When hen 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 omenmongers of the time who had encouraged them to hope that they should conquer Sicily. [2] Already distressed at all points and in all quarters, after what had now happened they were seized by a fear and consternation quite without precedent. It was grievous enough for the state and for every man in his proper person to lose so many hoplites, 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 the Piraeus, inflamed by so great 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. [3] 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. [4] 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 carried into effect at once. Summer was now over.
8.1
413
19th Year/Summer
ATHENS
The Athenians are shocked by the disaster in Sicily and discouraged by their lack of resources with which to carry on the war. Yet they decide to resist and take steps to build ships and secure their hold on their allies.
The following winter saw all Hellas stirring under the impression of the great Athenian disaster in Sicily. Neutrals now felt that even if uninvited they no longer ought to stand aloof from the war, but should volunteer to march against the Athenians, who, as each city reflected, would probably have come against them if the Sicilian campaign had succeeded. Besides, they believed 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 Spartans felt all the more anxious than ever to see a speedy end to their heavy labors. [2] 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. [3] Beyond all this, Sparta 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. [4] With these reasons for confidence in every quarter, the Spartans 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 toward 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. [2] The Spartans 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 hostility by the spring.
8.2
413/2
19th Year/Winter
HELLAS
Peloponnesians, neutrals, and restive Athenian subjects plan a decisive effort, confident now that Athens cannot long resist their combined forces. The Spartans look forward to securing hegemony in Hellas.
8.3
413/2
19th Year/Winter
HELLAS
Agis takes hostages and secures funds in the Malian Gulf area. Sparta allots quotas of ships to be built by various allies for the creation of a new fleet.
MAP 8.3 BOTH SIDES PREPARE FOR RENEWED WARFARE
In the meantime the Athenians were not idle. During this same winter, as they had intended, they contributed timber and got on with their shipbuilding, and fortified Sunium to enable their grain 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, reduced any other expenses that seemed unnecessary, and above all kept a careful lookout against the revolt of their allies.
8.4
413/2
19th Year/Winter
ATHENS
Athens also builds ships and prepares to carry on the war.
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 consult about their revolting from Athens. Agis accepted their proposals, and sent for Alcamenes son of Sthenelaidas, and Melanthus from Sparta to take the command in Euboea. These accordingly arrived with some three hundred neodamodeis, and Agis began to arrange for their crossing over. [2] But in the meantime some Lesbians arrived 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. [3] 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 Spartans in the city, as the force he had with him made him feared at once wherever he went. [4] While Agis was engaged with the Lesbians, the Chians and Erythraeans, who were also ready to revolt, applied not to him but at Sparta; where they arrived accompanied by an ambassador from Tissaphernes, the commander of King Darius son of Artaxerxes, [5] 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 province, for which he was in arrears, because the Athenians prevented him from collecting it from the Hellenic cities. He therefore calculated that by weakening the Athenians he could better obtain that tribute, and would also draw the Spartans into alliance with the King; and by this means, as the King had commanded him, take dead or alive Amorges the bastard son of Pissuthnes, who was in rebellion on the coast of Caria.
8.5
413/2
19th Year/Winter
EUBOEA
Agis at Decelea agrees to support a Euboean uprising but delays action because …
LESBOS
The Lesbians, with Boeotian support, convince Agis to assist their revolt first.
CHIOS
The Chians, supported by the Persian Tissaphernes, apply at Sparta for aid for their prospective revolt.
While the Chians and Tissaphernes thus joined to effect a common purpose, 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 Sparta upon a mission from Pharnabazus to procure a fleet for the Hellespont; by means of which, if possible, he might himself accomplish Tissaphernes’ ambition, and cause the cities in his province to revolt from the Athenians, and thereby receive the tribute from them, and by his own agency obtain for the King the alliance of the Spartans.
[2] As the emissaries of Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes negotiated separately, a keen competition now ensued at Sparta as to whether a fleet and army should be sent first to Ionia and Chios, or to the Hellespont. [3] The Spartans, however, decidedly favored the Chians and Tissaphernes, who were supported by Alcibiades, the family friend of Endius who was one of the ephors for that year. Indeed, this is how their house got its Laconic name, Alcibiades being the family name of Endius. [4] Nevertheless the Spartans first sent to Chios Phrynis, one of the perioikoi, 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. [5] At first the Spartans 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.
8.6
413/2
19th Year/Winter
SPARTA
Envoys from the Persian satrap Pharnabazus arrive at Sparta to request that a fleet be sent to the Hellespont, not to Chios. Sparta decides to send forces to Chios but due to an earthquake and other problems sends only five triremes.
ILLUSTRATION 8.7 COINS WITH PORTRAIT HEADS OF PHARNABAZUS (LEFT) AND TISSAPHERNES
ILLUSTRATION 8.8 TRACKWAY FOR CARTS (DIOLKOS) FOR HAULING BOATS ACROSS THE ISTHMUS OF CORINTH
MAP 8.7 PROSPECTIVE REVOLTS OF EUBOEA, LESBOS, AND CHIOS
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 Spartans at once sent three Spartiates 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, including 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. [2] Agis, on the other hand, seeing the Spartans bent upon going to Chios first, himself came to the same view; 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 chosen, and lastly to go to the Hellespont, where the command was given to Clearchus son of Ramphias. [3] Meanwhile they would take only half the ships across the Isthmus first, and let these sail off at once, in order that the Athenians might less notice this departing squadron than those who would be taken across afterward, [4] for 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. In accordance with this decision, twenty-one vessels were conveyed across the Isthmus at once.
8.7
412
20th Year/Summer
CORINTH
Sparta plans to haul thirty-nine Peloponnesian warships across the Isthmus and to send them to Chios.
8.8
412
20th Year/Summer
CORINTH
In assembly at Corinth, the Peloponnesians agree to send a fleet first to Chios, then to Lesbos, and finally to the Hellespont. Twenty-one triremes are prepared for immediate departure. Athens as yet has no fleet at sea.
They were now impatient to set sail, but the Corinthians were not willing to accompany them until they had celebrated the Isthmian festival,a which fell at that time. Upon this Agis proposed to them to respect their scruples about breaking the Isthmian truce by taking the expedition upon himself. [2] The Corinthians did not consent to this, and a delay ensued, during which the Athenians began to suspect what was being prepared at Chios, and sent Aristocrates, one of their generals, who accused them of planning to revolt and, upon the denial of the Chians, ordered them as faithful allies to send with them a contingent of ships. Seven Chian ships were sent accordingly. [3] The reason for the dispatch of the ships was that the mass of the Chians were not privy to the negotiations, while the few who were in on 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 also been invited, went to attend them, and there perceiving more clearly the designs of the Chians, took measures as soon as they returned to Athens to prevent the enemy fleet from setting out from Cenchreae without their knowledge. [2] 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 toward the open sea. When the enemy, however, turned back before he had followed them far, the Athenians turned back also, not trusting the seven Chian ships which formed part of their number, [3] and afterwards manned thirty-seven vessels in all and chased the enemy fleet as it passed along shore into Spiraeum, a deserted 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. [4] The Athenians now attacked not only from the sea with their fleet, but also disembarked upon the coast; and a mêlée 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.
8.9
412
20th Year/Summer
CORINTH-CHIOS
Corinth’s determination to celebrate the Isthmian festival delays the fleet’s departure. The Athenians become suspicious and demand that Chios send ships to Athens, and seven are sent, since most Chians were ignorant of the negotiations with the Spartans.
8.10
412
20th Year/Summer
CORINTH
After learning more at the Isthmian Games about Chian intrigues, the Athenians man their fleet and, intercepting the twenty-one enemy triremes, force them into port. The Athenians attack the enemy ships there and disable most of them.
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 small island adjacent, upon which they proceeded to encamp, and sent to Athens for reinforcements; [2] 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 Spartiate by the name of Thermon. [3] The Spartans 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 Sparta, have no difficulty in persuading the cities to revolt, as they would readily believe his testimony. [2] 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 Sparta, instead of that honor being left to Agis, for Agis (it must be remembered) was the enemy of Alcibiades; and [3] Endius and his colleagues thus persuaded, put to sea with the five ships and the Spartan Chalcideus, and made all haste upon the voyage.
About this same time the sixteen Peloponnesian ships from Sicily, which had served through the war with Gylippus, were caught on their return off Leucas 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 on the mainland. Here they were visited by some of their Chian correspondents, and being urged by them to sail up to the city without announcing their coming, arrived suddenly before Chios. [2] The multitude were amazed and confounded, while The Few had so arranged it 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. [3] 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.
8.11
412
20th Year/Summer
SPIRAEUM
The Athenians blockade the Peloponnesian fleet, whose ships are now drawn up on shore and guarded. News of the defeat discourages the Spartans.
8.12
412
20th Year/Summer
SPARTA
Alcibiades persuades Endius and the other ephors to let him sail with five ships to Chios so that it will be Endius and not Agis who starts the revolt and thus brings Persia into alliance with Sparta.
8.13
412
20th Year/Summer
LEUCAS
There is a naval skirmish off Leucas.
8.14
412
20th Year/Summer
CHIOS
Alcibiades arrives in Chios. Saying nothing of the recent Peloponnesian defeat, he persuades Chios, Erythrae, and Clazomenae to revolt from Athens.
While the places that had revolted 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 was 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 canceled the penalty imposed on 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 that formed part of the blockading fleet at Spiraeum, but 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. [2] 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 lacking, 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 the Teians to remain quiet. Chalcideus also set sail for Teos from Chios with twenty-three ships, the land forces of the Clazomenians and Erythraeans moving along shore to support him. [2] 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 toward Samos, chased by the enemy. [3] The Teians at first would not receive the land forces, but upon the flight of the Athenians took them into the city. 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.
8.15
412
20th Year/Summer
ATHENS
The Athenians, alarmed by news of the Chian revolt, employ their emergency funds to assemble a fleet to send to Chios.
8.16
412
20th Year/Summer
TEOS
The Peloponnesian fleet sails from Chios to Teos, chasing away an Athenian squadron. Teos accepts the Peloponnesians.
MAP 8.15 NAVAL ACTION OFF LEUCAS; PELOPONNESIAN FLEET SAILS TO CHIOS
Meanwhile Chalcideus and Alcibiades, after chasing Strombichides into Samos, armed the crews of the ships from the Peloponnesus and left them at Chios, and filling their places with substitutes from Chios and manning twenty others, sailed off to bring about the revolt of Miletus. [2] The wish of Alcibiades, who had friends among the leading men of the Milesians, was to bring over the city before the arrival of the ships from the Peloponnesus, 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 honor for the Chians and himself and Chalcideus, and, as he had promised, for Endius who had sent them out. [3] 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 brought about 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 Spartans was now concluded immediately upon the revolt of the Milesians, by Tissaphernes and Chalcideus, and was as follows:
8.17
412
20th Year/Summer
MILETUS
Led by Alcibiades, the Peloponnesians reach Miletus just ahead of an Athenian fleet. The ensuing revolt of Miletus is followed by an alliance between the Persians and the Peloponnesians.
The Spartans and their allies made a treaty with the King and Tissaphernes upon the terms following:
• 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 Spartans 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 Spartans and their allies; and it shall not be lawful to make peace with the Athenians unless both agree, the King on his side and the Spartans and their allies on theirs.
• [3] If any revolt from the King they shall be the enemies of the Spartans and their allies. And if any revolt from the Spartans 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. [2] A message, however, reaching them from Chalcideus to tell them to go back again, and that Amorges was near 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, [3] they 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, [4] while the Chians put to sea with their remaining vessels, accompanied by the land forces, and caused Lebedos and after it Aerae to revolt. After this both the fleet and the army returned home.
8.18
412
20th Year/Summer
MILETUS
Thucydides offers the text of the first treaty of alliance between the Persians and the Peloponnesians.
8.19
412
20th Year/Summer
IONIA
A Chian squadron is chased into Teos and four of its ships are taken by an Athenian flotilla. More cities revolt from Athens.
About the same time the twenty ships of the Peloponnesians in Spiraeum, which had been 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 admiral from Sparta, henceforth invested with the supreme command at sea. [2] The land forces now withdrawing from Teos, Tissaphernes marched there in person with an army, completed the demolition of anything that was left of the wall, and left. 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 Aerae and, failing in an attempt upon the city, sailed back again.
About this time took place the rising of The People at Samos against those in power, in concert with some Athenians who were there in three vessels. The Samian popular party put to death some two hundred in all of the most powerful, 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 popular party henceforth governed the city, excluding the landholders from all share in affairs, and forbidding any of The People 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 bring about the revolt of the cities and who also wished to have as many companions in peril as possible, made an expedition with thirteen ships of their own to Lesbos; following the instructions from Sparta, which were to go to that island next, and from there to the Hellespont. Meanwhile the land forces of the Peloponnesians who were with the Chians and those of the allies on the spot, moved along shore toward Clazomenae and Cyme, under the command of Eualas, a Spartiate; at the same time the fleet under Diniades, one of the perioikoi, [2] first sailed up to Methymna and caused it to revolt, and, leaving four ships there, with the rest procured the revolt of Mytilene.
8.20
412
20th Year/Summer
SPIRAEUM
The Peloponnesian ships defeat the blockaders and escape. Astyochus takes command.
TEOS
Tissaphernes demolishes the Teian wall.
8.21
412
20th Year/Summer
SAMOS
The Samian People, with some Athenians, overthrow the upper classes and take over the government.
8.22
412
20th Year/Summer
IONIA
The Chians and Peloponnesians incite the revolt of Methymna and Mytilene on Lesbos. Peloponnesian troops march against Clazomenae and Cyme.
