put out from the Isthmus, Alcamenes
having been ordered by the ephors to send off a horseman when this took place,
and immediately resolved to dispatch their own five vessels under Chalcideus,
and Alcibiades with him. But while they were full of this resolution came the
second news of the fleet having taken refuge in Spiraeum; and disheartened at
their first step in the Ionian war proving a failure, they laid aside the idea
of sending the ships from their own country, and even wished to recall some that
had already sailed.
Perceiving this, Alcibiades again persuaded Endius and the other ephors to
persevere in the expedition, saying that the voyage would be made before the Chians
heard of the fleet's misfortune, and that as soon as he set foot in Ionia, he
should, by assuring them of the weakness of the Athenians and the zeal of Lacedaemon,
have no difficulty in persuading the cities to revolt, as they would readily believe
his testimony. He also represented to Endius himself in private that it would
be glorious for him to be the means of making Ionia revolt and the King become
the ally of Lacedaemon, instead of that honour being left to Agis (Agis, it must
be remembered, was the enemy of Alcibiades); and Endius and his colleagues thus
persuaded, he put to sea with the five ships and the Lacedaemonian Chalcideus,
and made all haste upon the voyage.
About this time the sixteen Peloponnesian ships from Sicily, which had served
through the war with Gylippus, were caught on their return off Leucadia and roughly
handled by the twenty-seven Athenian vessels under Hippocles, son of Menippus,
on the lookout for the ships from Sicily. After losing one of their number, the
rest escaped from the Athenians and sailed into Corinth.
Meanwhile Chalcideus and Alcibiades seized all they met with on their voyage,
to prevent news of their coming, and let them go at Corycus, the first point which
they touched at in the continent. Here they were visited by some of their Chian
correspondents and, being urged by them to sail up to the town without announcing
their coming, arrived suddenly before Chios. The many were amazed and confounded,
while the few had so arranged that the council should be sitting at the time;
and after speeches from Chalcideus and Alcibiades stating that many more ships
were sailing up, but saying nothing of the fleet being blockaded in Spiraeum,
the Chians revolted from the Athenians, and the Erythraeans immediately afterwards.
After this three vessels sailed over to Clazomenae, and made that city revolt
also; and the Clazomenians immediately crossed over to the mainland and began
to fortify Polichna, in order to retreat there, in case of necessity, from the
island where they dwelt.
While the revolted places were all engaged in fortifying and preparing for
the war, news of Chios speedily reached Athens. The Athenians thought the danger
by which they were now menaced great and unmistakable, and that the rest of their
allies would not consent to keep quiet after the secession of the greatest of
their number. In the consternation of the moment they at once took off the penalty
attaching to whoever proposed or put to the vote a proposal for using the thousand
talents which they had jealously avoided touching throughout the whole war, and
voted to employ them to man a large number of ships, and to send off at once under
Strombichides, son of Diotimus, the eight vessels, forming part of the blockading
fleet at Spiraeum, which had left the blockade and had returned after pursuing
and failing to overtake the vessels with Chalcideus. These were to be followed
shortly afterwards by twelve more under Thrasycles, also taken from the blockade.
They also recalled the seven Chian vessels, forming part of their squadron blockading
the fleet in Spiraeum, and giving the slaves on board their liberty, put the freemen
in confinement, and speedily manned and sent out ten fresh ships to blockade the
Peloponnesians in the place of all those that had departed, and decided to man
thirty more. Zeal was not wanting, and no effort was spared to send relief to
Chios.
In the meantime Strombichides with his eight ships arrived at Samos, and, taking
one Samian vessel, sailed to Teos and required them to remain quiet. Chalcideus
also set sail with twenty-three ships for Teos from Chios, the land forces of
the Clazomenians and Erythraeans moving alongshore to support him. Informed of
this in time, Strombichides put out from Teos before their arrival, and while
out at sea, seeing the number of the ships from Chios, fled towards Samos, chased
by the enemy. The Teians at first would not receive the land forces, but upon
the flight of the Athenians took them into the town. There they waited for some
time for Chalcideus to return from the pursuit, and as time went on without his
appearing, began themselves to demolish the wall which the Athenians had built
on the land side of the city of the Teians, being assisted by a few of the barbarians
who had come up under the command of Stages, the lieutenant of Tissaphernes.
Meanwhile Chalcideus and Alcibiades, after chasing Strombichides into Samos,
armed the crews of the ships from Peloponnese and left them at Chios, and filling
their places with substitutes from Chios and manning twenty others, sailed off
to effect the revolt of Miletus. The wish of Alcibiades, who had friends among
the leading men of the Milesians, was to bring over the town before the arrival
of the ships from Peloponnese, and thus, by causing the revolt of as many cities
as possible with the help of the Chian power and of Chalcideus, to secure the
honour for the Chians and himself and Chalcideus, and, as he had promised, for
Endius who had sent them out. Not discovered until their voyage was nearly completed,
they arrived a little before Strombichides and Thrasycles (who had just come with
twelve ships from Athens, and had joined Strombichides in pursuing them), and
occasioned the revolt of Miletus. The Athenians sailing up close on their heels
with nineteen ships found Miletus closed against them, and took up their station
at the adjacent island of Lade. The first alliance between the King and the Lacedaemonians
was now concluded immediately upon the revolt of the Milesians, by Tissaphernes
and Chalcideus, and was as follows:
The Lacedaemonians and their allies made a treaty with the King and Tissaphernes
upon the terms following:
1. Whatever country or cities the King has, or the King's ancestors had, shall
be the king's: and whatever came in to the Athenians from these cities, either
money or any other thing, the King and the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall
jointly hinder the Athenians from receiving either money or any other thing.
2. The war with the Athenians shall be carried on jointly by the King and by
the Lacedaemonians and their allies: and it shall not be lawful to make peace
with the Athenians except both agree, the King on his side and the Lacedaemonians
and their allies on theirs.
3. If any revolt from the King, they shall be the enemies of the Lacedaemonians
and their allies. And if any revolt from the Lacedaemonians and their allies,
they shall be the enemies of the King in like manner.
This was the alliance. After this the Chians immediately manned ten more vessels
and sailed for Anaia, in order to gain intelligence of those in Miletus, and also
to make the cities revolt. A message, however, reaching them from Chalcideus to
tell them to go back again, and that Amorges was at hand with an army by land,
they sailed to the temple of Zeus, and there sighting ten more ships sailing up
with which Diomedon had started from Athens after Thrasycles, fled, one ship to
Ephesus, the rest to Teos. The Athenians took four of their ships empty, the men
finding time to escape ashore; the rest took refuge in the city of the Teians;
after which the Athenians sailed off to Samos, while the Chians put to sea with
their remaining vessels, accompanied by the land forces, and caused Lebedos to
revolt, and after it Erae. After this they both returned home, the fleet and the
army.
About the same time the twenty ships of the Peloponnesians in Spiraeum, which
we left chased to land and blockaded by an equal number of Athenians, suddenly
sallied out and defeated the blockading squadron, took four of their ships, and,
sailing back to Cenchreae, prepared again for the voyage to Chios and Ionia. Here
they were joined by Astyochus as high admiral from Lacedaemon, henceforth invested
with the supreme command at sea. The land forces now withdrawing from Teos, Tissaphernes
repaired thither in person with an army and completed the demolition of anything
that was left of the wall, and so departed. Not long after his departure Diomedon
arrived with ten Athenian ships, and, having made a convention by which the Teians
admitted him as they had the enemy, coasted along to Erae, and, failing in an
attempt upon the town, sailed back again.
About this time took place the rising of the commons at Samos against the upper
classes, in concert with some Athenians, who were there in three vessels. The
Samian commons put to death some two hundred in all of the upper classes, and
banished four hundred more, and themselves took their land and houses; after which
the Athenians decreed their independence, being now sure of their fidelity, and
the commons henceforth governed the city, excluding the landholders from all share
in affairs, and forbidding any of the commons to give his daughter in marriage
to them or to take a wife from them in future.
After this, during the same summer, the Chians, whose zeal continued as active
as ever, and who even without the Peloponnesians found themselves in sufficient
force to effect the revolt of the cities and also wished to have as many companions
in peril as possible, made an expedition with thirteen ships of their own to Lesbos;
the instructions from Lacedaemon being to go to that island next, and from thence
to the Hellespont. Meanwhile the land forces of the Peloponnesians who were with
the Chians and of the allies on the spot, moved alongshore for Clazomenae and
Cuma, under the command of Eualas, a Spartan; while the fleet under Diniadas,
one of the Perioeci, first sailed up to Methymna and caused it to revolt, and,
leaving four ships there, with the rest procured the revolt of Mitylene.
In the meantime Astyochus, the Lacedaemonian admiral, set sail from Cenchreae
with four ships, as he had intended, and arrived at Chios. On the third day after
his arrival, the Athenian ships, twenty-five in number, sailed to Lesbos under
Diomedon and Leon, who had lately arrived with a reinforcement of ten ships from
Athens. Late in the same day Astyochus put to sea, and taking one Chian vessel
with him sailed to Lesbos to render what assistance he could. Arrived at Pyrrha,
and from thence the next day at Eresus, he there learned that Mitylene had been
taken, almost without a blow, by the Athenians, who had sailed up and unexpectedly
put into the harbour, had beaten the Chian ships, and landing and defeating the
troops opposed to them had become masters of the city. Informed of this by the
Eresians and the Chian ships, which had been left with Eubulus at Methymna, and
had fled upon the capture of Mitylene, and three of which he now fell in with,
one having been taken by the Athenians, Astyochus did not go on to Mitylene, but
raised and armed Eresus, and, sending the heavy infantry from his own ships by
land under Eteonicus to Antissa and Methymna, himself proceeded alongshore thither
with the ships which he had with him and with the three Chians, in the hope that
the Methymnians upon seeing them would be encouraged to persevere in their revolt.
As, however, everything went against him in Lesbos, he took up his own force and
sailed back to Chios; the land forces on board, which were to have gone to the
Hellespont, being also conveyed back to their different cities. After this six
of the allied Peloponnesian ships at Cenchreae joined the forces at Chios. The
Athenians, after restoring matters to their old state in Lesbos, set sail from
thence and took Polichna, the place that the Clazomenians were fortifying on the
continent, and carried the inhabitants back to their town upon the island, except
the authors of the revolt, who withdrew to Daphnus; and thus Clazomenae became
once more Athenian.
The same summer the Athenians in the twenty ships at Lade, blockading Miletus,
made a descent at Panormus in the Milesian territory, and killed Chalcideus the
Lacedaemonian commander, who had come with a few men against them, and the third
day after sailed over and set up a trophy, which, as they were not masters of
the country, was however pulled down by the Milesians. Meanwhile Leon and Diomedon
with the Athenian fleet from Lesbos issuing from the Oenussae, the isles off Chios,
and from their forts of Sidussa and Pteleum in the Erythraeid, and from Lesbos,
carried on the war against the Chians from the ships, having on board heavy infantry
from the rolls pressed to serve as marines. Landing in Cardamyle and in Bolissus
they defeated with heavy loss the Chians that took the field against them and,
laying desolate the places in that neighbourhood, defeated the Chians again in
another battle at Phanae, and in a third at Leuconium. After this the Chians ceased
to meet them in the field, while the Athenians devastated the country, which was
beautifully stocked and had remained uninjured ever since the Median wars. Indeed,
after the Lacedaemonians, the Chians are the only people that I have known who
knew how to be wise in prosperity, and who ordered their city the more securely
the greater it grew. Nor was this revolt, in which they might seem to have erred
on the side of rashness, ventured upon until they had numerous and gallant allies
to share the danger with them, and until they perceived the Athenians after the
Sicilian disaster themselves no longer denying the thoroughly desperate state
of their affairs. And if they were thrown out by one of the surprises which upset
human calculations, they found out their mistake in company with many others who
believed, like them, in the speedy collapse of the Athenian power. While they
were thus blockaded from the sea and plundered by land, some of the citizens undertook
to bring the city over to the Athenians. Apprised of this the authorities took
no action themselves, but brought Astyochus, the admiral, from Erythrae, with
four ships that he had with him, and considered how they could most quietly, either
by taking hostages or by some other means, put an end to the conspiracy.
While the Chians were thus engaged, a thousand Athenian heavy infantry and
fifteen hundred Argives (five hundred of whom were light troops furnished with
armour by the Athenians), and one thousand of the allies, towards the close of
the same summer sailed from Athens in forty-eight ships, some of which were transports,
under the command of Phrynichus, Onomacles, and Scironides, and putting into Samos
crossed over and encamped at Miletus. Upon this the Milesians came out to the
number of eight hundred heavy infantry, with the Peloponnesians who had come with
Chalcideus, and some foreign mercenaries of Tissaphernes, Tissaphernes himself
and his cavalry, and engaged the Athenians and their allies. While the Argives
rushed forward on their own wing with the careless disdain of men advancing against
Ionians who would never stand their charge, and were defeated by the Milesians
with a loss little short of three hundred men, the Athenians first defeated the
Peloponnesians, and driving before them the barbarians and the ruck of the army,
without engaging the Milesians, who after the rout of the Argives retreated into
the town upon seeing their comrades worsted, crowned their victory by grounding
their arms under the very walls of Miletus. Thus, in this battle, the Ionians
on both sides overcame the Dorians, the Athenians defeating the Peloponnesians
opposed to them, and the Milesians the Argives. After setting up a trophy, the
Athenians prepared to draw a wall round the place, which stood upon an isthmus;
thinking that, if they could gain Miletus, the other towns also would easily come
over to them.
