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