Book 8

Chapter 1

1 When the news reached Athens, for a long time they refused to believe even the very soldiers who had escaped from the action and gave clear accounts of it: the destruction could not have been so utter, so universal. Once they knew the truth, they turned bitterly upon the speakers who had shared their enthusiasm for the expedition, as though they had not voted for it themselves. They were angry, too, with the collectors of oracles, the diviners, and all who had then encouraged them, by some pronouncement of divine authority, to hope that they would conquer Sicily.

2 Grief assailed them on every side, and the disaster left them beset by the deepest fear and consternation. Each man in his private life, and the city as a whole, felt the weight of losing so many hoplites and cavalrymen, and a generation of fighting men whose like they could not see remaining to them. At the same time, finding neither enough ships in the ship sheds, nor money in the treasury, nor crews for the ships, they despaired for the moment of survival. They thought that their enemies in Sicily, above all after so great a victory, would sail at once against Piraeus with their fleet; that their enemies nearer home, now equipped on every count with twice their former strength, would press them with all their might by land and sea; and that their own allies would revolt and join the attack.

3 Nevertheless, they resolved that, with the resources still at hand, they must not yield. They must prepare a fleet, collecting timber wherever they could, and raise money; secure their hold upon the allies, above all Euboea; bring some economy and restraint to expenditure in the city; and elect a board of older men to frame proposals for the present emergency as circumstances required.

4 In everything they were ready to submit to discipline under the immediate pressure of fear, as a people commonly does. They acted upon their resolutions, and the summer came to an end.

Chapter 2

1 In the following winter all the Greeks were at once elated by the Athenians' great disaster in Sicily. Those allied to neither side thought that, even if no one invited them, they must no longer stand apart from the war, but willingly march against Athens. Each believed that the Athenians would have attacked them too, had they succeeded in Sicily; and they also thought that little of the war remained, and that to share in it would be glorious. The allies of the Lacedaemonians, for their part, were more eager than before to join in bringing a swift release from their long hardship.

2 Most eager of all were the subjects of Athens, ready to revolt even beyond their power to sustain it. Passion governed their judgment of affairs, and they would not even allow for the possibility that the Athenians might survive the coming summer.

3 The Lacedaemonian state drew confidence from all this, and most of all from the prospect that their allies from Sicily would in all likelihood arrive with a great force at the opening of spring, now that necessity had also brought them a navy.

4 With grounds for hope on every side, they intended to throw themselves into the war without reserve. They calculated that, if it ended well, they would thereafter be free of dangers such as the Athenians would have brought upon them had they added Sicily to their power; and that, once Athens was overthrown, they themselves would at last lead all Hellas in security.

Chapter 3

1 Accordingly, during this winter their king Agis at once set out from Decelea with a force, collected money from the allies for the fleet, and turned toward the Malian Gulf. There, pursuing an old enmity, he carried off the greater part of the Oetaeans' movable property as booty and exacted money from them. Despite the protests and unwillingness of the Thessalians, he also compelled the Achaeans of Phthiotis and the other subjects of Thessaly in that region to give hostages and money. He deposited the hostages at Corinth and tried to bring these peoples into the alliance.

2 The Lacedaemonians apportioned among the cities the building of a hundred ships. They assigned twenty-five each to themselves and the Boeotians, fifteen to the Phocians and Locrians together, fifteen to the Corinthians, ten to the Arcadians, Pellenians, and Sicyonians together, and ten to the Megarians, Troezenians, Epidaurians, and Hermionians together. They made their other preparations as well, intending to take up the war as soon as spring began.

Chapter 4

1 During this same winter the Athenians too made the preparations they had resolved upon. They collected timber for shipbuilding and fortified Sunium to secure the passage of their grain ships around the headland. They abandoned the fort in Laconia which they had built while sailing along the coast to Sicily, and reduced other expenditure wherever they thought it served no purpose, bringing it within economical bounds. Above all, they kept watch on affairs among their allies, to prevent revolt.

Chapter 5

1 While both sides were thus occupied, preparing for the war as though they were doing nothing less than beginning it anew, the Euboeans were the first, during this winter, to send envoys to Agis about revolt from Athens. He welcomed their proposals and summoned Alcamenes son of Sthenelaidas and Melanthus from Lacedaemon to take command in Euboea. They arrived with about three hundred neodamodes, and he began preparing their crossing.

2 Meanwhile envoys from Lesbos also arrived, wishing to revolt. With the Boeotians supporting them, they persuaded Agis to suspend the Euboean enterprise. Instead he prepared the revolt of the Lesbians, giving them as governor Alcamenes, who had been about to sail to Euboea. The Boeotians promised ten ships, and Agis ten.

3 These arrangements were made without the Lacedaemonian state. For as long as Agis was at Decelea with the force under his command, he had authority to send troops wherever he wished, to raise them, and to exact money. At this time, one might say, the allies obeyed him far more [than] the Lacedaemonians at home: with a force of his own, he could immediately appear anywhere and make himself feared.

4 While he was negotiating with the Lesbians, the Chians and Erythraeans, who were also ready to revolt, turned not to Agis but to Lacedaemon. With them came an envoy from Tissaphernes, the governor of the coastal territories for King Darius son of Artaxerxes.

5 Tissaphernes too was inviting the Peloponnesians over and promising to maintain their forces. The King had recently demanded from him the tribute of his province, which he had allowed to fall into arrears because the Athenians prevented him from collecting it from the Greek cities. By weakening Athens, he believed, he would be better able to recover the tribute, while also making the Lacedaemonians allies of the King and carrying out the King's orders concerning Amorges, the illegitimate son of Pissuthnes, who was in revolt in Caria: he would either bring him in alive or kill him.

Chapter 6

1 While the Chians and Tissaphernes were working together toward the same end, Calligeitus son of Laophon, a Megarian, and Timagoras son of Athenagoras, a Cyzicene, arrived at Lacedaemon at about the same time. Both were exiles from their own countries, living with Pharnabazus son of Pharnaces, who had sent them to bring ships to the Hellespont. Like Tissaphernes, Pharnabazus was eager, if he could, to detach the cities of his province from Athens for the sake of the tribute, and through his own efforts to secure the Lacedaemonians' alliance for the King.

2 The representatives of Pharnabazus and those of Tissaphernes pursued these aims separately, and a keen rivalry arose among them at Lacedaemon: the one party sought to persuade the Lacedaemonians to send ships and troops first to Ionia and Chios, the other to the Hellespont.

3 The Lacedaemonians, however, were far more receptive to the proposals of the Chians and Tissaphernes. Alcibiades also supported them, being bound by a particularly close hereditary guest-friendship to Endius, who was then an ephor. It was through this guest-friendship that Alcibiades' family had acquired its Laconian name: Endius was called the son of Alcibiades.

4 Nevertheless, the Lacedaemonians first sent Phrynis, one of the perioeci, to inspect Chios: had they as many ships as they claimed, and was the city in other respects as powerful as its reported reputation? When he reported that what they had heard was true, they immediately made the Chians and Erythraeans their allies and voted to send them forty ships, since, according to the Chians' account, there were no fewer than sixty already there.

5 At first they themselves intended to send ten of these ships with Melanchridas, their admiral. Then an earthquake occurred, and they sent Chalcideus in place of Melanchridas and began preparing five ships in Laconia instead of ten. The winter ended, and the nineteenth year of this war, which Thucydides wrote, came to an end.

Chapter 7

1 At the opening of spring in the following summer, the Chians at once pressed for the dispatch of the ships, fearing that the Athenians might discover what was afoot: all these embassies had been conducted in secret from them. The Lacedaemonians therefore sent three Spartans to Corinth, to have the ships hauled as quickly as possible across the Isthmus from the other sea to the side facing Athens, and to order them all to sail for Chios, both those Agis was preparing for Lesbos and the rest. The allied ships there numbered thirty-nine in all.

Chapter 8

1 Calligeitus and Timagoras, acting for Pharnabazus, would take no part in the expedition to Chios, nor would they contribute the twenty-five talents they had brought for the dispatch of a fleet. They intended to sail later, separately, with another expedition.

2 When Agis saw that the Lacedaemonians were bent on going first to Chios, he too accepted this course. The allies assembled at Corinth and deliberated. They resolved to sail first to Chios under Chalcideus, who was preparing the five ships in Laconia; next to Lesbos under Alcamenes, as Agis had intended; and last to the Hellespont, for which Clearchus son of Rhamphias had been appointed commander.

3 They also resolved to haul half the ships across the Isthmus first and send these off at once, so that the Athenians would give no more attention to the ships departing than to those being hauled across afterward.

4 Indeed, they were making the voyage on this side openly, in contempt of the Athenians' weakness, since no fleet of any size had yet appeared on their side. In accordance with their decision, they immediately brought twenty-one ships across.

Chapter 9

1 Despite their allies' urgency about sailing, the Corinthians were unwilling to join the voyage until they had celebrated the Isthmian festival, which fell at this time. Agis was prepared to let them avoid breaking the Isthmian truce by taking the expedition upon himself.

2 The Corinthians would not consent, and delay ensued. The Athenians learned more about the designs of Chios and sent one of their generals, Aristocrates, to accuse the Chians. When they denied the charges, the Athenians ordered them to send ships to serve with the allied fleet as a pledge of good faith. They sent seven.

3 The reason for sending the ships was that the mass of the Chians knew nothing of the intrigue, while the few who knew and were involved did not yet wish to make enemies of the people before they had secured some substantial support. Moreover, the Peloponnesians' delay had made them cease to expect their arrival.

Chapter 10

1 Meanwhile the Isthmian festival was held. The Athenians attended as spectators, having been formally invited, and the Chian intrigue became clearer to them. On returning home, they immediately took measures to ensure that the ships would not put out from Cenchreae without their knowledge.

2 After the festival the Peloponnesians set sail for Chios with twenty-one ships under Alcamenes. At first the Athenians approached with an equal number and tried to draw them out to sea. But the Peloponnesians did not follow them far and turned back; the Athenians also withdrew, for the seven Chian ships were included in their force, and they did not consider them trustworthy.

3 Later, however, they manned more ships, bringing their number to thirty-seven, and pursued the Peloponnesians as they sailed along the coast, driving them into Spiraeum in Corinthian territory, a deserted harbor on its farthest edge toward the border of Epidaurus. The Peloponnesians lost one ship at sea, but brought the rest together and moored them.

4 The Athenians attacked both with their ships from the sea and by landing on shore. Great disorder and confusion followed; they severely damaged most of the ships on the beach and killed the commander, Alcamenes. Some of their own men were also killed.

Chapter 11

1 Once the two sides had disengaged, the Athenians assigned enough ships to maintain the blockade of the enemy vessels, and anchored the remainder at the little island not far off, where they made their camp. They sent to Athens for reinforcements.

2 For on the following day the Corinthians came to assist the Peloponnesian ships, and not much later the other neighboring peoples arrived as well. Seeing how arduous it would be to guard the ships in a deserted place, they were at a loss. They considered burning them, but then decided to haul them ashore and keep watch over them with their army encamped beside them, until some favorable chance of escape should offer itself. Agis too, on hearing of these events, sent them a Spartan named Thermon.

3 The first report to reach the Lacedaemonians was that the ships had put out from the Isthmus: the ephors had ordered Alcamenes to send a horseman when this happened. They immediately wished to dispatch their own five ships under Chalcideus, with Alcibiades accompanying him. Then, just as they were preparing to leave, news came that the ships had taken refuge in Spiraeum. Disheartened by this failure at their first attempt to open the war in Ionia, they no longer intended to send out the ships from their own country, and even thought of recalling some that had already sailed.

Chapter 12

1 Learning this, Alcibiades again persuaded Endius and the other ephors not to shrink from the voyage. They would arrive, he said, before the Chians learned of the ships' misfortune; and once he himself reached Ionia, he would readily persuade the cities to revolt by telling them of Athens' weakness and the Lacedaemonians' zeal. He would be more credible than others.

2 To Endius privately he said that it would be glorious for Ionia's revolt and the King's alliance with the Lacedaemonians to be secured through him: this prize must not fall to Agis. For Alcibiades himself happened to be at odds with Agis.

3 Having persuaded Endius and the other ephors, he put to sea with the five ships in company with Chalcideus the Lacedaemonian. They made the voyage with all speed.

Chapter 13

1 At about this same time the sixteen Peloponnesian ships which had fought through the war with Gylippus were returning from Sicily. They were intercepted near Leucas and badly damaged by the twenty-seven Attic ships under Hippocles son of Menippus, who was watching for the ships coming from Sicily. The remainder, except for one ship, escaped the Athenians and sailed into Corinth.

Chapter 14

1 As Chalcideus and Alcibiades sailed, they detained everyone they encountered to prevent their approach from being reported. They first touched at Corycus on the mainland and released the captives there. After meeting some of their Chian collaborators, who urged them to sail into the city without advance notice, they arrived at Chios unannounced.

2 The mass of the people were astonished and alarmed, but the few had arranged for the council to be in session at that very moment. Chalcideus and Alcibiades spoke, declaring that many more ships were approaching, but saying nothing of the blockade of the ships in Spiraeum. The Chians revolted from Athens, and afterward the Erythraeans did the same.

3 They then sailed with three ships to Clazomenae and brought it too into revolt. The Clazomenians immediately crossed to the mainland and fortified Polichna, to provide themselves with a refuge, should they need one, from the little island where they lived. All the rebels were now fortifying their positions and preparing for war.

Chapter 15

1 News of Chios soon reached Athens. The Athenians judged that a great and unmistakable danger now encompassed them, and that their remaining allies would not choose to stay quiet once the greatest city had changed sides. In the alarm of the moment they immediately abolished the penalties imposed on anyone who proposed or put to the vote the use of the thousand talents, which throughout the war they had jealously preserved untouched. They voted to draw upon this reserve and man a considerable number of ships. Of the squadron blockading Spiraeum, eight ships were to be sent at once: these had left the blockade to pursue Chalcideus' ships, failed to catch them, and returned; their commander was Strombichides son of Diotimus. Not long afterward twelve more ships under Thrasycles were to go to the rescue, these too abandoning the blockade.

2 They also took away the seven Chian ships which had been helping them blockade the vessels in Spiraeum, freed the slaves aboard them, and put the free men in chains. In place of all the ships that had left, they swiftly manned ten others and sent them to maintain the blockade of the Peloponnesians; they also intended to man thirty more. Their zeal was great, and no effort was spared in sending help toward Chios.

Chapter 16

1 Meanwhile Strombichides reached Samos with his eight ships. Taking one Samian ship in addition, he sailed to Teos and called upon its people to remain quiet. Chalcideus too was sailing from Chios against Teos with twenty-three ships, while the infantry of Clazomenae and Erythrae advanced along the coast at the same time.

2 Strombichides learned of their approach beforehand and put out to sea. Once offshore, seeing the many ships coming from Chios, he fled toward Samos, with the enemy in pursuit.

3 The Teians at first refused to admit the infantry, but let them in when the Athenians fled. The infantry waited for a time for Chalcideus to return from the pursuit. When he delayed, they themselves began pulling down the wall which the Athenians had built on the landward side of the city of Teos. A small force of barbarians also arrived to help them demolish it, commanded by Stages, a subordinate of Tissaphernes.

Chapter 17

1 After pursuing Strombichides to Samos, Chalcideus and Alcibiades armed the sailors from the ships that had come from the Peloponnese and left them on Chios. They replaced them with Chian crews, manned twenty more ships from the same source, and sailed to Miletus to bring it into revolt.

2 For Alcibiades, who was on friendly terms with the leading men of Miletus, wished to win them over before the ships from the Peloponnese arrived. By bringing as many cities as possible into revolt with the forces of Chios and Chalcideus, he intended, as he had promised, to secure the credit for the Chians, for himself and Chalcideus, and for Endius, who had sent him out.

3 They therefore escaped notice for most of the voyage and arrived a little ahead of Strombichides and Thrasycles, who had just come from Athens with twelve ships and was joining in the pursuit. They brought Miletus into revolt. The Athenians followed close upon them with nineteen ships, but, as the Milesians would not admit them, anchored off the city at the neighboring island of Lade.

4 Immediately after the Milesians revolted, the first alliance between the Lacedaemonians and the King was concluded through Tissaphernes and Chalcideus, in the following terms.

Chapter 18

1 “The Lacedaemonians and their allies made an alliance with the King and Tissaphernes on these terms. All territory and cities which the King holds and which the King's fathers held shall belong to the King. Whatever money or other supplies used to pass from these cities to the Athenians, the King and the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall jointly prevent the Athenians from receiving, whether money or anything else.

2 “The King and the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall wage the war against the Athenians jointly. It shall not be permissible to end the war with the Athenians unless both parties agree, the King on the one side and the Lacedaemonians and their allies on the other.

3 “If any revolt from the King, they shall be enemies of the Lacedaemonians and their allies as well. Likewise, if any revolt from the Lacedaemonians and their allies, they shall be enemies of the King.”

Chapter 19

1 Such was the alliance concluded. Immediately afterward the Chians manned ten more ships and sailed to Anaea, wishing both to learn what was happening at Miletus and to bring the cities into revolt as they went.

2 When a message arrived from Chalcideus directing them to sail back and reporting that Amorges would be approaching overland with an army, they sailed to the sanctuary of Zeus. There they sighted sixteen ships which Diomedon was bringing from Athens, arriving still later than Thrasycles.

3 At the sight they fled, one ship to Ephesus and the remainder toward Teos. The Athenians captured four empty ships, their men having reached land first; the others found refuge in the city of Teos.

4 The Athenians sailed away toward Samos. The Chians put out with their remaining ships and, together with the infantry accompanying them, brought Lebedus into revolt, and afterward Erae. Then both the infantry and the ships returned to their respective homes.

Chapter 20

1 At about the same time the twenty Peloponnesian ships in Spiraeum, which had been driven in there and were being blockaded by an equal number of Athenian ships, made a sudden sortie. They won the sea battle, captured four Athenian ships, and sailed to Cenchreae, where they again prepared for the voyage to Chios and Ionia. Astyochus arrived from Lacedaemon as their admiral; the entire naval command was now to be his.

2 After the infantry had withdrawn from Teos, Tissaphernes himself arrived with an army, demolished whatever still remained of the wall there, and withdrew. Not long after his departure Diomedon arrived with ten Athenian ships and made an agreement with the Teians that they should admit the Athenians too. He then sailed along the coast to Erae and attacked it, but, failing to take the city, sailed away.

Chapter 21

1 At this time there was also an uprising at Samos by the people against the powerful, with the support of Athenians who happened to be there in three ships. The Samian people killed about two hundred in all of the most powerful men, condemned four hundred to exile, and divided their land and houses among themselves. The Athenians afterward voted them autonomy, regarding their loyalty now as secure; the people thereafter governed the city. They allowed the landowners no share in any other rights, nor was any member of the people any longer permitted to give a daughter in marriage to them or to take a wife from them.

Chapter 22

1 Later in the same summer the Chians, maintaining all the zeal with which they had begun, and present in sufficient force to detach the cities even without the Peloponnesians, wished to have as many others as possible share their danger. They themselves sailed with thirteen ships against Lesbos, as the Lacedaemonians had ordered: Lesbos was to be their second destination, and from there they were to proceed to the Hellespont. At the same time the infantry, comprising both the Peloponnesians present and the local allies, advanced by way of Clazomenae and Cyme. Eualas, a Spartan, commanded the infantry, and Deiniadas, one of the perioeci, the ships.

2 The ships first sailed into Methymna and brought it into revolt, leaving four ships there. The remainder then brought Mytilene into revolt.

Chapter 23

1 Astyochus, the Lacedaemonian admiral, sailed from Cenchreae with four ships, as he had intended, and reached Chios. On the third day after his arrival, the twenty-five Attic ships under Leon and Diomedon sailed for Lesbos; Leon had come out later from Athens with ten ships as reinforcements.

2 Astyochus too put out late that same day, took one Chian ship with him, and sailed for Lesbos to give whatever help he could. He reached Pyrrha, and the next day Eresus, where he learned that the Athenians had taken Mytilene at the first assault.

3 For the Athenians had sailed straight into the harbor, putting in unexpectedly, and captured the Chian ships; then they had landed, defeated those who resisted them in battle, and occupied the city.

4 Astyochus learned this both from the Eresians and from the Chian ships with Eubulus from Methymna. These ships, three in number, had been left there at the time and, fleeing when Mytilene fell, had met him; one had been captured by the Athenians. He abandoned his advance on Mytilene, brought Eresus into revolt and armed it, and sent the hoplites from his own ships overland to Antissa and Methymna, placing Eteonicus in command. He himself sailed along the coast with his own ships and the three Chian vessels, hoping that the sight of them would hearten the Methymnaeans and keep them faithful to the revolt.

5 But when everything in Lesbos went against him, he took his infantry aboard and sailed back to Chios. The allied land army, which had been intended for the Hellespont, was also taken back to its several cities. After this, six of the allied Peloponnesian ships at Cenchreae reached them at Chios.

6 The Athenians restored order in Lesbos and sailed from there to Polichna, which the Clazomenians were fortifying on the mainland. They captured it and conveyed the inhabitants back to their island city, except for those responsible for the revolt, who withdrew to Daphnus. Clazomenae thus returned to the Athenian alliance.

Chapter 24

1 During the same summer, the Athenians stationed against Miletus with twenty ships at Lade made a landing at Panormus in Milesian territory. They killed the Lacedaemonian commander Chalcideus, who had come to the rescue with a few men, and on the third day afterward sailed across and set up a trophy. The Milesians pulled it down, on the grounds that it had been erected without mastery of the ground.

2 Leon and Diomedon, with the Athenian ships from Lesbos, conducted a seaborne war against the Chians, operating from the Oenussae, the islands off Chios, from Sidussa and Pteleum, the forts they held in Erythraean territory, and from Lesbos. Their marines were hoplites compelled to serve from the muster roll.

3 They landed at Cardamyle and Boliscus, defeated the Chians who came to the rescue, killed many of them, and laid those districts waste. They won another battle at Phanae and a third at Leuconium. After this the Chians no longer came out against them, and the Athenians ravaged the countryside, which had been richly developed and had suffered no harm from the Persian Wars until that time.

4 For the Chians alone, after the Lacedaemonians, of all the peoples I have known, combined prosperity with moderation: the greater their city grew, the more securely they ordered it.

5 Even the revolt itself, if that seems a departure from the safer course, they did not dare undertake until they were to share its dangers with many strong allies and perceived that, after the Sicilian disaster, even the Athenians no longer denied that their affairs were [certainly] in desperate straits. If they stumbled amid the incalculable turns of human life, they shared their error with many who had reached the same conclusion—that Athenian power would soon be overthrown.

6 With the Chians thus shut out from the sea and ravaged on land, some of them attempted to bring the city over to Athens. The rulers discovered them, but took no action themselves; instead, they brought the admiral Astyochus from Erythrae with the four ships he had there, and considered how to suppress the conspiracy as gently as possible, either by taking hostages or by some other means. Such were their proceedings.

Chapter 25

1 At the close of the same summer, a thousand Athenian hoplites, fifteen hundred Argives, and a thousand allies sailed from Athens to Samos in forty-eight ships, some of them troop transports, under the generals Phrynichus, Onomacles, and Scironides. The Athenians had equipped the five hundred Argives who had been lightly armed as hoplites. Crossing from Samos to Miletus, they encamped there.

2 The Milesians came out to meet them with eight hundred hoplites of their own, the Peloponnesians who had come with Chalcideus, and a body of Tissaphernes' [mercenary] auxiliaries; Tissaphernes himself was present with his cavalry. They engaged the Athenians and their allies.

3 The Argives on their wing dashed ahead, advancing in some disorder, contemptuous of their opponents as Ionians who would not stand their ground. They were defeated by the Milesians, and a little fewer than three hundred of them were killed.

4 The Athenians first defeated the Peloponnesians, then drove back the barbarians and the rest of the mass of troops. They did not engage the Milesians, who, after routing the Argives, withdrew into the city when they saw the defeat of the rest of their side. The Athenians, now masters of the field, took up their position close to the city of Miletus itself.

5 In this battle it happened that on both sides Ionians overcame Dorians: the Athenians defeated the Peloponnesians facing them, and the Milesians the Argives. The Athenians erected a trophy and prepared to build a wall of blockade, since the site formed a kind of isthmus. They thought that, if they won Miletus over, the other places would readily come over to them too.

Chapter 26

1 Meanwhile, late in the afternoon, word reached them that the fifty-five ships from the Peloponnese and Sicily were all but there. For the Sicilian Greeks had sent twenty Syracusan ships and two from Selinus, chiefly at the urging of Hermocrates of Syracuse, who pressed them to join in completing the destruction of Athens. The ships being fitted out in the Peloponnese were now ready too. Both contingents had been entrusted to Theramenes the Lacedaemonian, with orders to bring them to the admiral Astyochus, and had first put in at Leros, the island off Miletus.

2 Learning there that the Athenians were before Miletus, they sailed first to the Iasian Gulf, wishing to discover the situation at Miletus.

3 Alcibiades rode to Teichiussa in Milesian territory, where they had sailed into the gulf and made their night's quarters, and told them of the battle; he had himself been present and had fought beside the Milesians and Tissaphernes. He urged them, unless they wished to ruin their cause in Ionia and everywhere else, to relieve Miletus without delay and not allow it to be walled off.

Chapter 27

1 They intended to bring relief at dawn. But when Phrynichus, the Athenian general, received definite news of the ships from Leros, his fellow commanders wished to stay and fight a decisive naval battle. He declared that he would do no such thing himself, nor, so far as he could prevent it, allow them or anyone else to do so.

2 When [it was possible] to fight later, knowing exactly how many enemy ships they faced and with how many of their own, and after making adequate preparations at leisure, he would never yield to the reproach of cowardice and run an unreasonable risk.

3 There was no disgrace, he said, in Athenians withdrawing before a fleet when circumstances required it; defeat, whatever the circumstances, would bring greater disgrace, and expose the city not merely to shame but to the gravest danger. After the disasters it had suffered, Athens could scarcely undertake an offensive anywhere, even with assured preparation, whether by its own choice or under the strongest necessity; much less should it enter dangers of its own choosing when under no compulsion.

4 He urged them to take aboard the wounded, the infantry, and all the equipment they had brought with them, but to leave behind what they had taken from enemy territory so that the ships would be light, and sail for Samos at once. From there they could gather all their ships and launch attacks wherever an opportunity offered.

5 He persuaded them and carried this out. Phrynichus was judged a man of sound sense, then and no less afterward, not only in this matter but in all the other responsibilities he undertook.

6 In this way, as soon as evening came, the Athenians withdrew from Miletus, leaving their victory incomplete. The Argives, angered by their misfortune, hastened to sail home from Samos.

Chapter 28

1 The Peloponnesians put out from Teichiussa at dawn and sailed into Miletus. They stayed one day; on the next, taking with them the Chian ships which had originally been chased into port with Chalcideus, they intended to sail back to Teichiussa for the equipment they had unloaded there.

2 When they arrived, Tissaphernes came up with his infantry and persuaded them to sail against Iasus, which his enemy Amorges held. They attacked Iasus unexpectedly, and, as the inhabitants assumed the ships could only be Attic, took the city. The Syracusans won the greatest praise for their part in the action.

3 The Peloponnesians captured Amorges alive—the illegitimate son of Pissuthnes, who had revolted from the King—and handed him over to Tissaphernes to take to the King if he wished, as the King had instructed him. They sacked Iasus, and the army took immense wealth, for the place had long been rich.

4 They brought Amorges' mercenaries over to their own side, did them no harm, and enrolled them in their ranks, since most came from the Peloponnese. They handed over the town to Tissaphernes, together with all the captives, slave and free, agreeing to receive from him one Daric stater for each person, and then withdrew to Miletus.

5 The Lacedaemonians had sent Pedaritus son of Leon to command at Chios; they now dispatched him overland as far as Erythrae with the mercenary force formerly serving Amorges, and appointed Philip to remain at Miletus itself. And the summer ended.

Chapter 29

1 In the following winter, after placing a garrison in Iasus, Tissaphernes came to Miletus and distributed a month's pay to all the ships at the rate of one Attic drachma per man per day, as he had promised at Lacedaemon. For the remaining period, however, he wished to give three obols per day until he had consulted the King; if the King ordered it, he said, he would pay the full drachma.

2 Hermocrates, the Syracusan general, objected. Theramenes, since he was not admiral but was only accompanying the ships to hand them over to Astyochus, had been yielding over the pay. Nevertheless, the agreement gave each man more than three obols, the surplus amounting to the pay of five ships: Tissaphernes gave thirty talents a month for fifty-five ships, and the same proportion was paid for the others, however many there were beyond that number.

Chapter 30

1 During the same winter, thirty-five more ships arrived from home to join the Athenians at Samos, together with the generals Charminus, Strombichides, and Euctemon. They gathered the ships from Chios and all the others, intending to divide their commands by lot and maintain a naval blockade of Miletus while sending both a fleet and a land force against Chios.

2 This they did. Strombichides, Onomacles, and Euctemon, who had drawn the assignment to Chios, sailed there with thirty ships and part of the thousand hoplites who had come to Miletus, carrying these in troop transports. The others remained at Samos with seventy-four ships, commanded the sea, and made attacks on Miletus.

Chapter 31

1 Astyochus happened then to be at Chios, selecting hostages on account of the conspiracy. When he learned that Theramenes' ships had arrived and that the prospects of the alliance had improved, he suspended this business and put to sea with ten Peloponnesian and ten Chian ships.

2 He attacked Pteleum, but failed to take it, and sailed along the coast to Clazomenae, where he ordered those who favored Athens to move to Daphnus and join his side. Tamos, the governor of Ionia, joined in the demand.

3 When they would not listen, he attacked the city, which had no walls, but could not take it. He sailed away in a strong wind, making himself for Phocaea and Cyme, while the other ships put in at the islands off Clazomenae, Marathussa, Pele, and Drymussa.

4 They were held there by the winds for eight days. Of the property the Clazomenians had removed to the islands for safety, they plundered and consumed some, loaded the rest aboard, and sailed to join Astyochus at Phocaea and Cyme.

Chapter 32

1 While he was there, envoys arrived from the Lesbians, who wished to revolt again. They persuaded Astyochus, but the Corinthians and the other allies were unwilling because of the previous failure, so he put out for Chios. A storm scattered the ships, which afterward reached Chios from different directions.

2 After this Pedaritus, who had been marching overland from Miletus, reached Erythrae and crossed with his army to Chios. He also had at his disposal about five hundred soldiers from the five ships, whom Chalcideus had left there with their arms.

3 Some Lesbians were offering to bring about a revolt, and Astyochus laid before Pedaritus and the Chians the proposal that they should sail there and bring Lesbos into revolt: either they would gain more allies, or, if they failed in some way, they would still do harm to the Athenians. They would not listen, and Pedaritus said he would not release the Chian ships to him.

Chapter 33

1 Astyochus took the five Corinthian ships, a sixth from Megara, one from Hermione, and the Laconian vessels he had brought with him, and sailed for Miletus to take up his command as admiral. He had repeatedly threatened the Chians that he would certainly not come to their aid if they should need him.

2 He put in at Corycus in Erythraean territory and spent the night there. The Athenians sailing with their army from Samos to Chios also anchored there, on the other side of a hill which separated the two forces; neither knew the other was there.

3 After nightfall a letter arrived from Pedaritus saying that Erythraean prisoners had been released from Samos and had come to Erythrae with a view to betraying it. Astyochus immediately put to sea again for Erythrae, and by this narrow margin escaped encountering the Athenians.

4 Pedaritus also sailed across to join him. They investigated the suspected traitors and found that the whole story had been a pretext to secure the men's release from Samos. They cleared them of the charge and sailed away, Pedaritus to Chios, while Astyochus continued to Miletus as he had intended.

Chapter 34

1 Meanwhile the Athenian expedition, sailing round from Corycus, encountered three Chian warships off Arginus and gave chase as soon as they saw them. A violent storm arose. The Chian ships barely escaped into harbor, while the three Athenian ships which had pressed the pursuit most eagerly were wrecked and driven ashore near the city of Chios; some of their men were captured, others killed. The remaining ships found refuge in the harbor called Phoenicus, beneath Mimas. Later they sailed from there to anchor at Lesbos and prepared to build the fort.

Chapter 35

1 During the same winter Hippocrates the Lacedaemonian sailed from the Peloponnese with ten Thurian ships, commanded by Dorieus son of Diagoras and two others, one Laconian ship, and one Syracusan. He put in at Cnidus, which Tissaphernes had already brought into revolt.

2 When those at Miletus learned of their arrival, they ordered them to guard Cnidus with half their ships and station the rest off Triopium to seize the merchant vessels arriving from Egypt. Triopium is a cape projecting from the territory of Cnidus, with a sanctuary of Apollo.

3 The Athenians learned of this, sailed from Samos, and captured the six ships on guard at Triopium, though their crews escaped. Afterward they sailed to Cnidus, attacked the unwalled city, and nearly took it.

4 They attacked again the next day, but the inhabitants had strengthened their defenses during the night and had been joined by the men who had escaped from the ships at Triopium. Unable now to do the same damage, the Athenians withdrew, ravaged the Cnidian countryside, and sailed back to Samos.

Chapter 36

1 About the same time Astyochus reached Miletus to take command of the fleet. The Peloponnesians still had abundant resources for all the needs of their camp: pay was supplied in sufficient amounts, the soldiers had the great wealth plundered from Iasus, and the Milesians willingly bore the burdens of the war.