Meanwhile about dusk tidings reached them that the fifty-five ships from Peloponnese
and Sicily might be instantly expected. Of these the Siceliots, urged principally
by the Syracusan Hermocrates to join in giving the finishing blow to the power
of Athens, furnished twenty-two- twenty from Syracuse, and two from Silenus; and
the ships that we left preparing in Peloponnese being now ready, both squadrons
had been entrusted to Therimenes, a Lacedaemonian, to take to Astyochus, the admiral.
They now put in first at Leros the island off Miletus, and from thence, discovering
that the Athenians were before the town, sailed into the Iasic Gulf, in order
to learn how matters stood at Miletus. Meanwhile Alcibiades came on horseback
to Teichiussa in the Milesian territory, the point of the gulf at which they had
put in for the night, and told them of the battle in which he had fought in person
by the side of the Milesians and Tissaphernes, and advised them, if they did not
wish to sacrifice Ionia and their cause, to fly to the relief of Miletus and hinder
its investment.
Accordingly they resolved to relieve it the next morning. Meanwhile Phrynichus,
the Athenian commander, had received precise intelligence of the fleet from Leros,
and when his colleagues expressed a wish to keep the sea and fight it out, flatly
refused either to stay himself or to let them or any one else do so if he could
help it. Where they could hereafter contend, after full and undisturbed preparation,
with an exact knowledge of the number of the enemy's fleet and of the force which
they could oppose to him, he would never allow the reproach of disgrace to drive
him into a risk that was unreasonable. It was no disgrace for an Athenian fleet
to retreat when it suited them: put it as they would, it would be more disgraceful
to be beaten, and to expose the city not only to disgrace, but to the most serious
danger. After its late misfortunes it could hardly be justified in voluntarily
taking the offensive even with the strongest force, except in a case of absolute
necessity: much less then without compulsion could it rush upon peril of its own
seeking. He told them to take up their wounded as quickly as they could and the
troops and stores which they had brought with them, and leaving behind what they
had taken from the enemy's country, in order to lighten the ships, to sail off
to Samos, and there concentrating all their ships to attack as opportunity served.
As he spoke so he acted; and thus not now more than afterwards, nor in this alone
but in all that he had to do with, did Phrynichus show himself a man of sense.
In this way that very evening the Athenians broke up from before Miletus, leaving
their victory unfinished, and the Argives, mortified at their disaster, promptly
sailed off home from Samos.
As soon as it was morning the Peloponnesians weighed from Teichiussa and put
into Miletus after the departure of the Athenians; they stayed one day, and on
the next took with them the Chian vessels originally chased into port with Chalcideus,
and resolved to sail back for the tackle which they had put on shore at Teichiussa.
Upon their arrival Tissaphernes came to them with his land forces and induced
them to sail to Iasus, which was held by his enemy Amorges. Accordingly they suddenly
attacked and took Iasus, whose inhabitants never imagined that the ships could
be other than Athenian. The Syracusans distinguished themselves most in the action.
Amorges, a bastard of Pissuthnes and a rebel from the King, was taken alive and
handed over to Tissaphernes, to carry to the King, if he chose, according to his
orders: Iasus was sacked by the army, who found a very great booty there, the
place being wealthy from ancient date. The mercenaries serving with Amorges the
Peloponnesians received and enrolled in their army without doing them any harm,
since most of them came from Peloponnese, and handed over the town to Tissaphernes
with all the captives, bond or free, at the stipulated price of one Doric stater
a head; after which they returned to Miletus. Pedaritus, son of Leon, who had
been sent by the Lacedaemonians to take the command at Chios, they dispatched
by land as far as Erythrae with the mercenaries taken from Amorges; appointing
Philip to remain as governor of Miletus.
Summer was now over. The winter following, Tissaphernes put Iasus in a state
of defence, and passing on to Miletus distributed a month's pay to all the ships
as he had promised at Lacedaemon, at the rate of an Attic drachma a day for each
man. In future, however, he was resolved not to give more than three obols, until
he had consulted the King; when if the King should so order he would give, he
said, the full drachma. However, upon the protest of the Syracusan general Hermocrates
(for as Therimenes was not admiral, but only accompanied them in order to hand
over the ships to Astyochus, he made little difficulty about the pay), it was
agreed that the amount of five ships' pay should be given over and above the three
obols a day for each man; Tissaphernes paying thirty talents a month for fifty-five
ships, and to the rest, for as many ships as they had beyond that number, at the
same rate.
The same winter the Athenians in Samos, having been joined by thirty-five more
vessels from home under Charminus, Strombichides, and Euctemon, called in their
squadron at Chios and all the rest, intending to blockade Miletus with their navy,
and to send a fleet and an army against Chios; drawing lots for the respective
services. This intention they carried into effect; Strombichides, Onamacles, and
Euctemon sailing against Chios, which fell to their lot, with thirty ships and
a part of the thousand heavy infantry, who had been to Miletus, in transports;
while the rest remained masters of the sea with seventy-four ships at Samos, and
advanced upon Miletus.
Meanwhile Astyochus, whom we left at Chios collecting the hostages required
in consequence of the conspiracy, stopped upon learning that the fleet with Therimenes
had arrived, and that the affairs of the league were in a more flourishing condition,
and putting out to sea with ten Peloponnesian and as many Chian vessels, after
a futile attack upon Pteleum, coasted on to Clazomenae, and ordered the Athenian
party to remove inland to Daphnus, and to join the Peloponnesians, an order in
which also joined Tamos the king's lieutenant in Ionia. This order being disregarded,
Astyochus made an attack upon the town, which was unwalled, and having failed
to take it was himself carried off by a strong gale to Phocaea and Cuma, while
the rest of the ships put in at the islands adjacent to Clazomenae- Marathussa,
Pele, and Drymussa. Here they were detained eight days by the winds, and, plundering
and consuming all the property of the Clazomenians there deposited, put the rest
on shipboard and sailed off to Phocaea and Cuma to join Astyochus.
While he was there, envoys arrived from the Lesbians who wished to revolt again.
With Astyochus they were successful; but the Corinthians and the other allies
being averse to it by reason of their former failure, he weighed anchor and set
sail for Chios, where they eventually arrived from different quarters, the fleet
having been scattered by a storm. After this Pedaritus, whom we left marching
along the coast from Miletus, arrived at Erythrae, and thence crossed over with
his army to Chios, where he found also about five hundred soldiers who had been
left there by Chalcideus from the five ships with their arms. Meanwhile some Lesbians
making offers to revolt, Astyochus urged upon Pedaritus and the Chians that they
ought to go with their ships and effect the revolt of Lesbos, and so increase
the number of their allies, or, if not successful, at all events harm the Athenians.
The Chians, however, turned a deaf ear to this, and Pedaritus flatly refused to
give up to him the Chian vessels.
Upon this Astyochus took five Corinthian and one Megarian vessel, with another
from Hermione, and the ships which had come with him from Laconia, and set sail
for Miletus to assume his command as admiral; after telling the Chians with many
threats that he would certainly not come and help them if they should be in need.
At Corycus in the Erythraeid he brought to for the night; the Athenian armament
sailing from Samos against Chios being only separated from him by a hill, upon
the other side of which it brought to; so that neither perceived the other. But
a letter arriving in the night from Pedaritus to say that some liberated Erythraean
prisoners had come from Samos to betray Erythrae, Astyochus at once put back to
Erythrae, and so just escaped falling in with the Athenians. Here Pedaritus sailed
over to join him; and after inquiry into the pretended treachery, finding that
the whole story had been made up to procure the escape of the men from Samos,
they acquitted them of the charge, and sailed away, Pedaritus to Chios and Astyochus
to Miletus as he had intended.
Meanwhile the Athenian armament sailing round Corycus fell in with three Chian
men-of-war off Arginus, and gave immediate chase. A great storm coming on, the
Chians with difficulty took refuge in the harbour; the three Athenian vessels
most forward in the pursuit being wrecked and thrown up near the city of Chios,
and the crews slain or taken prisoners. The rest of the Athenian fleet took refuge
in the harbour called Phoenicus, under Mount Mimas, and from thence afterwards
put into Lesbos and prepared for the work of fortification.
The same winter the Lacedaemonian Hippocrates sailed out from Peloponnese with
ten Thurian ships under the command of Dorieus, son of Diagoras, and two colleagues,
one Laconian and one Syracusan vessel, and arrived at Cnidus, which had already
revolted at the instigation of Tissaphernes. When their arrival was known at Miletus,
orders came to them to leave half their squadron to guard Cnidus, and with the
rest to cruise round Triopium and seize all the merchantmen arriving from Egypt.
Triopium is a promontory of Cnidus and sacred to Apollo. This coming to the knowledge
of the Athenians, they sailed from Samos and captured the six ships on the watch
at Triopium, the crews escaping out of them. After this the Athenians sailed into
Cnidus and made an assault upon the town, which was unfortified, and all but took
it; and the next day assaulted it again, but with less effect, as the inhabitants
had improved their defences during the night, and had been reinforced by the crews
escaped from the ships at Triopium. The Athenians now withdrew, and after plundering
the Cnidian territory sailed back to Samos.
About the same time Astyochus came to the fleet at Miletus. The Peloponnesian
camp was still plentifully supplied, being in receipt of sufficient pay, and the
soldiers having still in hand the large booty taken at Iasus. The Milesians also
showed great ardour for the war. Nevertheless the Peloponnesians thought the first
convention with Tissaphernes, made with Chalcideus, defective, and more advantageous
to him than to them, and consequently while Therimenes was still there concluded
another, which was as follows:
The convention of the Lacedaemonians and the allies with King Darius and the
sons of the King, and with Tissaphernes for a treaty and friendship, as follows:
1. Neither the Lacedaemonians nor the allies of the Lacedaemonians shall make
war against or otherwise injure any country or cities that belong to King Darius
or did belong to his father or to his ancestors; neither shall the Lacedaemonians
nor the allies of the Lacedaemonians exact tribute from such cities. Neither shall
King Darius nor any of the subjects of the King make war against or otherwise
injure the Lacedaemonians or their allies.
2. If the Lacedaemonians or their allies should require any assistance from
the King, or the King from the Lacedaemonians or their allies, whatever they both
agree upon they shall be right in doing.
3. Both shall carry on jointly the war against the Athenians and their allies:
and if they make peace, both shall do so jointly.
4. The expense of all troops in the King's country, sent for by the King, shall
be borne by the King.
5. If any of the states comprised in this convention with the King attack the
King's country, the rest shall stop them and aid the King to the best of their
power. And if any in the King's country or in the countries under the King's rule
attack the country of the Lacedaemonians or their allies, the King shall stop
it and help them to the best of his power.
After this convention Therimenes handed over the fleet to Astyochus, sailed
off in a small boat, and was lost. The Athenian armament had now crossed over
from Lesbos to Chios, and being master by sea and land began to fortify Delphinium,
a place naturally strong on the land side, provided with more than one harbour,
and also not far from the city of Chios. Meanwhile the Chians remained inactive.
Already defeated in so many battles, they were now also at discord among themselves;
the execution of the party of Tydeus, son of Ion, by Pedaritus upon the charge
of Atticism, followed by the forcible imposition of an oligarchy upon the rest
of the city, having made them suspicious of one another; and they therefore thought
neither themselves not the mercenaries under Pedaritus a match for the enemy.
They sent, however, to Miletus to beg Astyochus to assist them, which he refused
to do, and was accordingly denounced at Lacedaemon by Pedaritus as a traitor.
Such was the state of the Athenian affairs at Chios; while their fleet at Samos
kept sailing out against the enemy in Miletus, until they found that he would
not accept their challenge, and then retired again to Samos and remained quiet.
In the same winter the twenty-seven ships equipped by the Lacedaemonians for
Pharnabazus through the agency of the Megarian Calligeitus, and the Cyzicene Timagoras,
put out from Peloponnese and sailed for Ionia about the time of the solstice,
under the command of Antisthenes, a Spartan. With them the Lacedaemonians also
sent eleven Spartans as advisers to Astyochus; Lichas, son of Arcesilaus, being
among the number. Arrived at Miletus, their orders were to aid in generally superintending
the good conduct of the war; to send off the above ships or a greater or less
number to the Hellespont to Pharnabazus, if they thought proper, appointing Clearchus,
son of Ramphias, who sailed with them, to the command; and further, if they thought
proper, to make Antisthenes admiral, dismissing Astyochus, whom the letters of
Pedaritus had caused to be regarded with suspicion. Sailing accordingly from Malea
across the open sea, the squadron touched at Melos and there fell in with ten
Athenian ships, three of which they took empty and burned. After this, being afraid
that the Athenian vessels escaped from Melos might, as they in fact did, give
information of their approach to the Athenians at Samos, they sailed to Crete,
and having lengthened their voyage by way of precaution made land at Caunus in
Asia, from whence considering themselves in safety they sent a message to the
fleet at Miletus for a convoy along the coast.
