History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

Here they

were joined by Astyochus as high admiral from Lacedaemon, henceforth

invested with the supreme command at sea. The land forces now

withdrawing from Teos, Tissaphernes repaired thither in person with an

army and completed the demolition of anything that was left of the

wall, and so departed. Not long after his departure Diomedon arrived

with ten Athenian ships, and, having made a convention by which the

Teians admitted him as they had the enemy, coasted along to Erae, and,

failing in an attempt upon the town, sailed back again.

 

About this time took place the rising of the commons at Samos

against the upper classes, in concert with some Athenians, who were

there in three vessels. The Samian commons put to death some two

hundred in all of the upper classes, and banished four hundred more,

and themselves took their land and houses; after which the Athenians

decreed their independence, being now sure of their fidelity, and

the commons henceforth governed the city, excluding the landholders

from all share in affairs, and forbidding any of the commons to give

his daughter in marriage to them or to take a wife from them in

future.

 

After this, during the same summer, the Chians, whose zeal continued

as active as ever, and who even without the Peloponnesians found

themselves in sufficient force to effect the revolt of the cities

and also wished to have as many companions in peril as possible,

made an expedition with thirteen ships of their own to Lesbos; the

instructions from Lacedaemon being to go to that island next, and from

thence to the Hellespont. Meanwhile the land forces of the

Peloponnesians who were with the Chians and of the allies on the spot,

moved alongshore for Clazomenae and Cuma, under the command of Eualas,

a Spartan; while the fleet under Diniadas, one of the Perioeci,

first sailed up to Methymna and caused it to revolt, and, leaving four

ships there, with the rest procured the revolt of Mitylene.

 

In the meantime Astyochus, the Lacedaemonian admiral, set sail

from Cenchreae with four ships, as he had intended, and arrived at

Chios. On the third day after his arrival, the Athenian ships,

twenty-five in number, sailed to Lesbos under Diomedon and Leon, who

had lately arrived with a reinforcement of ten ships from Athens. Late

in the same day Astyochus put to sea, and taking one Chian vessel with

him sailed to Lesbos to render what assistance he could. Arrived at

Pyrrha, and from thence the next day at Eresus, he there learned

that Mitylene had been taken, almost without a blow, by the Athenians,

who had sailed up and unexpectedly put into the harbour, had beaten

the Chian ships, and landing and defeating the troops opposed to

them had become masters of the city. Informed of this by the

Eresians and the Chian ships, which had been left with Eubulus at

Methymna, and had fled upon the capture of Mitylene, and three of

which he now fell in with, one having been taken by the Athenians,

Astyochus did not go on to Mitylene, but raised and armed Eresus, and,

sending the heavy infantry from his own ships by land under

Eteonicus to Antissa and Methymna, himself proceeded alongshore

thither with the ships which he had with him and with the three

Chians, in the hope that the Methymnians upon seeing them would be

encouraged to persevere in their revolt. As, however, everything

went against him in Lesbos, he took up his own force and sailed back

to Chios; the land forces on board, which were to have gone to the

Hellespont, being also conveyed back to their different cities.

After this six of the allied Peloponnesian ships at Cenchreae joined

the forces at Chios. The Athenians, after restoring matters to their

old state in Lesbos, set sail from thence and took Polichna, the place

that the Clazomenians were fortifying on the continent, and carried

the inhabitants back to their town upon the island, except the authors

of the revolt, who withdrew to Daphnus; and thus Clazomenae became

once more Athenian.

 

The same summer the Athenians in the twenty ships at Lade,

blockading Miletus, made a descent at Panormus in the Milesian

territory, and killed Chalcideus the Lacedaemonian commander, who

had come with a few men against them, and the third day after sailed

over and set up a trophy, which, as they were not masters of the

country, was however pulled down by the Milesians. Meanwhile Leon

and Diomedon with the Athenian fleet from Lesbos issuing from the

Oenussae, the isles off Chios, and from their forts of Sidussa and

Pteleum in the Erythraeid, and from Lesbos, carried on the war against

the Chians from the ships, having on board heavy infantry from the

rolls pressed to serve as marines. Landing in Cardamyle and in

Bolissus they defeated with heavy loss the Chians that took the

field against them and, laying desolate the places in that

neighbourhood, defeated the Chians again in another battle at

Phanae, and in a third at Leuconium. After this the Chians ceased to

meet them in the field, while the Athenians devastated the country,

which was beautifully stocked and had remained uninjured ever since

the Median wars. Indeed, after the Lacedaemonians, the Chians are

the only people that I have known who knew how to be wise in

prosperity, and who ordered their city the more securely the greater

it grew. Nor was this revolt, in which they might seem to have erred

on the side of rashness, ventured upon until they had numerous and

gallant allies to share the danger with them, and until they perceived

the Athenians after the Sicilian disaster themselves no longer denying

the thoroughly desperate state of their affairs. And if they were

thrown out by one of the surprises which upset human calculations,

they found out their mistake in company with many others who believed,

like them, in the speedy collapse of the Athenian power. While they

were thus blockaded from the sea and plundered by land, some of the

citizens undertook to bring the city over to the Athenians. Apprised

of this the authorities took no action themselves, but brought

Astyochus, the admiral, from Erythrae, with four ships that he had

with him, and considered how they could most quietly, either by taking

hostages or by some other means, put an end to the conspiracy.