In the meantime Astyochus, the Spartan 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 recently arrived with a reinforcement of ten ships from Athens. [2] 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 there the next day at Eresus, he there learned that Mytilene had been taken, almost without a blow, by the Athenians, [3] who had sailed up and unexpectedly entered the harbor, had beaten the Chian ships, and landing and defeating the troops opposed to them, had become masters of the city. [4] Informed of this by the Eresians and the Chian ships, which had been left with Eubulus at Methymna and which had fled upon the capture of Mytilene, and three of which he now fell in with (one having been taken by the Athenians), Astyochus did not go on to Mytilene, but raised and armed Eresus; and sending the hoplites from his own ships by land under Eteonicus to Antissa and to Methymna, he himself proceeded there along shore 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. [5] As, however, everything went against him in Lesbos, he took up his own force and sailed back to Chios; the land forces which were to have gone to the Hellespont being also conveyed on board back to their different cities. After this six of the allied Peloponnesian ships at Cenchreae joined the forces at Chios. [6] The Athenians, after restoring matters to their former state in Lesbos, set sail from there and took Polichna, the place that the Clazomenians were fortifying on the continent, and carried the inhabitants back to their city upon the island, except for 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 Spartan 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. [2] Meanwhile Leon and Diomedon with the Athenian fleet from Lesbos sailed out from the Oenoussae, the islands off Chios, and from their forts of Sidoussa and Pteleum in the territory of Erythrae, and from Lesbos, and carried on the war against the Chians from their ships, having on board hoplites from the enlistment rolls required to serve as marines. [3] 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 neighborhood, 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 undamaged ever since the Persian wars. [4] Indeed, after the Spartans, 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. [5] 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 that the Athenians after the Sicilian disaster were themselves no longer denying the thoroughly desperate state of their affairs. And if they were tripped up by one of the surprises which upset human calculations, they found out their mistake in company with many others who had believed, like them, in the speedy collapse of the Athenian power. [6] 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. Learning 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.
8.23
412
20th Year/Summer
LESBOS-CHIOS
The Spartan Astyochus reaches Lesbos too late to save the island from an Athenian counterattack. The Peloponnesians retire to Chios.
8.24
412
20th Year/Summer
CHIOS
Leaving a squadron to blockade Miletus, the Athenians sail to Chios. They defeat the Chians several times and force them to retire behind their walls. Thucydides praises the prudence and wisdom of the Chians, but admits that they, like many others, underestimated the ability of Athens to carry on the war.
While the Chians were thus engaged, a thousand Athenian hoplites and fifteen hundred Argives (five hundred of whom were peltasts furnished with armor by the Athenians), and one thousand of the allies, toward 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 in to Samos1c crossed over and encamped at Miletus. [2] Upon this the Milesians came out to the number of eight hundred hoplites, with the Peloponnesians who had come with Chalcideus, and some foreign mercenaries of Tissaphernes, along with Tissaphernes himself and his cavalry, and engaged the Athenians and their allies. [3] 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, [4] the Athenians first defeated the Peloponnesians, and driving before them the barbarians and the rump of the army, without engaging the Milesians, who after the rout of the Argives retreated into the city upon seeing their comrades defeated, crowned their victory by grounding their arms under the very walls of Miletus. [5] 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 cities also would easily come over to them.
8.25
412
20th Year/Summer
MILETUS
The Athenians, with Argive support, engage the Milesian and Peloponnesian forces. Ionians defeat Dorians on both sides; the Athenians drive the enemy within their walls and consider mounting a siege against Miletus.
MAP 8.25 OPERATIONS IN LESBOS, CHIOS, SAMOS, AND MILETUS
Meanwhile about dusk word reached them that the fifty-five ships from the Peloponnesus and Sicily might be expected at any moment. Of these the Sicilians, 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 Selinus; and the ships that were preparing in the Peloponnesus being now ready, both squadrons had been entrusted to Therimenes, a Spartan, to take to Astyochus, the admiral. They now put in first at Leros, the island off Miletus, [2] and from there, discovering that the Athenians were before the city, sailed into the Iasic gulf, in order to learn how matters stood at Miletus. [3] Meanwhile Alcibiades came on horseback to Teichioussa in the Milesian territory, the point of the gulf in 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 hurry 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 remain at sea and fight it out, flatly refused either to stay himself or to let them or anyone else do so if he could help it. [2] 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 with which they could confront him, he would never allow the reproach of disgrace to drive him into a risk that was unreasonable. [3] 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 defeated, and to expose the city not only to disgrace but to the most serious danger. After its late misfortunes the city 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. [4] 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 concentrate all their ships to attack as opportunity arose. [5] 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 to be a man of sense. [6] In this way that very evening the Athenians broke camp from before Miletus, leaving their victory incomplete and the Argives, mortified at their disaster, promptly sailed off home from Samos.
8.26
412
20th Year/Summer
MILETUS
A combined Sicilian and Peloponnesian fleet now arrives at Miletus. Alcibiades advises them to quickly relieve the city.
8.27
412
20th Year/Summer
MILETUS
Phrynichus, the Athenian commander, receives word of the enemy fleet’s approach and prudently decides, against the objections of others, to avoid battle and retire immediately from Miletus to Samos, winning Thucydides’ approval for his wisdom.
As soon as it was morning the Peloponnesians set out from Teichioussa 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 Teichioussa. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] The Peloponnesians received the mercenaries serving with Amorges and enrolled them in their army without doing them any harm, since most of them came from the Peloponnesus, and handed over the city to Tissaphernes with all the captives, bond or free, at the stipulated price of one Daric stater a head; after which they returned to Miletus. [5] Pedaritus son of Leon, who had been sent by the Spartans 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 following winter Tissaphernes put Iasus in a state of defense, and passing on to Miletus distributed a month’s pay to all the ships as he had promised at Sparta, 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. [2] 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 back 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; [2] Strombichides, Onomacles, and Euctemon sailing against Chios, which fell to their lot, with thirty ships and a part of the thousand hoplites who had come to Miletus in transports; while the rest remained masters of the sea with seventy-four ships at Samos, and advanced upon Miletus.
8.28
412
20th Year/Summer
IASUS
At the request of the Persian Tissaphernes, the Peloponnesian fleet attacks Iasus and takes it, capturing the Persian rebel Amorges.
8.29
412/1
20th Year/Winter
MILETUS
Tissaphernes pays the Peloponnesian fleet as he had promised, but decides that future payments will be made at a lower scale.
8.30
412/1
20th Year/Summer
MILETUS-CHIOS
The arrival of reinforcements permits the Athenians to blockade Miletus and to attack Chios.
MAP 8.31 FIGHTING IN IONA
Meanwhile Astyochus, who at that time was 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 alliance were in a more flourishing condition, and put out to sea with ten Peloponnesian and as many Chian vessels. [2] After a futile attack upon Pteleum, he coasted on to Clazomenae and ordered the pro-Athenian party to move inland to Daphnus, and to join the Peloponnesians—an order in which he was joined by Tamos, the King’s lieutenant in Ionia. [3] This order being disregarded, Astyochus made an attack upon the city, which was unwalled, and having failed to take it was himself carried off by a strong gale to Phocaea and Cyme, while the rest of the ships put in at the islands adjacent to Clazomenae—Marathoussa, Pele, and Drymoussa. [4] Here they were detained eight days by the winds, and plundering and consuming all the property of the Clazomenians deposited there, put the rest on shipboard and sailed off to Phocaea and Cyme to join Astyochus.
8.31
412/1
20th Year/Winter
IONIA
The Spartan admiral Astyochus sails from Chios, attacks various places without success, and is blown to Phocaea by a gale.
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. [2] After this Pedaritus, who was then marching along the coast from Miletus, arrived at Erythrae, and from there crossed over with his army to Chios, where he found also about five hundred soldiers with their arms who had been left there by Chalcideus from the five ships. [3] Meanwhile as some Lesbians made offers to revolt, Astyochus sought to persuade Pedaritus and the Chians that they ought to go with their ships and bring about a 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. [2] At Corycus in the territory of Erythrae, he went ashore for the night; the Athenian armament sailing from Samos against Chios being separated from him only by a hill, upon the other side of which it had stopped, so that neither perceived the other. [3] But when a letter arrived 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. [4] 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.
8.32
412/1
20th Year/Winter
CHIOS
Envoys from Lesbos ask Astyochus to support a second revolt. He is willing but his Corinthian and Chian allies refuse to assist.
8.33
412/1
20th Year/Winter
ERYTHRAE
Astyochus sails for Miletus, almost runs into the Athenian fleet at Corycus, returns to Erythrae in response to false reports of a plot there, and finally sails again to Miletus.
Meanwhile the Athenian armament sailing round Corycus fell in with three Chian triremes off Arginus, and gave immediate chase. A great storm coming on, the Chians with difficulty took refuge in the harbor; the three Athenian vessels most forward in the pursuit being wrecked and blown ashore near the city of Chios, and the crews slain or taken prisoners. The rest of the Athenian fleet took refuge in the harbor called Phoenicus, under Mount Mimas, and from there they later put into Lesbos and prepared for the work of fortification.
The same winter the Spartan Hippocrates sailed out from the Peloponnesus with ten Thurian ships (under the command of Dorieus son of Diagoras, and two colleagues), and one Laconian and one Syracusan vessel, and arrived at Cnidus,1b which had already revolted at the instigation of Tissaphernes. [2] 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 merchant ships arriving from Egypt. Triopium is a promontory of Cnidus and sacred to Apollo. [3] 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 city, which was unfortified, and all but took it; [4] and the next day assaulted it again, but with less effect, as the inhabitants had improved their defenses 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 ardor for the war. [2] Nevertheless the Peloponnesians thought the first agreement 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:
8.34
412/1
20th Year/Winter
CHIOS
An Athenian pursuit of three Chian ships in a gale leads to the shipwreck of three of their own ships.
8.35
412/1
20th Year/Winter
CNIDUS
A Peloponnesian squadron at Cnidus is captured by Athenian ships, who then attack and almost succeed in taking the city before retiring to Samos.
8.36
412/1
20th Year/Winter
MILETUS
Sparta concludes a new and more equitable treaty with Persia.
The agreement of the Spartans and the allies with King Darius and the sons of the King, and with Tissaphernes, for a treaty and friendship, as follows:
• [2] Neither the Spartans nor the allies of the Spartans 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 Spartans nor the allies of the Spartans exact tribute from such cities. Neither shall King Darius nor any of the subjects of the King make war against or otherwise injure the Spartans or their allies.
• [3] If the Spartans or their allies should require any assistance from the King, or the King from the Spartans or their allies, whatever they both agree upon they shall be right in doing.
• [4] Both shall carry on jointly the war against the Athenians and their allies; and if they make peace, both shall do so jointly.
• 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 which made this agreement 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 Spartans 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. [2] The Athenian armament had now crossed over from Lesbos to Chios, and being master on land and sea began to fortify Delphinium, a place naturally strong on the land side, provided with more than one harbor, and also not far from the city of Chios. [3] 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 nor the mercenaries under Pedaritus a match for the enemy. [4] They sent, however, to Miletus to beg Astyochus to assist them, which he refused to do, and for which he was denounced at Sparta by Pedaritus as a traitor. [5] 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 would retire again to Samos and remain quiet.
8.37
412/1
20th Year/Winter
MILETUS
Thucydides offers the text of the new treaty between Sparta and Persia.
8.38
412/1
20th Year/Winter
CHIOS
After an oligarchy is imposed upon the Chians, they fall out among themselves and, lacking confidence in their unity and power, request more aid from Astyochus. He refuses them.
MAP 8.37 FURTHER FIGHTING IN THE WINTER OF 412/1
In the same winter the twenty-seven ships equipped by the Spartans for Pharnabazus through the agency of the Megarian Calligeitus, and the Cyzicene Timagoras, put out from the Peloponnesus and sailed for Ionia about the time of the solstice, under the command of Antisthenes, a Spartiate. [2] With them the Spartans also sent eleven Spartiates 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 lesser 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. [3] 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 [4] from where, considering themselves in safety, they sent a message to the fleet at Miletus for a convoy along the coast.
8.39
412/1
20th Year/Winter
AEGEAN
A fleet of Peloponnesian reinforcements for the Hellespont with new leaders sails to Miletus via Melos, Crete, and Caunus.
Meanwhile the Chians and Pedaritus, undeterred by the delays 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. [2] There were more slaves at Chios than in any one other city except Sparta, 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 harm. [3] 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 Spartan 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 Spartans sent as spies over his behavior, at once gave up going to Chios and set sail for Caunus. [2] 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. [3] From Cos arriving in the night at Cnidus he was compelled by the urgent pleas of the Cnidians not to disembark the sailors, but to sail immediately 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 the Peloponnesus which Astyochus was himself sailing to join; [4] the Athenians in Samos having heard from Melos of their approach, and Charminus being on the lookout off Syme, Chalce, Rhodes, and Lycia, as he now heard that they were at Caunus.
8.40
412/1
20th Year/Winter
CHIOS
The Chians continue to press Astyochus to help them, citing the desertion of their slaves and the impending completion of the Athenian siege works. Astyochus now prepares to go to their assistance.
8.41
412/1
20th Year/Winter
CARIA-LYCIA
Hearing of the new Peloponnesian fleet at Caunus, Astyochus postpones action at Chios and sails to Caunus, seeking an Athenian squadron off the coast of Lycia.