Meanwhile the Chians and Pedaritus, undeterred by the backwardness of Astyochus,
went on sending messengers pressing him to come with all the fleet to assist them
against their besiegers, and not to leave the greatest of the allied states in
Ionia to be shut up by sea and overrun and pillaged by land. There were more slaves
at Chios than in any one other city except Lacedaemon, and being also by reason
of their numbers punished more rigorously when they offended, most of them, when
they saw the Athenian armament firmly established in the island with a fortified
position, immediately deserted to the enemy, and through their knowledge of the
country did the greatest mischief. The Chians therefore urged upon Astyochus that
it was his duty to assist them, while there was still a hope and a possibility
of stopping the enemy's progress, while Delphinium was still in process of fortification
and unfinished, and before the completion of a higher rampart which was being
added to protect the camp and fleet of their besiegers. Astyochus now saw that
the allies also wished it and prepared to go, in spite of his intention to the
contrary owing to the threat already referred to.
In the meantime news came from Caunus of the arrival of the twenty-seven ships
with the Lacedaemonian commissioners; and Astyochus, postponing everything to
the duty of convoying a fleet of that importance, in order to be more able to
command the sea, and to the safe conduct of the Lacedaemonians sent as spies over
his behaviour, at once gave up going to Chios and set sail for Caunus. As he coasted
along he landed at the Meropid Cos and sacked the city, which was unfortified
and had been lately laid in ruins by an earthquake, by far the greatest in living
memory, and, as the inhabitants had fled to the mountains, overran the country
and made booty of all it contained, letting go, however, the free men. From Cos
arriving in the night at Cnidus he was constrained by the representations of the
Cnidians not to disembark the sailors, but to sail as he was straight against
the twenty Athenian vessels, which with Charminus, one of the commanders at Samos,
were on the watch for the very twenty-seven ships from Peloponnese which Astyochus
was himself sailing to join; the Athenians in Samos having heard from Melos of
their approach, and Charminus being on the look-out off Syme, Chalce, Rhodes,
and Lycia, as he now heard that they were at Caunus.
Astyochus accordingly sailed as he was to Syme, before he was heard of, in
the hope of catching the enemy somewhere out at sea. Rain, however, and foggy
weather encountered him, and caused his ships to straggle and get into disorder
in the dark. In the morning his fleet had parted company and was most of it still
straggling round the island, and the left wing only in sight of Charminus and
the Athenians, who took it for the squadron which they were watching for from
Caunus, and hastily put out against it with part only of their twenty vessels,
and attacking immediately sank three ships and disabled others, and had the advantage
in the action until the main body of the fleet unexpectedly hove in sight, when
they were surrounded on every side. Upon this they took to flight, and after losing
six ships with the rest escaped to Teutlussa or Beet Island, and from thence to
Halicarnassus. After this the Peloponnesians put into Cnidus and, being joined
by the twenty-seven ships from Caunus, sailed all together and set up a trophy
in Syme, and then returned to anchor at Cnidus.
As soon as the Athenians knew of the sea-fight, they sailed with all the ships
at Samos to Syme, and, without attacking or being attacked by the fleet at Cnidus,
took the ships' tackle left at Syme, and touching at Lorymi on the mainland sailed
back to Samos. Meanwhile the Peloponnesian ships, being now all at Cnidus, underwent
such repairs as were needed; while the eleven Lacedaemonian commissioners conferred
with Tissaphernes, who had come to meet them, upon the points which did not satisfy
them in the past transactions, and upon the best and mutually most advantageous
manner of conducting the war in future. The severest critic of the present proceedings
was Lichas, who said that neither of the treaties could stand, neither that of
Chalcideus, nor that of Therimenes; it being monstrous that the King should at
this date pretend to the possession of all the country formerly ruled by himself
or by his ancestors- a pretension which implicitly put back under the yoke all
the islands- Thessaly, Locris, and everything as far as Boeotia- and made the
Lacedaemonians give to the Hellenes instead of liberty a Median master. He therefore
invited Tissaphernes to conclude another and a better treaty, as they certainly
would not recognize those existing and did not want any of his pay upon such conditions.
This offended Tissaphernes so much that he went away in a rage without settling
anything.
Chapter XXV
Twentieth and Twenty - first Years of the War - Intrigues of Alcibiades - Withdrawal
of the Persian Subsidies - Oligarchical Coup d'Etat at Athens - Patriotism of
the Army at Samos.
The Peloponnesians now determined to sail to Rhodes, upon the invitation of
some of the principal men there, hoping to gain an island powerful by the number
of its seamen and by its land forces, and also thinking that they would be able
to maintain their fleet from their own confederacy, without having to ask for
money from Tissaphernes. They accordingly at once set sail that same winter from
Cnidus, and first put in with ninety-four ships at Camirus in the Rhodian country,
to the great alarm of the mass of the inhabitants, who were not privy to the intrigue,
and who consequently fled, especially as the town was unfortified. They were afterwards,
however, assembled by the Lacedaemonians together with the inhabitants of the
two other towns of Lindus and Ialysus; and the Rhodians were persuaded to revolt
from the Athenians and the island went over to the Peloponnesians. Meanwhile the
Athenians had received the alarm and set sail with the fleet from Samos to forestall
them, and came within sight of the island, but being a little too late sailed
off for the moment to Chalce, and from thence to Samos, and subsequently waged
war against Rhodes, issuing from Chalce, Cos, and Samos.
The Peloponnesians now levied a contribution of thirty-two talents from the
Rhodians, after which they hauled their ships ashore and for eighty days remained
inactive. During this time, and even earlier, before they removed to Rhodes, the
following intrigues took place. After the death of Chalcideus and the battle at
Miletus, Alcibiades began to be suspected by the Peloponnesians; and Astyochus
received from Lacedaemon an order from them to put him to death, he being the
personal enemy of Agis, and in other respects thought unworthy of confidence.
Alcibiades in his alarm first withdrew to Tissaphernes, and immediately began
to do all he could with him to injure the Peloponnesian cause. Henceforth becoming
his adviser in everything, he cut down the pay from an Attic drachma to three
obols a day, and even this not paid too regularly; and told Tissaphernes to say
to the Peloponnesians that the Athenians, whose maritime experience was of an
older date than their own, only gave their men three obols, not so much from poverty
as to prevent their seamen being corrupted by being too well off, and injuring
their condition by spending money upon enervating indulgences, and also paid their
crews irregularly in order to have a security against their deserting in the arrears
which they would leave behind them. He also told Tissaphernes to bribe the captains
and generals of the cities, and so to obtain their connivance- an expedient which
succeeded with all except the Syracusans, Hermocrates alone opposing him on behalf
of the whole confederacy. Meanwhile the cities asking for money Alcibiades sent
off, by roundly telling them in the name of Tissaphernes that it was great impudence
in the Chians, the richest people in Hellas, not content with being defended by
a foreign force, to expect others to risk not only their lives but their money
as well in behalf of their freedom; while the other cities, he said, had had to
pay largely to Athens before their rebellion, and could not justly refuse to contribute
as much or even more now for their own selves. He also pointed out that Tissaphernes
was at present carrying on the war at his own charges, and had good cause for
economy, but that as soon as he received remittances from the king he would give
them their pay in full and do what was reasonable for the cities.
Alcibiades further advised Tissaphernes not to be in too great a hurry to end
the war, or to let himself be persuaded to bring up the Phoenician fleet which
he was equipping, or to provide pay for more Hellenes, and thus put the power
by land and sea into the same hands; but to leave each of the contending parties
in possession of one element, thus enabling the king when he found one troublesome
to call in the other. For if the command of the sea and land were united in one
hand, he would not know where to turn for help to overthrow the dominant power;
unless he at last chose to stand up himself, and go through with the struggle
at great expense and hazard. The cheapest plan was to let the Hellenes wear each
other out, at a small share of the expense and without risk to himself. Besides,
he would find the Athenians the most convenient partners in empire as they did
not aim at conquests on shore, and carried on the war upon principles and with
a practice most advantageous to the King; being prepared to combine to conquer
the sea for Athens, and for the King all the Hellenes inhabiting his country,
whom the Peloponnesians, on the contrary, had come to liberate. Now it was not
likely that the Lacedaemonians would free the Hellenes from the Hellenic Athenians,
without freeing them also from the barbarian Mede, unless overthrown by him in
the meanwhile. Alcibiades therefore urged him to wear them both out at first,
and, after docking the Athenian power as much as he could, forthwith to rid the
country of the Peloponnesians. In the main Tissaphernes approved of this policy,
so far at least as could be conjectured from his behaviour; since he now gave
his confidence to Alcibiades in recognition of his good advice, and kept the Peloponnesians
short of money, and would not let them fight at sea, but ruined their cause by
pretending that the Phoenician fleet would arrive, and that they would thus be
enabled to contend with the odds in their favour, and so made their navy lose
its efficiency, which had been very remarkable, and generally betrayed a coolness
in the war that was too plain to be mistaken.
Alcibiades gave this advice to Tissaphernes and the King, with whom he then
was, not merely because he thought it really the best, but because he was studying
means to effect his restoration to his country, well knowing that if he did not
destroy it he might one day hope to persuade the Athenians to recall him, and
thinking that his best chance of persuading them lay in letting them see that
he possessed the favour of Tissaphernes. The event proved him to be right. When
the Athenians at Samos found that he had influence with Tissaphernes, principally
of their own motion (though partly also through Alcibiades himself sending word
to their chief men to tell the best men in the army that, if there were only an
oligarchy in the place of the rascally democracy that had banished him, he would
be glad to return to his country and to make Tissaphernes their friend), the captains
and chief men in the armament at once embraced the idea of subverting the democracy.
The design was first mooted in the camp, and afterwards from thence reached
the city. Some persons crossed over from Samos and had an interview with Alcibiades,
who immediately offered to make first Tissaphernes, and afterwards the King, their
friend, if they would give up the democracy and make it possible for the King
to trust them. The higher class, who also suffered most severely from the war,
now conceived great hopes of getting the government into their own hands, and
of triumphing over the enemy. Upon their return to Samos the emissaries formed
their partisans into a club, and openly told the mass of the armament that the
King would be their friend, and would provide them with money, if Alcibiades were
restored and the democracy abolished. The multitude, if at first irritated by
these intrigues, were nevertheless kept quiet by the advantageous prospect of
the pay from the King; and the oligarchical conspirators, after making this communication
to the people, now re-examined the proposals of Alcibiades among themselves, with
most of their associates. Unlike the rest, who thought them advantageous and trustworthy,
Phrynichus, who was still general, by no means approved of the proposals. Alcibiades,
he rightly thought, cared no more for an oligarchy than for a democracy, and only
sought to change the institutions of his country in order to get himself recalled
by his associates; while for themselves their one object should be to avoid civil
discord. It was not the King's interest, when the Peloponnesians were now their
equals at sea, and in possession of some of the chief cities in his empire, to
go out of his way to side with the Athenians whom he did not trust, when he might
make friends of the Peloponnesians who had never injured him. And as for the allied
states to whom oligarchy was now offered, because the democracy was to be put
down at Athens, he well knew that this would not make the rebels come in any the
sooner, or confirm the loyal in their allegiance; as the allies would never prefer
servitude with an oligarchy or democracy to freedom with the constitution which
they actually enjoyed, to whichever type it belonged. Besides, the cities thought
that the so-called better classes would prove just as oppressive as the commons,
as being those who originated, proposed, and for the most part benefited from
the acts of the commons injurious to the confederates. Indeed, if it depended
on the better classes, the confederates would be put to death without trial and
with violence; while the commons were their refuge and the chastiser of these
men. This he positively knew that the cities had learned by experience, and that
such was their opinion. The propositions of Alcibiades, and the intrigues now
in progress, could therefore never meet with his approval.
However, the members of the club assembled, agreeably to their original determination,
accepted what was proposed, and prepared to send Pisander and others on an embassy
to Athens to treat for the restoration of Alcibiades and the abolition of the
democracy in the city, and thus to make Tissaphernes the friend of the Athenians.