2 Nevertheless, the Peloponnesians thought that the first agreement made between Tissaphernes and Chalcideus was deficient and not particularly to their advantage. While Theramenes was still present they concluded another, as follows.

Chapter 37

1 “Agreement of the Lacedaemonians and their allies with King Darius, the King's sons, and Tissaphernes: there shall be peace and friendship on the following terms.

2 “Neither the Lacedaemonians nor their allies shall advance against any territory or cities which belong to King Darius, or belonged to his father or his ancestors, either to wage war or to inflict any other injury. Neither the Lacedaemonians nor their allies shall exact tribute from these cities. Neither King Darius nor any of his subjects shall advance against the Lacedaemonians or their allies to wage war or inflict any other injury.

3 “If the Lacedaemonians or their allies require anything of the King, or the King of the Lacedaemonians or their allies, whatever they agree upon together shall be lawful for them to do.

4 “Both parties shall wage war jointly against the Athenians and their allies; if they make peace, both shall make it jointly. The King shall provide the expenses of any army in the King's territory which has come at his summons.

5 “If any of the cities which have entered into this agreement with the King advances against the King's territory, the others shall prevent it and defend the King to the best of their ability. If anyone in the King's territory, or in any territory under his rule, advances against the territory of the Lacedaemonians or their allies, the King shall prevent it and defend them to the best of his ability.”

Chapter 38

1 After this agreement Theramenes handed over the ships to Astyochus, sailed away in a light vessel, and disappeared.

2 The Athenians from Lesbos had by now crossed with their army to Chios. Masters of both land and sea, they were fortifying Delphinium, a position naturally strong on the landward side, with harbors, and not far from the city of Chios.

3 The Chians had been badly shaken in their many previous battles, and relations among themselves were already far from good. Pedaritus had by now put to death the party of Tydeus son of Ion for favoring Athens, and the rest of the city was forcibly held under the control of a few. Suspicious of one another, they remained inactive, and for these reasons thought neither themselves nor the mercenaries with Pedaritus a match for the enemy.

4 They did, however, send to Miletus, asking Astyochus to come to their aid. When he would not listen, Pedaritus wrote to Lacedaemon accusing him of misconduct.

5 Such was the position the Athenians had reached at Chios. Their ships from Samos made attacks on those at Miletus; but when the enemy would not sail out against them, they withdrew again to Samos and remained quiet.

Chapter 39

1 During the same winter, about the solstice, the twenty-seven ships which the Lacedaemonians had fitted out in the Peloponnese for Pharnabazus, [through] the efforts of Calligeitus the Megarian and Timagoras the Cyzicene, put to sea for Ionia. Antisthenes, a Spartan, sailed with them in command.

2 The Lacedaemonians also sent eleven Spartans as advisers to Astyochus, one of them Lichas son of Arcesilaus. They were instructed, on reaching Miletus, to share in directing affairs as seemed best and, if they thought fit, to send these ships, or a greater or smaller number, to Pharnabazus in the Hellespont, appointing Clearchus son of Rhamphias, who was sailing with them, to command. If the eleven thought fit, they were also to remove Astyochus from the admiralty and appoint Antisthenes in his place; for Pedaritus' letters had aroused suspicion of him.

3 The ships sailed across the open sea from Malea and put in at Melos, where they encountered ten Athenian ships, captured three of them empty, and burned them. After this, fearing that the Athenian ships which escaped from Melos might report their approach to those at Samos—as indeed they did—they sailed toward Crete, lengthening their voyage as a precaution, and made land at Caunus in Asia.

4 From there, thinking themselves now in safety, they sent word to the ships at Miletus to come and escort them.

Chapter 40

1 At the same time the Chians and Pedaritus, despite Astyochus' continuing delays, kept sending messengers as insistently as ever, asking him to come with all his ships to their relief under siege, and not look on while the greatest of the allied cities in Ionia was barred from the sea and ravaged on land by raiding parties.

2 For the Chians had many slaves—more than any single city apart from Lacedaemon—and because of their numbers punished their offenses more harshly. As soon as the Athenian army appeared securely established behind its fortifications, most of these slaves promptly deserted to it; knowing the countryside, they inflicted the greatest damage.

3 The Chians therefore said he must help them while hope remained and it was still possible to intervene, while Delphinium was being fortified but remained unfinished, and a larger circuit of defenses was being added for the army and the ships. Although Astyochus had not intended to do so because of his earlier threat, when he saw that the allies too were eager, he prepared to bring relief.

Chapter 41

1 Meanwhile news arrived from Caunus that the twenty-seven ships and the Lacedaemonian advisers were there. Astyochus considered everything else secondary to escorting so many ships, which would strengthen their command of the sea, and bringing over safely the Lacedaemonians who had come to inspect his conduct. He immediately abandoned the voyage to Chios and sailed for Caunus.

2 On the way he landed on Meropian Cos and sacked its unwalled city, which had been shattered by an earthquake—the greatest within our memory that had struck its people. The inhabitants had fled to the mountains. He made raids through the countryside and took everything as plunder except free persons, whom he let go.

3 From Cos he reached Cnidus by night. There the Cnidians prevailed on him not to disembark his sailors but to sail on at once, just as he was, against the twenty Athenian ships with which Charminus, one of the generals from Samos, was watching for the approach of these twenty-seven ships from the Peloponnese, the very ships Astyochus was sailing to meet.

4 Those at Samos had learned of their approach from Melos, and Charminus kept watch around Syme, Chalce, and Rhodes and along the Lycian coast; for he already knew that they were at Caunus.

Chapter 42

1 Astyochus therefore sailed on toward Syme with his force as it was, before word of his approach could spread, hoping to catch the ships somewhere at sea. But rain and an overcast sky caused his ships to lose their way in the darkness and fall into confusion.

2 At daybreak the fleet was scattered: its left wing was already visible to the Athenians, while the rest was still wandering about the island. Charminus and the Athenians put out against it in haste with fewer than their twenty ships, believing these to be the ships from Caunus for which they were keeping watch.

3 They attacked at once, sank three ships and damaged others, and had the upper hand in the fighting until, contrary to their expectation, the greater part of the enemy fleet came into view and they found themselves hemmed in on every side.

4 They then took to flight, losing six ships, and escaped with the remainder to the island of Teutlussa, and from there to Halicarnassus. After this the Peloponnesians put in at Cnidus, where the twenty-seven ships from Caunus joined them; they then sailed with their entire force to Syme, set up a trophy, and returned to anchor at Cnidus.

Chapter 43

1 When the Athenians learned of the sea battle, they sailed to Syme with all their ships from Samos. They made no attack on the fleet at Cnidus, nor did that fleet attack them; but they recovered the ships’ equipment at Syme, assaulted Loryma on the mainland, and sailed back to Samos.

2 The Peloponnesian ships, now all together at Cnidus, were undergoing whatever repairs were needed, while the eleven Lacedaemonian commissioners held discussions with Tissaphernes, who had arrived there. They considered anything in the transactions already concluded that displeased them, and how the war should be conducted in future to the best advantage of both parties.

3 Lichas scrutinized the proceedings most closely. He said that neither treaty, whether that of Chalcideus or that of Therimenes, had been well drawn up: it was intolerable that the King should now claim sovereignty over all the territory that he and his ancestors had formerly ruled. This would mean that all the islands, as well as Thessaly, the Locrians, and the country as far as Boeotia, must return to slavery; and instead of freedom the Lacedaemonians would be imposing Median rule upon the Greeks.

4 He therefore demanded that they make another and better treaty; otherwise they would not abide by these agreements, nor did they want any maintenance money on such terms. Tissaphernes, indignant, withdrew from them in anger, having accomplished nothing.

Chapter 44

1 The Peloponnesians, meanwhile, intended to sail to Rhodes, whose most powerful men were sending them invitations through heralds. They hoped to bring over an island of no small strength in both seamen and land forces, and at the same time believed that their existing alliance would enable them to maintain their ships without asking Tissaphernes for money.

2 They therefore sailed at once from Cnidus, in the same winter, and with ninety-four ships first attacked Camirus in Rhodian territory. They terrified the mass of the inhabitants, who knew nothing of what was being arranged and fled, especially since the city had no walls. The Lacedaemonians then summoned these people and the Rhodians of the other two cities, Lindus and Ialysus, and persuaded them to revolt from Athens. Thus Rhodes went over to the Peloponnesians.

3 The Athenians learned of this at about the same time and sailed with their ships from Samos, hoping to arrive first; they appeared out at sea, but were a little too late. For the moment they sailed away to Chalce and from there to Samos. Later they made raids upon Rhodes from Chalce and Cos [and from Samos], and carried on the war against it.

4 The Peloponnesians collected some thirty-two talents from the Rhodians, but otherwise remained inactive for eighty days, with their ships hauled ashore.

Chapter 45

1 During this interval, and even earlier, before they left for Rhodes, the following events were taking place. After the death of Chalcideus and the battle at Miletus, Alcibiades was under suspicion among the Peloponnesians, and a letter had come from Lacedaemon to Astyochus ordering his execution: he was an enemy of Agis and was also regarded as untrustworthy on other grounds. In fear, he first withdrew to Tissaphernes, and then did all he could with him to damage the Peloponnesian cause.

2 Becoming his adviser in everything, he reduced the pay from an Attic drachma to three obols, and even this was not to be paid regularly. He instructed Tissaphernes to tell the Peloponnesians that the Athenians, with their longer experience of naval affairs, paid their own men three obols, not so much from poverty as to prevent their sailors from becoming insolent through having more than they needed: some would otherwise ruin their health by spending on the indulgences that produce physical weakness, while others would desert their ships without leaving their outstanding pay behind as a pledge.

3 He also instructed him [to] win over the trierarchs and the generals from the various cities by payments, so that they would accept these terms from him—all except the Syracusans. Hermocrates alone, on their behalf, resisted him in the interests of the entire alliance.

4 When the cities asked for money, Alcibiades himself dismissed them, answering on Tissaphernes’ behalf that the Chians were shameless: though the richest of the Greeks, and saved by outside assistance, they nevertheless demanded that others should risk both their lives and their money for Chian freedom.

5 The other cities too, he said, would be acting unjustly if, after spending money on the Athenians before their revolt, they were not now willing to contribute as much, and more besides, on their own behalf.

6 As for Tissaphernes, he declared that, since he was at present waging war with his own money, his economy was reasonable; but if maintenance money ever came down from the King, he would pay their wages in full and give the cities appropriate assistance.

Chapter 46

1 He also advised Tissaphernes not to be too eager to bring the war to an end, nor to give the same people command of both land and sea, whether by bringing in the Phoenician ships he was preparing or by providing pay for more Greeks. He should let the two sides keep their power divided, so that the King could always bring one against whichever was troubling him.

2 If dominion over land and sea were united, the King would have no one with whose help he could overthrow the dominant power, unless he chose at some point to take the field himself and fight the issue out at great expense and risk. The cheaper course was this: at a small fraction of the expense, and without danger to himself, to let the Greeks wear one another down.

3 The Athenians, he said, would be more suitable partners for him in dominion. They had fewer ambitions on land, and both the declared purpose and the practice of their warfare suited his interests best. They would help subjugate the maritime world for themselves and the Greeks living in the King’s territory for him; the Lacedaemonians, by contrast, had come to liberate them. It was hardly likely that the Lacedaemonians would now free the Greeks from their fellow Greeks, but not free them from those others [the barbarians], unless they should at some point fail to overthrow the barbarians.

4 He therefore urged him first to wear both sides down, and then, after cutting off as much as possible from the Athenians, to rid the country of the Peloponnesians.

5 Tissaphernes’ intentions were for the most part of this kind, so far as one could infer them from his actions. For these reasons he placed his confidence in Alcibiades as a sound adviser in these matters, provided the Peloponnesians poorly with maintenance money, and would not allow them to fight at sea. Instead, by saying that the Phoenician ships would come and they would then fight with overwhelming strength, he ruined their prospects and robbed their fleet of its vigor, which had indeed been very great. In other respects too, his lack of zeal in supporting their war was too evident to escape notice.

Chapter 47

1 Alcibiades gave this advice both because he thought it best for Tissaphernes and the King, with whom he was staying, and because he was cultivating his own return to his country. He knew that, unless he destroyed it, he would one day be able to persuade it to take him back; and he thought the strongest means of persuasion would be to appear on friendly terms with Tissaphernes. This was precisely what happened.

2 When the Athenian soldiers at Samos perceived his influence with Tissaphernes, the movement began. Alcibiades had himself contributed to it by sending word to their most powerful men, asking that they speak of him to the best sort of people: he wished to return under an oligarchy, not under a corrupt regime or the democracy that had expelled him, and, after securing Tissaphernes’ friendship for them, to share in their government. But the Athenian trierarchs and most powerful men at Samos were moved still more by their own impulse to overthrow the democracy.

Chapter 48

1 This movement first arose in the camp and only later reached the city from there. Some men crossed over from Samos and conferred with Alcibiades. He held out the prospect of making first Tissaphernes and then the King their friend, if they ceased to be governed democratically, for the King would then have more confidence in them. The most powerful citizens, who also bore the heaviest burdens, had high hopes both of bringing the government into their own hands and of prevailing over their enemies.

2 Returning to Samos, they bound suitable men together in a conspiracy, while openly telling the mass of the soldiers that the King would be their friend and provide money if Alcibiades returned and they ceased to be governed democratically.

3 The rank and file, though somewhat distressed at first by what was being done, remained quiet, encouraged by the prospect of ample pay from the King. After communicating their plans to the mass of the soldiers, the organizers of the oligarchy again considered Alcibiades’ proposals among themselves and with the greater part of their associates.

4 To the others these proposals seemed practicable and trustworthy; but Phrynichus, who was still a general, approved of none of them. He thought that Alcibiades cared no more for oligarchy than for democracy—as was indeed the case—and had no object beyond changing the city’s existing constitution so that his associates might invite him home. Their own chief concern should be to avoid civil strife. Nor would it be an easy course for the King to join the Athenians, whom he did not trust, and involve himself in trouble, when the Peloponnesians were already their equals at sea and held cities of no small importance within his dominion. He could instead make friends with the Peloponnesians, from whom he had so far suffered no harm.

5 As for the allied cities, to which they would presumably promise oligarchy on the grounds that they themselves would no longer be democratically governed, he said he knew well that neither would those in revolt be any more likely to return to them, nor would those still in the alliance become more secure. They would not prefer slavery under either oligarchy or democracy to freedom under whichever of the two they happened to have.

6 They believed that the men called the noble and good would cause them no less trouble than the people: it was these men who procured and proposed to the people the evils from which they themselves drew most of the profit. Under their control, men would be put to death without trial and with greater violence; whereas the people were a refuge for the allies and a restraint upon these men.

7 He himself knew clearly, he said, that the cities held this opinion, having learned it from actual experience. Accordingly, he for his part approved of nothing in Alcibiades’ proposals or in the measures now being taken.

Chapter 49

1 The assembled conspirators, however, accepted the proposals before them, as they had intended from the first, and prepared to send Pisander and others as envoys to Athens. They were to work for Alcibiades’ return and the overthrow of the democracy there, and to make Tissaphernes a friend of the Athenians.

Chapter 50

1 Phrynichus realized that Alcibiades’ return would be proposed and that the Athenians would accept it. In view of the opposition he had expressed, he feared that Alcibiades, if restored, would harm him as the man who had obstructed his return. He therefore resorted to the following device.

2 He sent a secret letter to Astyochus, the Lacedaemonian admiral, who was then still near Miletus, saying that Alcibiades was ruining their cause by making Tissaphernes a friend of the Athenians, and setting out all the other circumstances clearly in writing. He should be forgiven, he added, for plotting harm against a personal enemy even at his city’s expense.

3 Astyochus had no thought of punishing Alcibiades, especially since he no longer came within his reach as readily as before. Instead he went inland to Magnesia to see him and Tissaphernes together, told them what had been written from Samos, and himself became the informer. It was said that he had attached himself to Tissaphernes for private gain, to communicate with him on these and other matters; and this was also why he protested rather feebly [over] the failure to pay the wages in full.

4 Alcibiades immediately sent a letter denouncing Phrynichus to the men in authority at Samos, describing what he had done and demanding his death.

5 Thrown into turmoil and placed in the gravest danger by the disclosure, Phrynichus sent again to Astyochus. He complained that the earlier communication had not been properly concealed, and now offered to put the entire Athenian army at Samos into their hands for destruction. Since Samos was unwalled, he described in detail how he could accomplish this, adding that, with his life imperiled on their account, he could no longer be blamed for doing this or anything else rather than be destroyed by his bitterest enemies. Astyochus disclosed this too to Alcibiades.

Chapter 51

1 But Phrynichus learned in advance that Astyochus was betraying him and that a letter from Alcibiades on the matter was all but there. He forestalled it by himself announcing to the army that, since Samos was unwalled and not all the ships were at anchor inside the harbor, the enemy intended to attack the camp. He said he had reliable intelligence of this, and that they must fortify Samos as quickly as possible and take every other precaution. Being a general, he had the authority to carry out these measures himself.

2 They set about preparing the fortifications, and as a result Samos was walled sooner, though it would have been fortified in any case. Not long afterward the letter from Alcibiades arrived, saying that Phrynichus was betraying the army and that the enemy intended to attack.

3 Alcibiades, however, was thought untrustworthy: having learned the enemy’s intentions beforehand, he seemed to be laying them maliciously at Phrynichus’ door, as though Phrynichus were privy to them. He therefore did him no harm, but rather corroborated his report by announcing the same intelligence.

Chapter 52

1 After this Alcibiades worked upon Tissaphernes and sought to persuade him to become a friend of the Athenians. Tissaphernes feared the Peloponnesians, because they were present with more ships than the Athenians, but nevertheless wished, if he somehow could, to be persuaded—especially after learning of the Peloponnesians’ dispute at Cnidus over Therimenes’ treaty. By this time, when they were at Rhodes, that dispute had already taken place. In it Lichas had borne out Alcibiades’ earlier contention that the Lacedaemonians intended to liberate all the cities, by declaring it intolerable for the agreement to give the King dominion over cities which he or his forefathers had ever ruled. Alcibiades, with so much at stake, continued assiduously to court Tissaphernes.

Chapter 53

1 The Athenian envoys sent from Samos with Pisander reached Athens and addressed the people. They summed up many arguments, insisting above all that, by restoring Alcibiades and modifying their democracy, the Athenians could gain the King as an ally and overcome the Peloponnesians.

2 Many others spoke against them in defense of the democracy. Alcibiades’ enemies also cried out that it would be monstrous if he returned in defiance of the laws, while the Eumolpidae and Ceryces testified about the Mysteries, for whose profanation he had been exiled, and invoked the gods against his return. Amid this loud opposition and indignation Pisander came forward and, calling up each of his opponents in turn, asked whether he had any hope of saving the city unless someone persuaded the King to change sides and join them. The Peloponnesians had as many ships as they did confronting them at sea, and more allied cities; the King and Tissaphernes were providing their enemies with money, while they themselves had none left.

3 Whenever those questioned said they had none, he then told them plainly: “This, then, cannot come about unless we conduct our government more moderately and place offices more in the hands of a few, so that the King may trust us; unless for the present we deliberate less about our constitution than about our survival—for later we shall be free to change it again if anything displeases us—and unless we restore Alcibiades, the only man now capable of accomplishing this.”

Chapter 54

1 At first the people heard the proposal for oligarchy with resentment. But when Pisander made it clear that there was no other means of survival, they yielded, both from fear and in the hope that they could change the government again.

2 They voted that Pisander and ten men with him should sail out and conduct the negotiations with Tissaphernes and Alcibiades as they thought best.

3 At the same time Pisander also denounced Phrynichus, and the people removed him and his colleague Scironides from office, sending Diomedon and Leon to the fleet as generals in their place. Pisander accused Phrynichus of betraying Iasus and Amorges, because he thought him ill-disposed toward the negotiations with Alcibiades.

4 Pisander went around to all the conspiratorial clubs already existing in the city for the management of lawsuits and elections, and urged them to unite, take counsel together, and overthrow the democracy. After making all the other preparations demanded by the situation, so that there should be no further delay, he himself sailed with the ten men to Tissaphernes.

Chapter 55

1 In the same winter Leon and Diomedon, who had now reached the Athenian fleet, made a naval attack on Rhodes. They found the Peloponnesian ships hauled ashore, but made a landing, defeated in battle the Rhodians who came to the rescue, and withdrew to Chalce. From there rather than from Cos they now waged war, since it was easier for them to watch for any departure of the Peloponnesian fleet.

2 Xenophantidas, a Laconian, also came to Rhodes from Pedaritus at Chios, reporting that the Athenians’ wall was now complete and that, unless they came to the rescue with all their ships, their cause in Chios would be lost. They intended to send help.

3 Meanwhile Pedaritus himself, with his mercenary force and the full levy of the Chians, attacked the Athenian fortification around the ships. He captured part of it and gained possession of some ships that had been hauled ashore. But the Athenians came out to the rescue and routed the Chians first; then the rest of the force with Pedaritus was defeated as well. He himself was killed, together with many of the Chians, and a large quantity of arms was captured.

Chapter 56

1 After this the Chians were besieged by land and sea even more closely than before, and famine there was severe. Meanwhile the Athenian envoys with Pisander reached Tissaphernes and opened discussions about an agreement.

2 Alcibiades, however, could not altogether rely on Tissaphernes, who had grown more afraid of the Peloponnesians and still wished, as Alcibiades himself had taught him, to wear both sides down. He therefore adopted a device by which Tissaphernes would make the most extravagant demands upon the Athenians and so fail to reach an agreement.

3 In my judgment Tissaphernes wanted the same thing, in his own case out of fear. Alcibiades, seeing that even so Tissaphernes was not inclined to agree, did not want the Athenians to think him incapable of persuasion. Rather, they should think that Tissaphernes had been persuaded and was willing to join them, but that the Athenians were not offering enough.

4 For Alcibiades, speaking on behalf of Tissaphernes in his presence, carried his demands to such extremes that the blame fell on the Athenians, although they conceded most of what he asked. He demanded the surrender of all Ionia, then the adjacent islands and other concessions. The Athenians raised no objection; so at last, at their third meeting, fearing that his lack of influence would be utterly exposed, he demanded that the King be allowed to build ships and sail along his own coast wherever he wished and with as many ships as he pleased. At this they would go no further… Instead, considering the terms impossible and themselves deceived by Alcibiades, the Athenians departed in anger and returned to Samos.

Chapter 57

1 Immediately after this, in the same winter, Tissaphernes went to Caunus. He wished to bring the Peloponnesians back to Miletus, conclude yet another agreement on whatever terms he could, and provide maintenance money, rather than become their outright enemy. He feared that, if they lacked the means to support so many ships, they might be forced to fight the Athenians at sea and be defeated, or that their ships might lose their crews and the Athenians gain their wishes without his intervention. Above all, he also feared that in their search for provisions they might ravage the mainland.

2 Taking all these things into his calculations and precautions, and wishing, as he did, to restore the balance between the Greeks, he therefore summoned the Peloponnesians, gave them maintenance money, and concluded this third treaty with them.

Chapter 58

1 “In the thirteenth year of Darius's reign, when Alexippidas was ephor at Lacedaemon, an agreement was made in the plain of the Maeander between the Lacedaemonians and their allies on the one side and Tissaphernes, Hieramenes, and the sons of Pharnaces on the other, concerning the affairs of the King and of the Lacedaemonians and their allies.

2 “The King's territory, insofar as it lies in Asia, shall belong to the King; and concerning his own territory the King shall determine whatever he wishes.

3 “The Lacedaemonians and their allies shall not enter the King's territory with any hostile purpose, nor shall the King enter the territory of the Lacedaemonians or their allies with any hostile purpose.

4 “If any of the Lacedaemonians or their allies enters the King's territory with hostile purpose, the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall prevent it; and if anyone from the King's territory advances with hostile purpose against the Lacedaemonians or their allies, the King shall prevent it.

5 “Tissaphernes shall provide maintenance for the ships now present, on the terms agreed, until the King's ships arrive.

6 “When the King's ships arrive, the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall be free to maintain their own ships themselves, if they wish. If they choose to receive their maintenance from Tissaphernes, Tissaphernes shall provide it, but the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall repay Tissaphernes at the end of the war whatever money they have received.

7 “When the King's ships arrive, the ships of the Lacedaemonians and their allies and those of the King shall wage the war jointly, as Tissaphernes and the Lacedaemonians and their allies may decide. If they wish to make peace with the Athenians, they shall do so on the same joint basis.”

Chapter 59

1 Such was the treaty concluded. After this Tissaphernes began preparing to bring the Phoenician ships, as had been agreed, and to fulfill his other promises; at least, he wished to be seen making preparations.

Chapter 60

1 As winter was now drawing to its end, the Boeotians took Oropus by treachery, although an Athenian garrison held it. Men from Eretria and from Oropus itself assisted them, plotting the revolt of Euboea. For the place lay opposite Eretria, and while the Athenians held it, it could not fail to do great harm both to Eretria and to the rest of Euboea.

2 Now that Oropus was in their hands, the Eretrians went to Rhodes to summon the Peloponnesians to Euboea. But the Peloponnesians were more intent on relieving Chios in its distress, and put out from Rhodes with their entire fleet.

3 When they were off Triopium, they sighted the Athenian ships out at sea, sailing from Chalce. Neither fleet advanced against the other: the Athenians reached Samos, the Peloponnesians Miletus. The latter saw that it was no longer possible to relieve Chios without a sea battle. Thus this winter ended, and the twentieth year of this war, which Thucydides wrote, came to an end.

Chapter 61

1 In the following summer, just as spring began, Dercylidas, a Spartan, was sent overland toward the Hellespont with a small force to bring about the revolt of Abydos, whose inhabitants are colonists of Miletus. Meanwhile the Chians, hard pressed by the siege, were compelled to fight a sea battle, while Astyochus could find no way to bring them relief.

2 While Astyochus was still at Rhodes, they had brought from Miletus, as commander after the death of Pedaritus, Leon, a Spartan who had sailed out with Antisthenes as a marine. With him they had brought twelve ships which happened to be guarding Miletus: five Thurian, four Syracusan, one from Anaea, one Milesian, and Leon's own.

3 The Chians marched out in full force and occupied a strong position, while their thirty-six ships put out against the Athenians' thirty-two, and battle was joined at sea. The engagement was stubbornly fought, and the Chians and their allies, who had held their own in the action, withdrew to the city, for it was already late.

Chapter 62

1 Immediately after this, when Dercylidas had made his way overland from Miletus, Abydos on the Hellespont revolted to Dercylidas and Pharnabazus, and Lampsacus followed two days later.

2 Strombichides, learning of this at Chios, hastened to the rescue with twenty-four Athenian ships, including transports carrying hoplites. When the Lampsacenes came out against him, he defeated them in battle and took Lampsacus, which was unwalled, at the first assault. He plundered its goods and slaves, but restored the free inhabitants to their homes, and then went against Abydos.

3 When they would neither come over to him nor yield to his assaults, he sailed across from Abydos to Sestos, a city in the Chersonese once held by the Medes, and established it as a fortress and a watch-post over the whole Hellespont.

Chapter 63

1 Meanwhile the Chians gained greater command of the sea, and those at Miletus, including Astyochus, took courage on learning of the sea battle and the departure of Strombichides with his ships.

2 Astyochus sailed along the coast to Chios with two ships, brought away the ships there, and now advanced with his whole fleet against Samos. The Athenians, being mutually suspicious, did not put out to meet him, and he sailed back to Miletus.

3 For by this time, indeed somewhat earlier, the democracy at Athens had been overthrown. When Pisander and his fellow envoys returned to Samos from Tissaphernes, they consolidated their position within the army itself and induced the most powerful of the Samians to attempt, together with them, to establish an oligarchy. Yet the Samians had themselves risen against one another precisely to avoid being governed by an oligarchy.

4 At the same time the Athenians at Samos conferred among themselves and resolved to leave Alcibiades aside, since he was unwilling to act—and indeed he was not a suitable man to enter an oligarchy. They must now depend on themselves, already exposed as they were to danger, and consider how to prevent the enterprise from being abandoned. They must also sustain the war effort and willingly contribute money from their own households, and whatever else was needed, since their hardships would now be borne for themselves and no longer for others.

Chapter 64

1 After exhorting one another in these terms, they immediately sent Pisander and half the envoys home to arrange matters there. They were instructed to establish oligarchies in any subject cities at which they touched. The other half were dispatched in different directions to the remaining subject territories.

2 They also sent Diitrephes, who was near Chios but had been elected to command in the Thracian region, to take up his post. On reaching Thasos he overthrew the democracy.

3 In about the second month after his departure the Thasians began fortifying their city: they had no further need of an aristocracy tied to Athens, and expected freedom from the Lacedaemonians any day.

4 For some of their people, exiled by the Athenians, were living among the Peloponnesians; and these, together with their friends inside the city, were doing all they could to bring ships and bring about the revolt of Thasos. Thus they obtained exactly what they wanted: their city could recover its strength without danger, and the democracy that would have opposed them had been overthrown.

5 At Thasos, then, events took the opposite course to that intended by the Athenians who established the oligarchy; and, in my judgment, the same was true in many other subject states. Once the cities had acquired political restraint and freedom from fear in their actions, they moved toward outright liberty, refusing to prefer the specious good government offered by Athens.

Chapter 65

1 Pisander and his companions, sailing along the coast, overthrew the democracies in the cities as agreed, and arrived at Athens bringing hoplites from certain places as allies of their own.

2 They found that their associates had already accomplished most of the work. Some of the younger men had formed a band and secretly murdered Androcles, a leading champion of the people who had been particularly instrumental in driving Alcibiades into exile. They were the more eager to kill him for both reasons: his leadership of the people, and their belief that they would please Alcibiades, who, they thought, was to return and win them Tissaphernes' friendship. They had also secretly made away with certain other inconvenient men in the same fashion.

3 They had further prepared the ground by openly advancing the argument that no one should receive pay except those on military service, and that no more than five thousand should share in government—those best able to serve with both their wealth and their persons.

Chapter 66

1 This was a fair-seeming pretext addressed to the majority, since those who were changing the constitution were themselves to hold the city. Nevertheless, the people and the council chosen by lot still met; but they deliberated on nothing that had not been approved by the conspirators. Even the speakers belonged to that group, and what they would say had been considered beforehand by its members.

2 No one else any longer spoke in opposition, afraid at the sight of the conspiracy's strength. If anyone did oppose them, he was soon dead, by some convenient means; there was neither an investigation of the killers nor a prosecution even if they were suspected. The people remained silent, so terror-stricken that anyone who suffered no violence counted it a gain, even at the cost of holding his tongue.

3 Believing the conspiracy far larger than it really was, they were defeated in spirit; and, unable to discover its extent because of the city's size and their ignorance of one another, they had no way [to find out for themselves].

4 For this same reason it was impossible even for an indignant man to confide his grievances to another and so plan a means of resistance. He would find that the man he meant to address was either a stranger or an acquaintance he could not trust.

5 For all the democrats approached one another with suspicion, each fearing that the other had a share in what was happening. There were indeed men involved whom no one would ever have expected to turn toward oligarchy. These did most to spread distrust among the people and contributed most to the security of the few, by firmly establishing the people's mistrust of itself.

Chapter 67

1 It was at this juncture that Pisander and his companions arrived and immediately set about what remained to be done. First they convened the people and proposed the election of ten commissioners with full powers to draft a proposal and submit it to the people on a stated day, setting out how the city could best be governed.

2 When the day came, they convened the assembly at Colonus, a sanctuary of Poseidon outside the city, some ten stades away. The commissioners brought forward nothing except this one measure: any Athenian should be free to propose whatever he wished without incurring a penalty. They imposed heavy penalties upon anyone who indicted a proposer for illegality or injured him in any other way.

3 The proposal was then openly advanced that no office should any longer be held under the existing constitution, and no pay should be drawn; that five men should be elected as presidents, and these should choose a hundred men, each of whom should choose three others besides himself; and that these four hundred should enter the council chamber and govern with full powers as they judged best, convening the Five Thousand whenever they thought fit.

Chapter 68

1 It was Pisander who moved this proposal and who otherwise took the most eager public part in overthrowing the democracy. But the man who devised the whole enterprise, planned how it should reach this outcome, and had given it the longest attention was Antiphon. In merit he was second to none of the Athenians of his time, and unsurpassed in conceiving a plan and expressing his thoughts. He did not willingly appear before the people or in any other public contest, but was regarded with suspicion by the multitude because of his reputation for formidable ability. Yet for anyone engaged in a contest, whether in court or before the people, no single man could do more to help, if consulted.

2 And when the democracy was subsequently restored, the Four Hundred were overthrown, and their cause came to trial and punishment at the people's hands, Antiphon himself, accused on this very charge of having helped establish their rule, made what appears to me the finest defense in a capital trial delivered by anyone up to my time.

3 Phrynichus too showed himself more zealous for the oligarchy than anyone else. He feared Alcibiades and knew that Alcibiades was aware of all his dealings with Astyochus at Samos; he thought it unlikely that an oligarchy would ever permit Alcibiades to return. Once committed to the enterprise, he proved himself exceptionally steadfast in the face of danger.