Astyochus accordingly sailed as he was to Syme, before he was heard of, in the hope of catching the enemy somewhere out at sea. He encountered rain and foggy weather, however, that caused his ships to straggle and get into disorder in the dark. [2] In the morning his fleet had become separated and was most of it still straggling round the island, so that as the left wing only came in sight of Charminus and the Athenians, they took it for the squadron which they were watching for from Caunus, and hastily put out against it with only part of their twenty vessels. [3] Attacking immediately, they 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. [4] Upon this they took to flight, and after losing six ships, the rest escaped to the island of Teutloussa and from there 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 Loryma on the mainland sailed back to Samos. [2] Meanwhile the Peloponnesian ships being now all at Cnidus, underwent such repairs as were needed; while the eleven Spartan 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. [3] The severest critic of the present proceeding 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 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 Spartans give to the Hellenes instead of liberty a Median master. [4] 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.
8.42
412/1
20th Year/Winter
SYME
The Athenians attack the vanguard of Astyochus’ fleet off Syme with success, but are driven off with losses when the rest of the Peloponnesian fleet joins the fray. Astyochus’ ships and the new fleet from the Peloponnesus link up at Cnidus.
8.43
412/1
20th Year/Winter
CNIDUS
Newly arrived Spartan commissioners reject the previous treaty as too generous to Persia and insist on a more equitable agreement. This demand angers Tissaphernes, who leaves in a rage.
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 allies without having to ask for money from Tissaphernes. [2] 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 city was unfortified. They were afterwards, however, assembled by the Spartans together with the inhabitants of the two other cities of Lindus and Ialysus; and the Rhodians were persuaded to revolt from the Athenians and the island went over to the Peloponnesians. [3] 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, sailing from Chalce, Cos, and Samos. [4] 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 went 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 Sparta 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. [2] 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 spoiling their fitness 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. [3] He also told Tissaphernes to bribe the captains and generals of the cities, and so to obtain their agreement—an expedient which succeeded with all except the Syracusans, Hermocrates alone opposing him on behalf of the whole alliance. [4] Meanwhile Alcibiades sent away the cities that were asking for money, 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 on behalf of their freedom; [5] while the other cities, he said, 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 defense. [6] He also pointed out that Tissaphernes was at present carrying on the war at his own expense, 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.
8.44
412/1
20th Year/Winter
RHODES
The Peloponnesian fleet sails to Rhodes and incites its cities to revolt from the Athenians, who arrive too late to prevent the uprising. The Spartans levy a contribution from Rhodes.
8.45
412/1
20th Year/Winter
MAGNESIA?
Alcibiades, already condemned to death by the Spartans, had joined Tissaphernes. He advises him to reduce the Spartan sailors’ pay, to pay them irregularly, and to refuse to contribute to defending Chios and other cities that had revolted from Athens.
MAP 8.45 FIGHTING IN LYCIA; ALCIBIADES LEAVES THE SPARTANS
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 party troublesome to call in the other. [2] 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 danger. The cheapest plan was to let the Hellenes wear each other out, at a small share of the expense and without risk to himself. [3] 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. On the other hand, it was not likely that the Spartans would free the Hellenes from the Hellenic Athenians, without freeing them also from the barbarian Persians, unless overthrown by him in the meantime. [4] Alcibiades therefore urged him to wear them both out at first, and after reducing the Athenian power as much as he could, forthwith to rid the country of the Peloponnesians. [5] On the whole, Tissaphernes approved of this policy, at least so far as could be conjectured from his behavior; 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 wage war with the odds in their favor, 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 seeking means to bring about 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 favor of Tissaphernes. [2] 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 only there were an oligarchy in the place of the corrupt 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.
8.46
412/1
20th Year/Winter
MAGNESIA?
Alcibiades advises Tissaphernes that Persia’s best policy is to let Sparta and Athens exhaust each other through prolonged warfare. He argues that Athens is a safer foe, since her power is only naval, whereas Spartan land power could menace interior Persian territory. Tissapherne’s subsequent actions indicate his adoption of this policy.
8.47
412/1
20th Year/Winter
SAMOS
Alcibiades, hoping for recall to Athens, tells the Athenian generals at Samos that he can bring Tissaphernes to Athens’ side if an oligarchy is installed at Athens.
This plan was first raised in the camp, and afterwards from there 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 most powerful citizens, who also suffered most severely from the war, now had great hopes of getting the government into their own hands and of triumphing over the enemy. [2] Upon their return to Samos the emissaries formed their partisans into a cabal, and openly told the army generally that the King would be their friend and would provide them with money if Alcibiades were restored and the democracy abolished. [3] 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 oligarchic conspirators, after making this communication to the people, now reexamined the proposals of Alcibiades among themselves, with most of their associates. [4] 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 purpose should be to avoid civil discord. He thought it would not be in 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. [5] 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 back 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 currently lived under, to whichever type it belonged. [6] Besides, the cities of the empire thought that the so-called “best people” would prove just as oppressive as The People, since it was they who originated, proposed, and for the most part benefited from the acts of The People that were injurious to the allies. Indeed, if it depended on the “best people,” the citizens of the allied states would be put to death without trial and with violence; while The People was their refuge and the chastiser of these men. [7] He was certain that the cities had learned this 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.
8.48
412/1
20th Year/Winter
SAMOS
Alcibiades’ ideas prove attractive to some Athenians at Samos, who form a cabal to promote them. The general Phrynichus opposes them, arguing that Alcibiades cares only for his own recall, the King wants only the restoration of his possessions, and the allies desire only freedom from subjection. He predicts that no allies will respond to the installation of an Athenian oligarchy with greater friendship for Athens.
However, the members of the cabal assembled in accordance with their original intention, accepted what was proposed, and prepared to send Pisander and others on an embassy to Athens to work 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 scheme. He sent a secret letter to the Spartan admiral, [2] Astyochus, who was still in the neighborhood of Miletus, to tell him that Alcibiades was ruining the Peloponnesian cause by making Tissaphernes the friend of the Athenians, and containing an explicit 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. [3] Astyochus, however, 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 about this and all other matters—which was also the reason why he did not object more strongly against the pay not being given in full. [4] Upon this Alcibiades instantly sent to the authorities at Samos a letter against Phrynichus, stating what he had done, and asking that he should be put to death. [5] 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 him an opportunity to destroy the whole Athenian armament at Samos, gave 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 Astyochus 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 harbor, 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 defenses. It will be remembered that he was general, and had himself authority to carry out these measures. [2] Accordingly they addressed themselves to the work of fortification, and Samos was thus fortified sooner than it would otherwise have been. Not long afterwards the letter from Alcibiades arrived, saying that the army was betrayed by Phrynichus, and the enemy about to attack it. [3] Alcibiades, however, gained no credit from this, as it was thought that he was in on the secret of the enemy’s plans, and had tried out of hatred to fasten them upon Phrynichus, and to make out that he was their accomplice; and consequently far from hurting him, he rather bore witness to what Phrynichus had said by this intelligence.
8.49
SAMOS
The cabal prepares to send Pisander to Athens to argue for oligarchy.
8.50
412/1
20th Year/Winter
SAMOS
To thwart Alcibiades, Phrynichus sends Astyochus a letter that accuses Alcibiades of injuring the Peloponnesian cause. Astyochus reveals this letter to Alcibiades, who quickly exposes Phrynichus’ correspondence with the enemy to the Athenians at Samos. To save himself, Phrynichus writes again to Astyochus, describing the Athenian dispositions, and advising him when and how to attack the Athenian fleet.
8.51
412/1
20th Year/Winter
SAMOS
Phrynichus then orders the Athenians to prepare defenses against an enemy attack, which thwarts the intent of Alcibiades’ letter to the Athenians that warns them of an attack and accuses Phrynichus of plotting with the enemy.
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 there the original argument of Alcibiades concerning the liberation of all the cities by the Spartans 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 soliciting the favor of Tissaphernes with an earnestness proportioned to the greatness of the issue, [8.53.1] 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. [2] 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 brought about 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? [3] 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.
8.52
412/1
20th Year/Winter
MAGNESIA
Alcibiades tries to obtain Tissaphernes’ friendship for the Athenians, which seems possible after his quarrel at Cnidus with the Spartans over the treaty.
8.53
412/1
20th Year/Winter
ATHENS
Pisander and the envoys from Samos seek to persuade the Athenians to adopt an oligarchy, arguing that only by the restoration of Alcibiades and the establishment of an oligarchy can Athens hope to obtain the King’s friendship and thereby the resources with which to resist and ultimately defeat the Spartans.
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. [2] They accordingly voted that Pisander should sail with ten others and make the best arrangement that they could with Tissaphernes and Alcibiades. [3] 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 asserted it because he thought him a man unfit for the business now in hand with Alcibiades. [4] Pisander also made 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 there if the Peloponnesian fleet put out to sea. [2] 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. [3] In the meantime Pedaritus, with the mercenaries that he had with him and the whole force of the Chians, made an assault upon the stockade 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), and took a great quantity of arms.
8.54
412/1
20th Year/Winter
ATHENS
Bowing to necessity and hoping for a future return to democracy, the Athenians agree to alter the government, dismiss Phrynichus, and send Pisander to negotiate with Tissaphernes. Pisander solicits support for these moves from the political clubs.
8.55
412/1
20th Year/Winter
RHODES-CHIOS
The Athenians raid Rhodes. The Chians call on the Peloponnesians at Rhodes for help. A Chian attack against the Athenian siege works is initially successful, but is finally routed.
MAP 8.56 FIGHTING AND DIPLOMACY AT THE END OF WINTER IN 412/11
After this the Chians were besieged even more tightly 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. [2] 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 the latter’s demands. [3] 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. [4] 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 rage and proceeded to Samos.
8.56
412/1
20th Year/Winter
CHIOS
The siege of Chios continues.
MAGNESIA?
The Athenians begin discussions with Tissaphernes who, not wishing to conclude an agreement, makes unacceptable demands. The Athenians finally decide that Alcibiades has deceived them and that no agreement is possible, so they angrily break off negotiations.
Immediately after this, in the same winter, Tissaphernes 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. [2] Having calculated and considered all this, according 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:
8.57
412/1
20th Year/Winter
CAUNUS-MILETUS
Tissaphernes now improves relations with the Spartans, giving pay to their sailors and concluding a new treaty with them.
8.58
412/1
20th Year/Winter
MEANDER PLAIN
Thucydides offers the text of the third treaty between Sparta and the Persian Great King.
In the thirteenth year of the reign of Darius, while Alexipippidas was ephor at Sparta, a treaty was concluded in the plain of the Meander by the Spartans and their allies with Tissaphernes, Hieramenes, and the sons of Pharnaces, concerning the affairs of the King and of the Spartans and their allies.
• [2] The country of the King in Asia shall be the King’s, and the King shall treat his own country as he pleases.
• [3] The Spartans and their allies shall not invade or injure the King’s country; neither shall the King invade or injure that of the Spartans or of their allies. [4] If any of the Spartans or their allies invade or injure the King’s country, the Spartans and their allies shall prevent it; and if any from the King’s country invade or injure the country of the Spartans or of their allies, the King shall prevent it.
• [5] Tissaphernes shall provide pay for the ships now present, according to the agreement, until the arrival of the King’s vessels; [6] but after the arrival of the King’s vessels the Spartans 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 Spartans and their allies shall repay him at the end of the war such moneys as they shall have received.
• [7] After the King’s vessels have arrived, the ships of the Spartans and of their allies and those of the King shall carry on the war jointly, according as Tissaphernes and the Spartans 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 to its close, when the Boeotians took Oropus by treachery, although it was held by an Athenian garrison. Their accomplices in this were some Oropians themselves, and some Eretrians who were plotting the revolt of Euboea, as the place was exactly opposite Eretria, and while in Athenian hands was necessarily a great threat to Eretria and the rest of Euboea. [2] Oropus being in their hands, the Eretrians now came to Rhodes to invite the Peloponnesians into Euboea. The latter, however, were set rather on the relief of the distressed Chians, and accordingly put out to sea and sailed with all their ships from Rhodes. [3] Off Triopium they sighted the Athenian fleet out at sea sailing from Chalce and as neither fleet attacked the other, the Athenians went on to Samos, the Peloponnesians to 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 following summer Dercyllidas, a Spartiate, was sent with a small force by land to the Hellespont to bring about 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. [2] While Astyochus was still at Rhodes they had received from Miletus, as their commander after the death of Pedaritus, a Spartiate named Leon, who had come out with Antisthenes, and twelve vessels which had been on guard at Miletus, five of which were Thurian, four Syracusan, one from Anaia, one Milesian, and one Leon’s own. [3] 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, they retired to their city.
8.59
Tissaphernes appears to fulfill his promises.
8.60
412/1
20th Year/Winter
OROPUS
The Boeotians take Oropus by treachery and plot a revolt of Euboea.
RHODES-MILETUS
The Peloponnesians sail toward Chios, but finding they cannot relieve it without a battle, they retire to Miletus.
8.61
411
21st Year/Summer
CHIOS
Pressed by the siege, the Chians decide to give battle at sea. Although they fight well, they are forced to retire inside their walls at the end of the day.
MAP 8.61 OPENING OF SUMMER 411
Immediately after this Dercyllidas arrived by land from Miletus; and Abydos in the Hellespont revolted to him (and to Pharnabazus), and Lampsacus two days later. [2] Upon receipt of this news Strombichides hastily sailed from Chios with twenty-four Athenian ships, some transports carrying hoplites being in that 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. [3] The inhabitants there, however, refused to capitulate, and when his assaults failed to take the place, he sailed over to the coast opposite, and made Sestos, the city in the Chersonese once held by the Persians, the center for the defense 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. [2] Coasting along with two vessels to Chios, Astyochus took the ships from that place, and now moved with the whole fleet upon Samos, from where, however, he sailed back to Miletus, as the Athenians did not put out against him, owing to their suspicions of one another.
