History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗
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overrun and pillaged by land. There were more slaves at Chios than
in any one other city except Lacedaemon, and being also by reason of
their numbers punished more rigorously when they offended, most of
them, when they saw the Athenian armament firmly established in the
island with a fortified position, immediately deserted to the enemy,
and through their knowledge of the country did the greatest
mischief. The Chians therefore urged upon Astyochus that it was his
duty to assist them, while there was still a hope and a possibility of
stopping the enemy’s progress, while Delphinium was still in process
of fortification and unfinished, and before the completion of a higher
rampart which was being added to protect the camp and fleet of their
besiegers. Astyochus now saw that the allies also wished it and
prepared to go, in spite of his intention to the contrary owing to the
threat already referred to.
In the meantime news came from Caunus of the arrival of the
twenty-seven ships with the Lacedaemonian commissioners; and
Astyochus, postponing everything to the duty of convoying a fleet of
that importance, in order to be more able to command the sea, and to
the safe conduct of the Lacedaemonians sent as spies over his
behaviour, at once gave up going to Chios and set sail for Caunus.
As he coasted along he landed at the Meropid Cos and sacked the
city, which was unfortified and had been lately laid in ruins by an
earthquake, by far the greatest in living memory, and, as the
inhabitants had fled to the mountains, overran the country and made
booty of all it contained, letting go, however, the free men. From Cos
arriving in the night at Cnidus he was constrained by the
representations of the Cnidians not to disembark the sailors, but to
sail as he was straight against the twenty Athenian vessels, which
with Charminus, one of the commanders at Samos, were on the watch
for the very twenty-seven ships from Peloponnese which Astyochus was
himself sailing to join; the Athenians in Samos having heard from
Melos of their approach, and Charminus being on the lookout off Syme,
Chalce, Rhodes, and Lycia, as he now heard that they were at Caunus.
Astyochus accordingly sailed as he was to Syme, before he was
heard of, in the hope of catching the enemy somewhere out at sea.
Rain, however, and foggy weather encountered him, and caused his ships
to straggle and get into disorder in the dark. In the morning his
fleet had parted company and was most of it still straggling round the
island, and the left wing only in sight of Charminus and the
Athenians, who took it for the squadron which they were watching for
from Caunus, and hastily put out against it with part only of their
twenty vessels, and attacking immediately sank three ships and
disabled others, and had the advantage in the action until the main
body of the fleet unexpectedly hove in sight, when they were
surrounded on every side. Upon this they took to flight, and after
losing six ships with the rest escaped to Teutlussa or Beet Island,
and from thence to Halicarnassus. After this the Peloponnesians put
into Cnidus and, being joined by the twenty-seven ships from Caunus,
sailed all together and set up a trophy in Syme, and then returned
to anchor at Cnidus.
As soon as the Athenians knew of the sea-fight, they sailed with all
the ships at Samos to Syme, and, without attacking or being attacked
by the fleet at Cnidus, took the ships’ tackle left at Syme, and
touching at Lorymi on the mainland sailed back to Samos. Meanwhile the
Peloponnesian ships, being now all at Cnidus, underwent such repairs
as were needed; while the eleven Lacedaemonian commissioners conferred
with Tissaphernes, who had come to meet them, upon the points which
did not satisfy them in the past transactions, and upon the best and
mutually most advantageous manner of conducting the war in future. The
severest critic of the present proceedings was Lichas, who said that
neither of the treaties could stand, neither that of Chalcideus, nor
that of Therimenes; it being monstrous that the King should at this
date pretend to the possession of all the country formerly ruled by
himself or by his ancestors—a pretension which implicitly put back
under the yoke all the islands—Thessaly, Locris, and everything as
far as Boeotia—and made the Lacedaemonians give to the Hellenes
instead of liberty a Median master. He therefore invited Tissaphernes
to conclude another and a better treaty, as they certainly would not
recognize those existing and did not want any of his pay upon such
conditions. This offended Tissaphernes so much that he went away in
a rage without settling anything.
_Twentieth and Twenty-first Years of the War - Intrigues of
Alcibiades - Withdrawal of the Persian Subsidies - Oligarchical
Coup d’Etat at Athens - Patriotism of the Army at Samos_
The Peloponnesians now determined to sail to Rhodes, upon the
invitation of some of the principal men there, hoping to gain an
island powerful by the number of its seamen and by its land forces,
and also thinking that they would be able to maintain their fleet from
their own confederacy, without having to ask for money from
Tissaphernes. They accordingly at once set sail that same winter
from Cnidus, and first put in with ninety-four ships at Camirus in the
Rhodian country, to the great alarm of the mass of the inhabitants,
who were not privy to the intrigue, and who consequently fled,
especially as the town was unfortified. They were afterwards, however,
assembled by the Lacedaemonians together with the inhabitants of the
two other towns of Lindus and Ialysus; and the Rhodians were persuaded
to revolt from the Athenians and the island went over to the
Peloponnesians. Meanwhile the Athenians had received the alarm and set
sail with the fleet from Samos to forestall them, and came within
sight of the island, but being a little too late sailed off for the
moment to Chalce, and from thence to Samos, and subsequently waged war
against Rhodes, issuing from Chalce, Cos, and Samos.