4 Theramenes son of Hagnon was also foremost among those who joined in overthrowing the democracy, a man of no mean ability in speech or judgment. With so many intelligent men engaged in the enterprise, it was no wonder that, great as it was, it succeeded. For it was difficult to deprive the Athenian people of freedom nearly a hundred years after the overthrow of the tyrants—a people not only free of subjection, but accustomed for more than half that time to rule others themselves.

Chapter 69

1 When the assembly dissolved, having ratified these measures without a word of opposition, the Four Hundred were subsequently brought into the council chamber in the following manner. Because of the enemy at Decelea, all the Athenians were constantly under arms, some on the walls, others at their posts.

2 On that day, therefore, they allowed those not privy to the plot to leave as usual. The conspirators, however, had been told to wait quietly, not beside their arms but some distance away; if anyone resisted what was being done, they were to take up their arms and prevent him.

3 There were also Andrians, Tenians, three hundred Carystians, and some of the colonists whom the Athenians had sent to settle Aegina, who had come with their own arms for this very purpose. They had received the same instructions.

4 With these arrangements made, the Four Hundred came, each carrying a concealed dagger, accompanied by the hundred and twenty young [Greeks] whom they employed wherever a deed of violence was required. They confronted the councilors chosen by lot in the council chamber and told them to take their pay and leave. They had themselves brought the pay for the entire remainder of the councilors' term, and handed it to them as they went out.

Chapter 70

1 When the council had thus withdrawn without a word of opposition, and the other citizens remained quiet and made no move, the Four Hundred entered the council chamber. For the moment they chose executive councilors by lot from among themselves and performed the customary prayers and sacrifices to the gods upon entering office. Thereafter they made sweeping changes in the democratic administration and ruled the city by force in other respects as well, though they did not recall the exiles, because of Alcibiades.

2 They put to death a few men whom they thought it expedient to remove, imprisoned others, and banished still others. They also sent heralds to Agis, the king of the Lacedaemonians, at Decelea, saying that they wished to reach a settlement and that he could reasonably make terms with them more readily than with the untrustworthy people, who no longer governed.

Chapter 71

1 Agis, however, believed that the city was not at peace, and that the people would not surrender their ancient freedom so suddenly. If they saw a large Lacedaemonian army, he thought, they would not remain quiet; indeed, he was far from certain that they were no longer in turmoil even now. He therefore gave the envoys of the Four Hundred no conciliatory answer, but summoned a large force from the Peloponnese. Not long afterward he himself marched down to the very walls of Athens with the garrison from Decelea and the reinforcements. He hoped that, thrown into confusion, the Athenians would more readily fall into his hands on his own terms, or might even be taken at the first assault, amid the commotion likely to arise both inside and outside. The Long Walls, at any rate, he could hardly fail to capture, since they were deserted.

2 But when he came close, the Athenians showed no sign whatever of internal disturbance. Instead they sent out their cavalry and a force of hoplites, light troops, and archers, killed some of his men who had advanced too near, and gained possession of some arms and bodies. Recognizing the situation, he led the army back.

3 He and his own men remained in position at Decelea, while the reinforcements stayed a few days in the country before he sent them home. After this the Four Hundred continued nonetheless to send envoys to Agis; and as he was now more receptive and urged them to do so, they also sent envoys to Lacedaemon to negotiate an agreement, desiring a reconciliation.

Chapter 72

1 They also sent ten men to Samos to reassure the army and explain that the oligarchy had been established not to harm the city and its citizens but to preserve the whole state; that those conducting affairs were five thousand, not merely four hundred; and that, owing to military service and occupations abroad, the Athenians had never yet assembled to deliberate on any matter, however important, in numbers as great as five thousand.

2 With these and other appropriate instructions about what to say, they dispatched them immediately after taking power. They feared—as indeed happened—that the mass of sailors would refuse to remain under the oligarchic constitution, and that the trouble might begin there and bring about their own overthrow.

Chapter 73

1 For at Samos there was already upheaval over the oligarchy, and the following events occurred at just the time when the Four Hundred were establishing themselves.

2 Those Samians who had earlier risen against the powerful, and had themselves been democrats, now changed sides again. Persuaded by Pisander when he came, and by the Athenian conspirators at Samos, they formed a conspiracy of some three hundred and prepared to attack the rest as the democratic party.

3 Together with Charminus, one of the generals, and some of the Athenians among them, they killed Hyperbolus, an Athenian, a worthless man who had been ostracized not from fear of his power and standing, but for his villainy and the disgrace he brought upon the city. By this they gave their Athenian partners a pledge of loyalty; they also joined them in other acts of the same kind, and were preparing to attack the majority.

4 The people learned of this and disclosed what was being planned to the generals Leon and Diomedon, who, honored as they were by the people, accepted oligarchy unwillingly. They also informed Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, the one a trireme commander, the other a hoplite, and others who seemed consistently most opposed to the conspirators. They begged them not to stand by and see them destroyed and Samos estranged from Athens—Samos, through which alone the Athenian empire had survived to this point [until now].

5 On hearing this, these men approached the soldiers one by one, urging them not to allow it, and particularly the crew of the Paralus, all Athenians and free men, who had always opposed oligarchy, even when none existed. Leon and Diomedon, whenever they sailed anywhere, left some ships behind to guard the people.

6 Thus when the Three Hundred attacked them, all these forces came to their aid, above all the men of the Paralus, and the Samian majority prevailed. They killed some thirty of the Three Hundred and punished the three most culpable with exile. Bearing no grudge against the others, they thereafter lived with them as fellow citizens under a democracy.

Chapter 74

1 The Samians and the soldiers hastily sent the Paralus to Athens, with Chaereas son of Archestratus aboard, an Athenian who had been zealous in bringing about the change, to report what had happened. They did not yet know that the Four Hundred were in power.

2 As soon as they reached port, the Four Hundred imprisoned two or three of the crew of the Paralus. They took the ship from the others, transferred them to another vessel, a troop transport, and assigned them to guard duty around Euboea.

3 Chaereas, as soon as he saw the situation, somehow slipped away unnoticed and returned to Samos. There he reported events at Athens to the soldiers, exaggerating every horror: everyone was being punished with beatings, and no opposition whatever to those in power was possible; their wives and children were being outraged; and the rulers intended to seize and imprison the relatives of all the soldiers at Samos who did not share their views, so that, unless the soldiers obeyed, their relatives would be put to death. He added many other falsehoods to his account.

Chapter 75

1 On hearing this, the soldiers at first rushed to stone those who had been chiefly responsible for establishing the oligarchy, as well as the others who had taken part. But men of more moderate views restrained them and warned them not to ruin their cause with the enemy lying at anchor close by, prows facing them; and they desisted.

2 After this, Thrasybulus son of Lycus and Thrasyllus, the foremost leaders of the change, were now determined to turn affairs at Samos openly toward democracy. They bound all the soldiers by the most solemn oaths, especially those who had belonged to the oligarchy: they would live under democracy and in concord, vigorously pursue the war against the Peloponnesians, and be enemies of the Four Hundred, entering into no negotiations with them.

3 All the Samians of military age swore the same oath with them. The soldiers made common cause with the Samians in all affairs and in whatever might result from their perils. They believed that neither the Samians nor they themselves had any refuge that could save them: whether the Four Hundred prevailed or the enemy from Miletus, they would be destroyed.

Chapter 76

1 Thus at this time they stood in rivalry, the one side seeking to compel the city to accept democracy, the other to compel the army to accept oligarchy.

2 The soldiers immediately held an assembly, at which they dismissed their former generals and any trireme commanders they suspected, and elected others as trireme commanders and generals in their place. Among the latter were Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus.

3 Men rose to encourage one another in various ways, and urged that they must not lose heart because their city had revolted from them. The smaller body had broken away from the larger, which was also better supplied with resources in every respect.

4 Since they held the entire fleet, they would compel the other cities of their empire to pay their contributions just as if their base were still at Athens. They had Samos as their city, no weak one, but a city which, when it fought them, had come within a hair's breadth of stripping Athens of her command of the sea; and they would resist the enemy from the same position as before. With the ships in their hands, they were better able than those in the city to procure provisions.

5 It was because they themselves held an advanced position at Samos that the Athenians had previously controlled the approach to Piraeus; and now, unless the men in the city were willing to restore the constitution to them, they would be in a position to shut those men off from the sea more effectively than those men could shut them off.

6 The city's contribution to their victory over the enemy was small and of no account; they had lost nothing. Athens no longer had money to send them—the soldiers procured it themselves—nor sound counsel, the very thing that gives a city authority over its armies. Even in this respect the men in the city were at fault, having overthrown their ancestral laws, while they themselves preserved them and would try to compel the others to do the same. Thus even those among them who could offer useful counsel were no less capable than their counterparts in the city.

7 Alcibiades too, if they granted him immunity and a return from exile, would gladly secure them the King's alliance. Most important of all, should every hope fail, with so great a fleet they had many places of retreat where they would find both cities and land.

Chapter 77

1 Such were the arguments they exchanged in their assembly; and, having encouraged one another, they pursued their preparations for war with undiminished vigor. Those sent to Samos by the Four Hundred [the ten ambassadors], who had already reached Delos when they learned of these events, remained quietly there.

Chapter 78

1 At about this time the men serving in the Peloponnesian fleet at Miletus were also loudly declaring among themselves that Astyochus and Tissaphernes were ruining their cause. Astyochus had refused to fight at sea before, when they themselves were stronger and the Athenian fleet was small, and refused now, when the Athenians were reportedly torn by civil strife and their ships were not yet concentrated. Instead, they were waiting for the Phoenician ships from Tissaphernes—a mere name, not a reality—and risked wasting away in delay. Tissaphernes, for his part, neither brought these ships nor paid their maintenance regularly or in full, and so was destroying the fleet. They must therefore delay no longer, they said, but fight a decisive battle at sea.

Chapter 79

1 The Syracusans were the most insistent. When the allies and Astyochus became aware of this outcry, they held a conference and resolved to give battle, especially since reports of the disturbance at Samos were also reaching them. They put out with their entire fleet of a hundred and twelve ships and sailed toward Mycale, ordering the Milesians to march there by land.

2 The Athenians happened to be anchored at Glauce on Mycale with their eighty-two ships from Samos; only a short stretch of water there separates Samos from the mainland opposite Mycale. When they saw the Peloponnesian ships approaching, they withdrew to Samos, judging their numbers insufficient to hazard everything on a battle.

3 They were also expecting Strombichides to come to their aid from the Hellespont with the ships which had sailed from Chios to Abydos. They had received advance warning that the enemy intended to leave Miletus to give battle, and had sent him a messenger ahead.

4 Thus the Athenians withdrew to Samos, while the Peloponnesians sailed into Mycale and encamped there, together with the infantry of the Milesians and their neighbors.

5 On the following day, as they were about to sail against Samos, word came that Strombichides had arrived with the ships from the Hellespont. They immediately sailed back to Miletus.

6 With these ships added to their strength, the Athenians themselves sailed against Miletus with a hundred and eight ships, seeking a decisive battle. When no one put out to meet them, they sailed back to Samos.

Chapter 80

1 Immediately afterward, in the same summer, the Peloponnesians, who had declined to put out because they judged themselves no match for the Athenians' united fleet, found themselves at a loss how to obtain money for so many ships, especially with Tissaphernes paying so poorly. They therefore sent Clearchus son of Rhamphias with forty ships to Pharnabazus, as their original orders from the Peloponnese had prescribed.

2 For Pharnabazus was inviting them and was ready to provide maintenance; and at the same time Byzantium was sending them messages offering to revolt.

3 These Peloponnesian ships put out into the open sea to escape the Athenians' notice on their voyage, but were caught in a storm. Most reached Delos with Clearchus and subsequently returned to Miletus; Clearchus himself later traveled overland to the Hellespont and took command. Ten ships, however, under the Megarian general Helixus, reached the Hellespont safely and brought Byzantium into revolt.

4 When those at Samos learned of this, they sent ships to the Hellespont as reinforcements and to keep watch. There was also a small naval engagement off Byzantium, eight ships against eight.

Chapter 81

1 The leaders at Samos were working to restore Alcibiades, and Thrasybulus above all, who had consistently held to this purpose ever since he changed the government, at last persuaded the mass of the soldiers in an assembly. They voted for Alcibiades' return and immunity, and Thrasybulus sailed to Tissaphernes and brought Alcibiades back to Samos, believing that their only salvation lay in detaching Tissaphernes from the Peloponnesians and bringing him over to their side.

2 At an assembly Alcibiades protested against his exile and lamented his personal misfortune, spoke at length about public affairs, and filled them with high hopes for the future. He extravagantly magnified his influence with Tissaphernes: the oligarchs at home were to fear him and their conspiracies dissolve the more readily; those at Samos were to hold him in greater honor and themselves gain confidence; and the enemy were to fall as far as possible under Tissaphernes' suspicion and be cast [out of] their present hopes.

3 Alcibiades' grandest and most boastful promises were these: Tissaphernes had pledged to him that, if he could trust the Athenians, they would never lack maintenance while any of his own possessions remained, even if in the end he had to sell his own bed; and he would bring the Phoenician ships, already at Aspendus, to the Athenians, not the Peloponnesians. But he would trust the Athenians only if Alcibiades returned in safety and personally stood surety for them.

Chapter 82

1 Hearing this and much else, they immediately elected him general alongside those already in office and entrusted all their affairs to him. Not one of them would have exchanged his newfound hope of salvation and vengeance upon the Four Hundred for anything in the world; and his words had at once made them so contemptuous of the enemy before them that they were now ready to sail for Piraeus.

2 Though many pressed for this, he firmly prevented them from sailing to Piraeus and leaving the nearer enemy behind. Now that he had been elected general, he said, he would first sail to Tissaphernes and attend to the war.

3 He left directly after this assembly, so that he might seem to consult Tissaphernes on everything. At the same time he wished to enhance his standing with him and demonstrate that he had now been elected general and was [now] in a position to do him either good or harm. Thus Alcibiades used Tissaphernes to frighten the Athenians, and the Athenians to frighten Tissaphernes.

Chapter 83

1 When the Peloponnesians at Miletus learned of Alcibiades' return, their distrust of Tissaphernes, already strong, became far more bitter.

2 For at the time of the Athenian advance upon Miletus, when they had refused to put out and fight, Tissaphernes had become much less forthcoming with their pay; and even before these events Alcibiades had deepened their hatred of him.

3 The soldiers gathered in groups as before to reckon up their grievances, and now some of the other men of consequence joined them; it was no longer the fighting men alone. They had never yet received their pay in full, they said; what they were given was little, and even that came irregularly. Unless someone either fought a decisive naval battle or took them away to where they could obtain maintenance, the men would abandon their ships. Astyochus was to blame for everything, indulging Tissaphernes' whims for his own profit.

Chapter 84

1 While they were reckoning matters in this way, Astyochus also found himself involved in a disturbance of the following kind.

2 The sailors from Syracuse and Thurii, being for the most part free men, approached him with correspondingly bold demands for their pay. He answered somewhat arrogantly and threatened them; indeed, when Dorieus spoke on behalf of his own sailors, he even raised his staff against him.

3 At this sight the mass of the fighting men, with a sailor's sudden fury, shouted out and rushed at Astyochus to stone him. He saw the danger in time and took refuge at an altar. He was not struck, however, and the two sides dispersed.

4 The Milesians also made a surprise attack on the fort Tissaphernes had built inside Miletus, captured it, and expelled his garrison. The other allies approved this action, the Syracusans not least.

5 Lichas, however, disapproved. He said that the Milesians and the other inhabitants of the King's territory must submit to Tissaphernes within reasonable bounds and court his favor until they had brought the war to a successful conclusion. The Milesians were angry with him for this and other statements of the same kind; and when he later died of disease, they refused to allow the Lacedaemonians present to bury him where they wished.

Chapter 85

1 While their relations with Astyochus and Tissaphernes were thus embittered, Mindarus arrived from Lacedaemon to succeed Astyochus as admiral and took over the command. Astyochus sailed away.

2 Tissaphernes sent with him an ambassador from among his own men, Gaulites by name, a Carian who spoke both languages, to accuse the Milesians over the fort and at the same time defend Tissaphernes himself. For he knew that the Milesians were going chiefly to denounce him, and that Hermocrates was accompanying them and intended to expose Tissaphernes as playing a double game and ruining the Peloponnesian cause in concert with Alcibiades.

3 Hermocrates had long been at odds with him over the payment of wages. Eventually Hermocrates was exiled from Syracuse, and other generals—Potamis, Myscon, and Demarchus—came to Miletus to take over the Syracusan ships. Tissaphernes then pressed his attacks on Hermocrates, now an exile, more fiercely than ever, charging him, among other things, with having once asked him for money and, on being refused, made an enemy of him.

4 Astyochus, the Milesians, and Hermocrates thus sailed away to Lacedaemon. Alcibiades had by now crossed back from Tissaphernes to Samos.

Chapter 86

1 The [ambassadors] from the Four Hundred, who had been sent at that time to reassure and instruct the men at Samos, now arrived from Delos while Alcibiades was present. An assembly was held, and they attempted to speak.

2 At first the soldiers refused to listen, shouting that those who had overthrown the democracy should be put to death. At last, however, they were with difficulty quieted and heard them out.

3 The envoys declared that the change of government had been made not to destroy the city but to save it, nor to surrender it to the enemy: they could have done that when the enemy invaded while they were already in power. All the Five Thousand would have their turn in governing; and their relatives were neither being mistreated, as Chaereas had slanderously reported, nor suffering any other harm, but each remained undisturbed in possession of his own property.

4 Though they said much else, the soldiers were no more inclined to listen. They grew angry and offered conflicting proposals, above all to sail for Piraeus. On this occasion, it seems to me, Alcibiades for the first time rendered the city a service second to none: when the Athenians at Samos were bent on sailing against their own people—an action which would most certainly have given the enemy immediate possession of Ionia and the Hellespont—he prevented them.

5 At that moment no one else could have restrained the multitude; but he both stopped the expedition and, by rebuking those who were venting their personal anger on the ambassadors, checked their attacks.

6 He himself gave the envoys his answer and sent them away. He had no objection to the Five Thousand governing, but demanded that they remove the Four Hundred and restore the Council of Five Hundred as it had been before. If they had curtailed expenditure for economy's sake so that the men on service might have better provision, he warmly approved.

7 In all else, too, he urged them to stand firm and yield nothing to the enemy. For if the city survived, there was ample hope that they could reconcile their differences; but if either side once fell, whether the force at Samos or those at home, there would no longer be anyone with whom to make peace.

8 Ambassadors from Argos were also present, offering assistance to the Athenian people at Samos. Alcibiades praised them and told them to come when summoned, then sent them away.

9 The Argives had come with the crew of the Paralus, who had at that time been assigned by the Four Hundred to sail round Euboea in the troopship. They were carrying to Lacedaemon Athenian ambassadors [sent] by the Four Hundred—Laespodias, Aristophon, and Melesias. [The sailors], when their voyage brought them off Argos, arrested the ambassadors and handed them over to the Argives as men who had been among the foremost in overthrowing the democracy. They themselves did not return to Athens, but came to Samos in the trireme they had, bringing the ambassadors from Argos.

Chapter 87

1 In the same summer, at this time when the Peloponnesians were most embittered against Tissaphernes for other reasons and especially because of Alcibiades' return, believing him now openly to favor Athens, Tissaphernes prepared to go to Aspendus for the Phoenician ships. His purpose, as it appeared, was to clear himself of their suspicions. He asked Lichas to accompany him, and said that he would appoint his subordinate Tamos to provide maintenance for the army during his absence.

2 Accounts differ, and it is not easy to know with what intention he went to Aspendus and, after going there, failed to bring the ships.

3 That the hundred and forty-seven Phoenician ships reached Aspendus is certain; why they did not come on is variously conjectured. Some say he went away to wear down the Peloponnesian cause by delay, as indeed he intended: at any rate, Tamos, to whom the task had been entrusted, provided maintenance no better than before, but worse. Others say he brought the Phoenicians as far as Aspendus to exact money from them in return for their release, since he had no intention of employing them in any case. Others again say it was because of the outcry against him at Lacedaemon: he wished it to be said that he was doing no wrong, but had plainly gone to fetch ships which were in fact fully manned.

4 To me, however, it seems quite clear that he withheld the fleet to delay and hold Greek affairs in suspense: to wear them down while he traveled there and lingered, and to keep the balance even, making neither side stronger by joining it. Had he wished, his appearance would assuredly have brought the war to a decisive end. For by bringing the ships he would in all probability have given victory to the Lacedaemonians, whose fleet even as things stood confronted the Athenians on terms of equality rather than inferiority.

5 The excuse he gave for not bringing the ships is itself the clearest evidence against him. He said that there were fewer of them than the King had ordered to assemble. Yet surely in that case he would have earned even greater gratitude, achieving the same result with fewer ships and without spending so much of the King's money.

6 Whatever his intention, then, Tissaphernes reached Aspendus and met the Phoenicians. At his request the Peloponnesians sent Philippus, a Lacedaemonian, with two triremes to join the ships.

Chapter 88

1 When Alcibiades learned that Tissaphernes was on his way to Aspendus, he too sailed out, taking thirteen ships. He promised those at Samos a great and certain benefit: he would either bring the Phoenician ships himself to the Athenians or at least prevent their joining the Peloponnesians. In all likelihood he had long known Tissaphernes' intention not to bring them, and wished to make the Peloponnesians as suspicious as possible of Tissaphernes' friendship with himself and the Athenians, so that this very suspicion would compel him all the more to join their side. Alcibiades put out and sailed up toward Phaselis and Caunus.

Chapter 89

1 When the ambassadors sent by the Four Hundred returned from Samos to Athens, they reported Alcibiades' message: he urged them to stand firm and yield nothing to the enemy, and had high hopes both of reconciling the army with those at home and of overcoming the Peloponnesians. This greatly strengthened the resolve of the many participants in the oligarchy who were already dissatisfied and would gladly have found some safe means of withdrawing from the affair.

2 They now began to gather together and criticize the conduct of affairs, led by some of the foremost [generals] in the oligarchy and men in office, such as Theramenes son of Hagnon, Aristocrates son of Scellias, and others. These had been among the first to join the enterprise, but were now, they said, deeply afraid of the army at Samos and Alcibiades, and of the envoys to Lacedaemon [whom they were sending], lest they do the city some harm without consulting the larger body. They did not seek to abandon the concentration of government in a few hands, but insisted that the Five Thousand must be constituted in deed and not merely in name, and that the constitution must be made more equitable.

3 This was the political guise of their argument; most of them pursued such a course out of private ambition—the very thing that chiefly destroys an oligarchy established out of a democracy. For on the very first day all claim not merely to be equals, but each to stand far above the rest. Under a democracy, by contrast, when an election is held, a man more readily accepts the result, since he does not regard his defeat as inflicted by his equals.

4 What most plainly encouraged them was Alcibiades' strength at Samos and their belief that the oligarchy would not endure. Each therefore competed to be the first himself to become champion of the people.

Chapter 90

1 The leaders of the Four Hundred most opposed to this tendency were Phrynichus, who, when general at Samos, had [once] quarreled with Alcibiades; Aristarchus, one of the most bitter and long-standing enemies of the people; Pisander; Antiphon; and the other most powerful men. Already, as soon as they had established themselves and the force at Samos had broken away from them to democracy, they had sent their own ambassadors to Lacedaemon, pressed for an agreement, and begun building the wall at the place called Eetionea. They pursued these measures far more vigorously still when their ambassadors returned from Samos and they saw both the multitude and men of their own party whom they had previously thought reliable changing sides.

2 Alarmed both by events at home and by those at Samos, they hurriedly dispatched Antiphon, Phrynichus, and ten others, with instructions to reach an agreement with the Lacedaemonians by any means and on any terms that were at all tolerable.

3 They also pressed on more eagerly with the wall at Eetionea. The purpose of this wall, according to Theramenes and his party, was not to keep the force at Samos out of Piraeus if it sailed against them in force, but rather to admit the enemy whenever they wished, both by sea and by land.

4 For Eetionea is a projecting arm of Piraeus, with the entrance to the harbor running immediately beside it. They were fortifying it in conjunction with the existing wall on the landward side, so that a small body stationed within could command the entrance. Both the old landward wall and the new inner wall being built toward the sea ended at the same one of the two towers at the narrow mouth of the harbor.

5 They also walled off the largest portico in Piraeus, which lay immediately adjoining this wall, and took control of it themselves. They compelled everyone to deposit there all grain already in stock as well as all that came in by sea, and to draw it out from there for sale.

Chapter 91

1 Theramenes had therefore long been spreading these reports, and continued when the ambassadors returned from Lacedaemon without having secured any agreement acceptable to the whole body. This wall, he declared, threatened to bring the city itself to ruin.

2 For at this very time forty-two ships from the Peloponnese, summoned by the Euboeans, were already lying at Las in Laconia and preparing for the voyage to Euboea. Among them were Italian ships from Tarentum and Locri, and some from Sicily; their commander was Agesandridas son of Agesander, a Spartan. Theramenes said that they were sailing to support not Euboea so much as the men fortifying Eetionea, and that unless someone took precautions immediately, the city would be destroyed before they knew it.

3 There was indeed some such intention on the part of the accused, and the charge was not altogether a slander. Their first wish was to retain oligarchical rule and govern the allies as well; failing that, to preserve their independence while keeping their ships and walls. But if they were excluded from this too, they were determined not to be the first and chief victims of a restored democracy. They would rather admit the enemy, come to terms at the cost of walls and ships, and let the city's affairs take any course whatever, provided their own persons were safe.

Chapter 92

1 For this reason they eagerly built this wall, with its postern gates, entrances, and means of admitting the enemy, and wished to finish it before they could be forestalled.

2 At first these matters were discussed chiefly in small groups and in secret. But after returning from his embassy to Lacedaemon, Phrynichus was struck by one of the patrolmen in a premeditated attack in the crowded marketplace; he went only a little way from the council chamber and died at once. The assailant escaped, but his accomplice, an Argive, was caught and tortured by the Four Hundred. He named no one as having ordered the attack, and said nothing beyond that he knew of many men gathering at the patrol commander's house and at other private houses. No further disturbance followed from the incident, and Theramenes, Aristocrates, and all who shared their views, both within the Four Hundred themselves and outside, now moved more boldly against the government.

3 For by this time the ships from Las had sailed round, anchored at Epidaurus, and made a raid on Aegina. Theramenes said it was improbable that, if bound for Euboea, they would have turned into the gulf toward Aegina and then anchored again at Epidaurus, unless they had come by invitation for the very purpose he had continually alleged. It was therefore no longer possible to remain inactive.

4 At last, after much inflammatory talk and an accumulation of suspicions, they began to act. The hoplites building the wall at Eetionea in Piraeus, among whom was Aristocrates commanding the contingent of his own tribe, arrested Alexicles, a general of the oligarchy especially devoted to the political clubs, took him into a house, and confined him there.

5 Others joined them, including a certain Hermon, commander of the patrolmen stationed at Munychia; and, most important, the mass of the hoplites supported the action.

6 When the news reached the Four Hundred, who happened to be sitting together in the council chamber, they were immediately ready to take up arms, apart from those unwilling to do so, and threatened Theramenes and his party. Theramenes defended himself, saying that he was ready to go at once and help secure the prisoner's release. Taking with him one of the generals who shared his views, he set out for Piraeus. Aristarchus too went to the rescue, along with some young men of the cavalry.

7 There was great and terrifying confusion. Those in the city already believed that Piraeus had been seized and the prisoner killed, while those in Piraeus thought that the men from the city would be upon them at any moment.

8 The older men barely managed to restrain those who were running about the city and rushing to arms. Thucydides of Pharsalus, the city's proxenus, was also present, vigorously putting himself in the way of each group and calling on them not to destroy their country with the enemy lying close at hand. At last they grew quiet and refrained from attacking one another.

9 On reaching Piraeus, Theramenes, who was himself also a general, made a show of shouting angrily at the hoplites; Aristarchus and the opponents of Theramenes, however, were angry in earnest.

10 Most of the hoplites stood by their action and showed no repentance. They asked Theramenes whether he thought the wall was being built for any good purpose and whether it would not be better demolished. He answered that, if they thought it should be demolished, he agreed. The hoplites and many of the inhabitants of Piraeus immediately climbed onto the fortification and began to tear it down.

11 The call to the crowd was that anyone who wished the Five Thousand to govern instead of the Four Hundred should join in the work. For they still sheltered behind the name of the Five Thousand, rather than openly calling on those who wished the people to rule: they feared that the Five Thousand might really exist, and that a man might come to harm by speaking to someone without knowing who he was. For this reason the Four Hundred neither wished the Five Thousand to exist nor wished their nonexistence to become apparent. They considered that admitting so many to a share in government would amount to outright democracy, while uncertainty would make men afraid of one another.

Chapter 93

1 On the following day the Four Hundred assembled in the council chamber, despite their alarm. The hoplites in Piraeus released Alexicles, whom they had arrested, demolished the fortification, and went to the theater of Dionysus near Munychia. There they stacked their arms and held an assembly; then, in accordance with their decision, they immediately marched into the city and again stacked their arms, this time in the Anaceum.

2 Delegates chosen by the Four Hundred came to them and spoke with them individually, urging any men they saw who seemed reasonable to remain quiet themselves and restrain the others. They said that they would publish the names of the Five Thousand, and that from this body the Four Hundred would be drawn in rotation, in whatever manner the Five Thousand decided. Meanwhile they must do nothing to destroy the city or drive it into the hands of the enemy.

3 As many men spoke to many others, the whole body of hoplites grew calmer than before; their chief fear was for the survival of the state as a whole. They agreed to hold an assembly in the sanctuary of Dionysus on an appointed day to discuss reconciliation.

Chapter 94

1 When the day of the assembly [in the sanctuary of Dionysus] arrived and they were almost gathered, news came that the forty-two ships under Agesandridas were sailing from Megara along the coast of Salamis. Every man [among the mass of hoplites] believed that this was precisely what Theramenes and his associates had long been saying: the ships were sailing to the fortification. Its demolition, they thought, had been timely.

2 Agesandridas may indeed have been cruising about Epidaurus and that neighborhood under some prior agreement; but it is also likely that he was waiting there with an eye to the civil strife then dividing the Athenians, in the hope that he might arrive at an opportune moment.

3 When the news reached them, the Athenians in their turn immediately rushed down to Piraeus, the entire population running: the war threatened by the enemy, greater [than] their own internal conflict, was no longer distant but at the harbor itself. Some boarded the ships that were ready, others launched more, and others hurried to defend the walls and the harbor mouth.

Chapter 95

1 The Peloponnesian ships sailed past, rounded Sunium, and anchored between Thoricus and Prasiae; later they reached Oropus.

2 The Athenians, compelled by their haste to use crews that had not trained together—the city was torn by civil strife, yet they wanted to bring swift help where the stakes were greatest, since Euboea was everything to them now that Attica was closed off—sent the general Thymochares with ships to Eretria.

3 On their arrival, together with those already in Euboea, the ships numbered thirty-six. They were immediately forced to fight at sea: Agesandridas had given his men their morning meal and put out from Oropus, which lies some sixty stades by sea from the city of the Eretrians.

4 As he approached, the Athenians at once began manning their ships, expecting their men to be beside the ships. But the men happened to be getting their morning provisions not from the marketplace—the Eretrians had deliberately arranged that nothing should be for sale there—but from houses on the outskirts of the city. The intention was that, while the ships were slowly being manned, the enemy should strike before they were ready and compel the Athenians to put out in whatever condition they happened to be. A signal had been raised from Eretria to tell them at Oropus when to sail.

5 Putting out in this state of preparation, the Athenians fought off the harbor of Eretria and nevertheless held their own for a little while; then they turned and fled, and were pursued to the shore.

6 Those who took refuge in the city of Eretria, believing it friendly, met the harshest fate: the Eretrians killed them. Those who reached the fort in Eretrian territory, which the Athenians themselves held, survived, as did the ships that made it to Chalcis.

7 The Peloponnesians captured twenty-two Athenian ships, killed some of the men and took others alive, and set up a trophy. Not long afterward they brought all Euboea into revolt except Oreus, which the Athenians held themselves, and settled the other affairs of the island.

Chapter 96

1 When the Athenians learned what had happened in Euboea, they were overcome by a consternation greater than any they had known. Neither the disaster in Sicily, great though it had seemed at the time, nor anything else had ever frightened them so much.

2 The army at Samos had broken with them; they had no other ships, nor men to embark in them; they were themselves divided by civil strife, and no one knew when they might fall upon one another. Now, on top of all this, had come so great a calamity, in which they had lost ships and, most serious of all, Euboea, from which they drew more benefit than from Attica. How could their despondency not be justified?

3 Their most acute and immediate alarm was that the enemy, emboldened by victory, might dare to sail straight against Piraeus, now empty of ships. They imagined them all but there already.

4 Had the enemy been more daring, they could easily have done so. By taking up a station off the city they would either have deepened its divisions still further, or, by remaining to blockade it, would have compelled even the fleet in Ionia, hostile though it was to the oligarchy, to come to the aid of its own families and the city as a whole. Meanwhile the Hellespont, Ionia, the islands, and the territory as far as Euboea—virtually the whole Athenian empire—would have been theirs.

5 Yet this was not the only occasion, but one of many, on which the Lacedaemonians proved the most convenient enemies the Athenians could have had. Their characters differed as widely as possible: the Athenians were quick, the Lacedaemonians slow; the one enterprising, the other lacking in daring. These differences served the Athenians particularly well in a maritime empire. The Syracusans demonstrated the point: being most like them in character, they also fought them most effectively.