[3] 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 control in the army itself, and induced the upper class in Samos to join them in establishing an oligarchy, the very form of government which a party of them had recently risen to avoid. [4] 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 on this course, 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 labor 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. [2] Diitrephes also, who was in the neighborhood of Chios, and who had been elected to the command of the Thracian district of the empire, was sent off to his command, and arriving at Thasos abolished the democracy there. [3] Within two months of his departure, however, the Thasians began to fortify their city, being quickly tired of an aristocracy allied to Athens when they daily expected to receive freedom from Sparta. [4] Indeed there was a party of them whom the Athenians had banished with the Peloponnesians, who with their friends in the city were already making every effort to bring up a squadron, and to bring about 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. [5] Things at Thasos thus turned out just the contrary to what the oligarchic 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.
8.62
411
21st Year/Summer
HELLESPONT
When Peloponnesian land forces arrive, Abydos and Lampsacus revolt from Athens. The Athenians respond quickly and recover Lampsacus.
8.63
411
21st Year/Summer
CHIOS-SAMOS
Gathering ships from Chios and Miletus, Astyochus challenges the Athenians at Samos. They refuse to fight, due to disunity caused by the fall of the democracy at Athens. The conspiracy at Samos begins to incite the local oligarchs to establish an oligarchy on Samos.
8.64
411
21st Year/Summer
AEGEAN
Envoys from the Athenian army at Samos are sent to Athens and other places to abolish democracies and install oligarchies. At Thasos, the new oligarchy plots to join the Spartans. Thucydides says that Athen’s allies were more interested in securing their freedom than in changes of constitution.
Pisander and his colleagues on their voyage along shore abolished, as had been determined, the democracies in the cities, and also took some hoplites from certain places as their allies, and so came to Athens. [2] 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 People, and the man 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. [3] 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 merely a catchword for the multitude, as the authors of the revolution were really to govern. However, the assembly and the council 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. [2] 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 promptly 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. [3] An exaggerated belief in the numbers of the conspirators also demoralized The People, rendered helpless by the magnitude of the city, and by their being uncertain about each other, and being without means of finding out what those numbers really were. [4] For the same reason it was impossible for anyone to speak his mind to a neighbor 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. [5] Indeed all the popular party approached each other with suspicion, each thinking his neighbor involved 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.
8.65
411
21st Year/Summer
ATHENS
The envoys from the army at Samos find the overthrow of the Athenian democracy well under way. Gangs have already assassinated the leader of The People and others.
8.66
411
21st Year/Summer
ATHENS
The assembly and the council continue to meet but they are controlled by the conspirators. Open opponents of the oligarchy are murdered. The People are cowed because they cannot unite or speak openly to find out who among them are conspirators.
At this juncture Pisander and his colleagues arrived, and lost no time in completing the job. 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. [2] 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, and that heavy penalties would be imposed upon any who should indict for illegality, or otherwise molest him for so doing. [3] 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 cleverness; and who yet was the one man best able to aid in the courts, or before the assembly, the suitors who required his opinion. [2] 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 harshly dealt with by the commons, he made what would seem to be the best defense of any known up to my time. [3] 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. [4] 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.
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ATHENS
With the arrival of the envoys from Samos, the oligarchs led by Pisander change the constitution.
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ATHENS
Thucydides describes the leaders of the oligarchs and comments that it was no small thing to deprive the Athenian people of their freedom after a century of democratic rule.
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. [2] On that day the persons not in on 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. [3] 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. [4] These dispositions completed, the Four Hundred went, each with a dagger concealed about his person, accompanied by one hundred and twenty youths, whom they employed wherever violence was needed, and appeared before the councilors chosen by lot 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; [2] 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 Spartan 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 People.
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ATHENS
The assembly ratifies the new constitution unanimously and disbands. The council is driven out, intimidated by armed youths and foreigners.
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ATHENS
The council departs without objection by its members or other citizens. The Four Hundred now begin to rule arbitrarily by force, not by law. They inform Agis of their desire for peace.
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 Spartan 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 the Peloponnesus, 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. [2] 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 hoplites, 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, [3] 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 Sparta 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 to harm the city or the citizens, but to save the country as a whole; 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. [2] The emissaries were also told what to say upon all other points, and were sent off immediately after the establishment of the new government, which feared, as it turned out correctly, that the mass of seamen would not be willing to remain under the oligarchic constitution, and, the evil beginning there, might be the means of their overthrow.
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21st Year/Summer
ATHENS
Agis responds negatively to the Athenian oligarchs’ first overtures with a show of force, marching his army to the walls of Athens. He finds the walls manned, and actively defended. When the oligarchs send a second embassy to him, he responds more positively.
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ATHENS
The oligarchs send envoys to the fleet at Samos to win acceptance for the new regime, fearing that failure to do so could lead to 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. [2] 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. [3] Meanwhile they put to death one Hyperbolus, an Athenian, a pestilent fellow who had been ostracized, not from fear of his influence or position, but because he was a scoundrel 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 majority. [4] 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 People, were unwilling supporters of the oligarchy; and also Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, the former a captain of a trireme, the latter serving with the hoplites, besides certain others who had always been thought most opposed to the conspirators, appealing to them not to look on and see them destroyed, and Samos, the sole remaining stay of their empire, taken from the Athenians. [5] 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 free men, and had always 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 they had to sail away anywhere themselves. [6] 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 majority gained the victory, and putting to death some thirty of the Three Hundred, banishing three others of the ringleaders, accorded an amnesty to the rest, and lived together under a democratic government for the future.
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SAMOS
An oligarchic party is formed at Samos with the help of some Athenians, and it plots to overthrow Samos’ democracy. The Samian democrats, learning of the plot, turn for help to various prodemocratic Athenian officers and the crew of the ship Paralus. They organize a force that helps the Samian democrats to defeat the coup.
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. [2] When they sailed into harbor 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. [3] Chaereas, however, managed to hide as soon as he saw how things stood, and returning to Samos, drew a picture to the soldiers of the horrors being enacted at Athens, in which everything was exaggerated; saying that all were punished with lashes, 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; and a host of other harmful 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 when the men of moderate views opposed it and warned them against ruining their cause with the enemy close at hand and ready for battle. [2] 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 oligarchic party more than any, to accept a democratic government, to be united, to prosecute actively the war against the Peloponnesians, and to be enemies of the Four Hundred and to hold no communication with them. [3] 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 the Samians, and that success of the Four Hundred or of the enemy at Miletus must be their ruin.
8.74
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21st Year/Summer
ATHENS
Not yet aware of the coup at Athens, the Paralus arrives there with news of the failed coup at Samos; its crew is imprisoned or kept at sea. One escapes to Samos and gives an exaggerated account of events at Athens.
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SAMOS
The troops at Samos vow to remain united in support of democracy both at Samos and at Athens, to maintain the war against Sparta, and to have no relations with the oligarchs at Athens.
MAP 8.75 REVOLUTION IN ATHENS AND SAMOS
The struggle was now between the army trying to force a democracy upon the city, and the Four Hundred an oligarchy upon the army. [2] Meanwhile the soldiers immediately 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, in addition to Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, whom they had already selected. [3] 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. [4] 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, far from lacking strength, had when at war come within an inch 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. [5] 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. [6] Besides, the city was of little or no use in 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 these institutions, and would try to force the home government to do likewise. So that even in point of good counsel the camp had as good counselors as the city. [7] Moreover, they had only to grant Alcibiades security for his person and his recall, and he would be only too glad to procure them the alliance of the King. And above all, if they failed completely, with the navy which they possessed, they had numbers of places to retire to in which they would find cities and lands.
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21st Year/Summer
SAMOS
Athenian forces on Samos choose new officers and agree to restore democracy at Athens. They realize that Athens no longer provides them with funds or counsel, that they can carry on the war alone and inflict more harm on Athens from Samos than the oligarchs can inflict on them. Moreover, their ships could carry them to refuge if they should fail.
Debating together and comforting themselves in 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 vigor 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 he kept them waiting for the Phoenician fleet from Tissaphernes, which had only a nominal existence, at the risk of wasting away in inactivity. Yet 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 delay no longer, they insisted, but fight a decisive naval engagement. The Syracusans were the most urgent of all.
The allies 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 to Mycale, set sail for that place. [2] The Athenians with the eighty-two ships from Samos were at that 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. [3] Besides, they had intelligence from Miletus that the enemy wished 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. [4] 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 neighborhood. [5] The next day they were about to sail against Samos when news reached them of the arrival of Strombichides with the squadron from the Hellespont, whereupon they immediately sailed back to Miletus. [6] 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.
8.77
The envoys from Athens stop at Delos.
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21st Year/Summer
MILETUS
The Peloponnesian sailors accuse Astyochus and Tissaphernes of ruining the fleet by refusing battle and by irregular and insufficient pay. They demand a decisive battle.
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21st Year/Summer
MILETUS-SAMOS
The Peloponnesian fleet sails to Samos seeking battle, but when they learn that Athenian reinforcements have arrived from the Hellespont, they retire to Miletus and refuse to engage the Athenians.
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 not knowing 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, in accordance with their original instructions from the Peloponnesus; [2] for Pharnabazus invited them and was prepared to furnish pay, and in addition Byzantium sent offers to revolt to them. [3] 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 put into Delos, and afterwards returned to Miletus, from which Clearchus proceeded by land to the Hellespont to take the command: ten of the ships, however, under the Megarian Helixus, made good their passage to the Hellespont, and brought about the revolt of Byzantium. [4] 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 leaders 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. [21 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 purpose in this was to make the oligarchic government at Athens afraid of him, to hasten the dissolution of the clubs, to increase his influence 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. [3] 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.
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HELLESPONT
The Peloponnesians send forty triremes to the Hellespont to Pharnabazus who had offered them pay, but a storm scatters the fleet and only ten arrive there. These incite Byzantium to revolt, which forces the Athenians to send a squadron north from Samos.
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SAMOS
Thrasybulus persuades the Athenians on Samos to recall Alcibiades in order to win the friendship of Tissaphernes, their only hope for defeating Sparta. Alcibiades arrives and makes extravagant promises as to what he can accomplish for them with Tissaphernes if Athens only will reinstate him.
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 the Piraeus. [2] To the plan of sailing for the 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 coordinate with him measures for carrying on the war. [3] Accordingly, upon leaving this assembly, he immediately took his departure in order to have it thought that there was a complete trust between them, and also wishing to increase his standing 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 being already distrustful of Tissaphernes, now became far more disgusted with him than ever. [2] 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. [3] Gathering together, just as before, the soldiers and some persons of importance besides the soldiers 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 had been paid irregularly, and that unless they fought a decisive battle or moved away to some station where they could get supplies, the ships’ crews would desert; and that it was all the fault of Astyochus, who humored Tissaphernes for his own private advantage.
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21st Year/Summer
SAMOS
The Athenian troops elect Alcibiades general. He insists on first consulting with Tissaphernes. Thucydides describes Alcibiades’ policy as one of bluff and bluster to both the Athenians and Tissaphernes.
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21st Year/Summer
MILETUS
After the Athenians recall Alcibiades, the Peloponnesians revile Tissaphernes and Astyochus all the more. They fear their sailors will desert unless they receive supplies or fight a decisive battle.
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21st Year/Summer
MILETUS
Sailors from Syracuse and Thurii demand their pay from Astyochus and attack him when he responds harshly, but he escapes to an altar. A Persian fort at Miletus is taken by the Milesians, with the approval of many Peloponnesians, but not of the Spartan Lichas.
The army was engaged in these reflections when the following disturbance took place about the person of Astyochus. [2] Most of the Syracusan and Thurian sailors were free men, 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; [3] upon seeing which the mass of the 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. [4] Meanwhile the fort built by Tissaphernes in Miletus was surprised and taken by the Milesians, and the garrison in it expelled—an act which met with the approval of the rest of the allies, and in particular of the Syracusans, [5] but which found no favor with Lichas, who said moreover that the Milesians and others in the King’s realm 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 Spartans with the army desired.
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21st Year/Summer
MILETUS
Mindarus, sent by the Spartans to take command of the fleet, arrives at Miletus. Astyochus, Hermocrates, and envoys of both Miletus and Tissaphernes all sail to Sparta to accuse each other. SAMOS Alcibiades returns to Samos.
The discontent of the army with Astyochus and Tissaphernes had reached this pitch when Mindarus arrived from Sparta to succeed Astyochus as admiral, and assumed the command. Astyochus now set sail for home; [2] and Tissaphernes sent with him one of his confidants, Gaulites, a Carian, who spoke the two languages, to complain about 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. [3] 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 pronounced himself his enemy because he failed to obtain it.
MAP 8.84 ATHENIAN, PELOPONNESIAN, AND PERSIAN POLITICAL AND MILITARY MANEUVERS
[4] While Astyochus and the Milesians and Hermocrates sailed for Sparta, Alcibiades had now crossed back from Tissaphernes to Samos.
After his return the envoys of the Four Hundred who had been 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. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] Besides these they made a number of other statements which had no better success with their angry audience; and amid a host of different opinions the one which found most favor was that of sailing to the Piraeus. Now it was that Alcibiades for the first time did the state a service, and one of the most outstanding 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. [5] 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; [6] 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 military forces, met with his complete approval. [7] Generally, he told them to hold out and show a bold face to the enemy, since if the city was 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 anyone to be reconciled to. [8] Meanwhile envoys arrived from the Argives, with offers of support to the Athenian democrats at Samos: these were thanked by Alcibiades, and dismissed with a request to come when called upon. [9] The Argives were accompanied by the crew of the Paralus, who had been placed in a troopship by the Four Hundred with orders to cruise round Euboea, and who when they were being employed to carry to Sparta some Athenian envoys sent by the Four Hundred—Laespodias, Aristophon, and Melesias—laid hands upon these envoys as they sailed by Argos, 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 trireme which had been confided to them.