Phrynichus now saw that there would be a proposal to restore Alcibiades, and
that the Athenians would consent to it; and fearing after what he had said against
it that Alcibiades, if restored, would revenge himself upon him for his opposition,
had recourse to the following expedient. He sent a secret letter to the Lacedaemonian
admiral Astyochus, who was still in the neighbourhood of Miletus, to tell him
that Alcibiades was ruining their cause by making Tissaphernes the friend of the
Athenians, and containing an express revelation of the rest of the intrigue, desiring
to be excused if he sought to harm his enemy even at the expense of the interests
of his country. However, Astyochus, instead of thinking of punishing Alcibiades,
who, besides, no longer ventured within his reach as formerly, went up to him
and Tissaphernes at Magnesia, communicated to them the letter from Samos, and
turned informer, and, if report may be trusted, became the paid creature of Tissaphernes,
undertaking to inform him as to this and all other matters; which was also the
reason why he did not remonstrate more strongly against the pay not being given
in full. Upon this Alcibiades instantly sent to the authorities at Samos a letter
against Phrynichus, stating what he had done, and requiring that he should be
put to death. Phrynichus distracted, and placed in the utmost peril by the denunciation,
sent again to Astyochus, reproaching him with having so ill kept the secret of
his previous letter, and saying that he was now prepared to give them an opportunity
of destroying the whole Athenian armament at Samos; giving a detailed account
of the means which he should employ, Samos being unfortified, and pleading that,
being in danger of his life on their account, he could not now be blamed for doing
this or anything else to escape being destroyed by his mortal enemies. This also
Astyochus revealed to Alcibiades.
Meanwhile Phrynichus having had timely notice that he was playing him false,
and that a letter on the subject was on the point of arriving from Alcibiades,
himself anticipated the news, and told the army that the enemy, seeing that Samos
was unfortified and the fleet not all stationed within the harbour, meant to attack
the camp, that he could be certain of this intelligence, and that they must fortify
Samos as quickly as possible, and generally look to their defences. It will be
remembered that he was general, and had himself authority to carry out these measures.
Accordingly they addressed themselves to the work of fortification, and Samos
was thus fortified sooner than it would otherwise have been. Not long afterwards
came the letter from Alcibiades, saying that the army was betrayed by Phrynichus,
and the enemy about to attack it. Alcibiades, however, gained no credit, it being
thought that he was in the secret of the enemy's designs, and had tried to fasten
them upon Phrynichus, and to make out that he was their accomplice, out of hatred;
and consequently far from hurting him he rather bore witness to what he had said
by this intelligence.
After this Alcibiades set to work to persuade Tissaphernes to become the friend
of the Athenians. Tissaphernes, although afraid of the Peloponnesians because
they had more ships in Asia than the Athenians, was yet disposed to be persuaded
if he could, especially after his quarrel with the Peloponnesians at Cnidus about
the treaty of Therimenes. The quarrel had already taken place, as the Peloponnesians
were by this time actually at Rhodes; and in it the original argument of Alcibiades
touching the liberation of all the towns by the Lacedaemonians had been verified
by the declaration of Lichas that it was impossible to submit to a convention
which made the King master of all the states at any former time ruled by himself
or by his fathers.
While Alcibiades was besieging the favour of Tissaphernes with an earnestness
proportioned to the greatness of the issue, the Athenian envoys who had been dispatched
from Samos with Pisander arrived at Athens, and made a speech before the people,
giving a brief summary of their views, and particularly insisting that, if Alcibiades
were recalled and the democratic constitution changed, they could have the King
as their ally, and would be able to overcome the Peloponnesians. A number of speakers
opposed them on the question of the democracy, the enemies of Alcibiades cried
out against the scandal of a restoration to be effected by a violation of the
constitution, and the Eumolpidae and Ceryces protested in behalf of the mysteries,
the cause of his banishment, and called upon the gods to avert his recall; when
Pisander, in the midst of much opposition and abuse, came forward, and taking
each of his opponents aside asked him the following question: In the face of the
fact that the Peloponnesians had as many ships as their own confronting them at
sea, more cities in alliance with them, and the King and Tissaphernes to supply
them with money, of which the Athenians had none left, had he any hope of saving
the state, unless someone could induce the King to come over to their side? Upon
their replying that they had not, he then plainly said to them: "This we cannot
have unless we have a more moderate form of government, and put the offices into
fewer hands, and so gain the King's confidence, and forthwith restore Alcibiades,
who is the only man living that can bring this about. The safety of the state,
not the form of its government, is for the moment the most pressing question,
as we can always change afterwards whatever we do not like."
The people were at first highly irritated at the mention of an oligarchy, but
upon understanding clearly from Pisander that this was the only resource left,
they took counsel of their fears, and promised themselves some day to change the
government again, and gave way. They accordingly voted that Pisander should sail
with ten others and make the best arrangement that they could with Tissaphernes
and Alcibiades. At the same time the people, upon a false accusation of Pisander,
dismissed Phrynichus from his post together with his colleague Scironides, sending
Diomedon and Leon to replace them in the command of the fleet. The accusation
was that Phrynichus had betrayed Iasus and Amorges; and Pisander brought it because
he thought him a man unfit for the business now in hand with Alcibiades. Pisander
also went the round of all the clubs already existing in the city for help in
lawsuits and elections, and urged them to draw together and to unite their efforts
for the overthrow of the democracy; and after taking all other measures required
by the circumstances, so that no time might be lost, set off with his ten companions
on his voyage to Tissaphernes.
In the same winter Leon and Diomedon, who had by this time joined the fleet,
made an attack upon Rhodes. The ships of the Peloponnesians they found hauled
up on shore, and, after making a descent upon the coast and defeating the Rhodians
who appeared in the field against them, withdrew to Chalce and made that place
their base of operations instead of Cos, as they could better observe from thence
if the Peloponnesian fleet put out to sea. Meanwhile Xenophantes, a Laconian,
came to Rhodes from Pedaritus at Chios, with the news that the fortification of
the Athenians was now finished, and that, unless the whole Peloponnesian fleet
came to the rescue, the cause in Chios must be lost. Upon this they resolved to
go to his relief. In the meantime Pedaritus, with the mercenaries that he had
with him and the whole force of the Chians, made an assault upon the work round
the Athenian ships and took a portion of it, and got possession of some vessels
that were hauled up on shore, when the Athenians sallied out to the rescue, and
first routing the Chians, next defeated the remainder of the force round Pedaritus,
who was himself killed, with many of the Chians, a great number of arms being
also taken.
After this the Chians were besieged even more straitly than before by land
and sea, and the famine in the place was great. Meanwhile the Athenian envoys
with Pisander arrived at the court of Tissaphernes, and conferred with him about
the proposed agreement. However, Alcibiades, not being altogether sure of Tissaphernes
(who feared the Peloponnesians more than the Athenians, and besides wished to
wear out both parties, as Alcibiades himself had recommended), had recourse to
the following stratagem to make the treaty between the Athenians and Tissaphernes
miscarry by reason of the magnitude of his demands. In my opinion Tissaphernes
desired this result, fear being his motive; while Alcibiades, who now saw that
Tissaphernes was determined not to treat on any terms, wished the Athenians to
think, not that he was unable to persuade Tissaphernes, but that after the latter
had been persuaded and was willing to join them, they had not conceded enough
to him. For the demands of Alcibiades, speaking for Tissaphernes, who was present,
were so extravagant that the Athenians, although for a long while they agreed
to whatever he asked, yet had to bear the blame of failure: he required the cession
of the whole of Ionia, next of the islands adjacent, besides other concessions,
and these passed without opposition; at last, in the third interview, Alcibiades,
who now feared a complete discovery of his inability, required them to allow the
King to build ships and sail along his own coast wherever and with as many as
he pleased. Upon this the Athenians would yield no further, and concluding that
there was nothing to be done, but that they had been deceived by Alcibiades, went
away in a passion and proceeded to Samos.
Tissaphernes immediately after this, in the same winter, proceeded along shore
to Caunus, desiring to bring the Peloponnesian fleet back to Miletus, and to supply
them with pay, making a fresh convention upon such terms as he could get, in order
not to bring matters to an absolute breach between them. He was afraid that if
many of their ships were left without pay they would be compelled to engage and
be defeated, or that their vessels being left without hands the Athenians would
attain their objects without his assistance. Still more he feared that the Peloponnesians
might ravage the continent in search of supplies. Having calculated and considered
all this, agreeably to his plan of keeping the two sides equal, he now sent for
the Peloponnesians and gave them pay, and concluded with them a third treaty in
words following:
In the thirteenth year of the reign of Darius, while Alexippidas was ephor
at Lacedaemon, a convention was concluded in the plain of the Maeander by the
Lacedaemonians and their allies with Tissaphernes, Hieramenes, and the sons of
Pharnaces, concerning the affairs of the King and of the Lacedaemonians and their
allies.
1. The country of the King in Asia shall be the King's, and the King shall
treat his own country as he pleases.
2. The Lacedaemonians and their allies shall not invade or injure the King's
country: neither shall the King invade or injure that of the Lacedaemonians or
of their allies. If any of the Lacedaemonians or of their allies invade or injure
the King's country, the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall prevent it: and
if any from the King's country invade or injure the country of the Lacedaemonians
or of their allies, the King shall prevent it.
3. Tissaphernes shall provide pay for the ships now present, according to the
agreement, until the arrival of the King's vessels: but after the arrival of the
King's vessels the Lacedaemonians and their allies may pay their own ships if
they wish it. If, however, they choose to receive the pay from Tissaphernes, Tissaphernes
shall furnish it: and the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall repay him at the
end of the war such moneys as they shall have received.
4. After the vessels have arrived, the ships of the Lacedaemonians and of their
allies and those of the King shall carry on the war jointly, according as Tissaphernes
and the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall think best. If they wish to make
peace with the Athenians, they shall make peace also jointly.
This was the treaty. After this Tissaphernes prepared to bring up the Phoenician
fleet according to agreement, and to make good his other promises, or at all events
wished to make it appear that he was so preparing.
Winter was now drawing towards its close, when the Boeotians took Oropus by
treachery, though held by an Athenian garrison. Their accomplices in this were
some of the Eretrians and of the Oropians themselves, who were plotting the revolt
of Euboea, as the place was exactly opposite Eretria, and while in Athenian hands
was necessarily a source of great annoyance to Eretria and the rest of Euboea.
Oropus being in their hands, the Eretrians now came to Rhodes to invite the Peloponnesians
into Euboea. The latter, however, were rather bent on the relief of the distressed
Chians, and accordingly put out to sea and sailed with all their ships from Rhodes.
Off Triopium they sighted the Athenian fleet out at sea sailing from Chalce, and,
neither attacking the other, arrived, the latter at Samos, the Peloponnesians
at Miletus, seeing that it was no longer possible to relieve Chios without a battle.
And this winter ended, and with it ended the twentieth year of this war of which
Thucydides is the historian.
Early in the spring of the summer following, Dercyllidas, a Spartan, was sent
with a small force by land to the Hellespont to effect the revolt of Abydos, which
is a Milesian colony; and the Chians, while Astyochus was at a loss how to help
them, were compelled to fight at sea by the pressure of the siege. While Astyochus
was still at Rhodes they had received from Miletus, as their commander after the
death of Pedaritus, a Spartan named Leon, who had come out with Antisthenes, and
twelve vessels which had been on guard at Miletus, five of which were Thurian,
four Syracusans, one from Anaia, one Milesian, and one Leon's own. Accordingly
the Chians marched out in mass and took up a strong position, while thirty-six
of their ships put out and engaged thirty-two of the Athenians; and after a tough
fight, in which the Chians and their allies had rather the best of it, as it was
now late, retired to their city.
Immediately after this Dercyllidas arrived by land from Miletus; and Abydos
in the Hellespont revolted to him and Pharnabazus, and Lampsacus two days later.
Upon receipt of this news Strombichides hastily sailed from Chios with twenty-four
Athenian ships, some transports carrying heavy infantry being of the number, and
defeating the Lampsacenes who came out against him, took Lampsacus, which was
unfortified, at the first assault, and making prize of the slaves and goods restored
the freemen to their homes, and went on to Abydos. The inhabitants, however, refusing
to capitulate, and his assaults failing to take the place, he sailed over to the
coast opposite, and appointed Sestos, the town in the Chersonese held by the Medes
at a former period in this history, as the centre for the defence of the whole
Hellespont.
In the meantime the Chians commanded the sea more than before; and the Peloponnesians
at Miletus and Astyochus, hearing of the sea-fight and of the departure of the
squadron with Strombichides, took fresh courage. Coasting along with two vessels
to Chios, Astyochus took the ships from that place, and now moved with the whole
fleet upon Samos, from whence, however, he sailed back to Miletus, as the Athenians
did not put out against him, owing to their suspicions of one another. For it
was about this time, or even before, that the democracy was put down at Athens.
When Pisander and the envoys returned from Tissaphernes to Samos they at once
strengthened still further their interest in the army itself, and instigated the
upper class in Samos to join them in establishing an oligarchy, the very form
of government which a party of them had lately risen to avoid. At the same time
the Athenians at Samos, after a consultation among themselves, determined to let
Alcibiades alone, since he refused to join them, and besides was not the man for
an oligarchy; and now that they were once embarked, to see for themselves how
they could best prevent the ruin of their cause, and meanwhile to sustain the
war, and to contribute without stint money and all else that might be required
from their own private estates, as they would henceforth labour for themselves
alone.