Chapter 97

1 Nevertheless, on receiving the news, the Athenians manned twenty ships and called an assembly. The first they held at once, on the hill called the Pnyx, where they had customarily met before. There they deposed the Four Hundred and voted to entrust affairs to the Five Thousand, whose membership was to include all who provided their own hoplite equipment. No pay was to be received for any office, and they laid a curse on any breach of this rule.

2 Other assemblies followed in close succession, at which they voted to appoint lawgivers and enacted the other measures required for the constitution. At least in this first period, the Athenians seem to have governed themselves as well as at any time in my lifetime. There was a temperate blending of the few and the many, and this was what first raised the city from the wretched condition into which it had fallen.

3 They also voted for the return of Alcibiades and others with him, and sent messages to him and to the army at Samos, urging them to take affairs vigorously in hand.

Chapter 98

1 As soon as this change came about, Pisander, Alexicles, and their associates, together with the most committed supporters of the oligarchy, slipped away to Decelea. Aristarchus alone took another course. He happened to be a general, and hastily gathered some of the most barbarous archers and marched toward Oenoe.

2 This was an Athenian fort on the Boeotian border. A volunteer force of Corinthians, who had called in the Boeotians to assist them, was besieging it in revenge for a loss inflicted on them from Oenoe: some of their men had been killed while returning from Decelea.

3 After conferring with the besiegers, Aristarchus deceived the men in Oenoe. He told them that their fellow citizens at Athens had reached a settlement with the Lacedaemonians on all other matters, and that they too must hand over their position to the Boeotians: these were the terms agreed. Trusting him as a general, and knowing nothing of events because they were under siege, they marched out under a truce.

4 In this way Oenoe was captured and occupied by the Boeotians; and the oligarchy and civil strife at Athens came to an end.

Chapter 99

1 At about the same time in this summer, the Peloponnesians at Miletus were receiving no maintenance from any of the men whom Tissaphernes had put in charge [when he went off to Aspendus], and neither the Phoenician ships nor Tissaphernes himself had yet arrived. Philip, who had been sent with him, and another man, Hippocrates, a Spartan then at Phaselis, had written to Mindarus, the admiral, that the ships would not come and that Tissaphernes was wronging them in every respect. Pharnabazus, meanwhile, was summoning them, eager to obtain the fleet and, like Tissaphernes, to bring the remaining cities in his own province into revolt from Athens. Mindarus, hoping to gain more from him, therefore set sail from Miletus for the Hellespont with seventy-three ships, in excellent order and on a sudden command, so as to escape the notice of those at Samos. Earlier in this same summer sixteen ships had already sailed into the Hellespont and had ravaged part of the Chersonese. But a storm drove him to put in at Icarus, where weather that prevented sailing kept him for five or six days; he then reached Chios.

Chapter 100

1 When Thrasyllus learned at Samos that Mindarus had sailed from Miletus, he too immediately put to sea with fifty-five ships, making haste lest Mindarus enter the Hellespont before him.

2 Learning that he was at Chios, and supposing that he would stay there, Thrasyllus posted lookouts both on Lesbos and on the opposite mainland, to ensure that any movement of the fleet should not pass unnoticed. He himself sailed along the coast to Methymna and ordered barley meal and other provisions to be made ready, intending, if the delay proved long, to use Lesbos as his base for attacks on Chios.

3 At the same time, since Eresus in Lesbos had revolted, he wanted to sail against it and, if possible, capture it. Some exiles from Methymna, men of considerable influence, had brought over about fifty hoplites from Cyme who had joined their cause, and had hired others from the mainland, making about three hundred in all. Under the command of Anaxander, a Theban linked to them by common ancestry, they first attacked Methymna. The Athenian garrison from Mytilene came out and thwarted the attempt; driven back again in a battle outside the city, the exiles crossed the mountains and brought Eresus into revolt.

4 Thrasyllus therefore sailed against it with his whole fleet, intending to make an assault. Thrasybulus was already there: on receiving news at Samos that the exiles had crossed over, he had sailed with five ships, but had arrived too late to stop them and had come to take up a station off Eresus.

5 They were joined by two ships returning home from the Hellespont and five from Methymna. The fleet now numbered sixty-seven ships in all, and with the troops drawn from them they prepared to take Eresus by storm, if they could, with siege engines and every other means.

Chapter 101

1 Meanwhile Mindarus and the Peloponnesian fleet at Chios took provisions for two days, and each man received three Chian fortieth-coins from the Chians. On the third day they put out from Chios at speed, not by the open sea, for fear of encountering the ships at Eresus, but toward the mainland, keeping Lesbos on their left.

2 They put in at the harbor of Carterii in Phocaean territory and took their morning meal; then, sailing along the coast of Cyme, they had their evening meal at Arginusae on the mainland, opposite Mytilene.

3 From there they sailed on while much of the night remained and reached Harmatus on the mainland, directly opposite Methymna. After their morning meal they hurried past Lectum, Larisa, Hamaxitus, and the neighboring places, reaching Rhoeteum, already within the Hellespont, before midnight. Some of the ships put in at Sigeum and other places in the neighborhood.

Chapter 102

1 The Athenians at Sestos, with eighteen ships, knew that the Peloponnesians were entering the strait when their beacon watchers signaled and they saw many fires suddenly appear in enemy territory. That very night they sailed as fast as they could along the Chersonese, hugging its shore, toward Elaeus, intending to get past the enemy ships and out into open water.

2 They slipped past the sixteen ships at Abydos, although a watch had been ordered in connection with the approach of the friendly fleet, to keep close guard on the Athenians if they sailed out. At dawn, however, they sighted the ships with Mindarus, which immediately gave chase. Not all escaped in time: most got away toward Imbros and Lemnos, but the four ships sailing last were overtaken near Elaeus.

3 One, which had run aground by the sanctuary of Protesilaus, they captured with its crew; two others they took without their crews, and the remaining one they burned near Imbros after its men had left it.

Chapter 103

1 After this, joined by the ships from Abydos, they besieged Elaeus for that day with their entire fleet of eighty-six ships. When it would not submit, they sailed back to Abydos.

2 The Athenians had been deceived by their lookouts: never imagining that the enemy fleet could sail past unnoticed, they had been attacking the walls at their leisure. When they learned what had happened, they immediately abandoned Eresus and hurried to the defense of the Hellespont.

3 They captured two Peloponnesian ships which, venturing too boldly out to sea during the pursuit, had fallen in with them. The next day they reached Elaeus and anchored there; they brought over the ships that had escaped to Imbros and spent five days preparing for battle at sea.

Chapter 104

1 After this they fought a naval battle in the following manner. The Athenians were sailing in column close along the coast toward Sestos, and the Peloponnesians, seeing them, also put out from Abydos to meet them.

2 When it became clear that they would fight, they extended their lines: the Athenians, with seventy-six ships, along the Chersonese from Idacus to Arriani; the Peloponnesians, with eighty-six, from Abydos to Dardanus.

3 On the Peloponnesian side the Syracusans held the right wing, and Mindarus himself, with the fastest ships, the other. On the Athenian side Thrasyllus held the left and Thrasybulus the right; the other generals held their respective stations.

4 The Peloponnesians were eager to make the first attack. They intended, if possible, to outflank the Athenian right with their own left and cut off its escape into open water, while driving the center onto the shore, which was close by. The Athenians perceived this, and on the side where the enemy meant to block them they extended their own line in response, keeping ahead of them as they sailed.

5 Their left wing had already passed the headland called Cynossema. As a result their ships in the center were left weak and scattered, especially since they were also fewer in number; moreover, the coast around Cynossema formed a sharp angle, so that what was happening on its farther side could not be seen.

Chapter 105

1 The Peloponnesians therefore struck the center, drove the Athenian ships onto dry land, and disembarked to pursue the fight ashore, gaining a decisive advantage in the action.

2 Neither Thrasybulus and his men on the right, beset by a mass of ships, nor Thrasyllus and his men on the left could help the center. The latter could not see it because of the headland of Cynossema, and the Syracusans and the other ships drawn up against them, no fewer than their own, also held them in check. This continued until the Peloponnesians, emboldened by their victory, began pursuing individual ships without fear, and part of their fleet fell into disorder.

3 Thrasybulus and his men saw that the ships facing them were holding back; they stopped extending their wing, turned about, and immediately attacked and routed them. They then caught the scattered ships of the victorious Peloponnesian division, battered them, and threw most into panic without a fight. The Syracusans, too, had already begun to give way before Thrasyllus and his men, and fled still more readily when they saw what was happening to the others.

Chapter 106

1 The Peloponnesians were routed and fled, most of them first to the river Midius and later to Abydos. The Athenians captured few ships, since the narrowness of the Hellespont gave their opponents only a short distance to cover in escaping; nevertheless, this naval victory came at a most critical moment for them.

2 Until then they had feared the Peloponnesian fleet because of their successive minor reverses and the disaster in Sicily. Now they were freed from their habit of reproaching themselves, and no longer thought their enemies of any account at sea.

3 The enemy ships they captured were eight Chian, five Corinthian, two Ambraciot, two Boeotian, and one each from the Leucadians, Lacedaemonians, Syracusans, and Pellenians. They themselves lost fifteen ships.

4 They set up a trophy on the headland at Cynossema, collected the wrecks, returned the enemy dead under a truce, and sent a trireme to Athens with news of the victory.

5 When the ship arrived and the Athenians heard of this unexpected success, coming after the recent disasters in Euboea and those brought on by civil strife, they took great heart. They believed that their cause could still prevail, if they pursued it with determination.

Chapter 107

1 On the fourth day after the naval battle, the Athenians at Sestos, having hurriedly repaired their ships, sailed against Cyzicus, which had revolted. Sighting the eight ships from Byzantium at anchor near Harpagium and Priapus, they sailed against them, defeated the men on shore in battle, and captured the ships. They then reached Cyzicus, which had no walls, brought it back into allegiance, and exacted money.

2 Meanwhile the Peloponnesians sailed from Abydos to Elaeus and recovered as many of their captured ships as were still sound; the people of Elaeus had burned the rest. They also sent Hippocrates and Epicles to Euboea to bring back the ships from there.

Chapter 108

1 At about this same time Alcibiades returned from Caunus and Phaselis to Samos with his thirteen ships, reporting that he had turned the Phoenician fleet away from coming to the Peloponnesians and had made Tissaphernes a greater friend to the Athenians than before.

2 Manning nine ships in addition to those he already had, he exacted a large sum of money from the Halicarnassians and fortified Cos. After doing this and appointing a governor in Cos, he sailed back to Samos as autumn was approaching.

3 When Tissaphernes learned at Aspendus that the Peloponnesian fleet had sailed from Miletus to the Hellespont, he broke camp and set off for Ionia.

4 While the Peloponnesians were in the Hellespont, the people of Antandrus, who are Aeolians, brought hoplites overland from Abydos across Mount Ida and admitted them into the city. They were being mistreated by Arsaces, the Persian deputy of Tissaphernes. It was he who had massacred the Delians settled at Adramyttium after the Athenians expelled them from Delos for its purification. Pretending to have a quarrel whose object he did not disclose, he had summoned their leading men for military service and led them out on a footing of friendship and alliance; then, waiting until they were taking their morning meal, he surrounded them with his own men and had them shot down with javelins.

5 Fearing, after this deed, that he might someday commit some outrage against them too, and also suffering other burdens he imposed which they could not bear, the people of Antandrus expelled his garrison from the citadel.

Chapter 109

1 When Tissaphernes learned of this further action by the Peloponnesians, beyond what they had done at Miletus and Cnidus—for his garrisons had been expelled there too—he concluded that they had become deeply hostile to him and feared that they might do him still more harm. He also resented the prospect that Pharnabazus, after entertaining them for less time and at less expense, might achieve greater success against the Athenians. He therefore resolved to go to them in the Hellespont, to complain of what had happened at Antandrus and to offer the most plausible defense he could against their accusations concerning the Phoenician fleet and the other matters. On reaching Ephesus first, he offered sacrifice to Artemis.

2 [When the winter following this summer comes to an end, the twenty-first year will be complete.]

Chapter 1

1 When the news reached Athens, for a long time people refused to believe that the destruction could have been so complete. They would not even believe soldiers who had escaped from the fighting itself and gave clear reports. Once they accepted the truth, they turned against the public speakers who had supported the expedition, as though they had not voted for it themselves. They were also angry with the collectors of oracles, the diviners, and everyone who had made predictions at the time and encouraged them to hope that they would conquer Sicily.

2 The disaster brought them grief from every direction, and they were surrounded by overwhelming fear and shock. Both individual households and the city as a whole felt the loss of so many hoplites and cavalrymen—a body of men of military age that they could see no way to replace. At the same time, they saw that there were not enough ships in the ship sheds, or money in the public treasury, or crews for the ships. For the moment, they had no hope of survival. They thought their enemies in Sicily would sail straight to Piraeus with their fleet, especially after so great a victory. Their enemies nearer home would now double all their preparations and attack with their full strength by land and sea, joined by Athens' own allies in revolt.

3 Even so, they decided that they must not give in. They must use the resources they still had to prepare a fleet, collecting timber wherever they could, and raise money. They must keep their allies secure, especially Euboea. They must also put some of the city's spending on a more sensible, economical basis. They would elect a board of older men to consider measures in advance for the present situation, as each occasion required.

4 In their immediate fear, they were ready to accept discipline in everything, as the people generally are at such times. They put their decisions into practice, and the summer ended.

Chapter 2

1 In the following winter, all the Greeks were immediately encouraged by the Athenians' great disaster in Sicily. Those who were allied with neither side thought they must no longer stay out of the war, even if no one invited them to join. They should attack the Athenians of their own accord. Each believed the Athenians would have attacked them too if they had succeeded in Sicily. They also thought the rest of the war would be short and that taking part in it would bring them honor. The Lacedaemonians' allies were more eager than before to make a joint effort and quickly put an end to their many hardships.

2 Above all, the subjects of Athens were ready to revolt, even beyond what their strength allowed. They judged the situation in the heat of their feelings. They would not even allow for the possibility that the Athenians could survive the coming summer.

3 All this gave the Lacedaemonian state confidence. Most of all, it expected its allies from Sicily to arrive in great strength as soon as spring came. Now that these allies had been forced to develop a navy, their arrival seemed likely.

4 With high hopes on every side, the Lacedaemonians intended to commit themselves to the war without holding back. They calculated that, if it ended well, they would be free in the future from dangers like the one Athens would have brought upon them if it had gained Sicily as well. Once they had brought Athens down, they themselves would hold a secure position as leaders of all Hellas.

Chapter 3

1 So, during this winter, their king Agis at once set out from Decelea with part of his army. He collected money from the allies for the navy. Then he turned toward the Malian Gulf. Because of the old hostility between them, he seized a large amount of booty from the Oetaeans and exacted money from them. Despite the protests and opposition of the Thessalians, he also forced the Achaeans of Phthiotis and the other subjects of Thessaly in that region to provide some hostages and money. He placed the hostages at Corinth and tried to bring these peoples into the alliance.

2 The Lacedaemonians assigned the cities a total of 100 ships to build. They assigned 25 each to themselves and the Boeotians; 15 to the Phocians and Locrians together; 15 to the Corinthians; ten to the Arcadians, Pellenians, and Sicyonians together; and ten to the Megarians, Troezenians, Epidaurians, and Hermionians together. They made their other preparations too, intending to take up the war as soon as spring began.

Chapter 4

1 During this same winter, the Athenians also carried out the preparations they had planned. They collected timber and built ships. They fortified Sunium so that their grain ships could sail safely around the headland. They abandoned the fort in Laconia that they had built while sailing along the coast to Sicily. They cut other expenses wherever they thought money was being spent needlessly. Above all, they watched the situation among their allies to make sure that they would not revolt.

Chapter 5

1 While both sides were doing this, preparing for the war just as though they were starting it for the first time, the Euboeans were the first to send envoys to Agis that winter about revolting from Athens. He accepted their proposals and sent to Lacedaemon for Alcamenes son of Sthenelaidas and Melanthus, to serve as commanders in Euboea. They arrived with about 300 newly enfranchised Helots, and he prepared to send them across.

2 Meanwhile, envoys also came from Lesbos, whose people wanted to revolt too. The Boeotians supported them and persuaded Agis to put the Euboean plan on hold. Instead, he prepared for the revolt of Lesbos. He assigned them Alcamenes as military governor, although Alcamenes had been about to sail to Euboea. The Boeotians promised ten ships, and Agis promised ten.

3 These arrangements were made without consulting the Lacedaemonian state. As long as Agis was at Decelea with his own force, he had authority to send troops wherever he wanted, to raise more troops, and to demand money. At this time, it would be fair to say that the allies obeyed him much more [than] the Lacedaemonians at home. With his force behind him, he could appear anywhere at once and make himself feared.

4 While he was making arrangements with the people of Lesbos, the Chians and Erythraeans, who were also ready to revolt, approached Lacedaemon rather than Agis. An envoy from Tissaphernes came there with them. Tissaphernes governed the coastal region for King Darius son of Artaxerxes.

5 Tissaphernes too was inviting the Peloponnesians to come and promising to provide their maintenance. The king had recently demanded the tribute due from his province. Because of the Athenians, Tissaphernes had been unable to collect it from the Greek cities and had fallen into arrears. He therefore thought that by weakening the Athenians he could collect the tribute more easily. He also hoped to make the Lacedaemonians allies of the king and, as the king had ordered him, either bring in alive or kill Amorges, the illegitimate son of Pissuthnes, who was in revolt in Caria.

Chapter 6

1 The Chians and Tissaphernes were working together toward the same goal. At about the same time, Calligeitus son of Laophon, a Megarian, and Timagoras son of Athenagoras, from Cyzicus, arrived in Lacedaemon. Both were exiles from their own cities and were living with Pharnabazus son of Pharnaces. Pharnabazus had sent them to bring ships to the Hellespont. Like Tissaphernes, he wanted, if possible, to make the cities in his province revolt from Athens so that he could collect their tribute. He also wanted to be the one responsible for making the Lacedaemonians allies of the king.

2 The representatives of Pharnabazus and those of Tissaphernes pursued these plans separately. There was intense competition at Lacedaemon. One group tried to persuade the Lacedaemonians to send ships and an army to Ionia and Chios first, while the other wanted them sent to the Hellespont first.

3 The Lacedaemonians were much more receptive to the proposals from Chios and Tissaphernes. Alcibiades was also supporting them. His family had a particularly close connection with Endius, who was then an ephor: their families had long been friends and hosts to one another. That connection was also how Alcibiades' family had acquired its Laconian name: Endius' father was named Alcibiades.

4 Even so, the Lacedaemonians first sent Phrynis, one of the perioeci, to inspect Chios. He was to find out whether the Chians had as many ships as they claimed and whether the city was as powerful in other respects as its reputation suggested. When he reported that what they had heard was true, they immediately made the Chians and Erythraeans their allies. They voted to send them 40 ships, since, according to the Chians, at least 60 were already available there.

5 At first, they themselves were going to send ten of these ships under Melanchridas, who was their admiral. Then an earthquake occurred. They replaced Melanchridas with Chalcideus and prepared five ships in Laconia instead of ten. The winter ended, and the nineteenth year of this war, which Thucydides wrote, came to an end.

Chapter 7

1 At the beginning of spring in the next summer season, the Chians immediately pressed for the ships to be sent. They were afraid that the Athenians might discover what was happening, since all these embassies had been sent without their knowledge. The Lacedaemonians sent three Spartans to Corinth. They were to have the ships hauled across the Isthmus as quickly as possible, from the sea on the other side to the sea facing Athens. Then they were to order them all to sail to Chios, including those Agis had been preparing for Lesbos as well as the others. The allied ships there numbered 39 in all.

Chapter 8

1 Calligeitus and Timagoras, acting for Pharnabazus, would not take part in the expedition to Chios. Nor would they contribute to it the money they had brought, 25 talents. They intended to sail separately later with another expedition.

2 When Agis saw that the Lacedaemonians were determined to go to Chios first, he did not favor any other course himself. The allies met at Corinth to discuss the matter. They decided to sail first to Chios under Chalcideus, who was preparing the five ships in Laconia, then to Lesbos under Alcamenes, as Agis had planned, and finally to the Hellespont. Clearchus son of Rhamphias had been assigned to command there.

3 They decided to haul half the ships across the Isthmus first and have them sail at once. That way, the Athenians would pay no more attention to the departing ships than to those being brought across later.

4 Indeed, they were making this voyage quite openly. They thought little of the Athenians in their weakness, since no substantial Athenian fleet had yet appeared. In keeping with their decision, they immediately brought 21 ships across.

Chapter 9

1 Although the others were pressing for departure, the Corinthians were unwilling to sail with them until they had finished celebrating the Isthmian festival, which was taking place at the time. Agis was willing to make the expedition his own responsibility, so that the Corinthians themselves need not break the Isthmian truce.

2 The Corinthians would not agree, and there was a delay. Meanwhile, the Athenians learned more about the situation in Chios. They sent Aristocrates, one of their generals, to accuse the Chians. When the Chians denied the accusations, the Athenians told them to prove their loyalty by sending ships to serve with them in the allied fleet. They sent seven.

3 They sent the ships because most Chians did not know what was being planned. The small group who did know did not yet want to make enemies of the general population before they had gained some strong support. They also no longer expected the Peloponnesians to come, because of the delay.

Chapter 10

1 Meanwhile, the Isthmian festival took place. The Athenians, who had been invited, attended it, and the Chian plans became clearer to them. When they returned, they immediately made preparations to ensure that the ships could not sail from Cenchreae without their knowledge.

2 After the festival, the Peloponnesians set sail for Chios with 21 ships under Alcamenes. At first the Athenians approached with an equal number of ships and tried to draw them out to open sea. When the Peloponnesians did not follow them far but turned away, the Athenians also withdrew. They had the seven Chian ships among their own and did not trust them.

3 Later, however, they crewed more ships, bringing their total to 37. They pursued the Peloponnesians as they sailed along the coast and drove them into Spiraeum in Corinthian territory. This is an uninhabited harbor at the far edge of the territory, near the border with Epidaurus. The Peloponnesians lost one ship out at sea. They brought the others together and anchored them.

4 The Athenians attacked with their ships from the sea and also landed troops. Great confusion and disorder followed. The Athenians badly damaged most of the ships on shore and killed Alcamenes, their commander. Some Athenians were also killed.

Chapter 11

1 When the two sides had drawn apart, the Athenians assigned enough ships to keep watch over the enemy fleet. They anchored the rest at a small island nearby, where they made their camp. They also sent to Athens for reinforcements.

2 The next day the Corinthians came to help the Peloponnesians defend the ships, and shortly afterward the other neighboring peoples arrived too. They saw that guarding the ships in an uninhabited place would be difficult and did not know what to do. They considered burning the ships. Then they decided to haul them ashore and keep their army stationed beside them as a guard until a suitable chance of escape arose. When Agis learned what had happened, he also sent them a Spartan named Thermon.

3 The Lacedaemonians first received news that the ships had sailed from the Isthmus. The ephors had told Alcamenes to send a mounted messenger when this happened. They immediately wanted to send their own five ships under Chalcideus, with Alcibiades accompanying him. Then, just as they were preparing to leave, news arrived that the ships had taken refuge in Spiraeum. This failure at their very first attempt to begin the war in Ionia discouraged them. They no longer intended to send the ships from their own country. They even thought of recalling some that had already put out to sea.

Chapter 12

1 When Alcibiades learned this, he again persuaded Endius and the other ephors not to be afraid to make the voyage. He said they would arrive before the Chians heard about the disaster to the ships. Once he himself reached Ionia, he could easily persuade the cities to revolt by telling them about the Athenians' weakness and the Lacedaemonians' eagerness to help. They would find him more convincing than anyone else.

2 He also told Endius privately that it would bring him honor to be responsible for the revolt of Ionia and for making the king an ally of the Lacedaemonians. This achievement should not belong to Agis. Alcibiades himself was at odds with Agis.

3 After persuading Endius and the other ephors, Alcibiades set out in the five ships with Chalcideus the Lacedaemonian. They made the voyage at speed.

Chapter 13

1 At about this same time, the 16 Peloponnesian ships that had fought through the war with Gylippus were returning from Sicily. Near Leucas they were cut off and damaged by 27 Athenian ships under Hippocles son of Menippus, who was watching for ships coming from Sicily. All but one of the Peloponnesian ships escaped the Athenians and sailed into Corinth.

Chapter 14

1 As Chalcideus and Alcibiades sailed, they detained everyone they met so that news of their approach would not get out. They first reached Corycus on the mainland and released these people there. After meeting some of their Chian supporters, who told them to sail into the city without giving advance notice, they arrived unexpectedly at Chios.

2 Most people were astonished and alarmed. But the small group behind the plan had arranged for the council to be in session at the time. Chalcideus and Alcibiades spoke, saying that many more ships were on their way. They did not reveal that the ships at Spiraeum were under blockade. The Chians revolted from Athens, and the Erythraeans followed.

3 After this, they sailed with three ships to Clazomenae and brought it into revolt too. The Clazomenians immediately crossed to the mainland and began fortifying Polichna. It would give them a place to retreat to from the small island where they lived, if they needed one. All the rebels were now building fortifications and preparing for war.

Chapter 15

1 News about Chios quickly reached Athens. The Athenians thought the danger surrounding them was now great and unmistakable. With their largest allied city having changed sides, they did not expect the other allies to stay quiet. In their immediate alarm, they at once removed the penalties for anyone who proposed or put to the vote the use of the 1,000 talents that they had tried so hard not to touch throughout the war. They voted to use this money and crew a substantial number of ships. They also voted to send eight ships immediately from the force keeping watch at Spiraeum. These had left their watch to pursue Chalcideus' ships, failed to catch them, and returned. Their commander was Strombichides son of Diotimus. Twelve more ships under Thrasycles were to follow shortly afterward as reinforcements, also leaving their watch.

2 They withdrew the seven Chian ships that had been helping them blockade the ships at Spiraeum. They freed the slaves aboard them and put the free men in chains. They quickly crewed ten other ships and sent them to replace all those that had left the watch over the Peloponnesians. They also planned to crew another 30. There was great enthusiasm, and every effort was made on a large scale to send help against Chios.

Chapter 16

1 Meanwhile, Strombichides arrived at Samos with his eight ships. He took on one Samian ship and sailed to Teos, where he called on the people to remain loyal. Chalcideus was also sailing from Chios toward Teos with 23 ships. At the same time, the land forces of Clazomenae and Erythrae were approaching along the coast.

2 Strombichides learned of their approach in time and put out to sea. Once he was in open water and saw how many ships were coming from Chios, he fled toward Samos. The others pursued him.

3 At first the Teians would not admit the land army. Once the Athenians fled, they let it in. The soldiers waited for Chalcideus to return from the pursuit. When he was slow to arrive, they began tearing down the wall the Athenians had built on the mainland side of the city of Teos. A small force of non-Greeks came to help them demolish it, under Stages, a subordinate of Tissaphernes.

Chapter 17

1 After chasing Strombichides to Samos, Chalcideus and Alcibiades armed the sailors from their Peloponnesian ships and left them at Chios. They replaced them with Chian crews, crewed 20 more ships as well, and sailed to Miletus to bring it into revolt.

2 Alcibiades was on friendly terms with the leading men of Miletus. He wanted to bring them over before the ships from the Peloponnese arrived. By bringing as many cities as possible into revolt with Chalcideus and the Chian force, he wanted to win credit for the Chians, himself, Chalcideus, and Endius, who had sent him out, just as he had promised.

3 They went unnoticed for most of the voyage and arrived just ahead of Strombichides and Thrasycles. Thrasycles had just arrived from Athens with twelve ships and was joining in the pursuit. They brought Miletus into revolt. The Athenians sailed up close behind them with 19 ships. When the Milesians refused to admit them, they anchored off the nearby island of Lade to keep watch.

4 Immediately after the Milesians revolted, the Lacedaemonians made their first alliance with the king, through Tissaphernes and Chalcideus, on the following terms.

Chapter 18

1 “The Lacedaemonians and their allies made an alliance with the king and Tissaphernes on these terms. All territory and cities held by the king, and all those held by his ancestors, shall belong to the king. The king, the Lacedaemonians, and their allies shall jointly prevent the Athenians from receiving any money or anything else that used to come to them from these cities.

2 “The king, the Lacedaemonians, and their allies shall wage war against the Athenians together. Neither side may end the war with the Athenians unless both sides agree: the king, and the Lacedaemonians and their allies.

3 “Anyone who revolts from the king shall also be an enemy of the Lacedaemonians and their allies. In the same way, anyone who revolts from the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall be an enemy of the king.”

Chapter 19

1 This was the alliance they made. Immediately afterward, the Chians crewed ten more ships and sailed to Anaea. They wanted to find out what was happening at Miletus and, at the same time, bring other cities into revolt.

2 A message came from Chalcideus telling them to sail back and warning that Amorges would arrive overland with an army. They sailed to Dios Hieron. There they sighted 16 ships approaching from Athens under Diomedon, who had set out later than Thrasycles.

3 As soon as they saw them, they fled. One ship went to Ephesus and the others toward Teos. The Athenians captured four empty ships, their crews having escaped ashore first. The rest took refuge in the city of Teos.

4 The Athenians sailed away to Samos. The Chians put to sea with their remaining ships and, together with the land army, brought Lebedus into revolt, and then Aerae. After this, both the army and the ships returned home.

Chapter 20

1 At about the same time, the 20 Peloponnesian ships at Spiraeum, which had been driven there earlier and were being watched by an equal number of Athenian ships, suddenly sailed out. They won the sea battle and captured four Athenian ships. Then they sailed to Cenchreae and again prepared for the voyage to Chios and Ionia. Astyochus arrived from Lacedaemon as their admiral. He now had command of the entire fleet.

2 After the land army had withdrawn from Teos, Tissaphernes himself arrived with an army. He demolished whatever was left of the wall at Teos and then withdrew. Not long after he left, Diomedon arrived with ten Athenian ships and made an agreement with the Teians that they would admit the Athenians too. He then sailed along the coast to Aerae and attacked it. When he failed to take the city, he sailed away.

Chapter 21

1 At this time, the people of Samos also rose against the powerful men there, with help from Athenians who happened to be present in three ships. The Samian people killed about 200 of the most powerful men in all. They sentenced 400 to exile and divided their land and houses among themselves. After this, the Athenians voted to grant them self-government, considering them now reliable allies. From then on, the people ran the city themselves. They gave the landowning class no share in anything. No one among the people was any longer allowed to give a daughter in marriage to someone in that class or take a wife from it.

Chapter 22

1 Later that same summer, the Chians continued as eagerly as they had begun. They were coming in force to bring cities into revolt, even without the Peloponnesians. They also wanted as many others as possible to share their danger. They themselves sailed against Lesbos with 13 ships. The Lacedaemonians had ordered them to go there as their second destination and then to the Hellespont. At the same time, a land army made up of the Peloponnesians who were present and the local allies marched along the coast by way of Clazomenae and Cyme. Eualas, a Spartan, commanded the army, and Deiniadas, one of the perioeci, commanded the ships.

2 The ships sailed in and first brought Methymna into revolt. Four ships were left there. The others then brought Mytilene into revolt.

Chapter 23

1 Astyochus, the Lacedaemonian admiral, sailed from Cenchreae with four ships, as he had planned, and reached Chios. On the third day after his arrival, the twenty-five Athenian ships sailed for Lesbos under Leon and Diomedon. Leon had come out later from Athens with ten ships as reinforcements.

2 Astyochus also put to sea late that same day. He took one Chian ship with him and sailed for Lesbos to give whatever help he could. He reached Pyrrha, and the next day went on to Eresus. There he learned that the Athenians had taken Mytilene at the first assault.

3 The Athenians had sailed straight into the harbor without being expected and captured the Chian ships. They then landed, defeated those who resisted them, and took the city.

4 Astyochus heard this from the people of Eresus and from the Chian ships with Eubulus that had come from Methymna. These ships had been left there earlier. When Mytilene fell, they escaped and met him. There were three of them, since the Athenians had captured one. Astyochus now gave up his plan to attack Mytilene. Instead he brought Eresus into revolt and armed its people. He also sent the hoplites from his own ships overland toward Antissa and Methymna, putting Eteonicus in command. He himself sailed along the coast with his own ships and the three Chian ships. He hoped the sight of them would give the people of Methymna confidence and keep them committed to the revolt.

5 But everything in Lesbos went against him. He took his land troops aboard and sailed back to Chios. The allied land army, which had been going to march to the Hellespont, was also taken back to its separate cities. After this, six ships from the Peloponnesian allied fleet at Cenchreae reached them at Chios.

6 The Athenians restored their control in Lesbos. They then sailed from there and captured Polichna, the settlement on the mainland that the Clazomenians were fortifying. They brought the people back to their city on the island, except for those responsible for the revolt, who went away to Daphnus. Clazomenae returned to the Athenian side.

Chapter 24

1 During the same summer, the Athenians operating against Miletus with twenty ships based at Lade landed at Panormus in Milesian territory. Chalcideus, the Lacedaemonian commander, came to oppose them with a small force, and they killed him. On the third day afterward they sailed across and put up a victory monument. The Milesians pulled it down because it had been put up without the Athenians holding the ground.