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21st Year/Summer
SAMOS
Envoys from the Athenian oligarchs are received with anger and suspicion at Samos. Alcibiades serves Athens well by preventing the fleet from sailing to Piraeus, which would have abandoned Ionia and the Hellespont to the enemy. Alcibiades talks of reconciliation. Argive envoys arrive and promise support for democracy.
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 to the Phoenician fleet at Aspendus, and invited Lichas to go with him; saying that he would appoint Tamos as his lieutenant to provide pay for the fleet during his own absence. [2] Accounts differ, and it is not easy to ascertain with what intention he went to Aspendus and did not bring the fleet after all. [3] That one hundred and forty-seven Phoenician ships came as far as Aspendus is certain; but why they did not come further 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 believe that he brought the Phoenicians to Aspendus to exact money from them for their discharge, having never intended to employ them; others again think that it was in view of the outcry against him at Sparta, in order that it might be said that he was not at fault, but that the ships were really manned and that he had certainly gone to fetch them. [4] To myself it seems only too evident that he did not bring up the fleet because he wished to wear out and paralyze 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 Spartans, whose navy, even as it was, faced the Athenian more as an equal than as an inferior. [5] 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 accomplished the same end at less cost. [6] In any case, whatever his intention, Tissaphernes went to Aspendus and saw the Phoenicians; and the Peloponnesians at his request sent a Spartan called Philip with two triremes to bring the fleet.
When Alcibiades discovered that Tissaphernes had gone to Aspendus, he sailed there himself with thirteen ships, promising to do a great and certain service for 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.
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ASPENDUS
Tissaphernes goes to Aspendus ostensibly to bring on the Phoenician fleet. Thucydides reports that 147 Phoenician triremes definitely were at Aspendus, and that Tissaphernes did go there. Since the intervention of that force on either side would have been decisive, Tissaphernes was still following the policy of wearing out both sides, because he did not bring the fleet to the region and his explanation why was not credible.
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ASPENDUS
Alcibiades sails to Aspendus, promising to obtain favors from Tissaphernes for the Athenians at Samos.
While Alcibiades weighed anchor and sailed eastward straight for Phaselis and Caunus, [8.89.1] 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. [2] 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 were afraid, as they said, of the army at Samos, and especially of Alcibiades, and also feared that the envoys whom they had sent to Sparta might do the state some harm without the authority of the majority. And so without insisting on their objections to the excessive concentration of power in a few hands, they nevertheless 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. [3] But this was merely their political cry; most of them were 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. [4] But what most clearly encouraged the malcontents was the power of Alcibiades at Samos, and their own conviction that the oligarchy was unstable; and that it was now a race among them as to who should first become the leader of The People.
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 democracy, and Pisander and Antiphon and others who were very powerful, and 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 Sparta and made every effort for peace, and were building the wall in Eetionia—now redoubled their efforts when their envoys returned from Samos and they saw not only The People but their own most trusted associates turning against them. [2] Alarmed at the state of things at Athens and at Samos, they now sent off in haste Antiphon and Phrynichus and ten others with injunctions to make peace with Sparta upon any terms, no matter what, that would be at all tolerable. [3] 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 the Piraeus as to be able to let in, at pleasure, the fleet and army of the enemy. [4] For Eetionia is a breakwater of the Piraeus, close alongside the entrance of the harbor, and was now being 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 harbor. [5] They also walled off the largest porch in the Piraeus which was connected to this wall, and kept it in their own hands, compelling all to unload there the grain that came into the harbor, and what they had in stock, and to take it out from there when they sold it.
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ATHENS
The oligarchy’s envoys return from Samos and deliver Alcibiades’ message. This leads discontented oligarchs, many now frightened of the army, to criticize the government. Now believing that the oligarchy would not last, they were maneuvering to establish themselves as leaders of The People.
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ATHENS
Alarmed by the antagonism of the army and of some in their own party, the oligarchs send a new delegation to Sparta with instructions to make peace on any tolerable terms. They also push forward work on the wall in Eetionia at the Piraeus, which would permit them to control the port, both to keep the fleet from Samos out and to permit an enemy fleet to enter.
These measures had long provoked the murmurs of Theramenes, and when the envoys returned from Sparta without having effected any general peace agreement, he affirmed that this wall was likely to prove the ruin of the state. [2] At this moment forty-two ships from the Peloponnesus, including some Sicilian and Italian vessels from Locri and Tarentum, had been invited over by the Euboeans and were already anchored off Las in Laconia preparing for the voyage to Euboea, under the command of Agesandridas son of Agesander, a Spartiate. Theramenes now asserted 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. [3] 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 only their lives were assured to them.
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ATHENS
Theramenes opposes the works at Eetionia and accuses the oligarchs of intending to invite a Peloponnesian squadron to join them in Piraeus. Indeed, the oligarchs preferred to lose empire and freedom rather than to fall victim to a restored democracy.
MAP 8.91 THE PELOPONNESIANS MOVE AGAINST EUBOEA
For this reason they hastened the construction of their work with postern gates and entrances and means of introducing the enemy, being eager to have it finished in time. [2] 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 Sparta, was laid wait for and stabbed in the open market by one of the peripoli, and fell 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 outside that body, that they now resolved to act. [3] 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. [4] In the end, after a great many seditious harangues and suspicions, they set to work in real earnest. The hoplites in the Piraeus who were building the wall in Eetionia, among whom was Aristocrates, a commander having soldiers of his own tribe, laid hands upon Alexicles, a general under the oligarchy and a devoted adherent of the cabal, and took him into a house and confined him there. [5] In this they were assisted by one Hermon, commander of the peripoli in Munychia, and others, and above all they had the support of the great bulk of the hoplites. [6] As soon as news of this 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 threatened 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 the Piraeus, followed by Aristarchus and some young men of the cavalry. [7] All was now panic and confusion. Those in the city imagined that the Piraeus was already taken and the prisoner put to death, while those in the Piraeus expected at every moment to be attacked by the party in the city. [8] The older men, however, stopped the persons running up and down the city and making for the stands of arms; and Thucydides the Pharsalian, proxenus of the city, came forward and threw himself between the rival factions, and appealed to them not to ruin the state while the enemy was still nearby waiting for his opportunity, and so at length succeeded in quieting them and in keeping them from attacking each other. [9] Meanwhile Theramenes came down to the Piraeus, being himself one of the generals, and raged and stormed against the hoplites, while Aristarchus and the opponents of The People were genuinely infuriated. [10] Most of the hoplites, 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 hoplites and a number of the people in Piraeus immediately got up on the fortification and began to demolish it. [11] 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 People 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 the 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.
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ATHENS-PIRAEUS
Phrynichus is murdered. Failure to find the assassin encourages the regime’s opponents, who also fear that a Spartan fleet will attack the Piraeus. When hoplites at Eetionia imprison a general, the Four Hundred send Theramenes to the Piraeus. He lets the hoplites destroy the wall. Many demand that the Five Thousand should rule, although no one knows if that body really exists.
MAP 8.92 RESISTANCE TO THE ATHENIAN OLIGARCHS
The next day the Four Hundred, although alarmed, nevertheless assembled in the council chamber while the hoplites in the Piraeus, after having released their prisoner Alexicles and pulled down the fortification, went with their arms to the theater of Dionysus close to Munychia. There they held an assembly in which they decided to march into the city, and setting forth accordingly halted in the Anaceum. [2] 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 restrain 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. [3] After a great many had spoken and had been spoken to, the whole body of hoplites 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 theater of Dionysus for the restoration of concord.
When the day came for the assembly in the theater, 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. [2] But though it may possibly have been by appointment that Agesandridas hovered about Epidaurus and the neighborhood, he would also naturally be kept there by the hope of an opportunity arising out of the troubles in the city. [3] In any case the Athenians, on receipt of the news, immediately ran down in mass to the Piraeus, seeing themselves threatened by the enemy with a worse war than their war among themselves, not at a distance, but close to the harbor 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 harbor.
Meanwhile the Peloponnesian vessels sailed by, and rounding Sunium anchored between Thoricus and Prasiae, and afterwards arrived at Oropus. [2] 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. [3] 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 taken their dinner, put out from Oropus, which is about seven miles from Eretria by sea; [4] 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 city; the Eretrians having so arranged that there should be nothing on sale in the agora, in order that the Athenians might be a long time in manning their ships, and the enemy’s attack taking them by surprise, might compel them 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. [5] The Athenians, forced to put out so poorly prepared, engaged off the harbor of Eretria, and after holding their own for some little while notwithstanding, were at length put to flight and chased to the shore. [6] 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. [7] 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.
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ATHENS-PIRAEUS
While the oligarchs meet in Athens, the hoplites assemble in the Piraeus and march to Athens. They are met by envoys from the oligarchs who beg them to be calm and not to betray the city to its enemies. The hoplites agree to the convening of a new assembly to restore concord.
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ATHENS-PIRAEUS
As the Athenians assemble, word arrives that a Spartan fleet is approaching the Piraeus from Megara. All hasten to the port to launch the remaining ships and man its defenses.
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EUBOEA
The Spartan fleet sails to Euboea, forcing Athens to send ships to protect that island. A battle takes place off Eretria in which the Spartans, aided secretly by the Eretrians, surprise the Athenians and gain a great victory. All Euboea, except for Oreus, which was settled by the Athenians, revolts from Athens.
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. [2] The fleet at Samos was in revolt; they had no more ships or men to man them; they were in conflict among themselves and might at any moment come to blows; and a disaster of this magnitude coming on top of everything else, 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. [3] 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 the Piraeus, which they no longer had ships to defend; and every moment they expected the enemy to arrive. [4] 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 opposed to the oligarchy, to come to the rescue of their country and of their relatives, and in the meantime, the enemy 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. [5] But here, as on so many other occasions, the Spartans 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 Spartans 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.
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ATHENS
The loss of Euboea promotes panic at Athens. If the enemy besieges the Piraeus, the fleet from Samos would have to defend the city, exposing the rest of the empire. Thucydides notes that the Spartans were characteristically too slow to grasp or exploit this opportunity.
MAP 8.96 PELOPONNESIAN VICTORY AT EUBOEA
Nevertheless, upon receipt of the news, the Athenians manned twenty ships and immediately called a first assembly in the Pnyx, where they had been accustomed 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 armor were to be members, decreeing also that no one should receive pay for the discharge of any office, [2] or if he did should be held accursed. Many other assemblies were held afterwards, in which lawmakers 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 accomplished with judgment, and this was what first enabled the state to raise up her head after her manifold disasters. [3] 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.
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21st Year/Summer
ATHENS
The Athenians react to the Euboea disaster by deposing the oligarchy, installing a new regime of the Five Thousand, and enacting reforms. They also recall Alcibiades and other exiles and urge the army at Samos to vigorously carry on 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. [2] This was a fort of the Athenians upon the Boeotian border, at that moment besieged by the Corinthians who were responding to 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. [3] After communicating with them, Aristarchus deceived the garrison in Oenoe by telling them that their countrymen in the city had settled with the Spartans, 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. [4] In this way the Boeotians gained possession of Oenoe, and the oligarchy and the troubles at Athens ended.
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21st Year/Summer
ATHENS
The chief oligarchs flee to the enemy at Decelea. Aristarchus, one of their generals, tricks the garrison of the Athenian fort at Oenoe into evacuating the fort, which is then occupied by the Boeotians.
To return to the Peloponnesians in Miletus. No pay was forthcoming from any of the agents appointed 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 Spartiate, Hippocrates, who was at Phaselis, sent 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 province that were still subject to Athens, founding great hopes on his success; until at length, at about this time in the summer, Mindarus yielded to his requests 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. Sixteen vessels had already preceded him there 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.
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21st Year/Summer
MILETUS
Since the Peloponnesian fleet received no pay from Tissaphernes, who also did not bring up, as promised, the Phoenician fleet, Mindarus decides to take his fleet to Pharnabazus (who promised financial support) and, after diversion by a storm, arrives at Chios.
Meanwhile Thrasyllus had heard of his having put out from Miletus, and immediately set sail with fifty-five ships from Samos, hurrying to arrive before him in the Hellespont. [2] 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 sailed along the coast to Methymna, and gave orders to prepare ground barley and other necessaries, in order to attack them from Lesbos in the event of their remaining for any length of time at Chios. [3] Meanwhile he resolved to sail against Eresus, a city in Lesbos which had revolted, and to take it if he could. For some of the principal Methymnian exiles had carried over about fifty hoplites, their sworn associates from Cyme, and hiring others from the mainland 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. Thwarted in this attempt by the advance of the Athenian guards from Mytilene, and repulsed a second time in a battle outside the city, they then crossed the mountain and brought about the revolt of Eresus. [4] Thrasyllus accordingly determined to go there with all his ships and to attack the place. Meanwhile Thrasybulus had preceded him there 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 city. [5] 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 siege engines and every other means available to do their utmost to storm Eresus.
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21st Year/Summer
LESBOS
Learning of the Spartan move, the Athenian fleet leaves Samos for the Hellespont and takes station at Methymna on Lesbos. The general Thrasyllus decides to attack Eresus, a Lesbian city that has revolted and serves now as a base for Methymnian exiles.