After encouraging each other in these resolutions, they now at once sent off
half the envoys and Pisander to do what was necessary at Athens (with instructions
to establish oligarchies on their way in all the subject cities which they might
touch at), and dispatched the other half in different directions to the other
dependencies. Diitrephes also, who was in the neighbourhood of Chios, and had
been elected to the command of the Thracian towns, was sent off to his government,
and arriving at Thasos abolished the democracy there. Two months, however, had
not elapsed after his departure before the Thasians began to fortify their town,
being already tired of an aristocracy with Athens, and in daily expectation of
freedom from Lacedaemon. Indeed there was a party of them (whom the Athenians
had banished), with the Peloponnesians, who with their friends in the town were
already making every exertion to bring a squadron, and to effect the revolt of
Thasos; and this party thus saw exactly what they most wanted done, that is to
say, the reformation of the government without risk, and the abolition of the
democracy which would have opposed them. Things at Thasos thus turned out just
the contrary to what the oligarchical conspirators at Athens expected; and the
same in my opinion was the case in many of the other dependencies; as the cities
no sooner got a moderate government and liberty of action, than they went on to
absolute freedom without being at all seduced by the show of reform offered by
the Athenians.
Pisander and his colleagues on their voyage alongshore abolished, as had been
determined, the democracies in the cities, and also took some heavy infantry from
certain places as their allies, and so came to Athens. Here they found most of
the work already done by their associates. Some of the younger men had banded
together, and secretly assassinated one Androcles, the chief leader of the commons,
and mainly responsible for the banishment of Alcibiades; Androcles being singled
out both because he was a popular leader and because they sought by his death
to recommend themselves to Alcibiades, who was, as they supposed, to be recalled,
and to make Tissaphernes their friend. There were also some other obnoxious persons
whom they secretly did away with in the same manner. Meanwhile their cry in public
was that no pay should be given except to persons serving in the war, and that
not more than five thousand should share in the government, and those such as
were most able to serve the state in person and in purse.
But this was a mere catchword for the multitude, as the authors of the revolution
were really to govern. However, the Assembly and the Council of the Bean still
met notwithstanding, although they discussed nothing that was not approved of
by the conspirators, who both supplied the speakers and reviewed in advance what
they were to say. Fear, and the sight of the numbers of the conspirators, closed
the mouths of the rest; or if any ventured to rise in opposition, he was presently
put to death in some convenient way, and there was neither search for the murderers
nor justice to be had against them if suspected; but the people remained motionless,
being so thoroughly cowed that men thought themselves lucky to escape violence,
even when they held their tongues. An exaggerated belief in the numbers of the
conspirators also demoralized the people, rendered helpless by the magnitude of
the city, and by their want of intelligence with each other, and being without
means of finding out what those numbers really were. For the same reason it was
impossible for any one to open his grief to a neighbour and to concert measures
to defend himself, as he would have had to speak either to one whom he did not
know, or whom he knew but did not trust. Indeed all the popular party approached
each other with suspicion, each thinking his neighbour concerned in what was going
on, the conspirators having in their ranks persons whom no one could ever have
believed capable of joining an oligarchy; and these it was who made the many so
suspicious, and so helped to procure impunity for the few, by confirming the commons
in their mistrust of one another.
At this juncture arrived Pisander and his colleagues, who lost no time in doing
the rest. First they assembled the people, and moved to elect ten commissioners
with full powers to frame a constitution, and that when this was done they should
on an appointed day lay before the people their opinion as to the best mode of
governing the city. Afterwards, when the day arrived, the conspirators enclosed
the assembly in Colonus, a temple of Poseidon, a little more than a mile outside
the city; when the commissioners simply brought forward this single motion, that
any Athenian might propose with impunity whatever measure he pleased, heavy penalties
being imposed upon any who should indict for illegality, or otherwise molest him
for so doing. The way thus cleared, it was now plainly declared that all tenure
of office and receipt of pay under the existing institutions were at an end, and
that five men must be elected as presidents, who should in their turn elect one
hundred, and each of the hundred three apiece; and that this body thus made up
to four hundred should enter the council chamber with full powers and govern as
they judged best, and should convene the five thousand whenever they pleased.
The man who moved this resolution was Pisander, who was throughout the chief
ostensible agent in putting down the democracy. But he who concerted the whole
affair, and prepared the way for the catastrophe, and who had given the greatest
thought to the matter, was Antiphon, one of the best men of his day in Athens;
who, with a head to contrive measures and a tongue to recommend them, did not
willingly come forward in the assembly or upon any public scene, being ill looked
upon by the multitude owing to his reputation for talent; and who yet was the
one man best able to aid in the courts, or before the assembly, the suitors who
required his opinion. Indeed, when he was afterwards himself tried for his life
on the charge of having been concerned in setting up this very government, when
the Four Hundred were overthrown and hardly dealt with by the commons, he made
what would seem to be the best defence of any known up to my time. Phrynichus
also went beyond all others in his zeal for the oligarchy. Afraid of Alcibiades,
and assured that he was no stranger to his intrigues with Astyochus at Samos,
he held that no oligarchy was ever likely to restore him, and once embarked in
the enterprise, proved, where danger was to be faced, by far the staunchest of
them all. Theramenes, son of Hagnon, was also one of the foremost of the subverters
of the democracy- a man as able in council as in debate. Conducted by so many
and by such sagacious heads, the enterprise, great as it was, not unnaturally
went forward; although it was no light matter to deprive the Athenian people of
its freedom, almost a hundred years after the deposition of the tyrants, when
it had been not only not subject to any during the whole of that period, but accustomed
during more than half of it to rule over subjects of its own.
The assembly ratified the proposed constitution, without a single opposing
voice, and was then dissolved; after which the Four Hundred were brought into
the council chamber in the following way. On account of the enemy at Decelea,
all the Athenians were constantly on the wall or in the ranks at the various military
posts. On that day the persons not in the secret were allowed to go home as usual,
while orders were given to the accomplices of the conspirators to hang about,
without making any demonstration, at some little distance from the posts, and
in case of any opposition to what was being done, to seize the arms and put it
down. There were also some Andrians and Tenians, three hundred Carystians, and
some of the settlers in Aegina come with their own arms for this very purpose,
who had received similar instructions. These dispositions completed, the Four
Hundred went, each with a dagger concealed about his person, accompanied by one
hundred and twenty Hellenic youths, whom they employed wherever violence was needed,
and appeared before the Councillors of the Bean in the council chamber, and told
them to take their pay and be gone; themselves bringing it for the whole of the
residue of their term of office, and giving it to them as they went out.
Upon the Council withdrawing in this way without venturing any objection, and
the rest of the citizens making no movement, the Four Hundred entered the council
chamber, and for the present contented themselves with drawing lots for their
Prytanes, and making their prayers and sacrifices to the gods upon entering office,
but afterwards departed widely from the democratic system of government, and except
that on account of Alcibiades they did not recall the exiles, ruled the city by
force; putting to death some men, though not many, whom they thought it convenient
to remove, and imprisoning and banishing others. They also sent to Agis, the Lacedaemonian
king, at Decelea, to say that they desired to make peace, and that he might reasonably
be more disposed to treat now that he had them to deal with instead of the inconstant
commons.
Agis, however, did not believe in the tranquillity of the city, or that the
commons would thus in a moment give up their ancient liberty, but thought that
the sight of a large Lacedaemonian force would be sufficient to excite them if
they were not already in commotion, of which he was by no means certain. He accordingly
gave to the envoys of the Four Hundred an answer which held out no hopes of an
accommodation, and sending for large reinforcements from Peloponnese, not long
afterwards, with these and his garrison from Decelea, descended to the very walls
of Athens; hoping either that civil disturbances might help to subdue them to
his terms, or that, in the confusion to be expected within and without the city,
they might even surrender without a blow being struck; at all events he thought
he would succeed in seizing the Long Walls, bared of their defenders. However,
the Athenians saw him come close up, without making the least disturbance within
the city; and sending out their cavalry, and a number of their heavy infantry,
light troops, and archers, shot down some of his soldiers who approached too near,
and got possession of some arms and dead. Upon this Agis, at last convinced, led
his army back again and, remaining with his own troops in the old position at
Decelea, sent the reinforcement back home, after a few days' stay in Attica. After
this the Four Hundred persevering sent another embassy to Agis, and now meeting
with a better reception, at his suggestion dispatched envoys to Lacedaemon to
negotiate a treaty, being desirous of making peace.
They also sent ten men to Samos to reassure the army, and to explain that the
oligarchy was not established for the hurt of the city or the citizens, but for
the salvation of the country at large; and that there were five thousand, not
four hundred only, concerned; although, what with their expeditions and employments
abroad, the Athenians had never yet assembled to discuss a question important
enough to bring five thousand of them together. The emissaries were also told
what to say upon all other points, and were so sent off immediately after the
establishment of the new government, which feared, as it turned out justly, that
the mass of seamen would not be willing to remain under the oligarchical constitution,
and, the evil beginning there, might be the means of their overthrow.
Indeed at Samos the question of the oligarchy had already entered upon a new
phase, the following events having taken place just at the time that the Four
Hundred were conspiring. That part of the Samian population which has been mentioned
as rising against the upper class, and as being the democratic party, had now
turned round, and yielding to the solicitations of Pisander during his visit,
and of the Athenians in the conspiracy at Samos, had bound themselves by oaths
to the number of three hundred, and were about to fall upon the rest of their
fellow citizens, whom they now in their turn regarded as the democratic party.
Meanwhile they put to death one Hyperbolus, an Athenian, a pestilent fellow that
had been ostracized, not from fear of his influence or position, but because he
was a rascal and a disgrace to the city; being aided in this by Charminus, one
of the generals, and by some of the Athenians with them, to whom they had sworn
friendship, and with whom they perpetrated other acts of the kind, and now determined
to attack the people. The latter got wind of what was coming, and told two of
the generals, Leon and Diomedon, who, on account of the credit which they enjoyed
with the commons, were unwilling supporters of the oligarchy; and also Thrasybulus
and Thrasyllus, the former a captain of a galley, the latter serving with the
heavy infantry, besides certain others who had ever been thought most opposed
to the conspirators, entreating them not to look on and see them destroyed, and
Samos, the sole remaining stay of their empire, lost to the Athenians. Upon hearing
this, the persons whom they addressed now went round the soldiers one by one,
and urged them to resist, especially the crew of the Paralus, which was made up
entirely of Athenians and freemen, and had from time out of mind been enemies
of oligarchy, even when there was no such thing existing; and Leon and Diomedon
left behind some ships for their protection in case of their sailing away anywhere
themselves. Accordingly, when the Three Hundred attacked the people, all these
came to the rescue, and foremost of all the crew of the Paralus; and the Samian
commons gained the victory, and putting to death some thirty of the Three Hundred,
and banishing three others of the ringleaders, accorded an amnesty to the rest.
and lived together under a democratic government for the future.
The ship Paralus, with Chaereas, son of Archestratus, on board, an Athenian
who had taken an active part in the revolution, was now without loss of time sent
off by the Samians and the army to Athens to report what had occurred; the fact
that the Four Hundred were in power not being yet known. When they sailed into
harbour the Four Hundred immediately arrested two or three of the Parali and,
taking the vessel from the rest, shifted them into a troopship and set them to
keep guard round Euboea. Chaereas, however, managed to secrete himself as soon
as he saw how things stood, and returning to Samos, drew a picture to the soldiers
of the horrors enacting at Athens, in which everything was exaggerated; saying
that all were punished with stripes, that no one could say a word against the
holders of power, that the soldiers' wives and children were outraged, and that
it was intended to seize and shut up the relatives of all in the army at Samos
who were not of the government's way of thinking, to be put to death in case of
their disobedience; besides a host of other injurious inventions.
On hearing this the first thought of the army was to fall upon the chief authors
of the oligarchy and upon all the rest concerned. Eventually, however, they desisted
from this idea upon the men of moderate views opposing it and warning them against
ruining their cause, with the enemy close at hand and ready for battle. After
this, Thrasybulus, son of Lycus, and Thrasyllus, the chief leaders in the revolution,
now wishing in the most public manner to change the government at Samos to a democracy,
bound all the soldiers by the most tremendous oaths, and those of the oligarchical
party more than any, to accept a democratic government, to be united, to prosecute
actively the war with the Peloponnesians, and to be enemies of the Four Hundred,
and to hold no communication with them. The same oath was also taken by all the
Samians of full age; and the soldiers associated the Samians in all their affairs
and in the fruits of their dangers, having the conviction that there was no way
of escape for themselves or for them, but that the success of the Four Hundred
or of the enemy at Miletus must be their ruin.
The struggle now was between the army trying to force a democracy upon the
city, and the Four Hundred an oligarchy upon the camp. Meanwhile the soldiers
forthwith held an assembly, in which they deposed the former generals and any
of the captains whom they suspected, and chose new captains and generals to replace
them, besides Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, whom they had already. They also stood
up and encouraged one another, and among other things urged that they ought not
to lose heart because the city had revolted from them, as the party seceding was
smaller and in every way poorer in resources than themselves. They had the whole
fleet with which to compel the other cities in their empire to give them money
just as if they had their base in the capital, having a city in Samos which, so
far from wanting strength, had when at war been within an ace of depriving the
Athenians of the command of the sea, while as far as the enemy was concerned they
had the same base of operations as before. Indeed, with the fleet in their hands,
they were better able to provide themselves with supplies than the government
at home. It was their advanced position at Samos which had throughout enabled
the home authorities to command the entrance into Piraeus; and if they refused
to give them back the constitution, they would now find that the army was more
in a position to exclude them from the sea than they were to exclude the army.