2 Leon and Diomedon, with the Athenian ships from Lesbos, carried out attacks on the Chians from the sea. Their bases were the Oenussae, the islands off Chios; Sidussa and Pteleum, fortified positions they held in Erythraean territory; and Lesbos. The hoplites serving as marines had been drafted from the citizen roll and made to serve.

3 They landed at Cardamyle and Boliscus, defeated the Chians who came to defend them, killed many, and devastated the surrounding districts. They won another battle at Phanae and a third at Leuconium. After this the Chians no longer came out to fight. The Athenians ravaged their countryside, which was well developed and had suffered no damage from the Persian Wars down to that time.

4 Apart from the Lacedaemonians, the Chians are the only people I know who combined prosperity with good judgment. The greater their city became, the more firmly they kept their affairs in order.

5 Even their revolt, if anyone thinks it was a departure from the safer course, was not something they dared to undertake until they could share the risks with many strong allies. They also saw that, after the disaster in Sicily, even the Athenians no longer denied that their situation was [definitely] very bad. If the unpredictable events of human life led them into a mistake, they made that error along with many others who also thought that Athenian power would quickly be destroyed.

6 With the Chians now cut off from the sea and their land being ravaged, some of them tried to bring the city back to the Athenian side. The authorities discovered this but took no action themselves. Instead they brought the admiral Astyochus over from Erythrae with the four ships he had there. They considered how to stop the plot as gently as possible, either by taking hostages or by some other means. This was what they were doing.

Chapter 25

1 At the end of the same summer, a force sailed from Athens to Samos under the generals Phrynichus, Onomacles, and Scironides. It consisted of a thousand Athenian, fifteen hundred Argive, and a thousand allied hoplites. Five hundred of the Argives had been lightly armed, but the Athenians had equipped them as hoplites. They traveled in forty-eight ships, including troop transports. After crossing to Miletus, they made camp.

2 The Milesians came out to meet them with eight hundred hoplites of their own, the Peloponnesians who had come with Chalcideus, and some [foreign] mercenary troops belonging to Tissaphernes. Tissaphernes himself was also there with his cavalry. They fought the Athenians and their allies.

3 The Argives rushed ahead on their own wing. They despised their opponents as Ionians who would not stand their ground, and advanced with too little order. The Milesians defeated them and killed just under three hundred of their men.

4 The Athenians first defeated the Peloponnesians, then drove back the non-Greeks and the rest of the force. They did not engage the Milesians. After routing the Argives, the Milesians saw the rest of their side being defeated and withdrew into the city. The Athenians, now victorious, set up their position right outside Miletus.

5 In this battle it happened that the Ionians on both sides defeated the Dorians: the Athenians beat the Peloponnesians facing them, and the Milesians beat the Argives. The Athenians put up a victory monument and prepared to build a wall cutting off the city, since the site was on an isthmus. They thought that if they won over Miletus, the other places would readily come over to them too.

Chapter 26

1 Meanwhile, late in the afternoon, they received news that fifty-five ships from the Peloponnese and Sicily were almost there. Of the Sicilians, the Syracusans had sent twenty ships and the Selinuntians two. Hermocrates of Syracuse had been especially active in urging them to help finish the destruction of Athenian power. The ships being prepared in the Peloponnese were also now ready. Theramenes the Lacedaemonian had orders to take both fleets to the admiral Astyochus. They first sailed to Leros, the island off Miletus.

2 There they learned that the Athenians were at Miletus. Before going there, they sailed into the Iasic Gulf, wanting to find out the situation at Miletus.

3 They sailed to Teichiussa in Milesian territory and spent the night there. Alcibiades came there on horseback, and they learned from him about the battle. He had been present and had fought alongside the Milesians and Tissaphernes. He urged them to help Miletus as quickly as possible and not let it be walled off, unless they wanted to lose both Ionia and their whole position.

Chapter 27

1 They intended to go to its aid at dawn. But Phrynichus, the Athenian general, received reliable news from Leros about the ships. His fellow generals wanted to stay and fight a naval battle. He said that he would not do this himself and would do everything he could to prevent them or anyone else from doing it.

2 They [could] fight later, when they knew for certain how many enemy ships they faced and how many of their own they would have, and had made full preparations without rushing. He would never give in to the shame of being called a coward and take an unreasonable risk.

3 There was no disgrace, he said, in an Athenian fleet withdrawing when the circumstances required it. A defeat would bring them greater disgrace, however it happened. It would also expose their city not just to shame but to the greatest danger. After its recent disasters, the city could scarcely afford to start an attack anywhere, even with solid preparations, either by choice or when driven by urgent need. It certainly should not choose to take risks when no one was forcing it.

4 He urged them to sail for Samos as quickly as possible, taking aboard the wounded, the infantry, and all the equipment they had brought with them. They should leave behind what they had taken from enemy territory, to keep the ships light. Once at Samos, they could gather all their ships and make attacks wherever an opportunity arose.

5 He persuaded them and put this plan into action. Both at the time and afterward, people thought Phrynichus had shown good judgment, not only in this matter but in everything else he undertook.

6 So the Athenians left Miletus as soon as evening came, their victory incomplete. The Argives sailed home from Samos in a hurry, angry at their defeat.

Chapter 28

1 At dawn the Peloponnesians sailed from Teichiussa and arrived at Miletus. They stayed for a day. The next day they took along the Chian ships that had originally been chased into the harbor with Chalcideus. They wanted to sail back to Teichiussa to collect the equipment they had unloaded there.

2 When they arrived, Tissaphernes came up with his land army and persuaded them to sail against Iasus, which his enemy Amorges held. They attacked Iasus unexpectedly and took it. Its people had assumed that the ships could only be Athenian. The Syracusans earned the most praise in the action.

3 The Peloponnesians captured Amorges alive. He was an illegitimate son of Pissuthnes and had rebelled against the king. They handed him over to Tissaphernes to take to the king if he wished, as the king had ordered him to do. They sacked Iasus, and the army took a very large amount of money. The place had been wealthy for a long time.

4 They took Amorges' mercenaries into their own force without harming them, since most were from the Peloponnese. They handed over the town to Tissaphernes, along with all the captives, both enslaved and free. They agreed that he would pay them one Daric stater for each person. Then they returned to Miletus.

5 The Lacedaemonians had sent Pedaritus son of Leon to command at Chios. The Peloponnesians sent him overland as far as Erythrae with the mercenaries taken over from Amorges. They put Philippus in command at Miletus itself. And the summer ended.

Chapter 29

1 In the following winter, after securing Iasus with a garrison, Tissaphernes came to Miletus. As he had promised at Lacedaemon, he paid a month's allowance to the whole fleet at the rate of one Attic drachma per man per day. For the future, however, he wanted to give three obols until he had consulted the king. If the king ordered it, he said, he would pay the full drachma.

2 Hermocrates, the Syracusan general, objected. Theramenes was not firm about the pay, since he was not the admiral but was only sailing with the fleet to hand it over to Astyochus. Even so, the agreement gave each man more than three obols, by allowing an extra five ships' worth of pay. Tissaphernes gave thirty talents a month for fifty-five ships. Any additional ships beyond that number were paid at the same rate.

Chapter 30

1 That same winter, another thirty-five ships from home reached the Athenians at Samos, along with the generals Charminus, Strombichides, and Euctemon. They brought together the ships from Chios and all their other ships. They intended to divide their duties by lot: one force would use its fleet to blockade Miletus, while the other would send both ships and land troops against Chios.

2 They did so. Strombichides, Onomacles, and Euctemon drew the assignment to Chios and sailed there with thirty ships. They also took in troop transports some of the thousand hoplites who had come to Miletus. The others stayed at Samos with seventy-four ships, controlled the sea, and made attacks on Miletus.

Chapter 31

1 At this time Astyochus was at Chios, selecting hostages because of the plot to betray the city. When he learned that the ships with Theramenes had arrived and that the alliance's situation had improved, he stopped doing this. He took ten Peloponnesian ships and ten Chian ships and put to sea.

2 He attacked Pteleum but failed to take it. He then sailed along the coast to Clazomenae and ordered the people there who supported Athens to move to Daphnus and join his side. Tamos, the deputy governor of Ionia, joined in giving this order.

3 They would not obey, so he attacked the city, which had no walls, but could not capture it. He then sailed away in a strong wind. He himself went to Phocaea and Cyme, while the other ships put in at the islands off Clazomenae: Marathussa, Pele, and Drymussa.

4 The winds kept these ships there for eight days. They plundered and used up some of the property the Clazomenians had moved there for safety. They loaded the rest aboard and sailed to join Astyochus at Phocaea and Cyme.

Chapter 32

1 While he was there, envoys arrived from Lesbos, whose people wanted to revolt again. They persuaded Astyochus, but the Corinthians and the other allies were unwilling because of the earlier failure. So he put to sea and sailed for Chios. A storm scattered the ships, and they later reached Chios from different directions.

2 After this, Pedaritus, who had been marching overland from Miletus, reached Erythrae and crossed with his army to Chios. He also had available about five hundred soldiers, left by Chalcideus from the five ships, together with their arms.

3 Some people from Lesbos were offering to arrange a revolt. Astyochus therefore put a proposal to Pedaritus and the Chians: they should go there with their ships and bring Lesbos into revolt. They would either gain more allies or, if they failed, still damage the Athenians. But the others would not listen, and Pedaritus said he would not let Astyochus have the Chian ships.

Chapter 33

1 Astyochus took the five Corinthian ships, a sixth from Megara, one from Hermione, and the Laconian ships he had brought out himself, and sailed for Miletus to take up his duties as admiral. He made repeated threats to the Chians, declaring that he would certainly not help them if they needed anything.

2 He put in at Corycus in Erythraean territory and stayed the night. The Athenian force sailing from Samos toward Chios also anchored there, on the other side of a hill that separated them. Neither side knew that the other was there.

3 During the night a letter arrived from Pedaritus. It said that some Erythraean prisoners had been released from Samos and had come to Erythrae to betray it. Astyochus immediately put to sea again for Erythrae. This was all that kept him from encountering the Athenians.

4 Pedaritus also sailed across to meet him. They investigated the suspected traitors and found that the whole story had been made up to get the men safely out of Samos. They cleared them of the accusation and sailed away. Pedaritus went to Chios, while Astyochus continued to Miletus as he had intended.

Chapter 34

1 Meanwhile, as the Athenian force sailed around from Corycus, it came across three Chian warships off Arginum and chased them as soon as it saw them. A violent storm came on. The Chian ships barely managed to escape into their harbor. Of the Athenian ships, the three that had pressed ahead most eagerly were wrecked and driven ashore near the city of Chios. Some of their men were captured and others killed. The remaining ships found refuge in the harbor below Mount Mimas called Phoenicus. Later they moved from there to an anchorage at Lesbos and prepared to build their fort.

Chapter 35

1 During the same winter, Hippocrates the Lacedaemonian sailed from the Peloponnese and reached Cnidus with ten ships from Thurii, one Laconian ship, and one Syracusan ship. Dorieus son of Diagoras was one of the three commanders of the Thurian ships. Tissaphernes had already brought Cnidus into revolt.

2 When the Peloponnesians at Miletus heard of their arrival, they told them to use half their ships to guard Cnidus. The other half were to stay near Triopium and seize merchant ships arriving from Egypt. Triopium is a headland projecting from Cnidian territory, with a sanctuary of Apollo.

3 The Athenians heard about this, sailed from Samos, and captured the six ships keeping watch at Triopium. Their crews escaped. After this the Athenians sailed to Cnidus, attacked the unwalled city, and nearly took it.

4 They attacked again the next day. But the people had put up better defenses during the night, and the men who had escaped from the ships at Triopium had joined them. The Athenians could no longer do as much damage. They withdrew, ravaged the Cnidians' land, and sailed back to Samos.

Chapter 36

1 About this same time Astyochus reached Miletus to take command of the fleet. The Peloponnesians still had plenty of everything they needed in their camp. Pay was being provided at an adequate rate, the soldiers had the large sums plundered from Iasus, and the Milesians willingly bore the burdens of the war.

2 Even so, the Peloponnesians thought that the first agreement with Tissaphernes, made through Chalcideus, was incomplete and not favorable enough to them. While Theramenes was still there, they made another agreement. It was as follows.

Chapter 37

1 “The Lacedaemonians and their allies agree with King Darius, the king's sons, and Tissaphernes to establish a truce and friendship on the following terms.

2 “Neither the Lacedaemonians nor their allies shall attack or cause any damage to any territory or cities belonging to King Darius, or formerly belonging to his father or his ancestors. Neither the Lacedaemonians nor their allies shall collect tribute from these cities. Neither King Darius nor any of his subjects shall attack or cause any damage to the Lacedaemonians or their allies.

3 “If the Lacedaemonians or their allies need anything from the king, or the king needs anything from the Lacedaemonians or their allies, whatever they persuade each other to do shall be acceptable.

4 “Both sides shall wage war together against the Athenians and their allies. If they make peace, both sides shall do so together. The king shall pay the expenses of any army in his territory that he has called in.

5 “If any of the cities that have made this agreement with the king attacks his territory, the others shall stop it and defend the king as far as they can. If anyone from the king's territory or from any land under his rule attacks the territory of the Lacedaemonians or their allies, the king shall stop them and provide defense as far as he can.”

Chapter 38

1 After this agreement, Theramenes handed over the ships to Astyochus. He sailed away in a small boat and disappeared.

2 The Athenians had by now brought their army across from Lesbos to Chios. They controlled both land and sea and were fortifying Delphinium. This position was naturally strong on the landward side, had harbors, and was not far from the city of Chios.

3 The Chians had suffered badly in their many earlier battles and were also deeply divided among themselves. Pedaritus had already put Tydeus son of Ion and his associates to death for supporting Athens. The rest of the city was held by force under the control of a few men. The Chians therefore distrusted one another and remained inactive. In these circumstances neither the Chians themselves nor the mercenaries with Pedaritus seemed capable of facing the Athenians in battle.

4 They did, however, send to Miletus and ask Astyochus to help them. When he would not listen, Pedaritus wrote to Lacedaemon, accusing him of failing in his duty.

5 This was how far the Athenians had progressed at Chios. Their ships from Samos made attacks on the fleet at Miletus. But when the enemy did not put out to meet them, they went back to Samos and stayed inactive.

Chapter 39

1 During the same winter, twenty-seven ships left the Peloponnese for Ionia around the solstice. The Lacedaemonians had prepared them for Pharnabazus [through] the efforts of Calligeitus of Megara and Timagoras of Cyzicus. Antisthenes, a Spartan, sailed with them as commander.

2 The Lacedaemonians also sent eleven Spartans as advisers to Astyochus. One was Lichas son of Arcesilaus. They had orders to reach Miletus and help manage affairs there in whatever way would produce the best results. If they thought it advisable, they were to send these ships, or a larger or smaller number, to Pharnabazus in the Hellespont, appointing Clearchus son of Rhamphias, who was sailing with them, as commander. If the eleven thought it right, they could also remove Astyochus as admiral and replace him with Antisthenes. Pedaritus' letters had made the Lacedaemonians suspicious of him.

3 The ships sailed across the open sea from Malea and put in at Melos. There they encountered ten Athenian ships, captured three without their crews, and burned them. After this they feared that the Athenian ships that had escaped from Melos would report their approach to the Athenians at Samos, as in fact they did. As a precaution, they sailed toward Crete and took a longer route, reaching Caunus in Asia.

4 Once there, they considered themselves safe and sent a message to the fleet at Miletus asking for an escort.

Chapter 40

1 At the same time the Chians and Pedaritus kept sending messengers to Astyochus despite his delays. They asked him to come with his whole fleet to help them in the siege. He should not stand by while the largest allied city in Ionia was cut off from the sea and its land devastated by raids.

2 The Chians had many slaves—more than any single city except Lacedaemon. Because there were so many, they were also punished more harshly for offenses. As soon as the Athenian army seemed securely established behind its fortifications, most of the slaves deserted to it. Their knowledge of the countryside enabled them to do the greatest damage.

3 The Chians said that Astyochus must help them while there was still hope and it was still possible to stop the work. Delphinium was still being fortified and was unfinished, and a larger enclosure was being added around it for both the camp and the ships. Because of his earlier threat, Astyochus had not intended to help. But when he saw that the allies too were eager, he made up his mind to go.

Chapter 41

1 Meanwhile, news arrived from Caunus that the twenty-seven ships and the Lacedaemonian advisers were there. Astyochus thought everything else should come second to escorting so many ships to join his own, so that they would have greater control of the sea, and to bringing safely across the Lacedaemonians who had come to inspect his conduct. He immediately abandoned his plan to go to Chios and sailed for Caunus.

2 On the way he landed at Cos Meropis and sacked the city. It had no walls and had collapsed in an earthquake that struck its people—the strongest in our memory. The inhabitants had fled into the mountains. He raided the countryside for plunder, but did not take free people; he let them go.

3 From Cos he reached Cnidus at night. At the Cnidians' insistence, he had to keep his sailors aboard and sail on immediately, just as he was, against the twenty Athenian ships. Charminus, one of the generals from Samos, had these ships and was watching for the arrival of the twenty-seven ships from the Peloponnese—the very ships Astyochus was sailing to meet.

4 The Athenians at Samos had learned from Melos that these ships were approaching. Charminus was keeping watch around Syme, Chalce, and Rhodes, and along the coast of Lycia. He had already learned that they were at Caunus.

Chapter 42

1 So Astyochus sailed toward Syme with his forces as they were, before anyone could report his approach. He hoped to catch the ships somewhere out at sea. But rain and cloudy skies made his ships lose their way in the darkness and threw them into confusion.

2 At dawn the fleet was scattered. Its left wing was already visible to the Athenians, but the rest was still wandering around the island. Charminus and the Athenians quickly put out to meet them with fewer than their full twenty ships. They thought these were the ships from Caunus that they had been watching for.

3 They attacked at once, sank three ships, and damaged others. They were winning the fight until the larger part of the enemy fleet appeared unexpectedly. Then they found themselves cut off on every side.

4 They turned and fled, losing six ships. With the rest they escaped to the island of Teutlussa, and from there to Halicarnassus. After this the Peloponnesians landed at Cnidus. The twenty-seven ships from Caunus joined them there. They then sailed with the whole fleet to Syme and set up a victory monument before returning to anchor at Cnidus.

Chapter 43

1 When the Athenians heard about the sea battle, they sailed to Syme with all their ships from Samos. They did not attack the fleet at Cnidus, nor did that fleet attack them. They collected the ships' equipment left on Syme, attacked Loryma on the mainland, and sailed back to Samos.

2 All the Peloponnesian ships were now together at Cnidus, and they made whatever repairs were needed. Tissaphernes had arrived, and the eleven Lacedaemonian representatives held talks with him. They discussed anything they disliked about what had already been done, and how to fight the rest of the war in the best way and to the greatest advantage of both sides.

3 Lichas examined the arrangements most closely. He said that neither treaty, the one made by Chalcideus or the one made by Therimenes, had been properly drawn up. It would be outrageous if the King now claimed control of every territory that he or his ancestors had ruled in the past. This would mean that all the islands, Thessaly, the Locrians, and the lands as far as Boeotia would be enslaved again. Instead of giving the Greeks freedom, the Lacedaemonians would be putting them under Persian rule.

4 So he demanded that they make a different, better treaty. Otherwise they would not use these treaties, and they wanted no money for their forces on these terms. Tissaphernes was furious. He left them angrily, having achieved nothing.

Chapter 44

1 The Peloponnesians planned to sail to Rhodes, since its most powerful men were sending them invitations. They hoped to bring over an island with considerable strength in sailors and land forces. They also thought that their existing alliance would then let them support their ships without asking Tissaphernes for money.

2 So they sailed from Cnidus at once, during the same winter. Their first landing was at Camirus in Rhodian territory, with ninety-four ships. The ordinary people knew nothing about the plans. They were terrified and fled, especially since the city had no walls. Then the Lacedaemonians called these people together with the Rhodians from the other two cities, Lindus and Ialysus. They persuaded them to revolt from Athens, and Rhodes joined the Peloponnesians.

3 Around this time the Athenians heard the news and sailed from Samos with their ships. They wanted to get there first and appeared out at sea, but they were a little too late. For the moment they sailed away to Chalce, and from there to Samos. Later they fought against Rhodes by making naval raids from Chalce and Cos [and from Samos].

4 The Peloponnesians collected about thirty-two talents from the Rhodians. Apart from that they remained inactive for eighty days, with their ships pulled up on shore.

Chapter 45

1 Meanwhile, and even earlier, before they left for Rhodes, the following events took place. After Chalcideus' death and the battle at Miletus, the Peloponnesians distrusted Alcibiades. A letter had come from Lacedaemon to Astyochus ordering him to kill Alcibiades. He was an enemy of Agis, and they had other reasons to think him untrustworthy. In fear, he first withdrew to Tissaphernes. Then he did all he could to damage the Peloponnesians' position with him.

2 He became Tissaphernes' adviser on everything. He cut the pay from one Attic drachma to three obols, and even that was not to be paid regularly. He told Tissaphernes to explain that the Athenians, who had much longer experience of naval affairs, paid their men three obols. This was not so much because they were poor. It was to prevent their sailors from having money to spare and misusing it. Some would spend it on things that weakened their bodies. Others would desert their ships if no pay was still owed to them as a guarantee that they would stay.

3 He also advised Tissaphernes [to] pay bribes to the trireme commanders and the generals from the various cities, and persuade them to accept these arrangements. All agreed except the Syracusans. Their commander Hermocrates alone opposed him on behalf of the whole allied force.

4 He also turned away the cities that asked for money, answering them himself on Tissaphernes' behalf. He said the Chians were shameless. They were the richest of the Greeks, yet they depended on outside help for their safety and expected others to risk both their lives and their money for Chian freedom.

5 He said the other cities were also in the wrong. Before they revolted, they had spent money on Athens. It would be wrong if they now refused to contribute just as much, or even more, for their own benefit.

6 He explained that Tissaphernes was now paying for the war with his own money, so it was reasonable for him to be careful with it. But if funds for the forces ever arrived from the King, he would pay them their full wages and give the cities the help they could reasonably expect.

Chapter 46

1 He also advised Tissaphernes not to be too eager to end the war. He should not bring in the Phoenician ships he was preparing, or provide pay for more Greeks, in order to give the same people control of both land and sea. Instead he should let the two sides divide power between them. Then the King could always bring one side against the other whenever it caused him trouble.

2 If control of land and sea came into the same hands, he would have no one to help him bring down the dominant power. His only alternative would be to take the field himself eventually, at great expense and risk, and fight the matter out. It would cost less to let the Greeks wear each other down. He could do this for a small fraction of the expense and without putting himself in danger.

3 He said the Athenians would be more suitable partners for him in sharing power. They were less interested in territory on land, and both their stated aims and their actual way of fighting served his interests best. They would help enslave the peoples of the sea for themselves, and the Greeks living in the King's territory for him. The Lacedaemonians, by contrast, had come to free them. It was unlikely that they would now free the Greeks from other Greeks, themselves included, but fail to free them from those others [the non-Greeks], unless the Lacedaemonians failed to defeat the non-Greeks.

4 So he told him first to wear both sides down. Then, after taking as much as possible away from the Athenians, he should finally get the Peloponnesians out of the country.

5 Tissaphernes mostly shared this view, as far as his actions showed. Because he thought Alcibiades' advice on these matters was good, he gave him his trust. He supplied the Peloponnesians poorly with money for their forces and would not let them fight a sea battle. He kept saying that the Phoenician ships would come and that they would then fight with strength to spare. In this way he damaged their cause and took away the fighting edge of their fleet, which had become very strong indeed. In other ways too, he supported their war so halfheartedly that it was impossible not to notice.

Chapter 47

1 Alcibiades gave this advice partly because he thought it best for Tissaphernes and the King, with whom he was staying. But he was also trying to arrange his own return home. He knew that, if he did not destroy his country, he would eventually be able to persuade it to let him come back. He thought his best chance of persuading the Athenians was to show that Tissaphernes was his friend. And that is what happened.

2 The Athenian soldiers at Samos learned that he had influence with Tissaphernes. Alcibiades himself had helped this along by sending messages to their most powerful men. They were to speak about him to the leading citizens. He wanted to return under an oligarchy, not under rule by bad men or under the democracy that had expelled him. He would make Tissaphernes their friend and share in their government. But the Athenian trireme commanders and the most powerful men at Samos were moving to overthrow the democracy chiefly on their own initiative.

Chapter 48

1 This movement began in the camp and later spread from there to the city. Some men crossed over from Samos and spoke with Alcibiades. He held out the prospect of making first Tissaphernes and then the King their friends, provided they were not governed by a democracy. The King would trust them more under those conditions. The most powerful citizens, who also bore the greatest burdens, had high hopes. They expected to take control of affairs for themselves and defeat their enemies.

2 They returned to Samos and formed a conspiracy among men who shared their aims. They openly told the ordinary soldiers that the King would be their friend and provide money if Alcibiades returned and they gave up democracy.

3 The mass of the soldiers felt some immediate resentment at what was happening. But the prospect of generous pay from the King kept them quiet. After the organizers of the oligarchy had told the soldiers, they again examined Alcibiades' proposals among themselves and with most of their political associates.

4 The others thought the proposals workable and reliable. But Phrynichus, who was still a general, approved of none of them. He thought Alcibiades cared no more for oligarchy than for democracy—and this was true. His only concern was to change the city's existing system so that his associates would invite him back. Their own chief concern, Phrynichus thought, should be to avoid civil strife. Nor would it be easy for the King to side with the Athenians, whom he did not trust, and bring trouble on himself. The Peloponnesians were now an equal force at sea and held some of the most important cities in his empire. He could instead make friends with them, since they had never yet done him any harm.

5 As for the allied cities, the conspirators had apparently promised them oligarchies, since Athens itself would no longer be democratic. Phrynichus said he knew very well that the cities which had revolted would be no more likely to return, and those still allied would be no more secure. They would not prefer slavery under either an oligarchy or a democracy to freedom under whichever of the two they happened to have.

6 He said the allies thought that the so-called respectable upper classes would cause them no less trouble than the people. These men arranged and proposed the harmful measures that the people adopted, and gained most of the benefit themselves. If it were up to them, the allies would be killed without trial and with greater violence. The people, on the other hand, offered the allies a refuge and kept those men in check.

7 Phrynichus said he knew for certain that the cities held these views, having learned them from actual experience. So he himself approved of nothing in Alcibiades' proposals or in what was now being done.

Chapter 49

1 But the conspirators who had met together accepted the proposals, just as they had favored them at first. They prepared to send Pisander and others as ambassadors to Athens. These were to arrange Alcibiades' return, overthrow the democracy there, and make Tissaphernes a friend of the Athenians.

Chapter 50

1 Phrynichus realized that Alcibiades' return would be discussed and that the Athenians would accept it. He was afraid because he had spoken against it. If Alcibiades came back, he might harm him for having stood in his way. So he took the following course.

2 He secretly sent a letter to Astyochus, the Lacedaemonian admiral, who was still near Miletus at the time. He wrote that Alcibiades was damaging their cause by making Tissaphernes a friend of Athens, and gave a clear account of everything else. He said he should be forgiven for plotting against a personal enemy even at the expense of his city.

3 Astyochus had no intention of punishing Alcibiades, especially since he no longer came within his reach as easily as before. Instead he went inland to Magnesia, to Alcibiades and Tissaphernes. He told them what had been written from Samos, himself acting as the informer. It was said that he had put himself at Tissaphernes' disposal for private profit, in this matter and in everything else. That was also why he objected less strongly when the pay was not given in full.

4 Alcibiades immediately sent a letter denouncing Phrynichus to the authorities at Samos. He described what Phrynichus had done and demanded his death.

5 Phrynichus was alarmed. The disclosure had put him in extreme danger. He sent another message to Astyochus, complaining that his earlier communication had not been kept properly secret. He now offered to let them destroy the whole Athenian army at Samos. Since Samos had no walls, he explained in detail how he would do it. He said that, now that their actions had put his life at risk, he could not be blamed for doing this or anything else rather than being destroyed by his worst enemies. Astyochus revealed this too to Alcibiades.

Chapter 51

1 Phrynichus realized in advance that Astyochus was betraying him and that a letter about this from Alcibiades was about to arrive. He acted first and told the army himself that the enemy was about to attack the camp. Samos had no walls, and not all the ships were anchored inside the harbor. He said he had definite information about the plan. They must build walls around Samos as quickly as possible and take all other precautions. He was a general and had the authority to carry out these measures himself.

2 They began preparing to build the walls. These events meant that Samos was fortified sooner, though the work would have been done in any case. Not long afterward, the letters from Alcibiades arrived. They said that Phrynichus was betraying the army and that the enemy was about to attack.

3 But Alcibiades was not believed. People thought that he had learned of the enemy's plans in advance and, out of personal hostility, was blaming Phrynichus as an accomplice. So he did Phrynichus no harm. By reporting the same news, he actually gave more support to his account.

Chapter 52

1 After this Alcibiades worked to bring Tissaphernes around and persuade him to become a friend of Athens. Tissaphernes feared the Peloponnesians, because they had more ships there than the Athenians. Even so, he wanted to be persuaded if he could, especially after he heard about the Peloponnesians' dispute at Cnidus over Therimenes' treaty. By this time the dispute had already taken place, and they were at Rhodes. In that dispute Lichas had confirmed Alcibiades' earlier claim that the Lacedaemonians intended to free all the cities. Lichas had said it was intolerable for the treaty to give the King control over cities that he or his ancestors had ruled at any time in the past. Alcibiades had a great deal at stake, so he kept working hard to win Tissaphernes over.

Chapter 53

1 Meanwhile Pisander and the other Athenian ambassadors sent from Samos arrived at Athens. They spoke to the people, presenting the main points from a longer list of arguments. Above all, they said that if the Athenians brought Alcibiades back and changed the way their democracy was run, they could have the King as an ally and defeat the Peloponnesians.

2 Many others spoke against them in defense of democracy. Alcibiades' enemies also shouted that it would be outrageous if he returned in defiance of the laws. The Eumolpidae and Ceryces gave testimony about the offenses against the Mysteries for which he had been exiled. They called on the gods and urged the people not to bring him back. Faced with all this opposition and angry protest, Pisander came forward. He called up each of his opponents in turn and asked whether he had any hope of saving the city unless someone persuaded the King to come over to their side. The Peloponnesians faced them at sea with at least as many ships as their own and had more allied cities. The King and Tissaphernes were supplying the enemy with money, while Athens had none left.

3 When those he questioned said they had no such hope, he told them plainly: “Then we cannot achieve this unless we run our government more sensibly and put the offices into fewer hands, so that the King will trust us. For now, we must think more about our survival than about our form of government. Later we will be able to change it again if anything displeases us. We must also bring back Alcibiades. He is the only man who can achieve this at present.”

Chapter 54

1 At first the people were angry when they heard the proposal for oligarchy. But Pisander made it clear to them that there was no other way to survive. They were frightened, and at the same time they hoped they could change the government again. So they gave in.

2 They voted that Pisander should sail with ten other men and handle the negotiations with Tissaphernes and Alcibiades in whatever way they thought would work best.

3 Pisander also brought accusations against Phrynichus. The people removed him and his fellow commander Scironides from office, and sent Diomedon and Leon to replace them as generals with the fleet. Pisander had accused Phrynichus of betraying Iasus and Amorges. He did so because he thought Phrynichus would oppose the negotiations with Alcibiades.

4 Pisander visited all the political clubs already in the city, which had been organized to influence trials and appointments to office. He urged them to unite, agree on a common plan, and overthrow the democracy. He made the other preparations needed in the present situation so that there would be no further delay. Then he himself sailed with the ten men to Tissaphernes.

Chapter 55

1 During the same winter, Leon and Diomedon had already arrived to take command of the Athenian ships. They made a naval attack on Rhodes. They found the Peloponnesian ships pulled up on shore. They landed some troops, defeated the Rhodians who came to resist them, and withdrew to Chalce. They conducted the war from there rather than from Cos, because it was easier for them to watch for any departure of the Peloponnesian fleet.

2 Xenophantidas, a Laconian, also came to Rhodes from Pedaritus at Chios. He reported that the Athenians' wall was now complete. Unless they came to help with all their ships, their cause in Chios would be lost. The Peloponnesians planned to send help.

3 Meanwhile Pedaritus took the mercenary force with him and the entire Chian army and attacked the Athenians' defenses around their ships. He captured part of the defenses and gained possession of some ships that had been pulled ashore. But the Athenians came out to help and routed the Chians first. The rest of Pedaritus' force was then defeated too. He himself was killed, along with many Chians, and a large amount of armor and weapons was captured.

Chapter 56

1 After this the Chians were blockaded by land and sea even more closely than before. There was severe famine there. Meanwhile Pisander and the other Athenian ambassadors arrived to see Tissaphernes and held talks about the agreement.

2 But Alcibiades could not be at all sure of Tissaphernes' support. Tissaphernes had become more afraid of the Peloponnesians and still wanted to wear both sides down, just as Alcibiades himself had advised. So Alcibiades adopted a different approach: Tissaphernes was to demand so much from the Athenians that no agreement would be reached.

3 I think Tissaphernes wanted the same thing, in his case because of his fear. Alcibiades saw that Tissaphernes was in any event unwilling to agree. He did not want the Athenians to think him unable to persuade Tissaphernes. Instead he wanted them to think that Tissaphernes had been persuaded and was willing to join them, but that they themselves were not offering enough.