MAP8.100 FIGHTING ON LESBOS; BOTH FLEETS MOVE NORTH
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 sailed 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 mainland. [2] After touching at the port of Carteria, in the territory of Phocaea, and having their dinner, they went on along the Cymaean coast and took supper at Arginousae, on the mainland over against Mytilene. [3] From there they continued their voyage along the coast, although it was late in the night, and arriving at Harmatus on the continent opposite Methymna, took a meal there; and swiftly passing Lectum, Larisa, Hamaxitus, and the neighboring cities, 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 neighborhood.
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21st Year/Summer
LESBOS
After taking pay for its sailors from the Chians, the Peloponnesian fleet leaves Chios for Lesbos, sails north between Lesbos and the mainland, and arrives at the Hellespont without encountering the Athenian fleet.
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. [2] After passing unobserved by the sixteen ships at Abydos, (although they had 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 those in the rear were overtaken off Elaeus. [3] One of these was stranded opposite 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.
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HELLESPONT
Learning of the approach of the Spartan fleet, an Athenian squadron at Sestos attempts to flee. They are pursued, attacked, and lose four triremes off Elaeus.
After this the Peloponnesians were joined by the squadron from Abydos, which brought their fleet to a grand total of eighty-six vessels; they spent the day in unsuccessfully besieging Elaeus, and then sailed back to Abydos. [2] Meanwhile the Athenians, deceived by their scouts, and never dreaming that the enemy’s fleet would go 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, [3] and after taking two of the Peloponnesian ships which had been carried out too far into the open sea in the ardor of the pursuit and which now fell in their way, dropped anchor the next day at Elaeus. There they brought back the ships that had taken refuge at Imbros and for five days prepared for the coming engagement.
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HELLESPONT
The Athenians at Eresus finally learn of the nearby presence of the Peloponnesian fleet and leave for Elaeus, where they prepare for battle.
MAP 8.103 THE BATTLE IN THE HELLESPONT OFF POINT CYNOSSEMA
After this they engaged in the following way. The Athenians formed in column and sailed close along shore to Sestos; upon perceiving which the Peloponnesians put out from Abydos to meet them. [2] Realizing that a battle was now imminent, both combatants extended their flank; the Athenians along the Chersonese from Idacus to Arrhiana with seventy-six ships; the Peloponnesians from Abydos to Dardanus with eighty-six. [3] The Peloponnesian right wing was occupied by the Syracusans, their left by Mindarus in person with the best sailors in the navy; the Athenian left by Thrasyllus, their right by Thrasybulus, the other commanders being in different parts of the fleet. [4] 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 center upon the shore, which was not far off. The Athenians perceiving their intention extended their own (right) wing and outsailed them, [5] while their left had by this time passed the point of Cynossema. This, however, obliged them to thin and weaken their center, 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 happening on the other side of it.
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HELLESPONT
The location, formations, and maneuvers of battle are described. The Athenian wings prevent the enemy’s attempt to outflank them, but their center near Point Cynossema is thereby weakened.
The Peloponnesians now attacked their center and drove ashore the ships of the Athenians, and disembarked to follow up their victory. [2] No help could be given to the center 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. [3] 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 fiercely 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.
8.105
411
21st Year/Summer
HELLESPONT
Initial Peloponnesian victory in the center leads to disorder and then defeat when the Athenian wings attack and finally put their adversaries to flight.
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. [2] Up to this time they had feared the Peloponnesian fleet, owing to a number of petty losses and the disaster in Sicily; but they now ceased to mistrust themselves or any longer to think their enemies good for anything at sea. [3] Meanwhile they took from the enemy eight Chian vessels, five Corinthian, two Ambraciot, two Boeotian, one Leucadian, Spartan, Syracusan, and Pellenian, losing fifteen of their own. [4] After setting up a trophy upon Point Cynossema, securing the wrecks, and restoring to the enemy his dead under truce, they sent off a trireme to Athens with the news of their victory. [5] The arrival of this vessel with its unhooed-for good news, after the recent disasters of Euboea, and during 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.
8.106
411
21st Year/Summer
HELLESPONT
The completeness of the victory, although the Athenians only captured twenty-one triremes and lost fifteen of their own, restores Athenian confidence in their prowess at sea.
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 city of Cyzicus, which was unfortified, and levied money from the citizens. [2] In the meantime the Peloponnesians sailed from Abydos to Elaeus, and recovered such of their captured triremes as were still uninjured, the rest having been burned by the Elaeusians, and sent Hippocrates and Epicles to Euboea to bring the squadron from that island.
8.107
411
21st Year/Summer
HELLESPONT
The Athenians take Cyzicus and capture some triremes. The Spartans send for their squadron from Euboea.
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. [2] 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. [3] 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.
8.108
411
21st Year/Summer
IONIA
Alcibiades returns to Samos, claiming to have prevented the Phoenician fleet from joining the enemy. He levies funds from Halicarnassus and fortifies Cos.
HELLESPONT
The Antandrians expel the Persian garrison because of Arsaces’ ill treatment of the Delians.
[4] While the Peloponnesians were in the Hellespont, the Antandrians, a people of Aeolic extraction, conveyed by land across Mount Ida some hoplites from Abydos, and introduced them into the city; having been ill-treated by Arsaces, the Persian lieutenant of Tissaphernes. This same Arsaces had, upon pretense 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 city 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. [5] This deed made the Antandrians fear that he might someday 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.
MAP 8.107 AFTERMATH OF THE BATTLE OF CYNOSSEMA
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 Antandrus 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.
8.109
411
21st Year/Summer
IONIA
Anxious to heal the breach between the Peloponnesians and himself, Tissaphernes hurries to the Hellespont to explain his actions and restore relations. He stops at Ephesus.
[When the winter after this summer is over the twenty-first year of this war will be completed.]
Athens: Map 8.3, AY.
Hoplite is the Greek word for a heavily armed infantryman. See Appendix F, Land Warfare, ©2.
Piraeus: Map 8.3, AY.
Euboea: Map 8.3, AY.
Decelea: Map 8.3, AY.
Malian Gulf: Map 8.3, AX.
Oetae, general location of their territory: Map 8.3, AX.
Thessaly: Map 8.3, AX.
Phthiotis: Map 8.3, AX.
Corinth: Map 8.3, AX.
The “cities” in this case, as in 5.17.2, are the members of the Peloponnesian League; see Appendix D, The Peloponnesian League, ©3.
Boeotia: Map 8.3, AY; Phocis and Opuntian Locris: Map 8.3, AX.
This requisition, when compared to the seventy-five triremes launched by Corinth in 435 (1.29.1), may indicate how severely Corinth had been impoverished by the war.
Arcadia: Map 8.3, BX.
Pellene: Map 8.3, AX.
Sicyon: Map 8.3, AX.
Megara: Map 8.3, AY; Troezen, Epidaurus, and Hermione: Map 8.3, BY.
Cape Sunium: Map 8.3, BY.
Laconia: Map 8.3, BX. The exact location of this fort, whose construction was described in 7.26.1, is unknown.
This may be the same Sthenelaidas who as ephor spoke so strongly for war twenty years earlier in 1.86.
Euboea: Map 8.3, AY.
When Brasidas took the 700 helots to fight in Thrace (4.80) he inaugurated the radical policy change at Sparta of using helots for military purposes rather than keeping them all in bitter subjection. Sparta further developed that policy by creating a special class of Neodamodeis whose numbers seem to increase steadily in the succeeding half century (cf. 7.19.3). Their precise status remains unknown, and although the name implies that they were made part of the citizen body, most scholars reject this notion. See Appendix C, ©9.
Lesbos: Map 8.7, Asia.
Boeotia: Map 8.3, AY, and Map 8.7, Hellas.
Decelea: Map 8.3, AY, and Map 8.7, Hellas.
Chios and Erythrae: Map 8.7, Asia.
Tissaphernes, Persian satrap (governor) of the “maritime districts,” governed his large province from Sardis (Map 8.7, Asia), the capital of the province or satrapy of Lydia.
This Pissuthnes, son of Hystaspes, is mentioned by Thucydides as supporting the Samian Revolt of 440 (see 1.115). Pissuthnes had revolted from Darius II—precisely when or why is not known—and had been brutally executed. The rebellion of his son, Amorges, may have followed shortly after, though the date is quite unsure—415/4 is possible. He appears to have requested and received Athenian help, which, if true, may prove to be another event of perhaps great importance that is entirely omitted by Thucydides, although we can indirectly infer the existence of an alliance between Amorges and the Athenians from his text at 8.19.1, 8.28.2, and especially 8.54.3. Since the connection with Amorges may have led directly to a breach between Athens and Persia, and so to the Persian alliance with Sparta which ultimately caused the defeat of Athens, Thucydides’ silence here has caused much scholarly puzzlement and distress. Some scholars have concluded, however, that the omission is less an indication of a lack of knowledge or interest on his part than it is evidence of the incompleteness of his work. Amorges is next mentioned in 8.19.2. See Appendix E, The Persians,©6-8.
Caria: Map 8.7, Asia.
Megara: Map 8.7, Hellas.
Cyzicus: Map 8.7, Asia.
Hellespont: Map 8.7, Asia. Pharnabazus son of Pharnaces was the Persian governor of the Hellespont region.
For the rivalry between Tissaphernes, Persian governor (satrap) of Sardis (Map 8.7, Asia), and Pharnabazus, Persian governor of the Hellespont (Map 8.7, Asia), see 8.109.1 andAppendix E, The Persians, ©7.
Ionia: Map 8.7, Asia.
Endius was one of the three envoys sent to Athens eight years earlier who were then “known to be well disposed to the Athenians” (5.44.3), and who were duped by Alcibiades in the assembly (5.45). As a Spartan ephor, Endius was now a powerful government official. See Appendix C, Spartan Institutions, ©5-6.
For perioikoi, see the Glossary and Appendix C, Spartan Institutions, ©9.
Erythrae: Map 8.7, Asia.
Laconia: Map 8.3. BX.
A ‘Spartiate’ is a full citizen of Sparta and a member of the highest Spartan military caste.
At the Isthmus of Corinth, (Map 8.7, Hellas) remains of an ancient trackway on which specially made carts hauled ships across the Isthmus to avoid the long and sometimes difficult voyage around the Peloponnesus can still be seen today; see Illustration 8.8.
Chios: Map 8.7, Asia.
Lesbos: Map 8.7, Asia.
A talent is a large unit of money; see Appendix J, Classical Greek Currency, ©5.
Hellespont: Map 8.7, Asia. Alcamenes’ selection by Agis was mentioned in 8.5.1.
The Isthmian festival was one of the main ceremonies involving all Greeks. A general truce was declared so that all Greeks could travel to and participate in the festival. See 5.49, for a description of Sparta’s alleged violation of the Olympic truce, and Appendix I, Religious Festivals, ©5-7.
Chios: Map 8.7, Asia. For the fate of these ships, see 8.15.2.
Cenchreae: Map 8.7, Hellas.
Spiraeum: Map 8.7, Hellas.
Epidaurus: Map 8.7, Hellas.
Isthmus of Corinth: Map 8.7, Hellas.
Ionia: Map 8.7, Asia.
According to Plutarch (“Alcibiades,” 23), Alcibiades fathered a son by Agis’ wife.
This squadron was apparently seen and pursued by the Athenian Strombichides, but not overtaken; see 8.15.1.
Leucas: Map 8.15,Hellas.
Corycus, presumably near Mount Corycus: Map 8.15, Asia.
Chios: Map 8.15, Asia.
Spiraeum:Map 8.15, Hellas.
Erythrae: Map 8.15, Asia.
Clazomenae: Map 8.15, Asia.
Polichna: exact site unknown.
This fund was set aside in 431; see 2.24.1.
Spiraeum: Map 8.15, Hellas.
These were the Chian vessels demanded in 8.9.2-3. The Chians apparently used slaves in the crews of these ships. See note 1.55.1b, 7.13.2, and Appendix G, Trireme Warfare, ©12.
Samos: Map 8.15, Asia.
Teos: Map 8.15, Asia.
Chios: Map 8.15, Asia.
Clazomenae: Map 8.15, Asia.
Erythrae: Map 8.15, Asia.
The barbarians in this case are Persians.
Peloponnesus: Map 8.15, Hellas.
Miletus: Map 8.15, Asia.
Lade: Map 8.15, Asia. This force is next mentioned in 8.24.1.
This “First Alliance” is probably the first of three drafts (see 8.37 and 8.58) of the eventual alliance agreement; see note 8.57.2a.
Anaia: Map 8.15, Asia. Anaia was the base of anti-Athenian Samian exiles; see 3.19.2, 3.32.2, and 4.75.1.
Miletus: Map 8.15, Asia.
The location of this temple is not known. Amorges was the bastard son of Pissuthnes, the previous Persian governor at Sardis (Map 8.15, Asia), who was now in rebellion against Tissaphernes and the Persians. He had probably received assistance from the Athenians, although Thucydides does not directly say so. See 1.115.4, 8.5.5, 8.28.2, and 8.54.3. Also seeAppendix E, The Persians, ©7-8.
For Thrasycles, see 8.15.1 and 8.17.3.
Ephesus: Map 8.15, Asia.
Teos: Map 8.15, Asia.
Samos: Map 8.15, Asia.
Lebedos: Map 8.15, Asia.
Aerae: Map 8.15, Asia.
Spiraeum: Map 8.15, Hellas; Map 8.25, Hellas.
Cenchreae: Map 8.25, Hellas.
Chios: Map 8.25, BX.
Ionia: Map 8.25, BY.
Teos: Map 8.25, BY.
Samos: Map 8.25, BY.
Chios: Map 8.25, BX.
Lesbos: Map 8.25, AX.
Hellespont: Map 8.25, AX. For Spartan instructions, see 8.8.2.