Besides, the city was of little or no use towards enabling them to overcome the
enemy; and they had lost nothing in losing those who had no longer either money
to send them (the soldiers having to find this for themselves), or good counsel,
which entitles cities to direct armies. On the contrary, even in this the home
government had done wrong in abolishing the institutions of their ancestors, while
the army maintained the said institutions, and would try to force the home government
to do so likewise. So that even in point of good counsel the camp had as good
counsellors as the city. Moreover, they had but to grant him security for his
person and his recall, and Alcibiades would be only too glad to procure them the
alliance of the King. And above all if they failed altogether, with the navy which
they possessed, they had numbers of places to retire to in which they would find
cities and lands.
Debating together and comforting themselves after this manner, they pushed
on their war measures as actively as ever; and the ten envoys sent to Samos by
the Four Hundred, learning how matters stood while they were still at Delos, stayed
quiet there.
About this time a cry arose among the soldiers in the Peloponnesian fleet at
Miletus that Astyochus and Tissaphernes were ruining their cause. Astyochus had
not been willing to fight at sea- either before, while they were still in full
vigour and the fleet of the Athenians small, or now, when the enemy was, as they
were informed, in a state of sedition and his ships not yet united- but kept them
waiting for the Phoenician fleet from Tissaphernes, which had only a nominal existence,
at the risk of wasting away in inactivity. While Tissaphernes not only did not
bring up the fleet in question, but was ruining their navy by payments made irregularly,
and even then not made in full. They must therefore, they insisted, delay no longer,
but fight a decisive naval engagement. The Syracusans were the most urgent of
any.
The confederates and Astyochus, aware of these murmurs, had already decided
in council to fight a decisive battle; and when the news reached them of the disturbance
at Samos, they put to sea with all their ships, one hundred and ten in number,
and, ordering the Milesians to move by land upon Mycale, set sail thither. The
Athenians with the eighty-two ships from Samos were at the moment lying at Glauce
in Mycale, a point where Samos approaches near to the continent; and, seeing the
Peloponnesian fleet sailing against them, retired into Samos, not thinking themselves
numerically strong enough to stake their all upon a battle. Besides, they had
notice from Miletus of the wish of the enemy to engage, and were expecting to
be joined from the Hellespont by Strombichides, to whom a messenger had been already
dispatched, with the ships that had gone from Chios to Abydos. The Athenians accordingly
withdrew to Samos, and the Peloponnesians put in at Mycale, and encamped with
the land forces of the Milesians and the people of the neighbourhood. The next
day they were about to sail against Samos, when tidings reached them of the arrival
of Strombichides with the squadron from the Hellespont, upon which they immediately
sailed back to Miletus. The Athenians, thus reinforced, now in their turn sailed
against Miletus with a hundred and eight ships, wishing to fight a decisive battle,
but, as no one put out to meet them, sailed back to Samos.
Chapter XXVI
Twenty-first Year of the War - Recall of Alcibiades to Samos - Revolt of Euboea
and Downfall of the Four Hundred - Battle of Cynossema.
IN the same summer, immediately after this, the Peloponnesians having refused
to fight with their fleet united, through not thinking themselves a match for
the enemy, and being at a loss where to look for money for such a number of ships,
especially as Tissaphernes proved so bad a paymaster, sent off Clearchus, son
of Ramphias, with forty ships to Pharnabazus, agreeably to the original instructions
from Peloponnese; Pharnabazus inviting them and being prepared to furnish pay,
and Byzantium besides sending offers to revolt to them. These Peloponnesian ships
accordingly put out into the open sea, in order to escape the observation of the
Athenians, and being overtaken by a storm, the majority with Clearchus got into
Delos, and afterwards returned to Miletus, whence Clearchus proceeded by land
to the Hellespont to take the command: ten, however, of their number, under the
Megarian Helixus, made good their passage to the Hellespont, and effected the
revolt of Byzantium. After this, the commanders at Samos were informed of it,
and sent a squadron against them to guard the Hellespont; and an encounter took
place before Byzantium between eight vessels on either side.
Meanwhile the chiefs at Samos, and especially Thrasybulus, who from the moment
that he had changed the government had remained firmly resolved to recall Alcibiades,
at last in an assembly brought over the mass of the soldiery, and upon their voting
for his recall and amnesty, sailed over to Tissaphernes and brought Alcibiades
to Samos, being convinced that their only chance of salvation lay in his bringing
over Tissaphernes from the Peloponnesians to themselves. An assembly was then
held in which Alcibiades complained of and deplored his private misfortune in
having been banished, and speaking at great length upon public affairs, highly
incited their hopes for the future, and extravagantly magnified his own influence
with Tissaphernes. His object in this was to make the oligarchical government
at Athens afraid of him, to hasten the dissolution of the clubs, to increase his
credit with the army at Samos and heighten their own confidence, and lastly to
prejudice the enemy as strongly as possible against Tissaphernes, and blast the
hopes which they entertained. Alcibiades accordingly held out to the army such
extravagant promises as the following: that Tissaphernes had solemnly assured
him that if he could only trust the Athenians they should never want for supplies
while he had anything left, no, not even if he should have to coin his own silver
couch, and that he would bring the Phoenician fleet now at Aspendus to the Athenians
instead of to the Peloponnesians; but that he could only trust the Athenians if
Alcibiades were recalled to be his security for them.
Upon hearing this and much more besides, the Athenians at once elected him
general together with the former ones, and put all their affairs into his hands.
There was now not a man in the army who would have exchanged his present hopes
of safety and vengeance upon the Four Hundred for any consideration whatever;
and after what they had been told they were now inclined to disdain the enemy
before them, and to sail at once for Piraeus. To the plan of sailing for Piraeus,
leaving their more immediate enemies behind them, Alcibiades opposed the most
positive refusal, in spite of the numbers that insisted upon it, saying that now
that he had been elected general he would first sail to Tissaphernes and concert
with him measures for carrying on the war. Accordingly, upon leaving this assembly,
he immediately took his departure in order to have it thought that there was an
entire confidence between them, and also wishing to increase his consideration
with Tissaphernes, and to show that he had now been elected general and was in
a position to do him good or evil as he chose; thus managing to frighten the Athenians
with Tissaphernes and Tissaphernes with the Athenians.
Meanwhile the Peloponnesians at Miletus heard of the recall of Alcibiades and,
already distrustful of Tissaphernes, now became far more disgusted with him than
ever. Indeed after their refusal to go out and give battle to the Athenians when
they appeared before Miletus, Tissaphernes had grown slacker than ever in his
payments; and even before this, on account of Alcibiades, his unpopularity had
been on the increase. Gathering together, just as before, the soldiers and some
persons of consideration besides the soldiery began to reckon up how they had
never yet received their pay in full; that what they did receive was small in
quantity, and even that paid irregularly, and that unless they fought a decisive
battle or removed to some station where they could get supplies, the ships' crews
would desert; and that it was all the fault of Astyochus, who humoured Tissaphernes
for his own private advantage.
The army was engaged in these reflections, when the following disturbance took
place about the person of Astyochus. Most of the Syracusan and Thurian sailors
were freemen, and these the freest crews in the armament were likewise the boldest
in setting upon Astyochus and demanding their pay. The latter answered somewhat
stiffly and threatened them, and when Dorieus spoke up for his own sailors even
went so far as to lift his baton against him; upon seeing which the mass of men,
in sailor fashion, rushed in a fury to strike Astyochus. He, however, saw them
in time and fled for refuge to an altar; and they were thus parted without his
being struck. Meanwhile the fort built by Tissaphernes in Miletus was surprised
and taken by the Milesians, and the garrison in it turned out- an act which met
with the approval of the rest of the allies, and in particular of the Syracusans,
but which found no favour with Lichas, who said moreover that the Milesians and
the rest in the King's country ought to show a reasonable submission to Tissaphernes
and to pay him court, until the war should be happily settled. The Milesians were
angry with him for this and for other things of the kind, and upon his afterwards
dying of sickness, would not allow him to be buried where the Lacedaemonians with
the army desired.
The discontent of the army with Astyochus and Tissaphernes had reached this
pitch, when Mindarus arrived from Lacedaemon to succeed Astyochus as admiral,
and assumed the command. Astyochus now set sail for home; and Tissaphernes sent
with him one of his confidants, Gaulites, a Carian, who spoke the two languages,
to complain of the Milesians for the affair of the fort, and at the same time
to defend himself against the Milesians, who were, as he was aware, on their way
to Sparta chiefly to denounce his conduct, and had with them Hermocrates, who
was to accuse Tissaphernes of joining with Alcibiades to ruin the Peloponnesian
cause and of playing a double game. Indeed Hermocrates had always been at enmity
with him about the pay not being restored in full; and eventually when he was
banished from Syracuse, and new commanders- Potamis, Myscon, and Demarchus- had
come out to Miletus to the ships of the Syracusans, Tissaphernes, pressed harder
than ever upon him in his exile, and among other charges against him accused him
of having once asked him for money, and then given himself out as his enemy because
he failed to obtain it.
While Astyochus and the Milesians and Hermocrates made sail for Lacedaemon,
Alcibiades had now crossed back from Tissaphernes to Samos. After his return the
envoys of the Four Hundred sent, as has been mentioned above, to pacify and explain
matters to the forces at Samos, arrived from Delos; and an assembly was held in
which they attempted to speak. The soldiers at first would not hear them, and
cried out to put to death the subverters of the democracy, but at last, after
some difficulty, calmed down and gave them a hearing. Upon this the envoys proceeded
to inform them that the recent change had been made to save the city, and not
to ruin it or to deliver it over to the enemy, for they had already had an opportunity
of doing this when he invaded the country during their government; that all the
Five Thousand would have their proper share in the government; and that their
hearers' relatives had neither outrage, as Chaereas had slanderously reported,
nor other ill treatment to complain of, but were all in undisturbed enjoyment
of their property just as they had left them. Besides these they made a number
of other statements which had no better success with their angry auditors; and
amid a host of different opinions the one which found most favour was that of
sailing to Piraeus. Now it was that Alcibiades for the first time did the state
a service, and one of the most signal kind. For when the Athenians at Samos were
bent upon sailing against their countrymen, in which case Ionia and the Hellespont
would most certainly at once have passed into possession of the enemy, Alcibiades
it was who prevented them. At that moment, when no other man would have been able
to hold back the multitude, he put a stop to the intended expedition, and rebuked
and turned aside the resentment felt, on personal grounds, against the envoys;
he dismissed them with an answer from himself, to the effect that he did not object
to the government of the Five Thousand, but insisted that the Four Hundred should
be deposed and the Council of Five Hundred reinstated in power: meanwhile any
retrenchments for economy, by which pay might be better found for the armament,
met with his entire approval. Generally, he bade them hold out and show a bold
face to the enemy, since if the city were saved there was good hope that the two
parties might some day be reconciled, whereas if either were once destroyed, that
at Samos, or that at Athens, there would no longer be any one to be reconciled
to. Meanwhile arrived envoys from the Argives, with offers of support to the Athenian
commons at Samos: these were thanked by Alcibiades, and dismissed with a request
to come when called upon. The Argives were accompanied by the crew of the Paralus,
whom we left placed in a troopship by the Four Hundred with orders to cruise round
Euboea, and who being employed to carry to Lacedaemon some Athenian envoys sent
by the Four Hundred- Laespodias, Aristophon, and Melesias- as they sailed by Argos
laid hands upon the envoys, and delivering them over to the Argives as the chief
subverters of the democracy, themselves, instead of returning to Athens, took
the Argive envoys on board, and came to Samos in the galley which had been confided
to them.
The same summer at the time that the return of Alcibiades coupled with the
general conduct of Tissaphernes had carried to its height the discontent of the
Peloponnesians, who no longer entertained any doubt of his having joined the Athenians,
Tissaphernes wishing, it would seem, to clear himself to them of these charges,
prepared to go after the Phoenician fleet to Aspendus, and invited Lichas to go
with him; saying that he would appoint Tamos as his lieutenant to provide pay
for the armament during his own absence. Accounts differ, and it is not easy to
ascertain with what intention he went to Aspendus, and did not bring the fleet
after all. That one hundred and forty-seven Phoenician ships came as far as Aspendus
is certain; but why they did not come on has been variously accounted for. Some
think that he went away in pursuance of his plan of wasting the Peloponnesian
resources, since at any rate Tamos, his lieutenant, far from being any better,
proved a worse paymaster than himself: others that he brought the Phoenicians
to Aspendus to exact money from them for their discharge, having never intended
to employ them: others again that it was in view of the outcry against him at
Lacedaemon, in order that it might be said that he was not in fault, but that
the ships were really manned and that he had certainly gone to fetch them. To
myself it seems only too evident that he did not bring up the fleet because he
wished to wear out and paralyse the Hellenic forces, that is, to waste their strength
by the time lost during his journey to Aspendus, and to keep them evenly balanced
by not throwing his weight into either scale. Had he wished to finish the war,
he could have done so, assuming of course that he made his appearance in a way
which left no room for doubt; as by bringing up the fleet he would in all probability
have given the victory to the Lacedaemonians, whose navy, even as it was, faced
the Athenian more as an equal than as an inferior. But what convicts him most
clearly, is the excuse which he put forward for not bringing the ships. He said
that the number assembled was less than the King had ordered; but surely it would
only have enhanced his credit if he spent little of the King's money and effected
the same end at less cost. In any case, whatever was his intention, Tissaphernes
went to Aspendus and saw the Phoenicians; and the Peloponnesians at his desire
sent a Lacedaemonian called Philip with two galleys to fetch the fleet.