4 Alcibiades spoke on behalf of Tissaphernes, who was present, and kept making such excessive demands that the failure could be blamed on the Athenians, even though they agreed to most of what he asked. He demanded that they hand over all Ionia, then the nearby islands as well, and other things. The Athenians did not object. Finally, at the third meeting, he became afraid that his lack of influence would be completely exposed. He demanded that the King be allowed to build ships and sail along his own coast wherever he wanted, with as many ships as he wanted. At that point the Athenians would agree to no more. They thought the terms impossible and believed Alcibiades had deceived them. They left in anger and returned to Samos.

Chapter 57

1 Immediately afterward, during the same winter, Tissaphernes went to Caunus. He wanted to bring the Peloponnesians back to Miletus, make yet another treaty on whatever terms he could, and provide money for their forces rather than become their outright enemy. He feared that, if they lacked the means to support their large fleet, they might be forced to fight the Athenians at sea and be defeated. Or their ships might lose their crews, allowing the Athenians to get what they wanted without his help. Above all, he feared that the Peloponnesians would plunder the mainland in search of supplies.

2 Considering all these risks and looking ahead, he wanted, as before, to restore the balance between the Greeks. So he sent for the Peloponnesians, gave them money to support their forces, and made the following third treaty.

Chapter 58

1 “In the thirteenth year of King Darius's reign, when Alexippidas was ephor at Lacedaemon, an agreement was made on the plain of the Maeander. The parties were the Lacedaemonians and their allies on one side, and Tissaphernes, Hieramenes, and the sons of Pharnaces on the other. It concerned the affairs of the king, the Lacedaemonians, and their allies.

2 “The king's territory in Asia, all of it, is to belong to the king. The king may decide what to do with his own territory as he wishes.

3 “The Lacedaemonians and their allies must not enter the king's territory to do any harm. The king must not enter the territory of the Lacedaemonians or their allies to do any harm either.

4 “If any Lacedaemonian or ally enters the king's territory to do harm, the Lacedaemonians and their allies must stop him. If anyone from the king's territory goes against the Lacedaemonians or their allies to do harm, the king must stop him.

5 “Tissaphernes must provide support for the ships now present, on the agreed terms, until the king's ships arrive.

6 “Once the king's ships arrive, the Lacedaemonians and their allies may support their own ships at their own expense if they wish. If they want to receive support from Tissaphernes, he must provide it. When the war ends, the Lacedaemonians and their allies must repay Tissaphernes all the money they have received.

7 “Once the king's ships arrive, the ships of the Lacedaemonians, their allies, and the king must fight the war together, as Tissaphernes, the Lacedaemonians, and their allies decide. If they wish to make peace with the Athenians, they must make peace together on the same terms.”

Chapter 59

1 This was the treaty they made. Afterward Tissaphernes began preparing to bring up the Phoenician ships, as had been agreed, and to carry out all his other promises. At least he wanted people to see him making preparations.

Chapter 60

1 As the winter was ending, the Boeotians captured Oropus through betrayal, though it had an Athenian garrison. Some Eretrians and people from Oropus itself helped them. They were planning a revolt in Euboea. Oropus lay close to Eretria, and while the Athenians held it, it could not fail to cause serious harm to Eretria and the rest of Euboea.

2 With Oropus now in their hands, the Eretrians went to Rhodes and asked the Peloponnesians to come to Euboea. But the Peloponnesians were more eager to help Chios, which was in trouble. They put out from Rhodes with all their ships.

3 When they reached the area of Triopium, they saw the Athenian ships out at sea, sailing from Chalce. Neither side sailed against the other. The Athenians reached Samos, and the Peloponnesians reached Miletus. The Peloponnesians saw that they could no longer help Chios without a sea battle. This winter ended, and the twentieth year of this war, which Thucydides wrote, came to an end.

Chapter 61

1 At the start of the next summer, just as spring was beginning, Dercylidas, a Spartan, was sent overland toward the Hellespont with a small army to bring about a revolt at Abydos. Its people were colonists from Miletus. Meanwhile, Astyochus could find no way to help the Chians. The pressure of the siege forced them to fight a sea battle.

2 While Astyochus was still at Rhodes, the Chians had brought Leon, a Spartan, from Miletus to command them after Pedaritus's death. Leon had come out with Antisthenes as a marine. They also brought twelve ships which had been guarding Miletus: five from Thurii, four from Syracuse, one from Anaea, one from Miletus, and one belonging to Leon.

3 The Chians marched out with their whole force and occupied a strong position. At the same time, their thirty-six ships put out against the Athenians' thirty-two, and a sea battle followed. It was a hard fight, and the Chians and their allies did at least as well as their opponents. They then withdrew into the city, as it was already late.

Chapter 62

1 Immediately afterward, when Dercylidas had made his way overland from Miletus, Abydos in the Hellespont revolted and went over to Dercylidas and Pharnabazus. Lampsacus followed two days later.

2 When Strombichides heard the news at Chios, he hurried to help with twenty-four Athenian ships. These included troop transports carrying hoplites. The people of Lampsacus came out to meet him, but he defeated them in battle and captured their unwalled city in a single attack. He took property and slaves as loot, but let the free people settle in the city again. Then he went to Abydos.

3 The people of Abydos would not come over to him, and he could not capture the city by attacking it. So he sailed across to Sestos, a city in the Chersonese opposite Abydos, which the Medes had once held. He made it a fortified post to keep watch over the whole Hellespont.

Chapter 63

1 Meanwhile the Chians gained more control at sea. Astyochus and the Peloponnesians at Miletus gained confidence when they heard about the sea battle and the departure of Strombichides and his ships.

2 Astyochus sailed along the coast to Chios with two ships and brought away the ships there. With his whole fleet now together, he sailed against Samos. The Athenians did not sail out to meet him, because they were suspicious of one another. So he sailed back to Miletus.

3 For by this time, and indeed somewhat earlier, democracy at Athens had been overthrown. When Pisander and the other envoys reached Samos from Tissaphernes, they tightened their hold on the army there. They also persuaded the most powerful Samians to join them in trying to establish an oligarchy. This was despite the Samians' earlier uprising against one another to prevent oligarchy.

4 At the same time, the Athenians at Samos discussed matters among themselves. They decided to leave Alcibiades out, since he was unwilling to join them. Besides, they thought he was not suited to entering an oligarchy. They themselves were already in danger, so they would have to rely on their own resources and find a way to keep the undertaking from being dropped. They must also keep up the war effort and willingly contribute money from their own households, along with anything else needed. They would now be working hard for themselves, not for anyone else.

Chapter 64

1 After encouraging one another in these terms, they immediately sent Pisander and half the envoys home to handle matters there. They were told to establish oligarchies in any subject cities where they stopped. They sent the other half in different directions to the remaining subject territories.

2 They also sent Diitrephes, who was near Chios, to take up the command in the Thracian region to which he had been elected. He reached Thasos and overthrew its democracy.

3 Around the second month after he left, the Thasians began fortifying their city. They no longer needed an aristocratic government tied to Athens, and they expected freedom from the Lacedaemonians any day.

4 There was also a group of Thasians whom the Athenians had driven into exile, now living among the Peloponnesians. Together with their supporters in the city, they were doing everything they could to bring in ships and make Thasos revolt. So things turned out just as they wanted. The city could strengthen itself without danger, and the democracy that would have opposed them had been overthrown.

5 At Thasos, then, the result was the opposite of what the Athenians who established the oligarchy intended. In my view, the same was true in many other subject states. Once the cities had gained a moderate government and freedom to act without fear, they moved toward full independence. They preferred this to the supposedly good government offered by Athens, which hid bad intentions.

Chapter 65

1 Meanwhile Pisander and his companions sailed along the coast, overthrowing the democracies in the cities as planned. From some places they also took hoplites as their own allies, and so arrived at Athens.

2 They found that their associates had already done most of the work. Some of the younger men had banded together and secretly killed Androcles, one of the leading men of the people. He had also been among those most responsible for driving Alcibiades into exile. They were especially intent on killing him for two reasons: his leadership of the people, and their belief that they would please Alcibiades, whom they expected to return and make Tissaphernes their friend. They had secretly killed some other people they found troublesome in the same way.

3 They had also prepared the ground by openly promoting a proposal. No one was to receive pay except those on military service. No more than five thousand were to take part in government, and these were to be the men best able to help with both their money and their personal service.

Chapter 66

1 This was a respectable-looking front for the public. In fact, the very men who were changing the government intended to control the city. The assembly of the people and the council chosen by lot still met. But they considered nothing that the conspirators did not approve. The speakers were themselves members of the conspiracy, and what they would say had been settled beforehand by that group.

2 No one else spoke against them anymore. People were frightened and saw how large the conspiracy was. If anyone did object, he was soon killed by some convenient means. There was no investigation of the killers, nor any prosecution even if they were suspected. The people kept quiet. They were so terrified that anyone who escaped violence considered himself lucky, even if he had to remain silent.

3 They thought the conspiracy was much larger than it really was, and this broke their confidence. The city's size and their lack of knowledge of one another made it impossible to uncover the conspiracy. They had no way [to find out for themselves].

4 For the same reason, an angry person could not even complain to someone else and work out a plan to fight back. He would find that the person he spoke to was either someone he did not know or an acquaintance he could not trust.

5 All supporters of the people approached one another with suspicion, thinking the other person might be involved in what was happening. The conspiracy did include men whom no one would ever have expected to turn to oligarchy. These men did the most to create distrust among the people. By making the people's distrust of one another firmly established, they did more than anyone to make the rule of the few secure.

Chapter 67

1 This was the situation when Pisander and his companions arrived. They immediately took up the remaining work. First they called the people together and proposed choosing ten men with full authority to draw up a plan. These men were to put their proposal for the best way to govern the city in writing and present it to the people on a set day.

2 When that day came, they called the assembly to meet at Colonus. This is a sanctuary of Poseidon outside the city, about ten stades away. The men drafting the plan offered only one proposal: any Athenian could put forward any motion he wished without fear of punishment. They imposed heavy penalties on anyone who prosecuted a speaker for making an illegal proposal or harmed him in any other way.

3 Then the proposal was openly made that no one should hold office any longer under the existing constitution or receive pay. Five men were to be chosen as presiding officers. They would choose a hundred men, and each of the hundred would choose three others to join him. These four hundred were to enter the council chamber and govern with full authority as they thought best. They would summon the Five Thousand whenever they saw fit.

Chapter 68

1 Pisander put forward this proposal. He had also taken the most active public role in helping to overthrow the people. But the man who planned the whole undertaking, worked out how to bring it to this point, and had been attending to it longest was Antiphon. In ability he was second to none of the Athenians of his time. He was exceptionally good at thinking things through and explaining his conclusions. He did not address the people and did not willingly take part in any other public dispute. His reputation for cleverness made the public suspicious of him. But anyone involved in a dispute, whether in court or before the people, could benefit more from his advice than from that of any other single man.

2 Later, when the Four Hundred fell and democracy returned, the people prosecuted Antiphon. He was charged with helping to establish that government, and his trial carried the death penalty. He seems to have made the best defense of anyone down to my own time against that very charge.

3 Phrynichus also showed himself more eager than anyone else to establish the oligarchy. He feared Alcibiades and knew that Alcibiades was aware of everything he had done at Samos in his dealings with Astyochus. He thought it unlikely that Alcibiades would ever be recalled under an oligarchy. Once he had committed himself, he proved by far the most dependable in facing dangers.

4 Theramenes son of Hagnon was also among the leaders in overthrowing the people. He was a capable speaker and thinker. So it is not surprising that the undertaking succeeded, great as it was, since many intelligent men carried it out. It was hard to end the freedom of the Athenian people about a hundred years after the tyrants had been overthrown. They had not only been independent but had themselves been used to ruling others for more than half that time.

Chapter 69

1 The assembly approved these measures without anyone speaking against them and then broke up. Later they brought the Four Hundred into the council chamber in the following way. Because of the enemy at Decelea, all the Athenians were always on armed duty, some on the wall and others at their stations.

2 On that day they let the men who knew nothing of the plan leave as usual. The conspirators had been told to wait quietly, not right beside their weapons but some distance away. If anyone opposed what was being done, they were to take up their weapons and stop him.

3 There were also men from Andros and Tenos, and three hundred men from Carystus and from the settlers at Aegina whom the Athenians had sent to live there. They had come with their own weapons for this very purpose and had been given the same instructions.

4 With these arrangements made, the Four Hundred came, each carrying a hidden dagger. With them were the hundred and twenty [Greek] young men whom they used whenever any violence was needed. They confronted the council members chosen by lot, who were in the council chamber, and told them to take their pay and leave. They themselves brought the pay for the whole remainder of the council's term and handed it to the members as they left.

Chapter 70

1 The council thus left without any objection. The other citizens made no move and remained quiet. The Four Hundred entered the council chamber. First they chose their own presiding committee by lot and performed the prayers and sacrifices to the gods customary on taking office. Later they made many changes to the way the democracy had governed. They did not, however, recall the exiles, because of Alcibiades. In other matters too, they ruled the city with complete control.

2 They killed a few men whom they thought it useful to remove, imprisoned others, and sent some into exile. They also sent messages through heralds to Agis, the Lacedaemonian king at Decelea. They said they wanted a settlement. It was reasonable, they said, for him to make an agreement with them rather than with the untrustworthy people, who no longer governed.

Chapter 71

1 But Agis thought the city was not quiet and that the people would not surrender their long-standing freedom so quickly. If they saw a large army of his, he thought, they would not stay quiet. He was not at all sure that they were no longer in turmoil even now. So he gave the envoys from the Four Hundred no answer offering an agreement. Instead, he summoned a large force from the Peloponnese. Not long afterward he brought these troops and the garrison from Decelea down to the very walls of Athens. He hoped that the Athenians would be thrown into confusion and more easily forced to submit on his terms. They might even be taken at the first attack, because of the uproar likely to arise both inside and outside the city. At any rate, he thought he could not fail to take the Long Walls, since they were deserted.

2 But when he came close, the Athenians made no move at all against one another inside the city. They sent out their cavalry and some hoplites, light troops, and archers. These killed some of his men who had come too close and took possession of some weapons and bodies. Agis then understood the situation and led his army back.

3 He and his own troops stayed where they were at Decelea. The reinforcements stayed a few days in Attica, and then he sent them home. After this the Four Hundred continued to send envoys to Agis. He was now more receptive and advised them to send envoys to Lacedaemon too. They did so, hoping to negotiate a settlement and end the conflict.

Chapter 72

1 They also sent ten men to Samos to reassure the army. These men were to explain that the oligarchy had been established not to harm the city and its citizens but to save the whole state. They were also to say that five thousand men, not just four hundred, were involved in government. In fact, because of military campaigns and work abroad, the Athenians had never met to consider any matter, however important, at a gathering attended by five thousand men.

2 They gave the envoys other suitable instructions about what to say and sent them off immediately after taking power. They feared that the mass of sailors would refuse to remain under an oligarchy, and that resistance would start there and bring them down. This was in fact what happened.

Chapter 73

1 For at Samos, too, moves to establish an oligarchy were already causing unrest. The following events took place at just about the time when the Four Hundred were forming their government.

2 The Samians who had earlier risen against the powerful men and formed the democracy now changed sides again. Pisander persuaded them when he visited, as did the Athenian conspirators at Samos. About three hundred of them formed a conspiracy and planned to attack the rest of the people as supporters of democracy.

3 They killed Hyperbolus, an Athenian and a disreputable man. He had been ostracized not because people feared his power and standing but because of his bad conduct and the disgrace he brought on the city. They carried out the killing with Charminus, one of the generals, and some of the Athenians among them, as a pledge of loyalty to these men. They also worked with them on other acts of this kind and were preparing to attack the majority.

4 But the majority learned of the plan and reported it to the generals Leon and Diomedon. These two disliked the oligarchy because the people had honored them. They also told Thrasybulus, who commanded a trireme, Thrasyllus, who served as a hoplite, and others who had always seemed most opposed to the conspirators. They asked them not to stand by and let them be killed and Samos be lost to Athens. Samos alone had enabled their empire [until now] to survive as long as it had.

5 On hearing this, these men approached the soldiers one by one and urged them not to allow it. They made a special effort with the crew of the Paralus. Every man serving aboard that ship was an Athenian and a free man, and they had always opposed oligarchy, even when none was in place. Whenever Leon and Diomedon sailed elsewhere, they left some ships behind to protect the democrats.

6 So when the Three Hundred attacked them, all these men came to help, especially the crew of the Paralus. The majority of the Samians won. They killed about thirty of the Three Hundred and sentenced the three most responsible to exile. They did not hold a grudge against the rest but afterward lived together with them as fellow citizens under a democracy.

Chapter 74

1 The Samians and the soldiers quickly sent the Paralus to Athens with Chaereas son of Archestratus to report what had happened. He was an Athenian who had worked eagerly for the change. They did not yet know that the Four Hundred were in power.

2 As soon as they arrived, the Four Hundred imprisoned two or three of the crew. They took the ship away from the others, transferred them to another ship used as a troop transport, and assigned them to guard duty around Euboea.

3 Chaereas saw the situation and somehow slipped away at once. He returned to Samos and told the soldiers what was happening at Athens, making everything sound much worse. He said that the rulers punished everyone with beatings and that no one could speak against those who controlled the government. He also said that the soldiers' wives and children were being abused. He claimed that the rulers planned to seize and imprison the relatives of all the soldiers at Samos who did not share their views. These relatives would be killed if the soldiers refused to obey. He also told many other lies.

Chapter 75

1 When the soldiers heard this, their first impulse was to stone the men most responsible for establishing the oligarchy, as well as the others who had taken part. But people stepped in to stop them and explained that they must not ruin their position when the enemy fleet was anchored nearby, facing them. Then they stopped.

2 After this, Thrasybulus son of Lycus and Thrasyllus wanted to turn the government at Samos decisively toward democracy. They had been the main leaders of the change. They made all the soldiers swear the most binding oaths, especially those who had supported the oligarchy. They swore to maintain democracy, remain united, carry on the war against the Peloponnesians with determination, treat the Four Hundred as enemies, and have no negotiations with them through heralds.

3 All the Samians of military age swore the same oath along with them. The soldiers agreed to share all their affairs with the Samians, including whatever might come from the dangers they faced. They thought that neither they nor the Samians had any way to escape to safety. Whether the Four Hundred won or the enemy from Miletus did, they would be destroyed.

Chapter 76

1 The two sides were now competing: one was trying to force the city to be a democracy, and the other to force the army to accept an oligarchy.

2 The soldiers immediately held an assembly. They removed the previous generals and any trireme commanders they suspected. They chose new trireme commanders and generals in their place, including Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus.

3 Men stood up and encouraged one another in various ways. They said they should not lose heart because their city had revolted from them. The smaller group had broken away from the larger, and the larger group had more resources in every way.

4 They held the entire fleet. They could therefore force the other cities they ruled to pay money just as they would if the fleet were based at Athens. They had Samos as their city, and it was no weak one. When Samos had fought Athens, it had come very close to taking away Athens's control of the sea. They would also be defending themselves against the enemy from the same base as before. And because they had the ships, they were better able to obtain supplies than the people in the city.

5 Even before this, the people at Athens had controlled the sea route into Piraeus because the army was stationed out in front at Samos. Now, if the people at home refused to give them back their political rights, the soldiers could shut them off from the sea more easily than those at home could shut the soldiers off.

6 The city had given them very little help in defeating the enemy, and that help was worth nothing. They had lost nothing. The city no longer had money to send them; the soldiers found it themselves. It also had no useful advice to offer, the very thing that gives a city authority over armies. In this respect too, the people at home had done wrong by abolishing their ancestral laws. The soldiers were preserving those laws and would try to force the others to follow them as well. So even in the ability to give good advice, the men among them were no worse than those at home.

7 If they granted Alcibiades immunity and permission to return, he would gladly secure an alliance with the king for them. Most important, if every plan failed, they had so large a fleet that they had many places to withdraw to, where they would find both cities and land.

Chapter 77

1 After holding an assembly and encouraging one another in this way, they continued their preparations for war just as actively as before. The men sent to Samos by the Four Hundred [the ten ambassadors] were already on Delos when they learned of these events. They stayed quietly where they were.

Chapter 78

1 Around this time, the men serving in the Peloponnesian fleet at Miletus were loudly complaining among themselves. They said that Astyochus and Tissaphernes were ruining their cause. Astyochus had refused to fight a sea battle earlier, when they were stronger and the Athenian fleet was small. He still refused now, when the Athenians were reportedly divided by civil strife and their ships had not yet gathered in one place. Instead, they were waiting for the Phoenician ships from Tissaphernes—ships that existed in name only, not in reality. They risked wasting away in the delay. Tissaphernes, for his part, was not bringing those ships, and he was weakening the fleet by failing to provide its pay regularly or in full. They said they should stop delaying and fight a decisive sea battle.

Chapter 79

1 The Syracusans pressed this most strongly. The allies and Astyochus heard the complaints and met to discuss them. They decided to fight a decisive sea battle, especially since news of the unrest at Samos was also reaching them. They put to sea with all their ships, 112 in total, and sailed toward Mycale. They also told the Milesians to march there by land.

2 The Athenians' eighty-two ships from Samos happened to be anchored at Glauce, on Mycale. At this point, only a short stretch of water separates Samos from the mainland at Mycale. When the Athenians saw the Peloponnesian ships approaching, they withdrew to Samos. They did not think their numbers were enough to risk everything in a battle.

3 They had also learned in advance that the enemy intended to leave Miletus to fight at sea. So they were expecting Strombichides to come and help them from the Hellespont with the ships that had sailed from Chios to Abydos. A messenger had already been sent to him.

4 So the Athenians withdrew to Samos. The Peloponnesians sailed to Mycale and made camp there, along with the land forces from Miletus and the neighboring communities.

5 The next day, just as they were about to sail against Samos, news came that Strombichides had arrived with the ships from the Hellespont. They immediately sailed back to Miletus.

6 With these additional ships, the Athenians now sailed against Miletus themselves. They had 108 ships and wanted to fight a decisive sea battle. When no one sailed out to meet them, they returned to Samos.

Chapter 80

1 Immediately afterward, in the same summer, the Peloponnesians faced a problem. They had not sailed out because they thought they were no match for the united Athenian fleet. But they did not know where they would get money for so many ships, especially since Tissaphernes was providing so little. They therefore sent Clearchus son of Rhamphias to Pharnabazus with forty ships, as they had originally been instructed to do from the Peloponnese.

2 Pharnabazus was inviting them to come and was ready to provide pay. At the same time, Byzantium was sending them messages offering to revolt.

3 These Peloponnesian ships headed out into the open sea to keep the Athenians from noticing their voyage, but they ran into a storm. Most of them reached Delos with Clearchus and later returned to Miletus. Clearchus subsequently traveled overland to the Hellespont and took command there. The other ten ships, under the Megarian general Helixus, reached the Hellespont safely and brought about the revolt of Byzantium.

4 After this, when the Athenians at Samos heard the news, they sent ships to the Hellespont to provide help and guard the area. A small sea battle also took place off Byzantium, with eight ships on each side.

Chapter 81

1 The leaders at Samos wanted to bring Alcibiades back. Thrasybulus in particular had kept to this same policy ever since he changed the political situation there. At last he persuaded the mass of the soldiers at an assembly. They voted to recall Alcibiades and guarantee his safety. Thrasybulus then sailed to Tissaphernes and brought Alcibiades back to Samos. He thought their only chance of survival was to bring Tissaphernes over from the Peloponnesians to their side.

2 An assembly was held. Alcibiades complained about the personal misfortune of his exile and expressed his grief over it. He spoke at length about public affairs and gave the men great hopes for the future. He vastly exaggerated his own influence with Tissaphernes. He wanted the oligarchs at home to fear him and their political associations to break up more readily. He also wanted the men at Samos to value him more highly and feel more confident themselves. And he wanted to make Tissaphernes as suspicious as possible of the enemy, so that they would be cut off [from] their existing hopes.

3 Above all, Alcibiades made the following promises with great boasting. Tissaphernes, he said, had solemnly promised him that, if he could trust the Athenians, they would never lack pay as long as he had any property left. He would even sell his own bed for cash if he had to in the end. He would bring the Phoenician ships, which were already at Aspendus, to help the Athenians, not the Peloponnesians. But he would trust the Athenians only if Alcibiades returned safely and personally guaranteed their good faith to him.

Chapter 82

1 After hearing this and much more, they immediately elected him general alongside those already in office and put all their affairs in his hands. Each man now hoped to survive and to punish the Four Hundred, and would not have traded that hope for anything. His words made them so dismissive of the enemy facing them that they were already prepared to sail against Piraeus.

2 But he firmly stopped them from sailing against Piraeus and leaving the enemy nearer at hand behind them, although many were pressing to go. Now that he had been elected general, he said, he would first sail to Tissaphernes to deal with the war.

3 He left immediately after this assembly so that people would think he consulted Tissaphernes about everything. He also wanted Tissaphernes to value him more highly and to see that he had now been elected general and could [already] help him or harm him. Alcibiades was thus using Tissaphernes to frighten the Athenians, and the Athenians to frighten Tissaphernes.

Chapter 83

1 When the Peloponnesians at Miletus heard of Alcibiades' return, they distrusted Tissaphernes far more than before, although they had already been suspicious of him.

2 After the Athenians sailed against Miletus and the Peloponnesians refused to sail out and fight, Tissaphernes had become much less reliable about paying them. Even before the news of Alcibiades' return, their hatred of Tissaphernes had increased because of Alcibiades.

3 As before, the men gathered in groups to discuss their grievances. Not only the ordinary soldiers but also some of the other men of standing joined in. They said they had never yet received their full pay. What they did get was small, and even that was not paid regularly. Unless someone either fought a decisive sea battle or moved to a place where they could get supplies, the men would desert the ships. Astyochus, they said, was to blame for all of this, because he was indulging Tissaphernes' moods for his own profit.

Chapter 84

1 While they were discussing these grievances, the following disturbance also broke out around Astyochus.

2 The Syracusan and Thurian sailors were especially bold in confronting him and demanding their pay, since their crews were mostly free men. He answered them rather arrogantly and threatened them. He even raised his staff at Dorieus, who was speaking up for his own sailors.

3 When the mass of the men saw this, they reacted like sailors: they burst out shouting and rushed at Astyochus to throw stones at him. He saw what was coming and took refuge at an altar. He was not actually hit, however, and the two sides dispersed.

4 The Milesians also made a surprise attack on Tissaphernes' fort, which had been built inside Miletus. They captured it and expelled his garrison. The other allies approved of this, especially the Syracusans.

5 But Lichas disapproved. He said the Milesians and the other inhabitants of the king's territory ought to submit to Tissaphernes within reasonable limits and keep on good terms with him until they had brought the war to a successful end. This and other similar remarks made the Milesians angry with him. Later, when he died of an illness, they refused to let him be buried where the Lacedaemonians who were there wanted to bury him.

Chapter 85

1 While they were at odds with Astyochus and Tissaphernes in this way, Mindarus arrived from Lacedaemon to succeed Astyochus as admiral. He took over the command, and Astyochus sailed away.

2 Tissaphernes sent one of his own men with him as an ambassador. His name was Gaulites, a Carian who spoke both languages. He was to accuse the Milesians over the fort and also defend Tissaphernes himself. Tissaphernes knew that the Milesians were going mainly to denounce him, and that Hermocrates was going with them. Hermocrates intended to show that Tissaphernes was working with Alcibiades to ruin the Peloponnesian cause and was playing both sides.

3 Hermocrates had always been at odds with him over the payment of wages. Later, Hermocrates was exiled from Syracuse, and other generals—Potamis, Myscon, and Demarchus—came to Miletus to take over the Syracusan ships. Tissaphernes then attacked Hermocrates much more fiercely, now that he was an exile. Among other accusations, he claimed that Hermocrates had once asked him for money, and that his hostility to Tissaphernes came from being refused.

4 So Astyochus, the Milesians, and Hermocrates sailed to Lacedaemon. Alcibiades had already crossed back from Tissaphernes to Samos.

Chapter 86

1 The Four Hundred's [ambassadors] now arrived from Delos. These were the men they had sent earlier to reassure the Athenians at Samos and explain the situation to them. Alcibiades was there when they arrived. An assembly was held, and they tried to speak.

2 At first the soldiers refused to listen. They shouted that the men who had overthrown the democracy should be killed. But at last they quieted down with difficulty and heard them out.

3 The ambassadors said that the change of government was intended to save the city, not destroy it. Nor was it intended to hand the city over to the enemy. They could have done that when the enemy invaded, since they were already in power then. All the Five Thousand would take their turn in governing. The soldiers' relatives were not being mistreated, as Chaereas had falsely reported, or suffering any other harm. They were all staying where they were, each in possession of his own property.

4 The ambassadors said much more, but the soldiers were no more willing to listen. They were angry and proposed various courses of action, above all to sail against Piraeus. It seems that this was the first time Alcibiades helped the city as much as anyone else had. The Athenians at Samos were determined to sail against their own people. This would clearly have put Ionia and the Hellespont into the enemy's hands at once. Alcibiades stopped them.

5 At that moment, no one else could have restrained the crowd. But he stopped the attack and sharply rebuked those who were personally angry with the ambassadors, turning them away from them.

6 He gave the ambassadors his own answer and sent them away. He would not oppose rule by the Five Thousand. But he told them to remove the Four Hundred and restore the council of Five Hundred as it had been before. If they had cut any spending to save money and provide better support for the men on campaign, he thoroughly approved.

7 On other matters too, he told them to hold out and make no concessions to the enemy. If the city survived, there was every hope that the two sides could also come to terms with each other. But if either side fell—the men at Samos or those at home—there would no longer be anyone left for the other side to make peace with.

8 Argive ambassadors were also there, offering help to the Athenian people at Samos. Alcibiades thanked them and told them to come when called on. With that, he sent them away.

9 The Argives had arrived with the crew of the Paralus. The Four Hundred had earlier assigned this crew to a troopship and ordered them to sail around Euboea. They were carrying three Athenian ambassadors [sent] by the Four Hundred to Lacedaemon: Laespodias, Aristophon, and Melesias. [They] seized the ambassadors when their voyage brought them off Argos and handed them over to the Argives, as men who had been among the leading destroyers of the democracy. The crew did not return to Athens. Instead, they used the same trireme they had with them to bring the Argive ambassadors from Argos to Samos.

Chapter 87

1 In the same summer, Tissaphernes began preparing to go to Aspendus to meet the Phoenician fleet. This was just when the Peloponnesians were particularly angry with him over Alcibiades' return, as well as other matters. They believed he was now openly siding with Athens. His apparent intention was to clear himself of their suspicions. He told Lichas to go with him. He said he would order his deputy Tamos to provide pay for the army while he was away.

2 Accounts differ, and it is not easy to know what his purpose was in going to Aspendus and then failing to bring the ships after he got there.

3 It is clear that 147 Phoenician ships reached Aspendus. But there are many guesses about why they did not come any farther. Some say he went away to delay the Peloponnesians' operations, as he had intended. Certainly Tamos, who had been assigned the job, provided pay no better than before, but even worse. Others say he brought the Phoenicians to Aspendus so that he could get money out of them in return for letting them go. On this view, he had never intended to use them anyway. Others say he went because of the accusations against him at Lacedaemon. He wanted people to say that he was doing nothing wrong and had visibly gone to fetch ships that really were fully manned.

4 My own view is that his clearest purpose in not bringing the fleet was to prolong the conflict among the Greeks and keep the two sides in check. The time spent traveling there and delaying would wear them down. By not joining either side and making it stronger, he would keep their strength balanced. If he had wanted to end the war, he could surely have done so beyond any doubt by appearing with the fleet. Bringing it to the Lacedaemonians would probably have given them victory. Even as things stood, their fleet faced the Athenians on terms that were more equal than inferior.

5 The excuse he gave for not bringing the ships is the strongest evidence against him. He said that fewer had assembled than the king had ordered. But surely he would have earned even greater gratitude by spending less of the king's money and achieving the same results with fewer resources.

6 Whatever his intention, then, Tissaphernes went to Aspendus and met the Phoenicians. At his request, the Peloponnesians sent a Lacedaemonian named Philippus with two triremes to meet the fleet.

Chapter 88

1 When Alcibiades learned that Tissaphernes was on his way to Aspendus, he too set sail, taking thirteen ships. He promised the men at Samos a great service that they could count on: he would either bring the Phoenician fleet to the Athenians himself or at least prevent it from joining the Peloponnesians. He probably already knew that Tissaphernes had no intention of bringing it. He wanted to make the Peloponnesians as suspicious as possible of Tissaphernes' friendship with himself and the Athenians. This would put more pressure on Tissaphernes to join their side. So Alcibiades put to sea and sailed up the coast toward Phaselis and Caunus.

Chapter 89

1 The ambassadors whom the Four Hundred had sent to Samos returned to Athens and reported Alcibiades' answer. He urged them to hold out and make no concessions to the enemy. He had great hopes of reconciling the army with them and defeating the Peloponnesians. This greatly encouraged most of those who shared in the oligarchy. They were already dissatisfied and would gladly have found some safe way out of it.