Clazomenae: Map 8.25, BY.
Cyme: Map 8.25, BY.
Perioikoi: see the Glossary and Appendix C, Spartan Institutions, ©9.
Methymna, Lesbos: Map 8.25, AX.
Mytilene, Lesbos: Map 8.25, AY.
Cenchreae: Map 8.25, Hellas.
Chios: Map 8.25, BX.
Pyrrha, Lesbos: Map 8.25, AX.
Eresus, Lesbos: Map 8.25, AX.
Antissa, Lesbos: Map 8.25, AX.
Polichna: exact location unknown.
Daphnus: exact location unknown.
Lade: Map 8.25, BY. This force took up station at Lade in 8.17.3.
Miletus: Map 8.25, BY.
Panormus: Map 8.25, BY.
A trophy was a set of captured armor arranged on a pole and raised at or near the battlefield by the victors.
Lesbos: Map 8.25, AX.
Oenoussae Islands: Map 8.25, BX.
The locations of Sidoussa and Pteleum are unknown. For the location of Erythrae, see Map 8.25, BY.
Cardamyle, Chios: Map 8.25, BX.
Bolissus, Chios: Map 8.25, BX.
Cape Phanae, Chios: Map 8.25, BX.
Leuconium: location unknown.
Thucydides is here including in the term “the Persian wars” the events of the Ionian Revolt of 499-94 B.C. See Appendix E, The Persians, ©3.
Erythrae: Map 8.25, BY. We next hear of Astyochus at Chios in 8.31.1.
Argos: Map 8.25, Hellas.
Peltasts furnished with hoplite armor: peltasts were normally armed only with a small, light shield, a javelin, and a short sword. Unhindered by body armor, they could move much more quickly than the fully armed hoplite.
Samos: Map 8.25, Hellas.
Thucydides obviously believed that a double victory of Ionians over Dorians was striking enough to warrant special mention. See Appendix H, Dialects and Ethnic Groups, ©8.
Hermocrates son of Hermon is the statesman and general from Syracuse (Map 8.37, locator); cf. Books 6 and 7.
Selinus: Map 8.37, locator.
Leros (Map 8.25, BY) is forty miles from Miletus (Map 8.25, BY), but could be described as “on the way” to Miletus.
Gulf of Iasus: Map 8.25, BY.
Teichioussa: Map 8.25, BY.
Samos: Map 8.25, BY.
Phrynichus reenters the narrative in 8.48.4.
Teichioussa and Miletus: Map 8.31, BY.
For Chalcideus and the Chian ships’ arrival at Miletus, see 8.17.
They had left the ships’ tackle at Teichioussa in order to lighten their ships in preparation for battle off Miletus. See 6.34.5, 7.24.2, and Appendix G, Trireme Warfare, ©8.
Iasus: Map 8.31, BY. The base of Amorges was last mentioned in 8.19.2; see also 8.5.5 (note 8.5.5b) and 8.54.3.
Doric stater: a unit of money; see Appendix J, Classical Greek Currency, ©4.
Chios: Map 8.31, AX.
Erythrae: Map 8.31, BY. Pedaritus arrives here in 8.32.2.
This is a 50 percent reduction, as six obols equal one drachma; see Appendix J, Classical Greek Currency, ©3. As we learn in 8.45.2, Alcibiades had advised Tissaphernes to reduce the pay.
Samos: Map 8.31, BY.
Chios: Map 8.31, AX.
Miletus: Map 8.31, BY.
The arrival of these thousand Athenian hoplites was described in 8.25.1.
Conspiracy at Chios: see 8.24.6, and perhaps 8.38.3.
Pteleum: location unknown.
Clazomenae: Map 8.31, AY.
Daphnus: location unknown.
Phocaea and Cyme: Map 8.31, AY.
Marathoussa and Pele: locations unknown.
Drymoussa: Map 8.31, AX.
Lesbos: Map 8.31, AX.
Corinth: Map 8.31, Hellas.
Chios: Map 8.31, AX.
Miletus: Map 8.31, BY. Pedaritus set out from here in 8.28.5.
Erythrae: Map 8.31, BY.
These were the five ships that Alcibiades persuaded Endius and the other ephors to send in 8.12.1-3.
Pedaritus could refuse because he had been sent from Sparta to command at Chios (8.28.5).
Megara: Map 8.31, Hellas.
Hermione: Map 8.31, Hellas.
Laconia: Map 8.31, Hellas. Astyochus crossed over with four ships in 8.23.1.
Miletus: Map 8.31, BY.
Chios: Map 8.31, AX.
Mount Corycus: Map 8.31, BY.
Erythrae: Map 8.31, BY.
Samos: Map 8.31, BY.
Mount Corycus: Map 8.31, BY.
Cape Arginus: Map 8.31, BX.
Phoenicus: exact location unknown.
Mount Mimas: Map 8.31, AX.
Lesbos: Map 8.31, AX.
Thurii: Map 8.37, locator.
Cnidus: Map 8.37, BY.
Miletus: Map 8.37, BY.
Cape Triopium: Map 8.37, BY.
Egypt: Map 8.37, locator.
Samos: Map 8.37, BY.
Miletus: Map 8.37, BY.
Iasus: Map 8.37, BY. See 8.28.3-4.
Thucydides refers to the first of three agreements or three drafts of an agreement (8.18, 8.37, and 8.58); see note at 8.57.2.
Lesbos: Map 8.37, AX; where the Athenian ships went to prepare for the work of fortification, 8.34.1.
Chios: Map 8.37, AX.
Delphinium and the city of Chios: Map 8.37, AX.
Party of Ion: probably the authors of the conspiracy on Chios mentioned in 8.24.6 and 8.31.1.
Miletus: Map 8.37, BY.
Samos: Map 8.37, BY.
Pharnabazus was the Persian governor (satrap) of the Hellespont region (Map 8.37, AX). See Appendix E, The Persians, ©2, 7.
Megara: Map 8.31, Hellas. Calligeitus and Timagorus appear also in 8.6.1 and 8.8.1.
Cyzicus: Map 8.37, AY.
Ionia: Map 8.37, BY.
Cape Malea of the Peloponnesus: Map 8.37, locator, and Map 8.45, BX.
Melos: Map 8.37, BX.
Crete : Map 8.37, locator.
Caunus: Map 8.37, BY.
Chios: Map 8.37, AX.
Thucydides is probably thinking in terms of the proportion of slaves to free men in Chios in comparison to the ratio of Helots to free citizens in Sparta. Although a large and rich island, it is most unlikely that there would have been a larger absolute number of slaves at Chios than at Athens, or of Helots at Sparta.
Delphinium, Chios: Map 8.37, AX.
Astyochus had threatened to withhold aid from the Chians when they refused to assist the Lesbians; see 8.33.1.
Caunus: Map 8.45, BY. The departure and circuitous voyage of this fleet was described in 8.39.
Chios: Map 8.45, AY.
Cos: Map 8.45, BY.
Cnidus: Map 8.45, BY.
Samos: Map 8.45, AY.
Peloponnesus: Map 8.45, BX.
Melos: Map 8.45, BX. See 8.39.3.
Syme, Chalce, Rhodes, and Lycia: Map 8.45, BY.
Syme: Map 8.45, BY.
Caunus: Map 8.45, BY.
Teutloussa: Map 8.45, BY.
Halicarnassus: Map 8.45, BY.
Cnidus: Map 8.45, BY.
Syme and Cnidus: Map 8.45, BY.
Ships’ tackle: see 6.34.5, 7.24.2, 8.28.1, and Appendix G, Trireme Warfare, ©8.
Loryma: Map 8.45, BY.
Thessaly: Map 8.45, AX.
Locris (Opuntian): Map 8.45, AX.
Boeotia: Map 8.45, AX.
The Greeks regularly referred to the Persians as “the Mede,” or “the Medes,” and to the Persian wars as the “Median wars,” although the Medes and Persians were distinct peoples. SeeAppendix E, ©1.
Rhodes: Map 8.45, BY.
Cnidus: Map 8.45, BY.
Camirus, Rhodes: Map 8.45, BY.
Lindus and lalysus on Rhodes: Map 8.45, BY.
Samos: Map 8.45, AY.
Chalce and Cos: Map 8.45, BY.
The battle at Miletus (Map 8.45, BY) was described in 8.25.
For Agis’ enmity with Alcibiades, see note 8.12.2a.
Six obols equals one drachma; see Appendix J, Classical Greek Currency, ©3.
This move by Tissaphernes to reduce the pay of the Peloponnesian sailors, and Hermocrates’ opposition to it, was previously described in 8.29.1-2.
Chios: Map 8.45, AY.
Phoenicia, Map 8.45, locator. The Phoenician fleet was a major component of Persian naval power.
Samos: Map 8.45, AY.
Phrynichus, the “man of sense,” was last heard from in 8.27.
Miletus: Map 8.45, BY, and Map 8.56.
Magnesia: Map 8.45, AY, and Map 8.56.
Samos: Map 8.45, AY, and Map 8.56.
Cnidus: Map 8.56.
The Spartans’ arrival at Rhodes (Map 8.56) was described in 8.44.
Although the quarrel with Lichas was described in 8.43.3-4, Alcibiades’ prior advice to Tissaphernes was recounted in 8.46.1-4.
The Eumolpidae and Ceryces were the only two families from whom officials who led and conducted the Mystery rites at the shrine of Eleusis (Map 8.61, BX) could be selected. Since Alcibiades had been condemned for blaspheming against the “Mysteries” (see 6.27-29 and 6.61), they would naturally be concerned at his recall.
Iasus: Map 8.56. This statement indicates a relationship of some sort between Amorges and Athens that could be betrayed; see note 8.5.5b.
At Athens there were no political parties in the modern sense. Nonetheless, there were groups of citizens whose interests coincided. These groups even when ostensibly social in nature could be employed for political ends; indeed, they were constantly and lawfully active in the political life of the democracy. The “clubs” mentioned here are more sinister, as they are Crawley’s translation of synomosiai, a word which shows that oaths were exchanged. They were not necessarily dedicated to the subversion of the democracy, but clearly could be so used. See Appendix A, The Athenian Government, ©11.
Rhodes: Map 8.56.
Chalce: Map 8.56.
Cos: Map 8.56.
Chios: Map 8.56.
Progress on the Athenian fortifications on Chios at Delphinium (Map 8.37, AX) was mentioned in 8.38.2 and 8.40.3.
Many scholars have taken this last demand of Alcibiades to imply the existence of a treaty between Athens and Persia. The movement of the royal fleet may have been restricted by nothing more than fear of the Athenians, but what prevented the King from building ships if it was not some clause of a treaty? See Appendix B, The Athenian Empire, ©8; Appendix E, The Persians, ©5; and note E5c.
Samos: Map 8.56.
Caunus: Map 8.56.
Thucydides seems persuaded that there were three “treaties” between Sparta and Persia in 412/1 (8.18, 8.37, and here), but the truth seems to be that the first two were mere drafts of treaties and were rejected by one party, which is why only the third has a formal introduction with a date and the names of the Persians involved. It was negotiated in Caunus (8.57.1), but the introduction to the treaty says the agreement was made “in the plain of the Meander” (8.58.1), that is, there was an interval in which the text could be referred to both the King and to Sparta. It is to be noted, however, that only with this third “treaty” does Thucydides use the technical term (not reproduced in Crawley’s translation) signifying, literally, the pouring of a libation which was necessary to complete the accord. So perhaps Thucydides was not deceived.
The King’s vessels: the Phoenician fleet.
Phoenicia: Map 8.45, locator.
Boeotia and Oropus: Map 8.61, BX. Eretria and Euboea: Map 8.61, AX. For the eventual revolt of Euboea, see 8.95.
Rhodes: Map 8.61, BY.
Cape Triopium, Chalce, Samos, and Miletus: Map 8.61, BY; Chios, Map 8.61, AY.
Abydos: Map 8.61, AY.
Miletus: Map 8.61, BY.
For Antisthenes’ arrival, see 8.39.2.
Thurii: Map 8.37 locator.
Anaia: Map 8.61, BY. Anaia was the city from which the Samian exiles operated; see 4.75.1.
Abydos: Map 8.61, AY.
Pharnabazus, son of Pharnaces was the Persian governor (satrap) of the Hellespont region (Map 8.61, AY).
Lampsacus: Map 8.61, AY.
Chios: Map 8.61, AY. Strombichides had been assigned to the siege of Chios in 8.30.1.
Sestos: Map 8.61, AY. The Athenian capture of Sestos from the Persians in 479/8 was described in 1.89.2. This flotilla based at Sestos is next mentioned in 8.79.3.
Miletus: Map 8.61, BY.
Samos: Map 8.61, BY.
Thucydides describes the actual overthrow of the Athenian democracy below, in 8.65-69.
For the revolt at Samos in 412, see 8.21. The narrative of political events at Samos continues at 8.73.
Presumably this is the same Diitrephes who led the Dii in the massacre at Mycalessus in 413 (7.29).
Thrace: Map 8.61, AY; Thasos: Map 8.61, AX.
For the assembly and council, see Appendix A, The Athenian Government, ©5-8.
Temple of Poseidon (Hippios) in Colonus, probable location: Map 8.75, inset map. Thucydides writes “ten stades”; the Attic stade was 607 feet long, the Olympic stade was 630.8 feet.
A guarantee of immunity from prosecution for making proposals to change the constitution was necessary before any revolutionary changes could be made.
Remains of this building (the Bouleuterion) have been located in the Athenian agora (Map 6.56, inset).
See Appendix A, The Athenian Government, ©10, for some light on why citizens would require assistance from experts in the courts and the assembly.