 

While the Chians were thus engaged, a thousand Athenian heavy

infantry and fifteen hundred Argives (five hundred of whom were

light troops furnished with armour by the Athenians), and one thousand

of the allies, towards the close of the same summer sailed from Athens

in forty-eight ships, some of which were transports, under the command

of Phrynichus, Onomacles, and Scironides, and putting into Samos

crossed over and encamped at Miletus. Upon this the Milesians came out

to the number of eight hundred heavy infantry, with the Peloponnesians

who had come with Chalcideus, and some foreign mercenaries of

Tissaphernes, Tissaphernes himself and his cavalry, and engaged the

Athenians and their allies. While the Argives rushed forward on

their own wing with the careless disdain of men advancing against

Ionians who would never stand their charge, and were defeated by the

Milesians with a loss little short of three hundred men, the Athenians

first defeated the Peloponnesians, and driving before them the

barbarians and the ruck of the army, without engaging the Milesians,

who after the rout of the Argives retreated into the town upon

seeing their comrades worsted, crowned their victory by grounding

their arms under the very walls of Miletus. Thus, in this battle,

the Ionians on both sides overcame the Dorians, the Athenians

defeating the Peloponnesians opposed to them, and the Milesians the

Argives. After setting up a trophy, the Athenians prepared to draw a

wall round the place, which stood upon an isthmus; thinking that, if

they could gain Miletus, the other towns also would easily come over

to them.

 

Meanwhile about dusk tidings reached them that the fifty-five

ships from Peloponnese and Sicily might be instantly expected. Of

these the Siceliots, urged principally by the Syracusan Hermocrates to

join in giving the finishing blow to the power of Athens, furnished

twenty-two—twenty from Syracuse, and two from Silenus; and the

ships that we left preparing in Peloponnese being now ready, both

squadrons had been entrusted to Therimenes, a Lacedaemonian, to take

to Astyochus, the admiral. They now put in first at Leros the island

off Miletus, and from thence, discovering that the Athenians were

before the town, sailed into the Iasic Gulf, in order to learn how

matters stood at Miletus. Meanwhile Alcibiades came on horseback to

Teichiussa in the Milesian territory, the point of the gulf at which

they had put in for the night, and told them of the battle in which he

had fought in person by the side of the Milesians and Tissaphernes,

and advised them, if they did not wish to sacrifice Ionia and their

cause, to fly to the relief of Miletus and hinder its investment.

 

Accordingly they resolved to relieve it the next morning.

Meanwhile Phrynichus, the Athenian commander, had received precise

intelligence of the fleet from Leros, and when his colleagues

expressed a wish to keep the sea and fight it out, flatly refused

either to stay himself or to let them or any one else do so if he

could help it. Where they could hereafter contend, after full and

undisturbed preparation, with an exact knowledge of the number of

the enemy’s fleet and of the force which they could oppose to him,

he would never allow the reproach of disgrace to drive him into a risk

that was unreasonable. It was no disgrace for an Athenian fleet to

retreat when it suited them: put it as they would, it would be more

disgraceful to be beaten, and to expose the city not only to disgrace,

but to the most serious danger. After its late misfortunes it could

hardly be justified in voluntarily taking the offensive even with

the strongest force, except in a case of absolute necessity: much less

then without compulsion could it rush upon peril of its own seeking.

He told them to take up their wounded as quickly as they could and the

troops and stores which they had brought with them, and leaving behind

what they had taken from the enemy’s country, in order to lighten

the ships, to sail off to Samos, and there concentrating all their

ships to attack as opportunity served. As he spoke so he acted; and

thus not now more than afterwards, nor in this alone but in all that

he had to do with, did Phrynichus show himself a man of sense. In this

way that very evening the Athenians broke up from before Miletus,

leaving their victory unfinished, and the Argives, mortified at

their disaster, promptly sailed off home from Samos.

 

As soon as it was morning the Peloponnesians weighed from Teichiussa

and put into Miletus after the departure of the Athenians; they stayed

one day, and on the next took with them the Chian vessels originally

chased into port with Chalcideus, and resolved to sail back for the

tackle which they had put on shore at Teichiussa. Upon their arrival

Tissaphernes came to them with his land forces and induced them to

sail to Iasus, which was held by his enemy Amorges. Accordingly they

suddenly attacked and took Iasus, whose inhabitants never imagined

that the ships could be other than Athenian. The Syracusans

distinguished themselves most in the action. Amorges, a bastard of

Pissuthnes and a rebel from the King, was taken alive and handed

over to Tissaphernes, to carry to the King, if he chose, according

to his orders: Iasus was sacked by the army, who found a very great

booty there, the place being wealthy from ancient date. The

mercenaries serving with Amorges the Peloponnesians