Alcibiades finding that Tissaphernes had gone to Aspendus, himself sailed thither
with thirteen ships, promising to do a great and certain service to the Athenians
at Samos, as he would either bring the Phoenician fleet to the Athenians, or at
all events prevent its joining the Peloponnesians. In all probability he had long
known that Tissaphernes never meant to bring the fleet at all, and wished to compromise
him as much as possible in the eyes of the Peloponnesians through his apparent
friendship for himself and the Athenians, and thus in a manner to oblige him to
join their side.
While Alcibiades weighed anchor and sailed eastward straight for Phaselis and
Caunus, the envoys sent by the Four Hundred to Samos arrived at Athens. Upon their
delivering the message from Alcibiades, telling them to hold out and to show a
firm front to the enemy, and saying that he had great hopes of reconciling them
with the army and of overcoming the Peloponnesians, the majority of the members
of the oligarchy, who were already discontented and only too much inclined to
be quit of the business in any safe way that they could, were at once greatly
strengthened in their resolve. These now banded together and strongly criticized
the administration, their leaders being some of the principal generals and men
in office under the oligarchy, such as Theramenes, son of Hagnon, Aristocrates,
son of Scellias, and others; who, although among the most prominent members of
the government (being afraid, as they said, of the army at Samos, and most especially
of Alcibiades, and also lest the envoys whom they had sent to Lacedaemon might
do the state some harm without the authority of the people), without insisting
on objections to the excessive concentration of power in a few hands, yet urged
that the Five Thousand must be shown to exist not merely in name but in reality,
and the constitution placed upon a fairer basis. But this was merely their political
cry; most of them being driven by private ambition into the line of conduct so
surely fatal to oligarchies that arise out of democracies. For all at once pretend
to be not only equals but each the chief and master of his fellows; while under
a democracy a disappointed candidate accepts his defeat more easily, because he
has not the humiliation of being beaten by his equals. But what most clearly encouraged
the malcontents was the power of Alcibiades at Samos, and their own disbelief
in the stability of the oligarchy; and it was now a race between them as to which
should first become the leader of the commons.
Meanwhile the leaders and members of the Four Hundred most opposed to a democratic
form of government- Phrynichus who had had the quarrel with Alcibiades during
his command at Samos, Aristarchus the bitter and inveterate enemy of the commons,
and Pisander and Antiphon and others of the chiefs who already as soon as they
entered upon power, and again when the army at Samos seceded from them and declared
for a democracy, had sent envoys from their own body to Lacedaemon and made every
effort for peace, and had built the wall in Eetionia- now redoubled their exertions
when their envoys returned from Samos, and they saw not only the people but their
own most trusted associates turning against them. Alarmed at the state of things
at Athens as at Samos, they now sent off in haste Antiphon and Phrynichus and
ten others with injunctions to make peace with Lacedaemon upon any terms, no matter
what, that should be at all tolerable. Meanwhile they pushed on more actively
than ever with the wall in Eetionia. Now the meaning of this wall, according to
Theramenes and his supporters, was not so much to keep out the army of Samos,
in case of its trying to force its way into Piraeus, as to be able to let in,
at pleasure, the fleet and army of the enemy. For Eetionia is a mole of Piraeus,
close alongside of the entrance of the harbour, and was now fortified in connection
with the wall already existing on the land side, so that a few men placed in it
might be able to command the entrance; the old wall on the land side and the new
one now being built within on the side of the sea, both ending in one of the two
towers standing at the narrow mouth of the harbour. They also walled off the largest
porch in Piraeus which was in immediate connection with this wall, and kept it
in their own hands, compelling all to unload there the corn that came into the
harbour, and what they had in stock, and to take it out from thence when they
sold it.
These measures had long provoked the murmurs of Theramenes, and when the envoys
returned from Lacedaemon without having effected any general pacification, he
affirmed that this wall was like to prove the ruin of the state. At this moment
forty-two ships from Peloponnese, including some Siceliot and Italiot vessels
from Locri and Tarentum, had been invited over by the Euboeans and were already
riding off Las in Laconia preparing for the voyage to Euboea, under the command
of Agesandridas, son of Agesander, a Spartan. Theramenes now affirmed that this
squadron was destined not so much to aid Euboea as the party fortifying Eetionia,
and that unless precautions were speedily taken the city would be surprised and
lost. This was no mere calumny, there being really some such plan entertained
by the accused. Their first wish was to have the oligarchy without giving up the
empire; failing this to keep their ships and walls and be independent; while,
if this also were denied them, sooner than be the first victims of the restored
democracy, they were resolved to call in the enemy and make peace, give up their
walls and ships, and at all costs retain possession of the government, if their
lives were only assured to them.
For this reason they pushed forward the construction of their work with posterns
and entrances and means of introducing the enemy, being eager to have it finished
in time. Meanwhile the murmurs against them were at first confined to a few persons
and went on in secret, until Phrynichus, after his return from the embassy to
Lacedaemon, was laid wait for and stabbed in full market by one of the Peripoli,
falling down dead before he had gone far from the council chamber. The assassin
escaped; but his accomplice, an Argive, was taken and put to the torture by the
Four Hundred, without their being able to extract from him the name of his employer,
or anything further than that he knew of many men who used to assemble at the
house of the commander of the Peripoli and at other houses. Here the matter was
allowed to drop. This so emboldened Theramenes and Aristocrates and the rest of
their partisans in the Four Hundred and out of doors, that they now resolved to
act. For by this time the ships had sailed round from Las, and anchoring at Epidaurus
had overrun Aegina; and Theramenes asserted that, being bound for Euboea, they
would never have sailed in to Aegina and come back to anchor at Epidaurus, unless
they had been invited to come to aid in the designs of which he had always accused
the government. Further inaction had therefore now become impossible. In the end,
after a great many seditious harangues and suspicions, they set to work in real
earnest. The heavy infantry in Piraeus building the wall in Eetionia, among whom
was Aristocrates, a colonel, with his own tribe, laid hands upon Alexicles, a
general under the oligarchy and the devoted adherent of the cabal, and took him
into a house and confined him there. In this they were assisted by one Hermon,
commander of the Peripoli in Munychia, and others, and above all had with them
the great bulk of the heavy infantry. As soon as the news reached the Four Hundred,
who happened to be sitting in the council chamber, all except the disaffected
wished at once to go to the posts where the arms were, and menaced Theramenes
and his party. Theramenes defended himself, and said that he was ready immediately
to go and help to rescue Alexicles; and taking with him one of the generals belonging
to his party, went down to Piraeus, followed by Aristarchus and some young men
of the cavalry. All was now panic and confusion. Those in the city imagined that
Piraeus was already taken and the prisoner put to death, while those in Piraeus
expected every moment to be attacked by the party in the city. The older men,
however, stopped the persons running up and down the town and making for the stands
of arms; and Thucydides the Pharsalian, proxenus of the city, came forward and
threw himself in the way of the rival factions, and appealed to them not to ruin
the state, while the enemy was still at hand waiting for his opportunity, and
so at length succeeded in quieting them and in keeping their hands off each other.
Meanwhile Theramenes came down to Piraeus, being himself one of the generals,
and raged and stormed against the heavy infantry, while Aristarchus and the adversaries
of the people were angry in right earnest. Most of the heavy infantry, however,
went on with the business without faltering, and asked Theramenes if he thought
the wall had been constructed for any good purpose, and whether it would not be
better that it should be pulled down. To this he answered that if they thought
it best to pull it down, he for his part agreed with them. Upon this the heavy
infantry and a number of the people in Piraeus immediately got up on the fortification
and began to demolish it. Now their cry to the multitude was that all should join
in the work who wished the Five Thousand to govern instead of the Four Hundred.
For instead of saying in so many words "all who wished the commons to govern,"
they still disguised themselves under the name of the Five Thousand; being afraid
that these might really exist, and that they might be speaking to one of their
number and get into trouble through ignorance. Indeed this was why the Four Hundred
neither wished the Five Thousand to exist, nor to have it known that they did
not exist; being of opinion that to give themselves so many partners in empire
would be downright democracy, while the mystery in question would make the people
afraid of one another.
The next day the Four Hundred, although alarmed, nevertheless assembled in
the council chamber, while the heavy infantry in Piraeus, after having released
their prisoner Alexicles and pulled down the fortification, went with their arms
to the theatre of Dionysus, close to Munychia, and there held an assembly in which
they decided to march into the city, and setting forth accordingly halted in the
Anaceum. Here they were joined by some delegates from the Four Hundred, who reasoned
with them one by one, and persuaded those whom they saw to be the most moderate
to remain quiet themselves, and to keep in the rest; saying that they would make
known the Five Thousand, and have the Four Hundred chosen from them in rotation,
as should be decided by the Five Thousand, and meanwhile entreated them not to
ruin the state or drive it into the arms of the enemy. After a great many had
spoken and had been spoken to, the whole body of heavy infantry became calmer
than before, absorbed by their fears for the country at large, and now agreed
to hold upon an appointed day an assembly in the theatre of Dionysus for the restoration
of concord.
When the day came for the assembly in the theatre, and they were upon the point
of assembling, news arrived that the forty-two ships under Agesandridas were sailing
from Megara along the coast of Salamis. The people to a man now thought that it
was just what Theramenes and his party had so often said, that the ships were
sailing to the fortification, and concluded that they had done well to demolish
it. But though it may possibly have been by appointment that Agesandridas hovered
about Epidaurus and the neighbourhood, he would also naturally be kept there by
the hope of an opportunity arising out of the troubles in the town. In any case
the Athenians, on receipt of the news immediately ran down in mass to Piraeus,
seeing themselves threatened by the enemy with a worse war than their war among
themselves, not at a distance, but close to the harbour of Athens. Some went on
board the ships already afloat, while others launched fresh vessels, or ran to
defend the walls and the mouth of the harbour.
Meanwhile the Peloponnesian vessels sailed by, and rounding Sunium anchored
between Thoricus and Prasiae, and afterwards arrived at Oropus. The Athenians,
with revolution in the city, and unwilling to lose a moment in going to the relief
of their most important possession (for Euboea was everything to them now that
they were shut out from Attica), were compelled to put to sea in haste and with
untrained crews, and sent Thymochares with some vessels to Eretria. These upon
their arrival, with the ships already in Euboea, made up a total of thirty-six
vessels, and were immediately forced to engage. For Agesandridas, after his crews
had dined, put out from Oropus, which is about seven miles from Eretria by sea;
and the Athenians, seeing him sailing up, immediately began to man their vessels.
The sailors, however, instead of being by their ships, as they supposed, were
gone away to purchase provisions for their dinner in the houses in the outskirts
of the town; the Eretrians having so arranged that there should be nothing on
sale in the marketplace, in order that the Athenians might be a long time in manning
their ships, and, the enemy's attack taking them by surprise, might be compelled
to put to sea just as they were. A signal also was raised in Eretria to give them
notice in Oropus when to put to sea. The Athenians, forced to put out so poorly
prepared, engaged off the harbour of Eretria, and after holding their own for
some little while notwithstanding, were at length put to flight and chased to
the shore. Such of their number as took refuge in Eretria, which they presumed
to be friendly to them, found their fate in that city, being butchered by the
inhabitants; while those who fled to the Athenian fort in the Eretrian territory,
and the vessels which got to Chalcis, were saved. The Peloponnesians, after taking
twenty-two Athenian ships, and killing or making prisoners of the crews, set up
a trophy, and not long afterwards effected the revolt of the whole of Euboea (except
Oreus, which was held by the Athenians themselves), and made a general settlement
of the affairs of the island.
When the news of what had happened in Euboea reached Athens, a panic ensued
such as they had never before known. Neither the disaster in Sicily, great as
it seemed at the time, nor any other had ever so much alarmed them. The camp at
Samos was in revolt; they had no more ships or men to man them; they were at discord
among themselves and might at any moment come to blows; and a disaster of this
magnitude coming on the top of all, by which they lost their fleet, and worst
of all Euboea, which was of more value to them than Attica, could not occur without
throwing them into the deepest despondency. Meanwhile their greatest and most
immediate trouble was the possibility that the enemy, emboldened by his victory,
might make straight for them and sail against Piraeus, which they had no longer
ships to defend; and every moment they expected him to arrive. This, with a little
more courage, he might easily have done, in which case he would either have increased
the dissensions of the city by his presence, or, if he had stayed to besiege it,
have compelled the fleet from Ionia, although the enemy of the oligarchy, to come
to the rescue of their country and of their relatives, and in the meantime would
have become master of the Hellespont, Ionia, the islands, and of everything as
far as Euboea, or, to speak roundly, of the whole Athenian empire. But here, as
on so many other occasions, the Lacedaemonians proved the most convenient people
in the world for the Athenians to be at war with. The wide difference between
the two characters, the slowness and want of energy of the Lacedaemonians as contrasted
with the dash and enterprise of their opponents, proved of the greatest service,
especially to a maritime empire like Athens. Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans,
who were most like the Athenians in character, and also most successful in combating
them.