A few fragments of this speech survive, but they are insufficient to assess Thucydides’ judgment of it.
For the council chamber, see note 8.67.3a.
Decelea: Map 8.75.
By “posts” Thucydides means locations where arms were stored.
Andros and Tenos: Map 8.61, BX.
Carystus: Map 8.61, BX.
Aegina: Map 8.61, BX.
For an explanation of the “councilors chosen by lot,” see Appendix A, The Athenian Government, ©5.
The prytanes were a group who acted as a standing committee for both the council and the assembly during the tenth of the year when it was their tribe’s turn “to preside”; see note at 6.14.1a and Appendix A, The Athenian Government, ©5.
Thucydides means here that although one would expect the new government to undo the acts of the democracy and to recall all exiles, the oligarchs did not now recall the exiles because they did not wish Alcibiades to return to the city. It should be noted that Thucydides himself at this time was an exile.
Decelea: Map 8.75.
Long Walls of Athens: Map 8.75, inset.
Attica: Map 8.75.
Samos: Map 8.75.
This continues the narrative of political events at Samos from 8.63.3.
Hyperbolus was ostracized at some time before the Sicilian Expedition (the commonly cited date of 418/7 is ill-grounded). His was the last instance of a practice begun less than a century earlier whereby, if The People chose to have such a vote, the man who received the largest number of votes, provided that six thousand or more citizens voted, had to withdraw from Athens for ten years, though he retained his property; see Appendix A, The Athenian Government, ©8. Small shards of pottery (ostraka) were used on which names were written; see Illustration 1.135. For the ostracism of Themistocles, see 1.135.3.
The Paralus and her sister ship the Salaminia were special state triremes used on sacred embassies and official business. They appear several times in Thucydides’ narrative, see note 3.33.1a.
Euboea: Map 8.75. We next hear of the crew of the Paralus in 8.86.9.
Miletus: Map 8.75.
Samos: Map 8.75.
Piraeus: Map 8.75, inset.
Delos: Map 8.75. The dispatch of these ten envoys is described in 8.72.
Miletus : Map 8.75.
Phoenicia: Map 8.84, locator.
Mount Mycale: Map 8.75.
Glauce in Mycale: exact location unknown.
Hellespont: Map 8.84, AY.
Chios: Map 8.84, BX.
Abydos: Map 8.84, AY. For Strombichides’ triremes and mission from Chios to Abydos, see 8.62.2.
Pharnabazus was the Persian governor (satrap) of the Hellespont region (Map 8.84, AY). See Appendix E, The Persians, ©2,7.
The plan and instructions to send forces to Pharnabazus in the Hellespont after operations were begun in Chios and Lesbos was mentioned in 8.8.2 and 8.39.2.
Byzantium: Map 8.84, AY.
Delos: Map 8.84, BX.
Miletus: Map 8.84, BY.
Megara: Map 8.84, BX.
Samos: Map 8.84, BY.
On the Athenian political clubs, see note 8.54.4a.
Phoenicia: Map 8.84, locator.
Aspendus: Map 8.84, BY.
Piraeus: Map 8.84, BX.
Miletus: Map 8.84, BY.
Syracuse, Sicily, and Thurii, Italy: Map 8.91. If most were free men, then some were not; see Appendix G, Trireme Warfare, ©12.
It would have been sacrilege to harm someone who had taken refuge at an altar; see also the “curse of the goddess,” 1.126.10-11; the supplication of the Mytilenians, 3.28.2; the excesses of the Corcyraean revolution, 3.81.5; and the flight of Thrasyllus, 5.60.6.
Caria: Map 8.84, BY.
Hermocrates is the leader from Syracuse (Map 8.91) who figures so prominently in Books 6 and 7. His quarrel with Tissaphernes is described in 8.29. Except for these lines in 8.85.3, Thucydides does not further describe his banishment by the new regime in Syracuse.
Samos: Map 8.84, BY.
Delos: Map 8.84, BX. These ten envoys, whose dispatch was described in 8.72, had stopped at Delos (see 8.77.1) when they heard of the hostile reaction of the army at Samos to the Four Hundred’s overthrow of the democracy at Athens.
The recent invasion by forces under Agis: see 8.71.1-3.
Chaereas’ reports were described in 8.74.3.
Piraeus: Map 8.84, BX.
Argos: Map 8.84, BX.
Euboea: Map 8.84, BX. See 8.74.2 for the previous mention of the crew of the Paralus.
Phoenicia: Map 8.84, locator.
Aspendus: Map 8.84, BY.
The narrative of the Peloponnesian fleet picks up again at 8.99.
Phaselis: Map 8.84, BY.
Caunus: Map 8.84, BY.
Samos: Map 8.91.
Thucydides means that indiscriminate and chance selection in a democratic drawing by rabble, where everyone votes, is not a valid measure of a man’s worth, so defeat can cause no humiliation.
Eetionia, a site in Piraeus: Map. 8.92.
Crawley’s translation of the Greek word stoa, as “porch” is misleading. This stoa was undoubtedly a port warehouse suitably large for controlling the city’s grain supply. Its possible location is shown on Map 8.92, inset.
Peloponnesus: Map 8.91.
Sicily: Map 8.91.
Italy: Map 8.91.
Locri (Epyzephyrian), in Italy: Map 8.91.
Tarentum, in Italy: Map 8.91.
Euboea: Map 8.91.
Las, in the Peloponnesus: Map 8.91. The route of Agesandridas’ voyage to Euboea is shown on Map 8.96.
Laconia: Map 8.84, BX.
Eetionia, in Piraeus: Map 8.92, inset.
Athenian market (agora): Map 8.92, inset, and Map 6.56, inset.
The peripoli were a special Athenian military unit, perhaps a mobile force of young recruits serving as frontier guards. They were used by Demosthenes in the surprise assault against Megara, described in 4.67.2. See note 4.67.2a.
Remains of this building (the council chamber, called the Bouleuterion) have been located in the Athenian agora, see Map 6.56, inset, and Map 8.92, inset.
Argos: Map 8.92.
Epidaurus, Aegina: Map 8.92. The route of this fleet’s voyage to Euboea is shown on Map 8.96.
Eetionia, Piraeus: Map 8.92, inset. Details of the Piraeus in this map are derived mainly from a map labeled 3. Eetionia, from A. W. Gomme, A. Andrewes, and K. J. Dover, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, v (Oxford, 1981), xv.
Aristocrates presumably thought that troops of his own “tribe” would be more reliable for such work. See Appendix A, The Athenian Government, ©3-5, 7, for a discussion of tribes in the Athenian constitution.
Munychia, a hill in the Piraeus: Map 8.92, inset.
Pharsalus, in Thessaly: Map 8.91. A proxenus was the representative of a foreign state (much like a modern honorary consul) in another state of which he was a resident and citizen. This Thucydides was a citizen and resident of Pharsalia, who was the proxenus of Athens at Pharsalia, and happened to be in Athens during these events.
For the council chamber, see note 8.92.2c.
Piraeus: Map 8.92.
Theater of Dionysus, The Piraeus: Map 8.92, inset.
Anaceum, the temple of the Dioscuri, in Athens, possible location: Map 8.92, inset.
Megara, Salamis: Map 8.96, BX. The voyage of Agesandridas’ fleet to Euboea is shown in Map 8.96.
Epidaurus: Map 8.96, BX.
Cape Sunium, Thoricus, and Prasiae, in Attica: Map 8.96, BY.
Oropus: Map 8.96, AY.
Euboea: Map 8.96, AY. For Euboea as a major source of supplies for Athens, see 7.28.1.
Eretria: Map 8.96, AY.
Thucydides writes “sixty stades”; the Attic stade was 607 feet long, the Olympic stade was 630.8 feet.
Greek soldiers and sailors at this time were expected to purchase their food from local markets with their own money. Triremes had no room or facilities for preparing food and had to put in to shore to feed the crew; see Appendix G, Trireme Warfare, ©7.
The agora was a classical city’s principal marketplace.
Boeotian plotting to take Euboea was mentioned in 8.60.1.
Chalcis: Map 8.96, AY.
Oreus is another name for Histiaea, in Euboea (Map 8.96, AY), and is so represented in the army in Sicily (7.57.2). Thucydides does not explain this, but perhaps the Athenians changed the name when they replaced the original inhabitants with their own colonists in 446 (1.116.3).
Samos: Map 8.96, locator.
Piraeus: Map 8.96, BY.
Ionia: Map 8.96, locator.
Hellespont: Map 8.100, AY.
The Pnyx, the traditional site for meetings of the assembly in Athens: Map 6.56, inset, and Map 8.92, inset.
The following alternative translation is more commonly accepted. “And in no little measure the Athenians for the first time, at least in my lifetime, appear to have enjoyed good government.”
They recalled other exiles but not, presumably, Thucydides the author.
Decelea: Map 8.96, AY.
Oenoe: Map 8.96, AX. Oenoe was unsuccessfully besieged by the Peloponnesians under Archidamus during the first invasion of Attica in 431; see 2.18.1.
Boeotia: Map 8.96, AX.
Corinth: Map 8.96, BX.
Miletus: Map 8.100, BY. This picks up the Peloponnesian fleet narrative from 8.87.
Aspendus: Map 8.100, locator.
Phaselis: Map 8.100, locator.
Pharnabazus was the Persian governor (satrap) of the Hellespont region (Map 8.100, AX).
Samos: Map 8.100, BY.
Hellespont: Map 8.100, AY.
Chersonese (Hellespont): Map 8.100, AX.
Icarus: Map 8.100, BX.
Chios: Map 8.100, BX.
Miletus: Map 8.100, BY.
Lesbos: Map 8.100, AX.
Methymna, on Lesbos: Map 8.100, AX.
Eresus, on Lesbos: Map 8.100, AX.
Cyme: Map 8.100, BY.
Thebes: Map 8.96, AX.
Mytilene, on Lesbos, Map 8.100, AX.
Chios: Map 8.100, BX.
Thucydides’ word for these “pieces of money” is tessarakontas, literally, “a fortieth”; but scholars are not sure what these were “fortieths” of, or what three of them amounted to. SeeAppendix J, Classical Greek Currency, ©3.
Eresus, on Lesbos: Map 8.100, AX.
Carteria, in Phocaean territory: precise location unknown. Phocaea: Map 8.100, BY.
Cyme: Map 8.100, BY.
Arginousae: Map 8.100, AY.
Harmatus: location unknown.
Cape Lectum: Map 8.100, AX.
Larisa: Map 8.100, AX.
Hamaxitus: Map 8.100, AX.
Rhoeteum: Map 8.100, AX.
Hellespont: Map 8.100, AY. For the route of Mindarus’ fleet as described, see Map 8.100.
Sigeum: Map 8.100, AX.
Sestos: Map 8.100, AX. Sestos was established as the Athenian naval base in the Hellespont by Strombichides in 8.62.3.
Chersonese (Hellespont): Map 8.100, AX, and Map 8.103, inset.
Elaeus: Map 8.100, AX.
Abydos: Map 8.100, AX. Abydos had revolted from Athens, as Thucydides writes in 8.62.1.
Imbros: Map 8.100, AX, and Map 8.103.
Lemnos: Map 8.100, AX and Map 8.103.
Abydos: Map 8.100, inset.
Elaeus: Map 8.100, inset.
Eresus: Map 8.100, AX.
Imbros: Map 8.103.
Sestos: Map 8.103, inset.
Chersonese (Hellespont): Map 8.103, inset.
Idacus: precise location unknown.
Arrhiana: precise location unknown.
Dardanus: Map 8.103, inset.
Syracuse: Map 8.91.
Point Cynossema: Map 8.103, inset.
Midius River: location unknown.
Abydos: Map 8.103, inset.
Hellespont: Map 8.100, AY, and Map 8.103, inset.
Chios: Map 8.103.
Corinth: Map 8.107, BX.
Ambracia: Map 8.107, AX.
Boeotia: Map 8.107, BX.
Leucas: Map 8.107, AX.
Pellene: Map 8.107, BX.
Point Cynossema: Map 8.103, inset.
Euboea: Map 8.107, BX.
Sestos: Map 8.107, AY.
Cyzicus: Map 8.107, AY.
Harpagium: Map 8.107, AY.
Priapus: Map 8.107, AY.
Byzantium: Map 8.107, AY.
Abydos: Map 8.107, AY.
Elaeus: Map 8.107, AY.
Caunus: Map 8.107, BY.
Phaselis: Map 8.107, BY.
Samos: Map 8.107, BY.
Phoenicia: Map 8.107, locator.
Halicarnassus: Map 8.107, BY.
Cos: Map 8.107, BY.
Miletus: Map 8.107, BY.
Hellespont: Map 8.107, AY.
Aspendus: Map 8.107, BY.
Ionia: Map 8.107, BY.
Antandrus: Map 8.107, AY.
Aeolis: Map 8.107, AY.
Mount Ida: Map 8.107, AY.
Abydos: Map 8.107, AY.
Delos: Map 8.107, BY.
Atramyttium: Map 8.107, AY.
For this purification of Delos, see 3.104 and 5.1.
Tissaphernes was the Persian governor (satrap) of the “maritime provinces”; see note 8.5.5a and Map 8.84, BY.
Miletus: Map 8.107, BY.
Cnidus: Map 8.107, BY.
Pharnabazus was the Persian governor (satrap) of the Hellespont region (Map 8.107, AY, and Map 8.84, AY).
Antandrus: Map 8.107, AY. For the Aeolians, see Appendix H, Dialects and Ethnic Groups.
Phoenicia: Map 8.107, locator.
Ephesus: Map 8.107, BY.