2 They now began gathering in groups and criticizing the situation. Their leaders included some of the foremost [generals] who held office under the oligarchy, such as Theramenes son of Hagnon, Aristocrates son of Scellias, and others. These men had been among the first to take part in establishing the regime. But now, they said, they were very afraid of the army at Samos and of Alcibiades. They also feared that the ambassadors going to Lacedaemon—[they had sent them]—might harm the city without the consent of the majority. They did not call for an end to rule by a very small group. Instead, they said that the Five Thousand must be appointed in fact, not just in name, and that the constitution must be made more equal.

3 This was the political form their argument took. But most of them supported this course out of personal ambition. This is what most often destroys an oligarchy that has replaced a democracy. From the very first day, each member expects not merely to be equal to the others but to stand far above them all. In a democracy, when an election is held, a man finds it easier to accept the outcome. He does not feel that men of his own standing have put him at a disadvantage.

4 What most clearly encouraged them was Alcibiades' strong position at Samos and their belief that the oligarchy would not last. So each competed to be the first to become the people's leader.

Chapter 90

1 The most powerful leaders of the Four Hundred strongly opposed this course. They included Phrynichus, who had [once] served as general at Samos and had quarreled with Alcibiades then; Aristarchus, one of the strongest and longest-standing opponents of democracy; Pisander; Antiphon; and others. They had already been sending their own ambassadors to Lacedaemon, working eagerly for an agreement, and building the wall at the place called Eetionea. They had begun as soon as they took power and the Athenians at Samos broke away from them and restored democracy. They now pursued these efforts much more intensely after their ambassadors returned from Samos. They could see that most people, including men of their own party whom they had previously thought loyal, were changing sides.

2 Afraid of the situation both at home and at Samos, they hurriedly sent Antiphon, Phrynichus, and ten others to Lacedaemon. Their instructions were to reach an agreement with the Lacedaemonians on any terms that were at all bearable.

3 They also worked still harder on the wall at Eetionea. According to Theramenes and his supporters, the purpose of this wall was not to keep the men from Samos out of Piraeus if they tried to force their way in. Rather, it was to let the enemy in by sea and land whenever the builders wished.

4 Eetionea is a projecting arm of Piraeus, and the harbor entrance runs right beside it. The new wall was being built so that, together with the existing wall on the landward side, it would let a small garrison control the entrance. Both the old landward wall and the new inner wall being built on the seaward side ended at the same tower, one of the two at the narrow mouth of the harbor.

5 They also walled off the largest portico in Piraeus, which stood immediately beside this wall, and took control of it themselves. They forced everyone to unload all grain there, both existing stocks and incoming shipments, and to take it from there for sale.

Chapter 91

1 Theramenes had been spreading reports about this for some time. When the ambassadors returned from Lacedaemon without securing an agreement acceptable to the whole community, he said that this wall might bring about the city's destruction as well.

2 At this same time, forty-two ships from the Peloponnese were already anchored at Las in Laconia, preparing to sail to Euboea at the Euboeans' invitation. They included some Italian ships from Tarentum and Locri, as well as some Sicilian ships. Their commander was Agesandridas son of Agesander, a Spartan. Theramenes said they were sailing to help the men fortifying Eetionea as much as to help Euboea. Unless someone took precautions at once, he said, the city would be destroyed before anyone realized it.

3 There was indeed something of this sort in the minds of the accused. The charge was not simply a slander. Their first choice was to keep their oligarchic rule and also rule the allies. Failing that, they wanted to keep the ships and walls and remain independent. If even that was denied them, they were determined not to let a restored democracy destroy them first and foremost. Rather than that, they would bring in the enemy and make peace at the cost of the walls and fleet. They would accept any condition for the city, provided their own lives were safe.

Chapter 92

1 That was why they were so eager to build this wall, with its small gates, entrances, and ways of admitting the enemy. They wanted to finish it before anyone could stop them.

2 At first these things were discussed mainly in small groups and in secret. Then Phrynichus, after returning from his embassy to Lacedaemon, was struck in a planned attack by one of the patrolmen in the crowded marketplace. He walked only a short distance from the council chamber and died immediately. His attacker escaped. An accomplice, an Argive, was caught and tortured by the Four Hundred. But he named no one who had ordered the attack. All he said was that he knew many men met at the patrol commander's house and at other private houses. Nothing further came of the incident. Theramenes, Aristocrates, and the others who shared their views, both inside the Four Hundred and outside it, now moved more boldly into action.

3 Meanwhile, the ships had sailed around from Las, anchored at Epidaurus, and raided Aegina. Theramenes said it made no sense for ships bound for Euboea to turn into the gulf toward Aegina and then anchor again at Epidaurus, unless they had come by invitation for the very purposes he had always alleged. They could no longer remain inactive.

4 Finally, after much divisive talk and growing suspicion, they began to act. The hoplites building the wall at Eetionea in Piraeus arrested Alexicles, a general appointed under the oligarchy who was especially closely connected with the political clubs. Among these hoplites was Aristocrates, commanding his own tribal contingent. They took Alexicles to a house and locked him up.

5 Others helped them, including a man named Hermon, commander of the patrolmen stationed at Munychia. Most importantly, the main body of hoplites supported what they were doing.

6 When the Four Hundred heard the news, they happened to be meeting in the council chamber. Except for those who approved of what had happened, they were immediately ready to take up arms and threatened Theramenes and his supporters. In his defense, Theramenes said he was ready to go at once and help free Alexicles. He took one of the generals who shared his views and went down to Piraeus. Aristarchus and some young cavalrymen also went to help.

7 There was great confusion and alarm. The people in the city already believed that Piraeus had been seized and the prisoner killed. Those in Piraeus thought the men from the city were about to attack them at any moment.

8 The older men struggled to stop the people in the city from running about and rushing to arms. Thucydides of Pharsalus, who served as a representative for Athens, was also present. He actively stood in people's way and shouted to each group not to destroy their country while the enemy lay close by, waiting for their chance. With difficulty, the people quieted down and held back from attacking one another.

9 Theramenes arrived in Piraeus—he too was a general—and made a show of shouting angrily at the hoplites. But Aristarchus and the opposing party were genuinely furious.

10 Most of the hoplites stood by what they had done and had no regrets. They asked Theramenes whether he thought the wall was being built for the good of the city and whether it would be better to tear it down. He said that if they thought it should be torn down, he agreed. At once the hoplites and many of the people of Piraeus climbed onto the fortification and began demolishing it.

11 The call to the crowd was that anyone who wanted the Five Thousand to rule instead of the Four Hundred should join the work. They still used the name of the Five Thousand as a cover. They did not openly call for anyone who wanted the people to rule, because they feared that the Five Thousand might really exist. A man might unknowingly speak to one of them and get himself into trouble. This was why the Four Hundred wanted neither to appoint the Five Thousand nor to make it clear that they did not exist. They thought that sharing power with so many would amount to outright democracy, while uncertainty would make people afraid of one another.

Chapter 93

1 The next day the Four Hundred still met in the council chamber, despite their alarm. The hoplites in Piraeus released Alexicles, whom they had arrested, and demolished the fortification. Then they went to the theater of Dionysus near Munychia, set down their weapons, and held an assembly. After reaching a decision, they immediately marched into the city and again set down their weapons, this time at the Anaceum.

2 Some men chosen by the Four Hundred came to them. They spoke individually to anyone they saw who seemed reasonable, urging him to keep calm himself and hold the others back. They said that they would announce who the Five Thousand were. The Four Hundred would be drawn from these in rotation, as the Five Thousand decided. Meanwhile, they must not ruin the city in any way or drive it into the enemy's hands.

3 After many men had spoken to many others, the hoplites as a whole were calmer than before. Their main fear was for the state as a whole. They agreed to hold an assembly at the sanctuary of Dionysus on a set day to discuss reconciliation.

Chapter 94

1 When the time came for the assembly [at the sanctuary of Dionysus], and they had almost gathered, news arrived that Agesandridas and the forty-two ships were sailing from Megara along the coast of Salamis. Everyone [among the mass of hoplites] thought this was exactly what Theramenes and his supporters had been saying all along: the ships were sailing to the fortification. They thought it was just as well that it had been demolished.

2 Agesandridas may have been cruising around Epidaurus and this area partly because of an agreed plan. But it is also likely that he was waiting there because of the Athenians' current civil strife. He hoped to arrive at the right moment.

3 When the Athenians heard the news, the whole population immediately ran down to Piraeus. The war threatening them from the enemy was greater than their own internal conflict, and it was not far away, but right at the harbor. Some boarded the ships that were ready. Others launched more ships, while others hurried to defend the walls and the harbor entrance.

Chapter 95

1 The Peloponnesian ships sailed past, rounded Sunium, and anchored between Thoricus and Prasiae. Later they reached Oropus.

2 The Athenians were forced by the urgency to use crews that had not trained together. Their city was divided by civil strife, and they wanted to rush help to the place that mattered most. With Attica cut off, Euboea meant everything to them. They sent General Thymochares and ships to Eretria.

3 When these arrived, they and the ships already in Euboea made thirty-six in all. They were immediately forced into a naval battle. After his men had eaten their midday meal, Agesandridas had put out from Oropus with his ships. Oropus is about sixty stades by sea from the city of Eretria.

4 As he approached, the Athenians immediately began to crew their own ships. They thought their men were beside the ships. But the men were getting their midday food not from the marketplace—the Eretrians had deliberately arranged for nothing to be sold there—but from houses on the outskirts of the city. The plan was to delay the boarding so that the enemy could arrive first and force the Athenians to put out in whatever state they happened to be in. A signal had been raised from Eretria to Oropus to tell the enemy when to put out.

5 The Athenians put out with these preparations and fought off Eretria's harbor. Even so, they held out for a short time. Then they turned and fled, and were chased to the shore.

6 Those who took refuge in the city of Eretria, believing it friendly, suffered the worst: the Eretrians killed them. But the men who reached the fort in Eretrian territory, which the Athenians themselves held, survived. So did the ships that reached Chalcis.

7 The Peloponnesians captured twenty-two Athenian ships, killed some of the men, and took others alive. They set up a victory monument. Not long afterward they brought all Euboea into revolt except Oreus, which the Athenians themselves held. They also settled the other affairs of the island.

Chapter 96

1 When the Athenians heard what had happened in Euboea, their shock was greater than ever before. Neither the disaster in Sicily, great as it had seemed at the time, nor anything else had yet frightened them so much.

2 The army at Samos had broken with them. They had no other ships and no men to crew them. They were divided by civil strife, and no one knew when they would clash with one another. Now this great disaster had come on top of it all. They had lost ships and, most importantly, Euboea, which supplied them with more than Attica did. How could they reasonably avoid losing heart?

3 Their greatest and most immediate worry was that the enemy, after this victory, might dare to sail straight to Piraeus, where there were no ships. They thought the enemy was almost there already.

4 If the enemy had been bolder, they could easily have done this. By anchoring off the city, they would have divided it still further. Or, if they had stayed and blockaded it, they would have forced even the fleet in Ionia to come to the aid of its own families and the whole city, despite its hostility to the oligarchy. Meanwhile, the Hellespont, Ionia, the islands, and the region as far as Euboea would have been theirs—practically the whole Athenian empire.

5 This was not the only occasion when the Lacedaemonians proved the most convenient enemies the Athenians could have had. There were many others. Their characters differed completely: the Athenians were quick, the Lacedaemonians slow; the Athenians took the initiative, the Lacedaemonians lacked daring. This helped the Athenians enormously, especially because their empire depended on their fleet. The Syracusans showed this. Their character was very like the Athenians', and they fought them most effectively.

Chapter 97

1 Still, in response to the news, the Athenians crewed twenty ships and called an assembly. This first meeting took place immediately, in the place called the Pnyx, where they had usually met before. There they removed the Four Hundred and voted to hand power to the Five Thousand. These were to include everyone who could provide his own hoplite equipment. No one was to receive pay for holding any public office. They put anyone who did so under a curse.

2 Many more assemblies followed. At these they voted to appoint lawmakers and make the other arrangements for the constitution. During the first period of this government, the Athenians seem to have governed themselves as well as at any time in my lifetime. There was a balanced combination of rule by the few and rule by the many. This was the first thing that helped the city recover from its desperate situation.

3 They also voted to allow Alcibiades and others with him to return. They sent messages to him and to the army at Samos, urging them to take charge of affairs.

Chapter 98

1 As soon as this change took place, Pisander, Alexicles, their supporters, and the strongest supporters of the oligarchy slipped away to Decelea. Aristarchus alone went elsewhere. He happened to be a general, and quickly took some archers who knew as little Greek as possible and marched toward Oenoe.

2 This was an Athenian fort on the border with Boeotia. The Corinthians were besieging it on their own initiative, with Boeotians whom they had asked to join them. They had suffered losses when men returning from Decelea were killed by troops from Oenoe.

3 Aristarchus came to an understanding with the besiegers and deceived the men in Oenoe. He said that the people in Athens had made a general agreement with the Lacedaemonians, and that they too must hand their position over to the Boeotians: these were the agreed terms. They trusted him because he was a general. As they were under siege, they knew nothing of what had happened. They came out under a truce.

4 That was how Oenoe was captured and occupied by the Boeotians. The oligarchy and civil strife at Athens also came to an end.

Chapter 99

1 At about the same time that summer, the Peloponnesians at Miletus were getting no money for food from any of the men Tissaphernes had put in charge at that time [when he went to Aspendus]. Neither the Phoenician ships nor Tissaphernes himself had yet arrived. Philip, who had been sent with him, had written to the admiral Mindarus. So had another man, Hippocrates, a Spartan who was at Phaselis. They reported that the ships would not come and that Tissaphernes was treating them unfairly in every way. Pharnabazus was also calling them to join him. He was eager to bring the fleet over and, like Tissaphernes, to make the remaining cities in his own province revolt from Athens. Mindarus hoped to get more help from him. The order to sail was given without warning. He left Miletus with seventy-three ships in a well-organized formation and sailed toward the Hellespont, hoping to escape the notice of the Athenians at Samos. Sixteen ships had already entered the Hellespont earlier that same summer and had raided part of the Chersonese. But a storm caught Mindarus, forcing him to put in at Icarus. Bad sailing weather kept him there for five or six days. Then he reached Chios.

Chapter 100

1 When Thrasyllus at Samos learned that Mindarus had left Miletus, he too immediately sailed out with fifty-five ships. He was hurrying to prevent Mindarus from entering the Hellespont first.

2 Then he learned that Mindarus was at Chios and thought he would stay there. He posted lookouts on Lesbos and on the mainland opposite, to make sure any movement of the ships did not go unnoticed. He himself sailed along the coast to Methymna. He ordered barley meal and other supplies to be prepared. If the wait became longer, he intended to make his attacks on Chios from Lesbos.

3 He also wanted to sail against Eresus on Lesbos, which had revolted, and capture it if he could. Some of the more influential exiles from Methymna had brought across about fifty hoplites from Cyme who had joined their cause, and had hired others from the mainland, making about three hundred in all. Anaxander, a Theban, led them because of their common ancestry. They first attacked Methymna. But the Athenian garrison from Mytilene came out, and their attempt failed. They were driven back again in a battle outside the town, crossed the mountains, and brought Eresus into revolt.

4 Thrasyllus therefore sailed there with all his ships, intending to attack. Thrasybulus had already arrived there with five ships from Samos after they heard the news of the exiles' crossing. He had been too late to stop them, but had come to Eresus and was anchored off it.

5 Two ships returning home from the Hellespont also joined them, along with five ships from Methymna. There were now sixty-seven ships in all. With the troops from these ships, they prepared to take Eresus by force if they could, using siege engines and every other means.

Chapter 101

1 Meanwhile Mindarus and the Peloponnesian ships at Chios took on food for two days. Each man also received three Chian coins called fortieths from the Chians. On the third day they quickly left Chios. They did not take the open-sea route, to avoid meeting the ships at Eresus. Instead, they sailed toward the mainland with Lesbos on their left.

2 They put in at the harbor of Carterii in Phocaean territory and ate their midday meal. Then they sailed along the coast of Cyme's territory and ate their evening meal at Arginusae on the mainland, opposite Mytilene.

3 From there they sailed along the coast while much of the night still remained, and reached Harmatus on the mainland, directly opposite Methymna. After their midday meal, they quickly sailed past Lectum, Larisa, Hamaxitus, and the places along that coast. They reached Rhoeteum, now inside the Hellespont, before midnight. Some of the ships put in at Sigeum and elsewhere in that area.

Chapter 102

1 The Athenians at Sestos had eighteen ships. Their beacon watchers signaled to them, and they saw many fires suddenly appear in enemy territory. They realized that the Peloponnesians were sailing in. That same night they sailed as fast as they could, close to the Chersonese, toward Elaeus. They wanted to get past the enemy ships and out into open water.

2 They escaped the notice of the sixteen ships at Abydos. These had been told in advance to watch the Athenians carefully if they tried to sail out when their own friendly fleet approached. But at dawn the Athenians saw Mindarus' ships, which immediately began chasing them. Not all the Athenians escaped in time. Most got away toward Imbros and Lemnos, but the four ships sailing last were caught near Elaeus.

3 The Peloponnesians captured one, crew and all, after it ran aground by the sanctuary of Protesilaus. They captured two others without their crews. The remaining ship they burned, empty, near Imbros.

Chapter 103

1 After this, the ships from Abydos joined the rest, making eighty-six in all. With these the Peloponnesians besieged Elaeus that day. When it would not surrender, they sailed back to Abydos.

2 The Athenians had been let down by their lookouts. They had thought the enemy ships could not sail past without their knowledge, and had been taking their time attacking the walls. When they learned what had happened, they immediately left Eresus and hurried to help in the Hellespont.

3 They captured two Peloponnesian ships which, during the earlier pursuit, had boldly ventured farther out to sea and now ran into them. A day later they reached Elaeus and anchored there. They brought back all the ships that had escaped to Imbros and spent five days preparing for battle at sea.

Chapter 104

1 After this they fought a naval battle as follows. The Athenians sailed toward Sestos, one ship behind another, close along the shore. When the Peloponnesians saw this, they too put out from Abydos to meet them.

2 Once they knew they were going to fight, they extended their lines. The Athenians' seventy-six ships stretched along the Chersonese from Idacus to Arriani. The Peloponnesians' eighty-six ships stretched from Abydos to Dardanus.

3 On the Peloponnesian side, the Syracusans held the right wing. Mindarus himself held the other wing with the fastest ships. On the Athenian side, Thrasyllus held the left and Thrasybulus the right. The other generals each took their assigned positions.

4 The Peloponnesians were eager to attack first. With their left wing they wanted to extend beyond the Athenians' right and, if possible, cut off their escape to open water. In the center, they wanted to drive them against the nearby shore. The Athenians saw this. They extended their line on the side where the enemy wanted to cut them off, and outsailed them.

5 Their left wing had already passed the headland called Cynossema. These movements left the ships in their center weak and scattered. They were also fewer in number, and the coast around Cynossema made a sharp, angular turn. This hid what was happening on the other side of it.

Chapter 105

1 The Peloponnesians attacked in the center, drove the Athenian ships onto dry land, and landed to pursue the men ashore. They had a clear advantage in the fighting.

2 Neither Thrasybulus' men on the right nor Thrasyllus' men on the left could help the center. Thrasybulus was held back by the large number of ships attacking him. Thrasyllus could not see the center because the headland of Cynossema blocked the view. He was also held back by the Syracusans and the other ships facing him, which were no fewer than his own. This lasted until part of the Peloponnesian fleet began to lose its order. Confident after their victory, different ships had begun chasing different enemies without fear.

3 Thrasybulus and his men saw that the ships facing them were holding back. They stopped extending their wing and turned back. They immediately fought back and put those ships to flight. Then they caught the scattered ships from the victorious part of the Peloponnesian fleet and struck them. Most of these panicked without even fighting. The Syracusans, too, had already begun to give way to Thrasyllus and his men. When they saw the others fleeing as well, they fled more urgently.

Chapter 106

1 After the defeat, most of the Peloponnesians fled first to the Meidius River and later to Abydos. The Athenians captured only a few ships, because the narrowness of the Hellespont gave the enemy a short distance to escape. But this victory at sea came at an exceptionally important moment for them.

2 Until then they had been afraid of the Peloponnesian fleet because of their small setbacks and the disaster in Sicily. Now they stopped blaming themselves and no longer thought their enemies were worth much at sea.

3 They captured eight Chian ships, five Corinthian, two Ambraciot, two Boeotian, and one each from the Leucadians, Lacedaemonians, Syracusans, and Pellenians. They themselves lost fifteen ships.

4 They set up a victory monument on the headland at Cynossema, towed in the wrecks, and returned the enemy's dead under a truce. They also sent a trireme to Athens to report the victory.

5 When the ship arrived, the Athenians heard the unexpected news of success. Coming just after the disasters in Euboea and the civil strife, it gave them great encouragement. They thought they could still win through if they worked hard at it.

Chapter 107

1 On the fourth day after the battle, the Athenians at Sestos, having hurriedly repaired their ships, sailed against Cyzicus, which had revolted. They saw the eight ships from Byzantium anchored near Harpagium and Priapus. They sailed against them, defeated the men ashore in battle, and captured the ships. Then they reached Cyzicus, which had no walls, brought it back under their control, and collected money from it.

2 Meanwhile the Peloponnesians sailed from Abydos to Elaeus and recovered all their captured ships that were still sound. The people of Elaeus had burned the others. They also sent Hippocrates and Epicles to Euboea to bring back the ships there.

Chapter 108

1 At about the same time, Alcibiades sailed back from Caunus and Phaselis to Samos with his thirteen ships. He reported that he had turned the Phoenician fleet away from helping the Peloponnesians, so that it did not come, and had made Tissaphernes friendlier to the Athenians than before.

2 He crewed nine more ships in addition to those he had, collected a large sum of money from the Halicarnassians, and fortified Cos. After doing this and appointing a governor in Cos, he sailed back to Samos as autumn was approaching.

3 When Tissaphernes learned that the Peloponnesian ships had sailed from Miletus to the Hellespont, he left Aspendus and traveled toward Ionia.

4 While the Peloponnesians were in the Hellespont, the people of Antandrus, who are Aeolians, brought hoplites from Abydos overland through Mount Ida and admitted them into the city. They were being mistreated by Arsaces, a Persian subordinate of Tissaphernes. This was the same man who had killed the Delians who settled at Adramyttium when the Athenians removed them from Delos to purify the island. He had claimed to be involved in a quarrel, without explaining it, and called on their leading men to join a military expedition. He led them out on the claim that they were friends and allies. Then he waited until they were eating their midday meal, surrounded them with his own men, and had them killed with javelins.

5 Because of this deed, the people of Antandrus feared that he might also commit some crime against them. He was also imposing other burdens they could not bear. So they expelled his guards from the citadel.

Chapter 109

1 Tissaphernes learned of this action by the Peloponnesians, in addition to what they had done at Miletus and Cnidus. His guards had been expelled from those places too. He believed that the Peloponnesians had been turned firmly against him, and feared they might do him further harm. He also resented the prospect that Pharnabazus, after hosting them for less time and at less cost, might achieve greater success against the Athenians. He planned to go to them in the Hellespont. He wanted to complain about what had happened at Antandrus and to defend himself as plausibly as possible against the accusations about the Phoenician fleet and everything else. He first went to Ephesus and made a sacrifice to Artemis.

2 [When the winter following this summer ends, the twenty-first year is complete.]

Chapter 1

1 Such were the events in Sicily. When the news was brought to Athens, for a long while they disbelieved even the most respectable of the soldiers who had themselves escaped from the scene of action and clearly reported the matter, a destruction so complete not being thought credible. When the conviction was forced upon them, they were angry with the orators who had joined in promoting the expedition, just as if they had not themselves voted it, and were enraged also with the reciters of oracles and soothsayers, and all other omenmongers of the time who had encouraged them to hope that they should conquer Sicily.

2 Already distressed at all points and in all quarters, after what had now happened, they were seized by a fear and consternation quite without 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.

3 Nevertheless, with such means as they had, it was determined to resist to the last, and to provide timber and money, and to equip a fleet as they best could, to take steps to secure their confederates and above all Euboea, to reform things in the city upon a more economical footing, and to elect a board of elders to advise upon the state of affairs as occasion should arise.

4 In short, as is the way of a democracy, in the panic of the moment they were ready to be as prudent as possible.These resolves were at once carried into effect.

Chapter 2

1 Summer was now over. The winter ensuing saw all Hellas stirring under the impression of the great Athenian disaster in Sicily. Neutrals now felt that even if uninvited they ought no longer to stand aloof from the war, but should volunteer to march against the Athenians, who, as they severally reflected, would probably have come against them if the Sicilian campaign had succeeded. Besides, they considered that the war would now be short, and that it would be creditable for them to take part in it. Meanwhile the allies of the Lacedaemonians felt all more anxious than ever to see a speedy end to their heavy labours.

2 But above all, the subjects of the Athenians showed a readiness to revolt even beyond their ability, judging the circumstances with passion, and refusing even to hear of the Athenians being able to last out the coming summer.

3 Beyond all this, 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.

4 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.

Chapter 3

1 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.

2 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.

Chapter 4

1 In the meantime the Athenians were not idle. During this same winter, as they had determined, they contributed timber and pushed on their ship-building, and fortified Sunium to enable their corn-ships to round it in safety, and evacuated the fort in Laconia which they had built on their way to Sicily; while they also, for economy, cut down any other expenses that seemed unnecessary, and above all kept a careful look-out against the revolt of their confederates.

Chapter 5

1 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.

2 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.

3 All this was done without instructions from home, as Agis while at Decelea with the army that he commanded had power to send troops to whatever quarter he pleased, and to levy men and money. During this period, one might say, the allies obeyed him much more than they did the Lacedaemonians in the city, as the force he had with him made him feared at once wherever he went.

4 While Agis was engaged with the Lesbians, the Chians and Erythraeans, who were also ready to revolt, applied, not to him but at Lacedaemon; where they arrived accompanied by an ambassador from Tissaphernes, the commander of King Darius, son of Artaxerxes,

5 in the maritime districts, who invited the Peloponnesians to come over, and promised to maintain their army. The king had lately called upon him for the tribute from his 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.

Chapter 6

1 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.

2 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.

3 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.

4 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.

5 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.

Chapter 7

1 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.

Chapter 8

1 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 despatching a force, but determined to sail afterwards with another force by themselves.

2 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.

3 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,

4 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.

Chapter 9

1 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.

2 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.

3 The reason of the despatch 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.

Chapter 10

1 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.

2 After the festival the Peloponnesians set sail with twenty-one ships for Chios, under the command of Alcamenes. The Athenians first sailed against them with an equal number, drawing off 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,

3 and afterwards manned thirty-seven vessels in all and chased him on his passage along shore 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.

4 The Athenians now attacked not only from the sea with their fleet, but also disembarked upon the coast; and 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.

Chapter 11

1 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 which they proceeded to encamp, and sent to Athens for reinforcements;

2 the Peloponnesians having been joined on the day after the battle by the Corinthians, who came to help the ships, and by the other inhabitants in the vicinity not long afterwards. These saw the difficulty of keeping guard in a desert place, and in their perplexity at first thought of burning the ships, but finally resolved to haul them up on shore and sit down and guard them with their land forces, until a convenient opportunity for escaping should present itself. Agis also, on being informed of the disaster, sent them a Spartan of the name of Thermon.

3 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 despatch 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.

Chapter 12

1 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.

2 He also represented to Endius himself in private that it would be glorious for him to be the means of making Ionia revolt and the king become the ally of Lacedaemon, instead of that honour being left to Agis

3 (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.

Chapter 13

1 About this same 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 look-out for the ships from Sicily. After losing one of their number the rest escaped from the Athenians and sailed into Corinth.

Chapter 14

1 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.

2 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.

3 After this three vessels sailed over to Clazomenae, and made that city revolt also; and the Clazomenians immediately crossed over to the mainland and began to fortify Polichna, in order to retreat there, in case of necessity, from the island where they dwelt.

Chapter 15

1 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.

2 They also recalled the seven Chian vessels, forming part of their squadron blockading the fleet in Spiraeum, and giving the slaves on board their liberty, put the freemen in confinement, and speedily manned and sent out ten fresh ships to blockade the Peloponnesians in the place of all those that had departed, and decided to man thirty more. Zeal was not wanting, and no effort was spared to send relief to Chios.

Chapter 16

1 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 along shore to support him.

2 Informed of this in time, Strombichides put out from Teos before their arrival, and while out at sea, seeing the number of the ships from Chios, fled towards Samos, chased by the enemy.

3 The Teians at first would not receive the land forces, but upon the flight of the Athenians took them into the 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.

Chapter 17

1 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.

2 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.

3 Not discovered until their voyage was nearly completed, they arrived a little before Strombichides and Thrasycles (who had just come with twelve ships from Athens, and had joined Strombichides in pursuing them), and 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.

4 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:—

Chapter 18

1 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 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 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.

Chapter 19

1 This was the alliance. After this the Chians immediately manned ten more vessels and sailed for Anaia, in order to gain intelligence of those in Miletus, and also to make the cities revolt.

2 A message, however, reaching them from Chalcideus to tell them to go back again, and that Amorges was at hand with an army by land, they sailed to the temple of Zeus, and there sighting ten more ships sailing up with which Diomedon had started from Athens after Thrasycles,

3 fled, one ship to Ephesus, the rest to Teos. The Athenians took four of their ships empty, the men finding time to escape ashore; the rest took refuge in the city of the Teians; after which the Athenians sailed off to Samos,

4 while the Chians put to sea with their remaining vessels, accompanied by the land forces, and caused Lebedos to revolt, and after it Erae. After this they both returned home, the fleet and the army.

Chapter 20

1 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.

2 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.

Chapter 21

1 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.

Chapter 22

1 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 along shore for Clazomenae and Cuma, under the command of Eualas, a Spartan; while the fleet under Diniades, one of the Perioeci,

2 first sailed up to Methymna and caused it to revolt, and, leaving four ships there, with the rest procured the revolt of Mitylene.

Chapter 23

1 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.

2 Late in the same day Astyochus put to sea, and taking one Chian vessel with him sailed to Lesbos to render what assistance he could. Arrived at Pyrrha, and from thence the next day at Eresus, he there learned that Mitylene had been taken, almost without a blow, by the Athenians,

3 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,

4 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 along shore 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.

5 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.

6 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.

Chapter 24

1 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.

2 Meanwhile Leon and Diomedon with the Athenian fleet from Lesbos issuing from the Œnussae, 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.

3 Landing in Cardamyle and in Bolissus they defeated with heavy loss the Chians that took the field against them, and laying desolate the places in that 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.

4 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.

5 Nor was this revolt, in which they might seem to have erred on the side of rashness, ventured upon until they had numerous and gallant allies to share the danger with them, and until they perceived 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.

6 While they were thus blockaded from the sea and plundered by land, some of the citizens undertook to bring the city over to the Athenians. Appraised 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.

Chapter 25

1 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 in to Samos crossed over and encamped at Miletus.

2 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.

3 While the Argives rushed forward on their own wing with the careless disdain of men advancing against Ionians who would never stand their charge, and were defeated by the Milesians with a loss little short of three hundred men,

4 the Athenians first defeated the Peloponnesians, and driving before them the barbarians and the 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.

5 Thus, in this battle, the Ionians on both sides overcame the Dorians, the Athenians defeating the Peloponnesians opposed to them, and the Milesians the Argives. After setting up a trophy, the Athenians prepared to draw a wall round the place, which stood upon an isthmus; thinking that if they could gain Miletus, the other towns also would easily come over to them.

Chapter 26

1 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 Selinus; 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,

2 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.

3 Meanwhile Alcibiades came on horseback to Teichiussa in the Milesian territory, the point of the gulf in which they had put in for the night, and told them of the battle, in which he had fought in person by the side of the Milesians and Tissaphernes, and advised them, if they did not wish to sacrifice Ionia and their cause, to fly to the relief of Miletus and hinder its investment.

Chapter 27

1 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.

2 Where they could hereafter contend, after full and undisturbed preparation, with an exact knowledge of the number of the enemy's fleet and of the force which they could oppose to him, he would never allow the reproach of disgrace to drive him into a risk that was unreasonable.

3 It was no disgrace for an Athenian fleet to retreat when it suited them: put it as they would, it would be more disgraceful to be 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.

4 He told them to take up their wounded as quickly as they could and the troops and stores which they had brought with them, and leaving behind what they had taken from the enemy's country, in order to lighten the ships, to sail off to Samos, and there concentrating all their ships to attack as opportunity served.

5 As he spoke so he acted; and thus not now more than afterwards, nor in this alone but in all that he had to do with, did Phrynichus show himself a man of sense.

6 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.

Chapter 28

1 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.

2 Upon their arrival Tissaphernes came to them with his land forces and induced them to sail to Iasus, which was held by his enemy Amorges. Accordingly they suddenly attacked and took Iasus, whose inhabitants never imagined that the ships could be other than Athenian. The Syracusans distinguished themselves most in the action.

3 Amorges, a bastard of Pissuthnes and a rebel from the king, was taken alive and handed over to Tissaphernes, to carry to the king, if he chose, according to his orders: Iasus was sacked by the army, who found a very great booty there, the place being wealthy from ancient date.

4 The 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.

5 Pedaritus, son of Leon, who had been sent by the Lacedaemonians to take the command at Chios, they despatched by land as far as Erythrae with the mercenaries taken from Amorges; appointing Philip to remain as governor of Miletus.

Chapter 29

1 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.