Nevertheless, upon receipt of the news, the Athenians manned twenty ships and
called immediately a first assembly in the Pnyx, where they had been used to meet
formerly, and deposed the Four Hundred and voted to hand over the government to
the Five Thousand, of which body all who furnished a suit of armour were to be
members, decreeing also that no one should receive pay for the discharge of any
office, or if he did should be held accursed. Many other assemblies were held
afterwards, in which law-makers were elected and all other measures taken to form
a constitution. It was during the first period of this constitution that the Athenians
appear to have enjoyed the best government that they ever did, at least in my
time. For the fusion of the high and the low was effected with judgment, and this
was what first enabled the state to raise up her head after her manifold disasters.
They also voted for the recall of Alcibiades and of other exiles, and sent to
him and to the camp at Samos, and urged them to devote themselves vigorously to
the war.
Upon this revolution taking place, the party of Pisander and Alexicles and
the chiefs of the oligarchs immediately withdrew to Decelea, with the single exception
of Aristarchus, one of the generals, who hastily took some of the most barbarian
of the archers and marched to Oenoe. This was a fort of the Athenians upon the
Boeotian border, at that moment besieged by the Corinthians, irritated by the
loss of a party returning from Decelea, who had been cut off by the garrison.
The Corinthians had volunteered for this service, and had called upon the Boeotians
to assist them. After communicating with them, Aristarchus deceived the garrison
in Oenoe by telling them that their countrymen in the city had compounded with
the Lacedaemonians, and that one of the terms of the capitulation was that they
must surrender the place to the Boeotians. The garrison believed him as he was
general, and besides knew nothing of what had occurred owing to the siege, and
so evacuated the fort under truce. In this way the Boeotians gained possession
of Oenoe, and the oligarchy and the troubles at Athens ended.
To return to the Peloponnesians in Miletus. No pay was forthcoming from any
of the agents deputed by Tissaphernes for that purpose upon his departure for
Aspendus; neither the Phoenician fleet nor Tissaphernes showed any signs of appearing,
and Philip, who had been sent with him, and another Spartan, Hippocrates, who
was at Phaselis, wrote word to Mindarus, the admiral, that the ships were not
coming at all, and that they were being grossly abused by Tissaphernes. Meanwhile
Pharnabazus was inviting them to come, and making every effort to get the fleet
and, like Tissaphernes, to cause the revolt of the cities in his government still
subject to Athens, founding great hopes on his success; until at length, at about
the period of the summer which we have now reached, Mindarus yielded to his importunities,
and, with great order and at a moment's notice, in order to elude the enemy at
Samos, weighed anchor with seventy-three ships from Miletus and set sail for the
Hellespont. Thither sixteen vessels had already preceded him in the same summer,
and had overrun part of the Chersonese. Being caught in a storm, Mindarus was
compelled to run in to Icarus and, after being detained five or six days there
by stress of weather, arrived at Chios.
Meanwhile Thrasyllus had heard of his having put out from Miletus, and immediately
set sail with fifty-five ships from Samos, in haste to arrive before him in the
Hellespont. But learning that he was at Chios, and expecting that he would stay
there, he posted scouts in Lesbos and on the continent opposite to prevent the
fleet moving without his knowing it, and himself coasted along to Methymna, and
gave orders to prepare meal and other necessaries, in order to attack them from
Lesbos in the event of their remaining for any length of time at Chios. Meanwhile
he resolved to sail against Eresus, a town in Lesbos which had revolted, and,
if he could, to take it. For some of the principal Methymnian exiles had carried
over about fifty heavy infantry, their sworn associates, from Cuma, and hiring
others from the continent, so as to make up three hundred in all, chose Anaxander,
a Theban, to command them, on account of the community of blood existing between
the Thebans and the Lesbians, and first attacked Methymna. Balked in this attempt
by the advance of the Athenian guards from Mitylene, and repulsed a second time
in a battle outside the city, they then crossed the mountain and effected the
revolt of Eresus. Thrasyllus accordingly determined to go there with all his ships
and to attack the place. Meanwhile Thrasybulus had preceded him thither with five
ships from Samos, as soon as he heard that the exiles had crossed over, and coming
too late to save Eresus, went on and anchored before the town. Here they were
joined also by two vessels on their way home from the Hellespont, and by the ships
of the Methymnians, making a grand total of sixty-seven vessels; and the forces
on board now made ready with engines and every other means available to do their
utmost to storm Eresus.
In the meantime Mindarus and the Peloponnesian fleet at Chios, after taking
provisions for two days and receiving three Chian pieces of money for each man
from the Chians, on the third day put out in haste from the island; in order to
avoid falling in with the ships at Eresus, they did not make for the open sea,
but keeping Lesbos on their left, sailed for the continent. After touching at
the port of Carteria, in the Phocaeid, and dining, they went on along the Cumaean
coast and supped at Arginusae, on the continent over against Mitylene. From thence
they continued their voyage along the coast, although it was late in the night,
and arriving at Harmatus on the continent opposite Methymna, dined there; and
swiftly passing Lectum, Larisa, Hamaxitus, and the neighbouring towns, arrived
a little before midnight at Rhoeteum. Here they were now in the Hellespont. Some
of the ships also put in at Sigeum and at other places in the neighbourhood.
Meanwhile the warnings of the fire signals and the sudden increase in the number
of fires on the enemy's shore informed the eighteen Athenian ships at Sestos of
the approach of the Peloponnesian fleet. That very night they set sail in haste
just as they were, and, hugging the shore of the Chersonese, coasted along to
Elaeus, in order to sail out into the open sea away from the fleet of the enemy.
After passing unobserved the sixteen ships at Abydos, which had nevertheless
been warned by their approaching friends to be on the alert to prevent their sailing
out, at dawn they sighted the fleet of Mindarus, which immediately gave chase.
All had not time to get away; the greater number however escaped to Imbros and
Lemnos, while four of the hindmost were overtaken off Elaeus. One of these was
stranded opposite to the temple of Protesilaus and taken with its crew, two others
without their crews; the fourth was abandoned on the shore of Imbros and burned
by the enemy.
After this the Peloponnesians were joined by the squadron from Abydos, which
made up their fleet to a grand total of eighty-six vessels; they spent the day
in unsuccessfully besieging Elaeus, and then sailed back to Abydos. Meanwhile
the Athenians, deceived by their scouts, and never dreaming of the enemy's fleet
getting by undetected, were tranquilly besieging Eresus. As soon as they heard
the news they instantly abandoned Eresus, and made with all speed for the Hellespont,
and after taking two of the Peloponnesian ships which had been carried out too
far into the open sea in the ardour of the pursuit and now fell in their way,
the next day dropped anchor at Elaeus, and, bringing back the ships that had taken
refuge at Imbros, during five days prepared for the coming engagement. After this
they engaged in the following way. The Athenians formed in column and sailed close
alongshore to Sestos; upon perceiving which the Peloponnesians put out from Abydos
to meet them. Realizing that a battle was now imminent, both combatants extended
their flank; the Athenians along the Chersonese from Idacus to Arrhiani with seventy-six
ships; the Peloponnesians from Abydos to Dardanus with eighty-six. The Peloponnesian
right wing was occupied by the Syracusans, their left by Mindarus in person with
the best sailers in the navy; the Athenian left by Thrasyllus, their right by
Thrasybulus, the other commanders being in different parts of the fleet. The Peloponnesians
hastened to engage first, and outflanking with their left the Athenian right sought
to cut them off, if possible, from sailing out of the straits, and to drive their
centre upon the shore, which was not far off. The Athenians perceiving their intention
extended their own wing and outsailed them, while their left had by this time
passed the point of Cynossema. This, however, obliged them to thin and weaken
their centre, especially as they had fewer ships than the enemy, and as the coast
round Point Cynossema formed a sharp angle which prevented their seeing what was
going on on the other side of it.
The Peloponnesians now attacked their centre and drove ashore the ships of
the Athenians, and disembarked to follow up their victory. No help could be given
to the centre either by the squadron of Thrasybulus on the right, on account of
the number of ships attacking him, or by that of Thrasyllus on the left, from
whom the point of Cynossema hid what was going on, and who was also hindered by
his Syracusan and other opponents, whose numbers were fully equal to his own.
At length, however, the Peloponnesians in the confidence of victory began to scatter
in pursuit of the ships of the enemy, and allowed a considerable part of their
fleet to get into disorder. On seeing this the squadron of Thrasybulus discontinued
their lateral movement and, facing about, attacked and routed the ships opposed
to them, and next fell roughly upon the scattered vessels of the victorious Peloponnesian
division, and put most of them to flight without a blow. The Syracusans also had
by this time given way before the squadron of Thrasyllus, and now openly took
to flight upon seeing the flight of their comrades.
The rout was now complete. Most of the Peloponnesians fled for refuge first
to the river Midius, and afterwards to Abydos. Only a few ships were taken by
the Athenians; as owing to the narrowness of the Hellespont the enemy had not
far to go to be in safety. Nevertheless nothing could have been more opportune
for them than this victory. Up to this time they had feared the Peloponnesian
fleet, owing to a number of petty losses and to the disaster in Sicily; but they
now ceased to mistrust themselves or any longer to think their enemies good for
anything at sea. Meanwhile they took from the enemy eight Chian vessels, five
Corinthian, two Ambraciot, two Boeotian, one Leucadian, Lacedaemonian, Syracusan,
and Pellenian, losing fifteen of their own. After setting up a trophy upon Point
Cynossema, securing the wrecks, and restoring to the enemy his dead under truce,
they sent off a galley to Athens with the news of their victory. The arrival of
this vessel with its unhoped-for good news, after the recent disasters of Euboea,
and in the revolution at Athens, gave fresh courage to the Athenians, and caused
them to believe that if they put their shoulders to the wheel their cause might
yet prevail.
On the fourth day after the sea-fight the Athenians in Sestos having hastily
refitted their ships sailed against Cyzicus, which had revolted. Off Harpagium
and Priapus they sighted at anchor the eight vessels from Byzantium, and, sailing
up and routing the troops on shore, took the ships, and then went on and recovered
the town of Cyzicus, which was unfortified, and levied money from the citizens.
In the meantime the Peloponnesians sailed from Abydos to Elaeus, and recovered
such of their captured galleys as were still uninjured, the rest having been burned
by the Elaeusians, and sent Hippocrates and Epicles to Euboea to fetch the squadron
from that island.
About the same time Alcibiades returned with his thirteen ships from Caunus
and Phaselis to Samos, bringing word that he had prevented the Phoenician fleet
from joining the Peloponnesians, and had made Tissaphernes more friendly to the
Athenians than before. Alcibiades now manned nine more ships, and levied large
sums of money from the Halicarnassians, and fortified Cos. After doing this and
placing a governor in Cos, he sailed back to Samos, autumn being now at hand.
Meanwhile Tissaphernes, upon hearing that the Peloponnesian fleet had sailed from
Miletus to the Hellespont, set off again back from Aspendus, and made all sail
for Ionia. While the Peloponnesians were in the Hellespont, the Antandrians, a
people of Aeolic extraction, conveyed by land across Mount Ida some heavy infantry
from Abydos, and introduced them into the town; having been ill-treated by Arsaces,
the Persian lieutenant of Tissaphernes. This same Arsaces had, upon pretence of
a secret quarrel, invited the chief men of the Delians to undertake military service
(these were Delians who had settled at Atramyttium after having been driven from
their homes by the Athenians for the sake of purifying Delos); and after drawing
them out from their town as his friends and allies, had laid wait for them at
dinner, and surrounded them and caused them to be shot down by his soldiers. This
deed made the Antandrians fear that he might some day do them some mischief; and
as he also laid upon them burdens too heavy for them to bear, they expelled his
garrison from their citadel.
Tissaphernes, upon hearing of this act of the Peloponnesians in addition to
what had occurred at Miletus and Cnidus, where his garrisons had been also expelled,
now saw that the breach between them was serious; and fearing further injury from
them, and being also vexed to think that Pharnabazus should receive them, and
in less time and at less cost perhaps succeed better against Athens than he had
done, determined to rejoin them in the Hellespont, in order to complain of the
events at Antandros and excuse himself as best he could in the matter of the Phoenician
fleet and of the other charges against him. Accordingly he went first to Ephesus
and offered sacrifice to Artemis....
When the winter after this summer is over the twenty-first year of this war
will be completed.
THE END