The Peloponnesians now levied a contribution of thirty-two talents
from the Rhodians, after which they hauled their ships ashore and
for eighty days remained inactive. During this time, and even earlier,
before they removed to Rhodes, the following intrigues took place.
After the death of Chalcideus and the battle at Miletus, Alcibiades
began to be suspected by the Peloponnesians; and Astyochus received
from Lacedaemon an order from them to put him to death, he being the
personal enemy of Agis, and in other respects thought unworthy of
confidence. Alcibiades in his alarm first withdrew to Tissaphernes,
and immediately began to do all he could with him to injure the
Peloponnesian cause. Henceforth becoming his adviser in everything, he
cut down the pay from an Attic drachma to three obols a day, and
even this not paid too regularly; and told Tissaphernes to say to
the Peloponnesians that the Athenians, whose maritime experience was
of an older date than their own, only gave their men three obols,
not so much from poverty as to prevent their seamen being corrupted by
being too well off, and injuring their condition by spending money
upon enervating indulgences, and also paid their crews irregularly
in order to have a security against their deserting in the arrears
which they would leave behind them. He also told Tissaphernes to bribe
the captains and generals of the cities, and so to obtain their
connivance—an expedient which succeeded with all except the
Syracusans, Hermocrates alone opposing him on behalf of the whole
confederacy. Meanwhile the cities asking for money Alcibiades sent
off, by roundly telling them in the name of Tissaphernes that it was
great impudence in the Chians, the richest people in Hellas, not
content with being defended by a foreign force, to expect others to
risk not only their lives but their money as well in behalf of their
freedom; while the other cities, he said, had had to pay largely to
Athens before their rebellion, and could not justly refuse to
contribute as much or even more now for their own selves. He also
pointed out that Tissaphernes was at present carrying on the war at
his own charges, and had good cause for economy, but that as soon as
he received remittances from the king he would give them their pay
in full and do what was reasonable for the cities.
Alcibiades further advised Tissaphernes not to be in too great a
hurry to end the war, or to let himself be persuaded to bring up the
Phoenician fleet which he was equipping, or to provide pay for more
Hellenes, and thus put the power by land and sea into the same
hands; but to leave each of the contending parties in possession of
one element, thus enabling the king when he found one troublesome to
call in the other. For if the command of the sea and land were
united in one hand, he would not know where to turn for help to
overthrow the dominant power; unless he at last chose to stand up
himself, and go through with the struggle at great expense and hazard.
The cheapest plan was to let the Hellenes wear each other out, at a
small share of the expense and without risk to himself. Besides, he
would find the Athenians the most convenient partners in empire as
they did not aim at conquests on shore, and carried on the war upon
principles and with a practice most advantageous to the King; being
prepared to combine to conquer the sea for Athens, and for the King
all the Hellenes inhabiting his country, whom the Peloponnesians, on
the contrary, had come to liberate. Now it was not likely that the
Lacedaemonians would free the Hellenes from the Hellenic Athenians,
without freeing them also from the barbarian Mede, unless overthrown
by him in the meanwhile. Alcibiades therefore urged him to wear them
both out at first, and, after docking the Athenian power as much as he
could, forthwith to rid the country of the Peloponnesians. In the main
Tissaphernes approved of this policy, so far at least as could be
conjectured from his behaviour; since he now gave his confidence to
Alcibiades in recognition of his good advice, and kept the
Peloponnesians short of money, and would not let them fight at sea,
but ruined their cause by pretending that the Phoenician fleet would
arrive, and that they would thus be enabled to contend with the odds
in their favour, and so made their navy lose its efficiency, which had
been very remarkable, and generally betrayed a coolness in the war
that was too plain to be mistaken.
Alcibiades gave this advice to Tissaphernes and the King, with
whom he then was, not merely because he thought it really the best,
but because he was studying means to effect his restoration to his
country, well knowing that if he did not destroy it he might one day
hope to persuade the Athenians to recall him, and thinking that his
best chance of persuading them lay in letting them see that he
possessed the favour of Tissaphernes. The event proved him to be
right. When the Athenians at Samos found that he had influence with
Tissaphernes, principally of their own motion (though partly also
through Alcibiades himself sending word to their chief men to tell the
best men in the army that, if there were only an oligarchy in the
place of the rascally democracy that had banished him, he would be
glad to return to his country and to make Tissaphernes their
friend), the captains and chief men in the armament at once embraced
the idea of subverting
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