2 However, upon the protest of the Syracusan general Hermocrates (for as Therimenes was not admiral, but only accompanied them in order to hand over the ships to Astyochus, he made little difficulty about the pay), it was agreed that the amount of five ships' pay should be given over and above the three obols a day for each man; Tissaphernes paying thirty talents a month for fifty-five ships, and to the rest, for as many ships as they had beyond that number, at the same rate.

Chapter 30

1 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;

2 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.

Chapter 31

1 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,

2 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.

3 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.

4 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.

Chapter 32

1 While he was there, envoys arrived from the Lesbians who wished to revolt again. With Astyochus they were successful; but the Corinthians and the other allies being averse to it by reason of their former failure, he weighed anchor and set sail for Chios, where they eventually arrived from different quarters, the fleet having been scattered by a storm.

2 After this Pedaritus, 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.

3 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.

Chapter 33

1 Upon this Astyochus took five Corinthian and one Megarian vessel, with another from Hermione, and the ships which had come with him from Laconia, and set sail for Miletus to assume his command as admiral; after telling the Chians with many threats that he would certainly not come and help them if they should be in need.

2 At Corycus in the 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.

3 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.

4 Here Pedaritus sailed over to join him; and after inquiry into the pretended treachery, finding that the whole story had been made up to procure the escape of the men from Samos, they acquitted them of the charge, and sailed away, Pedaritus to Chios and Astyochus to Miletus, as he had intended.

Chapter 34

1 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.

Chapter 35

1 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.

2 When their arrival was known at Miletus, orders came to them to leave half their squadron to guard Cnidus, and with the rest to cruise round Triopium and seize all the merchantmen arriving from Egypt. Triopium is a promontory of Cnidus and sacred to Apollo.

3 This coming to the knowledge of the Athenians, they sailed from Samos and captured the six ships on the watch at Triopium, the crews escaping out of them. After this the Athenians sailed into Cnidus and made an assault upon the town, which was unfortified, and all but took it;

4 and the next day assaulted it again, but with less effect, as the inhabitants had improved their 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.

Chapter 36

1 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.

2 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:—

Chapter 37

1 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:—

2 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.

3 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.

4 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 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.

Chapter 38

1 After this convention Therimenes handed over the fleet to Astyochus, sailed off in a small boat, and was lost.

2 The Athenian armament had now crossed over from Lesbos to Chios, and being master 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.

3 Meanwhile the Chians remained inactive. Already defeated in so many battles, they were now also at discord among themselves; the execution of the party of Tydeus, son of Ion, by Pedaritus upon the charge of Atticism, followed by the forcible imposition of an oligarchy upon the rest of the city, having made them suspicious of one another; and they therefore thought neither themselves nor the mercenaries under Pedaritus a match for the enemy.

4 They sent, however, to Miletus to beg Astyochus to assist them, which he refused to do, and was accordingly denounced at Lacedaemon by Pedaritus as a traitor.

5 Such was the state of the Athenian affairs at Chios; while their fleet at Samos kept sailing out against the enemy in Miletus, until they found that he would not accept their challenge, and then retired again to Samos and remained quiet.

Chapter 39

1 In the same winter the twenty-seven ships equipped by the Lacedaemonians for Pharnabazus through the agency of the Megarian Calligeitus, and the Cyzicene Timagoras, put out from Peloponnese and sailed for Ionia about the time of the solstice, under the command of Antisthenes, a Spartan.

2 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.

3 Sailing accordingly from Malea across the open sea, the squadron touched at Melos and there fell in with ten Athenian ships, three of which they took empty and burned. After this, being afraid that the Athenian vessels escaped from Melos might, as they in fact did, give information of their approach to the Athenians at Samos, they sailed to Crete, and having lengthened their voyage by way of precaution made land at Caunus in Asia,

4 from whence considering themselves in safety they sent a message to the fleet at Miletus for a convoy along the coast.

Chapter 40

1 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.

2 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.

3 The Chians therefore urged upon Astyochus that it was his duty to assist them, while there was still a hope and a possibility of stopping the enemy's progress, while Delphinium was still in process of fortification and unfinished, and before the completion of a higher rampart which was being added to protect the camp and fleet of their besiegers. Astyochus now saw that the allies also wished it and prepared to go, in spite of his intention to the contrary owing to the threat already referred to.

Chapter 41

1 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.

2 As he coasted along he landed at the Meropid Cos and sacked the city, which was unfortified and had been lately laid in ruins by an earthquake, by far the greatest in living memory, and, as the inhabitants had fled to the mountains, overran the country and made booty of all it contained, letting go, however, the free men.

3 From Cos arriving in the night at Cnidus he was 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;

4 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.

Chapter 42

1 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.

2 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,

3 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.

4 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.

Chapter 43

1 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 main land sailed back to Samos.

2 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.

3 The severest critic of the present proceeding was Lichas, who said that neither of the treaties could stand, neither that of Chalcideus, nor that of Therimenes; it being monstrous that the king should at this date pretend to the possession of all country formerly ruled by himself or by his ancestors—a pretension which implicitly put back under the yoke all the islands, Thessaly, Locris, and everything as far as Boeotia, and made the Lacedaemonians give to the Hellenes instead of liberty a Median master.

4 He therefore invited Tissaphernes to conclude another and a better treaty, as they certainly would not recognise 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 44

1 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.

2 They accordingly at once set sail that same winter from Cnidus, and first put in with ninety-four ships at Camirus in the Rhodian country, to the great alarm of the mass of the inhabitants, who were not privy to the intrigue, and who consequently fled, especially as the 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.

3 Meanwhile the Athenians had received the alarm and set sail with the fleet from Samos to forestall them, and came within sight of the island, but being a little too late sailed off for the moment to Chalce, and from thence to Samos, and subsequently waged war against Rhodes, issuing from Chalce, Cos, and Samos.

4 The Peloponnesians now levied a contribution of thirty-two talents from the Rhodians, after which they hauled their ships ashore and for eighty days remained inactive.

Chapter 45

1 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.

2 Henceforth becoming his adviser in everything, he cut down the pay from an Attic drachma to three obols a day, and even this not paid too regularly; and told Tissaphernes to say to the Peloponnesians that the Athenians, whose maritime experience was of an older date than their own, only gave their men three obols, not so much from poverty as to prevent their seamen being corrupted by being too well off, and 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.

3 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.

4 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;

5 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.

6 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.

Chapter 46

1 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.

2 For if the command of the sea and land were united in one hand, he would not know where to turn for help to overthrow the dominant power; unless he at last chose to stand up himself, and go through with the struggle at great expense and 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.

3 Besides, he would find the Athenians the most convenient partners in empire as they did not aim at conquests on shore, and carried on the war upon principles and with a practice most advantageous to the king; being prepared to combine to conquer the sea for Athens, and for the king all the Hellenes inhabiting his country, whom the Peloponnesians, on the contrary, had come to liberate. 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.

4 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.

5 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.

Chapter 47

1 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.

2 The event proved him to be right. When the Athenians at Samos found that he had influence with Tissaphernes, principally of their own motion (though partly also through Alcibiades himself sending word to their chief men to tell the best men in the army, that if 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.

Chapter 48

1 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.

2 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.

3 The multitude, if at first irritated by these intrigues, were nevertheless kept quiet by the advantageous prospect of the pay from the king; and the oligarchical conspirators, after making this communication to the people, now re-examined the proposals of Alcibiades among themselves, with most of their associates.

4 Unlike the rest, who thought them advantageous and trustworthy, Phrynichus, who was still general, by no means approved of the proposals. Alcibiades, he rightly thought, cared no more for an oligarchy than for a democracy, and only sought to change the institutions of his country in order to get himself recalled by his associates; while for themselves their one 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.

5 And as for the allied states to whom oligarchy was now offered, because the democracy was to be put down at Athens, he well knew that this would not make the rebels come 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.

6 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.

7 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.

Chapter 49

1 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.

Chapter 50

1 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,

2 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.

3 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.

4 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.

5 Phrynichus distracted, and placed in the utmost peril by the denunciation, sent again to Astyochus, reproaching him with having so ill kept the secret of his previous letter, and saying that he was now prepared to give 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.

Chapter 51

1 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.

2 Accordingly they addressed themselves to the work of fortification, and Samos was thus fortified sooner than it would otherwise have been. Not long afterwards came the letter from Alcibiades, saying that the army was betrayed by Phrynichus, and the enemy about to attack it.

3 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.

Chapter 52

1 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,

Chapter 53

1 the Athenian envoys who had been despatched from Samos with Pisander arrived at Athens, and made a speech before the people, giving a brief summary of their views, and particularly insisting that if Alcibiades were recalled and the democratic constitution changed, they could have the king as their ally, and would be able to overcome the Peloponnesians.

2 A number of speakers opposed them on the question of the democracy, the enemies of Alcibiades cried out against the scandal of a restoration to be 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 some one could induce the king to come over to their side?

3 Upon their replying that they had not, he then plainly said to them: ‘This we cannot have unless we have a more moderate form of government, and put the offices into fewer hands, and so gain the king's confidence, and forthwith restore Alcibiades, who is the only man living that can bring this about. The safety of the state, not the form of its government, is for the moment the most pressing question, as we can always change afterwards whatever we do not like.'

Chapter 54

1 The people were at first highly irritated at the mention of an oligarchy, but upon understanding clearly from Pisander that this was the only resource left, they took counsel of their fears, and promised themselves some day to change the government again, and gave way.

2 They accordingly voted that Pisander should sail with ten others and make the best arrangement that they could with Tissaphernes and Alcibiades.

3 At the same time the people, upon a false accusation of Pisander, dismissed Phrynichus from his post together with his colleague Scironides, sending Diomedon and Leon to replace them in the command of the fleet. The accusation was that Phrynichus had betrayed Iasus and Amorges; and Pisander brought it because he thought him a man unfit for the business now in hand with Alcibiades.

4 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.

Chapter 55

1 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.

2 Meanwhile Xenophantes, a Laconian, came to Rhodes from Pedaritus at Chios, with the news that the fortification of the Athenians was now finished, and that, unless the whole Peloponnesian fleet came to the rescue, the cause in Chios must be lost. Upon this they resolved to go to his relief.

3 In the meantime Pedaritus, with the mercenaries that he had with him and the whole force of the Chians, made an assault upon the 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.

Chapter 56

1 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.

2 However, Alcibiades, not being altogether sure of Tissaphernes (who feared the Peloponnesians more than the Athenians, and besides wished to wear out both parties, as Alcibiades himself had recommended), had recourse to the following stratagem to make the treaty between the Athenians and Tissaphernes miscarry by reason of the magnitude of his demands.

3 In my opinion Tissaphernes desired this result, fear being his motive; while Alcibiades, who now saw that Tissaphernes was determined not to treat on any terms, wished the Athenians to think, not that he was unable to persuade Tissaphernes, but that after the latter had been persuaded and was willing to join them, they had not conceded enough to him.

4 For the demands of Alcibiades, speaking for Tissaphernes, who was present, were so extravagant that the Athenians, although for a long while they agreed to whatever he asked, yet had to bear the blame of failure: he required the cession of the whole of Ionia, next of the islands adjacent, besides other concessions, and these passed without opposition; at last, in the third interview, Alcibiades, who now feared a complete discovery of his inability, required them to allow the king to build ships and sail along his own coast wherever and with as many as he pleased. Upon this the Athenians would yield no further, and concluding that there was nothing to be done, but that they had been deceived by Alcibiades, went away in a passion and proceeded to Samos.

Chapter 57

1 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.

2 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:—

Chapter 58

1 In the thirteenth year of the reign of Darius, while Alexippidas was Ephor at Lacedaemon, a convention was concluded in the plain of the Moeander 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.

2 1. The country of the king in Asia shall be the king's, and the king shall treat his own country as he pleases.

3 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.

4 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.

5 3. Tissaphernes shall provide pay for the ships now present, according to the agreement, until the arrival of the king's vessels;

6 but after the arrival of the king's vessels the 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 monies as they shall have received.

7 4. After the king's 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.

Chapter 59

1 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.

Chapter 60

1 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.

2 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.

3 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.

Chapter 61

1 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.

2 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 Syracusan, one from Anaia, one Milesian, and one Leon's own.

3 Accordingly the Chians marched out in mass and took up a strong position, while thirty-six of their ships put out and engaged thirty-two of the Athenians; and after a tough fight, in which the Chians and their allies had rather the best of it, as it was now late, retired to their city.

Chapter 62

1 Immediately after this Dercyllidas arrived by land from Miletus; and Abydos in the Hellespont revolted to him and Pharnabazus, and Lampsacus two days later.

2 Upon receipt of this news Strombichides hastily sailed from Chios with twenty-four Athenian ships, some transports carrying 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.

3 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.

Chapter 63

1 In the meantime the Chians commanded the sea more than before; and the Peloponnesians at Miletus and Astyochus, hearing of the sea-fight and of the departure of the squadron with Strombichides, took fresh courage.

2 Coasting along with two vessels to Chios, Astyochus took the ships from that place, and now moved with the whole fleet upon Samos, from whence, however, he sailed back to Miletus, as the Athenians did not put out against him, owing to their suspicions of one another.

3 For it was about this time, or even before, that the democracy was put down at Athens. When Pisander and the envoys returned from Tissaphernes to Samos they at once strengthened still further their 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.

4 At the same time the Athenians at Samos, after a consultation among themselves, determined to let Alcibiades alone, since he refused to join them, and besides was not the man for an oligarchy; and now that they were once embarked, 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.

Chapter 64

1 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 despatched the other half in different directions to the other dependencies.

2 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.

3 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.

4 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.

5 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.

Chapter 65

1 Pisander and his colleagues on their voyage along shore 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.

2 Here they found most of the work already done by their associates. Some of the younger men had banded together, and secretly assassinated one Androcles, the chief leader of the 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.

3 Meanwhile their cry in public was that no pay should be given except to persons serving in the war, and that not more than five thousand should share in the government, and those such as were most able to serve the state in person and in purse.

Chapter 66

1 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.

2 Fear, and the sight of the numbers of the conspirators, closed the mouths of the rest; or if any ventured to rise in opposition, he was 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.

3 An exaggerated belief in the numbers of the conspirators also demoralised 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.

4 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.

5 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.

Chapter 67

1 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.

2 Afterwards, when the day arrived, the conspirators enclosed the assembly in Colonus, a temple of Poseidon, a little more than a mile outside the city; when the commissioners simply brought forward this single motion, that any Athenian might propose with impunity whatever measure he pleased, heavy penalties being imposed upon any who should indict for illegality, or otherwise molest him for so doing.

3 The way thus cleared, it was now plainly declared, that all tenure of office and receipt of pay under the existing institutions were at an end, and that five men must be elected as presidents, who should in their turn elect one hundred, and each of the hundred three apiece; and that this body thus made up to four hundred should enter the council chamber with full powers and govern as they judged best, and should convene the five thousand whenever they pleased.

Chapter 68

1 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.

2 Indeed, when he was afterwards himself tried for his life on the charge of having been concerned in setting up this very government, when the Four Hundred were overthrown and hardly dealt with by the commons, he made what would seem to be the best defence of any known up to my time.

3 Phrynichus also went beyond all others in his zeal for the oligarchy. Afraid of Alcibiades, and assured that he was no stranger to his intrigues with Astyochus at Samos, he held that no oligarchy was ever likely to restore him, and once embarked in the enterprise, proved, where danger was to be faced, by far the staunchest of them all.

4 Theramenes, son of Hagnon, was also one of the foremost of the subverters of the democracy—a man as able in council as in debate. Conducted by so many and by such sagacious heads, the enterprise, great as it was, not unnaturally went forward; although it was no light matter to deprive the Athenian people of its freedom, almost a hundred years after the deposition of the tyrants, when it had been not only not subject to any during the whole of that period, but accustomed during more than half of it to rule over subjects of its own.

Chapter 69

1 The assembly ratified the proposed constitution, without a single opposing voice, and was then dissolved; after which the Four Hundred were brought into the council chamber in the following way. On account of the enemy at Decelea, all the Athenians were constantly on the wall or in the ranks at the various military posts.

2 On that day the persons not in the secret were allowed to go home as usual, while orders were given to the accomplices of the conspirators to hang about, without making any demonstration, at some little distance from the posts, and in case of any opposition to what was being done, to seize the arms and put it down.

3 There were also some Andrians and Tenians, three hundred Carystians, and some of the settlers in Aegina come with their own arms for this very purpose, who had received similar instructions.

4 These dispositions completed, the Four Hundred went, each with a dagger concealed about his person, accompanied by one hundred and twenty 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.

Chapter 70

1 Upon the Council withdrawing in this way without venturing any objection, and the rest of the citizens making no movement, the Four Hundred entered the council chamber, and for the present contented themselves with drawing lots for their Prytanes, and making their prayers and sacrifices to the gods upon entering office, but afterwards departed widely from the democratic system of government, and except that on account of Alcibiades they did not recall the exiles, ruled the city by force;

2 putting to death some men, though not many, whom they though 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.

Chapter 71

1 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.

2 However, the Athenians saw him come close up, without making the least disturbance within the city; and sending out their cavalry, and a number of their 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,

3 and remaining with his own troops in the old position at Decelea, sent the reinforcement back home, after a few days' stay in Attica. After this the Four Hundred persevering sent another embassy to Agis, and now meeting with a better reception, at his suggestion despatched envoys to Lacedaemon to negotiate a treaty, being desirous of making peace.

Chapter 72

1 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.

2 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.

Chapter 73

1 Indeed at Samos the question of the oligarchy had already entered upon a new phase, the following events having taken place just at the time that the Four Hundred were conspiring.

2 That part of the Samian population which has been mentioned as rising against the upper class, and as being the democratic party, had now turned round, and yielding to the solicitations of Pisander during his visit, and of the Athenians in the conspiracy at Samos, had bound themselves by oaths to the number of three hundred, and were about to fall upon the rest of their fellow-citizens, whom they now in their turn regarded as the democratic party.

3 Meanwhile they put to death one Hyperbolus, an Athenian, a pestilent fellow that had been ostracised, not from fear of his influence on 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.

4 The latter got wind of what was coming, and told two of the generals, Leon and Diomedon, who, on account of the credit which they enjoyed with the 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.

5 Upon hearing this, the persons whom they addressed now went round the soldiers one by one, and urged them to resist, especially the crew of the Paralus, which was made up entirely of Athenians and 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.

6 Accordingly, when the Three Hundred attacked the people, all these came to the rescue, and foremost of all the crew of the Paralus; and the Samian commons gained the victory, and putting to death some thirty of the Three Hundred, banishing three others of the ringleaders, accorded an amnesty to the rest, and lived together under a democratic government for the future.

Chapter 74

1 The ship Paralus, with Chaereas, son of Archestratus, on board, an Athenian who had taken an active part in the revolution, was now without loss of time sent off by the Samians and the army to Athens to report what had occurred; the fact that the Four Hundred were in power not being yet known.

2 When they sailed into 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.

3 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.

Chapter 75

1 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.

2 After this Thrasybulus, son of Lycus, and Thrasyllus, the chief leaders in the revolution, now wishing in the most public manner to change the government at Samos to a democracy, bound all the soldiers by the most tremendous oaths, and those of the 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.

3 The same oath was also taken by all the Samians of full age; and the soldiers associated the Samians in all their affairs and in the fruits of their dangers, having the conviction that there was no way of escape for themselves or for them, but that success of the Four Hundred or of the enemy at Miletus must be their ruin.

Chapter 76

1 The struggle now was between the army trying to force a democracy upon the city, and the Four Hundred an oligarchy upon the camp.

2 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.

3 They also stood up and encouraged one another, and among other things urged that they ought not to lose heart because the city had revolted from them, as the party seceding was smaller and in every way poorer in resources than themselves.

4 They had the whole fleet with which to compel the other cities in their empire to give them money just as if they had their base in the capital, having a city in Samos which, 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.

5 It was their advanced position at Samos which had throughout enabled the home authorities to command the entrance into Piraeus; and if they refused to give them back the constitution, they would now find that the army was more in a position to exclude them from the sea than they were to exclude the army.

6 Besides, the city was of little or no use towards enabling them to overcome the enemy; and they had lost nothing in losing those who had no longer either money to send them (the soldiers having to find this for themselves), or good counsel, which entitles cities to direct armies. On the contrary, even in this the home government had done wrong in abolishing the institutions of their ancestors, while the army maintained the said institutions, and would try to force the home government to do so likewise. So that even in point of good counsel the camp had as good counsellors as the city.

7 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.

Chapter 77

1 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.

Chapter 78

1 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.

Chapter 79

1 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.

2 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.

3 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 despatched, with the ships that had gone from Chios to Abydos.

4 The Athenians accordingly withdrew to Samos, and the Peloponnesians put in at Mycale, and encamped with the land forces of the Milesians and the people of the neighbourhood.

5 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.

6 The Athenians, thus reinforced, now in their turn sailed against Miletus with a hundred and eight ships, wishing to fight a decisive battle, but as no one put out to meet them, sailed back to Samos.

Chapter 80

1 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;

2 Pharnabazus inviting them and being prepared to furnish pay, and Byzantium besides sending offers to revolt to them.

3 These Peloponnesian ships accordingly put out into the open sea, in order to escape the observation of the Athenians, and being overtaken by a storm, the majority with Clearchus 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.

4 After this, the commanders at Samos were informed of it, and sent a squadron against them to guard the Hellespont; and an encounter took place before Byzantium between eight vessels on either side.

Chapter 81

1 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.

2 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.

3 Alcibiades accordingly held out to the army such extravagant promises as the following: that Tissaphernes had solemnly assured him that if he could only trust the Athenians they should never want for supplies while he had anything left, no, not even if he should have to coin his own silver couch, and that he would bring the Phoenician fleet now at Aspendus to the Athenians instead of to the Peloponnesians; but that he could only trust the Athenians if Alcibiades were recalled to be his security for them.

Chapter 82

1 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.

2 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.

3 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.

Chapter 83

1 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.

2 Indeed after their refusal to go out and give battle to the Athenians when they appeared before Miletus, Tissaphernes had grown slacker than ever in his payments; and even before this, on account of Alcibiades, his unpopularity had been on the increase.

3 Gathering together, just as before, the soldiers and some persons of 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.

Chapter 84

1 The army was engaged in these reflections, when the following disturbance took place about the person of Astyochus.

2 Most of the Syracusan and Thurian sailors were 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;

3 upon seeing which the mass of the men, in sailor fashion, rushed in a fury to strike Astyochus. He, however, saw them in time and fled for refuge to an altar; and they were thus parted without his being struck.

4 Meanwhile the fort built by Tissaphernes in Miletus was surprised and taken by the Milesians, and the garrison in it turned out,—an act which met with the approval of the rest of the allies, and in particular of the Syracusans,

5 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.

Chapter 85

1 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;

2 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.

3 Indeed Hermocrates had always been at enmity with him about the pay not being restored in full; and eventually when he was banished from Syracuse, and new commanders, Potamis, Myscon, and Demarchus, had come out to Miletus to the ships of the Syracusans, Tissaphernes pressed harder than ever upon him in his exile, and among other charges against him accused him of having once asked him for money, and then given himself out as his enemy because he failed to obtain it.

4 While Astyochus and the Milesians and Hermocrates made sail for Lacedaemon, Alcibiades had now crossed back from Tissaphernes to Samos.

Chapter 86

1 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.

2 The soldiers at first would not hear them, and cried out to put to death the subverters of the democracy, but at last, after some difficulty, calmed down and gave them a hearing.

3 Upon this the envoys proceeded to inform them that the recent change had been made to save the city, and not to ruin it or to deliver it over to the enemy, for they had already had an opportunity of doing this when he invaded the country during their government; that all the Five Thousand would have their proper share in the government; and that their hearers' relatives had neither outrage, as Chaereas had slanderously reported, nor other ill-treatment to complain of, but were all in undisturbed enjoyment of their property just as they had left them.

4 Besides these they made a number of other statements which had no better success with their angry 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.

5 At that moment, when no other man would have been able to hold back the multitude, he put a stop to the intended expedition, and rebuked and turned aside the resentment felt, on personal grounds, against the envoys;

6 he dismissed them with an answer from himself, to the effect that he did not object to the government of the Five Thousand, but insisted that the Four Hundred should be deposed and the Council of Five Hundred reinstated in power: meanwhile any retrenchments for economy, by which pay might be better found for the armament, met with his entire approval.

7 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.

8 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.

9 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.

Chapter 87

1 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.

2 Accounts differ, and it is not easy to ascertain with what intention he went to Aspendus, and did not bring the fleet after all.

3 That one hundred and forty-seven Phoenician ships came as far as Aspendus is certain; but why they did not come 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.

4 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.

5 But what convicts him most clearly, is the excuse which he put forward for not bringing the ships. He said that the number assembled was less than the king had ordered; but surely it would only have enhanced his credit if he spent little of the king's money and effected the same end at less cost.

6 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.

Chapter 88

1 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,

Chapter 89

1 the envoys sent by the Four Hundred to Samos arrived at Athens. Upon their delivering the message from Alcibiades, telling them to hold out and to show a firm front to the enemy, and saying that he had great hopes of reconciling them with the army and of overcoming the Peloponnesians, the majority of the members of the oligarchy, who were already discontented and only too much inclined to be quit of the business in any safe way that they could, were at once greatly strengthened in their resolve.

2 These now banded together and strongly criticised 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.

3 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.

4 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.

Chapter 90

1 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.

2 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.

3 Meanwhile they pushed on more actively than ever with the wall in Eetionia. Now the meaning of this wall, according to Theramenes and his supporters, was not so much to keep out the army of Samos in case of its trying to force its way into Piraeus as to be able to let in, at pleasure, the fleet and army of the enemy.

4 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.

5 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.

Chapter 91

1 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.

2 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.

3 This was no mere calumny, there being really some such plan entertained by the accused. Their first wish was to have the oligarchy without giving up the empire; failing this to keep their ships and walls and be independent; while, if this also were denied them, sooner than be the first victims of the restored democracy, they were resolved to call in the enemy and make peace, give up their walls and ships, and at all costs retain possession of the government, if their lives were only assured to them.

Chapter 92

1 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.

2 Meanwhile the murmurs against them were at first confined to a few persons and went on in secret, until Phrynichus, after his return from the embassy to 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.

3 For by this time the ships had sailed round from Las, and anchoring at Epidaurus had overrun Aegina; and Theramenes asserted that, being bound for Euboea, they would never have sailed in to Lacedae and come back to anchor at Epidaurus, unless they had been invited to come to aid in the designs of which he had always accused the government. Further inaction had therefore now become impossible.

4 In the end, after a great many seditious harangues and suspicions, they set to work in real earnest. The 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.

5 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.

6 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.

7 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.

8 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.

9 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.

10 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.

11 Now their cry to the multitude was that all should join in the work who wished the Five Thousand to govern instead of the Four Hundred. For instead of saying in so many words ‘all who wished the 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.

Chapter 93

1 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.

2 Here they were joined by some delegates from the Four Hundred, who reasoned with them one by one, and persuaded those whom they saw to be the most moderate to remain quiet themselves, and to 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.

3 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.

Chapter 94

1 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.

2 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.

3 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.

Chapter 95

1 Meanwhile the Peloponnesian vessels sailed by, and rounding Sunium anchored between Thoricus and Prasiae, and afterwards arrived at Oropus.

2 The Athenians, with revolution in the city, and unwilling to lose a moment in going to the relief of their most important possession (for Euboea was everything to them now that they were shut out from Attica), were compelled to put to sea in haste and with untrained crews, and sent Thymochares with some vessels to Eretria.

3 These upon their arrival, with the ships already in Euboea, made up a total of thirty-six vessels, and were immediately forced to engage. For Agesandridas, after his crews had dined, put out from Oropus, which is about seven miles from Eretria by sea;

4 and the Athenians, seeing him sailing up, immediately began to man their vessels. The sailors, however, instead of being by their ships, as they supposed, were gone away to purchase provisions for their dinner in the houses in the outskirts of the town; the Eretrians having so arranged that there should be nothing on sale in the market-place, 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.

5 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.

6 Such of their number as took refuge in Eretria, which they presumed to be friendly to them, found their fate in that city, being butchered by the inhabitants; while those who fled to the Athenian fort in the Eretrian territory, and the vessels which got to Chalcis, were saved.

7 The Peloponnesians, after taking twenty-two Athenian ships, and killing or making prisoners of the crews, set up a trophy, and not long afterwards effected the revolt of the whole of Euboea (except Oreus, which was held by the Athenians themselves), and made a general settlement of the affairs of the island.

Chapter 96

1 When the news of what had happened in Euboea reached Athens a panic ensued such as they had never before known. Neither the disaster in Sicily, great as it seemed at the time, nor any other had ever so much alarmed them.

2 The 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.

3 Meanwhile their greatest and most immediate trouble was the possibility that the enemy, emboldened by his victory, might make straight for them and sail against Piraeus, which they had no longer ships to defend; and every moment they expected him to arrive.

4 This, with a little more courage, he might easily have done, in which case he would either have increased the dissensions of the city by his presence, or if he had stayed to besiege it have compelled the fleet from Ionia, although 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.

5 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.

Chapter 97

1 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,

2 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.

3 They also voted for the recall of Alcibiades and of other exiles, and sent to him and to the camp at Samos, and urged them to devote themselves vigorously to the war.

Chapter 98

1 Upon this revolution taking place, the party of Pisander and Alexicles, and the chiefs of the oligarchs immediately withdrew to Decelea, with the single exception of Aristarchus, one of the generals, who hastily took some of the most barbarian of the archers and marched to Oenoe.

2 This was a fort of the Athenians upon the Boeotian border, at that moment besieged by the Corinthians, 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.

3 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.

4 In this way the Boeotians gained possession of Oenoe, and the oligarchy and the troubles at Athens ended.

Chapter 99

1 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.

Chapter 100

1 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.

2 But learning that he was at Chios, and expecting that he would stay there, he posted scouts in Lesbos and on the continent opposite to prevent the fleet moving without his knowing it, and himself 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.

3 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. Baulked 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.

4 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.

5 Here they were joined also by two vessels on their way home from the Hellespont, and by the ships of the Methymnians, making a grand total of sixty-seven vessels; and the forces on board now made ready with engines and every other means available to do their utmost to storm Eresus.

Chapter 101

1 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.

2 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.

3 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.

Chapter 102

1 Meanwhile the warnings of the fire-signals and the sudden increase in the number of fires on the enemy's shore informed the eighteen Athenian ships at Sestos of the approach of the Peloponnesian fleet. That very night they set sail in haste just as they were, and hugging the shore of the Chersonese, coasted along to Elaeus, in order to sail out into the open sea away from the fleet of the enemy.

2 After passing unobserved 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.

3 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.

Chapter 103

1 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.

2 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,

3 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.

Chapter 104

1 After this they engaged in the following way. The Athenians formed in column and sailed close along shore to Sestos; upon perceiving which the Peloponnesians put out from Abydos to meet them.

2 Realising 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.

3 The Peloponnesian right wing was occupied by the Syracusans, their left by Mindarus in person with the best sailors in the navy; the Athenian left by Thrasyllus, their right by Thrasybulus, the other commanders being in different parts of the fleet.

4 The Peloponnesians hastened to engage first, and outflanking with their left the Athenian right sought to cut them off, if possible, from sailing out of the straits, and to drive their centre upon the shore, which was not far off. The Athenians perceiving their intention extended their own wing and outsailed them,

5 while their left had by this time passed the point of Cynossema. This, however, obliged them to thin and weaken their 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.

Chapter 105

1 The Peloponnesians now attacked their centre and drove ashore the ships of the Athenians, and disembarked to follow up their victory.

2 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.

3 On seeing this the squadron of Thrasybulus discontinued their lateral movement and, facing about, attacked and routed the ships opposed to them, and next fell 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.

Chapter 106

1 The rout was now complete. Most of the Peloponnesians fled for refuge first to the river Midius, and afterwards to Abydos. Only a few ships were taken by the Athenians; as owing to the narrowness of the Hellespont the enemy had not far to go to be in safety. Nevertheless nothing could have been more opportune for them than this victory.

2 Up to this time they had feared the Peloponnesian fleet, owing to a number of petty losses and to the disaster in Sicily; but they now ceased to mistrust themselves or any longer to think their enemies good for anything at sea.

3 Meanwhile they took from the enemy eight Chian vessels, five Corinthian, two Ambraciot, two Boeotian, one Leucadian, Lacedaemonian, Syracusan, and Pellenian, losing fifteen of their own.

4 After setting up a trophy upon Point Cynossema, securing the wrecks, and restoring to the enemy his dead under truce, they sent off a galley to Athens with the news of their victory.

5 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.

Chapter 107

1 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.

2 In the meantime the Peloponesians 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.

Chapter 108

1 About the same time Alcibiades returned with his thirteen ships from Caunus and Phaselis to Samos, bringing word that he had prevented the Phoenician fleet from joining the Peloponnesians, and had made Tissaphernes more friendly to the Athenians than before.

2 Alcibiades now manned nine more ships, and levied large sums of money from the Halicarnassians, and fortified Cos. After doing this and placing a governor in Cos, he sailed back to Samos, autumn being now at hand.

3 Meanwhile Tissaphernes, upon hearing that the Peloponnesian fleet had sailed from Miletus to the Hellespont, set off again back from Aspendus, and made all sail for Ionia.

4 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.

5 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.

Chapter 109

1 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.

2 [When the winter after this summer is over the twenty-first year of this war will be completed.]