Hellenica

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[11] See Lys. xix. "de bon. Arist." 19 foll.; and Hicks, 71, "Honours
to Dionysios I. and his court"; Grote, "H. G." ix. 453.

[12] Mod. Kalamata.

But Conon had a proposal to make:--If Pharnabazus would allow him to
keep the fleet, he would undertake, in the first place, to support it
free of expense from the islands; besides which, he would sail to his
own country and help his fellow-citizens the Athenians to rebuild
their long walls and the fortifications round Piraeus. No heavier
blow, he insisted, could well be inflicted on Lacedaemon. "In this
way, I can assure you," he added, "you will win the eternal gratitude
of the Athenians and wreak consummate vengeance on the Lacedaemonians,
since at one stroke you will render null and void that on which they
have bestowed their utmost labour." These arguments so far weighed
with Pharnabazus that he despatched Conon to Athens with alacrity, and
further supplied him with funds for the restoration of the walls. Thus
it was that Conon, on his arrival at Athens, was able to rebuild a
large portion of the walls--partly by lending his own crews, and
partly by giving pay to carpenters and stone-masons, and meeting all
the necessary expenses. There were other portions of the walls which
the Athenians and Boeotians and other states raised as a joint
voluntary undertaking.

Nor must it be forgotten that the Corinthians, with the funds left
them by Pharnabazus, manned a fleet--the command of which they
entrusted to their admiral Agathinus--and so were undisputed masters
of the sea within the gulf round Achaia and Lechaeum.

B.C. 393-391. The Lacedaemonians, in opposition, fitted out a fleet
under the command of Podanemus. That officer, in an attack of no great
moment, lost his life, and Pollis,[13] his second in command, was
presently in his turn obliged to retire, being wounded, whereupon
Herippidas took command of the vessels. On the other hand, Proaenus
the Corinthian, who had relieved Agathinus, evacuated Rhium, and the
Lacedaemonians recovered that post. Subsequently Teleutias succeeded
to Herippidas's fleet, and it was then the turn of that admiral to
dominate the gulf.[14]

[13] See "Hell." I. i. 23.

[14] According to Grote ("H. G." ix. 471, note 2), this section
summarises the Lacedaemonian maritime operations in the Corinthian
Gulf from the late autumn of 393 B.C. till the appointment of
Teleutias in the spring or early summer of 391 B.C., the year of
the expedition of Agesilaus recounted above, "Hell." IV. iv. 19.

B.C. 392. The Lacedaemonians were well informed of the proceedings of
Conon. They knew that he was not only restoring the fortifications of
Athens by help of the king's gold, but maintaining a fleet at his
expense besides, and conciliating the islands and seaboard cities
towards Athens. If, therefore, they could indoctrinate Tiribazus--who
was a general of the king--with their sentiments, they believed they
could not fail either to draw him aside to their own interests, or, at
any rate, to put a stop to his feeding Conon's navy. With this
intention they sent Antalcidas to Tiribazus:[15] his orders were to
carry out this policy and, if possible, to arrange a peace between
Lacedaemon and the king. The Athenians, getting wind of this, sent a
counter-embassy, consisting of Hermogenes, Dion, Callisthenes, and
Callimedon, with Conon himself. They at the same time invited the
attendance of ambassadors from the allies, and there were also present
representatives of the Boeotians, of Corinth, and of Argos. When they
had arrived at their destination, Antalcidas explained to Tiribazus
the object of his visit: he wished, if possible, to cement a peace
between the state he represented and the king--a peace, moreover,
exactly suited to the aspirations of the king himself; in other words,
the Lacedaemonians gave up all claim to the Hellenic cities in Asia as
against the king, while for their own part they were content that all
the islands and other cities should be independent. "Such being our
unbiassed wishes," he continued, "for what earthly reason should [the
Hellenes or] the king go to war with us? or why should he expend his
money? The king is guaranteed against attack on the part of Hellas,
since the Athenians are powerless apart from our hegemony, and we are
powerless so long as the separate states are independent." The
proposals of Antalcidas sounded very pleasantly in the ears of
Tiribazus, but to the opponents of Sparta they were the merest talk.
The Athenians were apprehensive of an agreement which provided for the
independence of the cities in the islands, whereby they might be
deprived of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros. The Thebans, again, were
afraid of being compelled to let the Boeotian states go free. The
Argives did not see how such treaty contracts and covenants were
compatible with the realisation of their own great object--the
absorption of Corinth by Argos. And so it came to pass that this
peace[16] proved abortive, and the representatives departed each to
his own home.

[15] See Plut. "Ages." xxiii. (Clough, iv. p. 27); and for the date
B.C. 392 (al. B.C. 393) see Grote, "H. G." ix. 498.

[16] See Andoc. "de Pace"; Jebb, "Attic Or." i. 83, 128 foll. Prof.
Jebb assigns this speech to B.C. 390 rather than B.C. 391. See
also Grote, "H. G." ix. 499; Diod. xiv. 110.

Tiribazus, on his side, thought it hardly consistent with his own
safety to adopt the cause of the Lacedaemonians without the
concurrence of the king--a scruple which did not prevent him from
privately presenting Antalcidas with a sum of money, in hopes that
when the Athenians and their allies discovered that the Lacedaemonians
had the wherewithal to furnish a fleet, they might perhaps be more
disposed to desire peace. Further, accepting the statements of the
Lacedaemonians as true, he took on himself to secure the person of
Conon, as guilty of wrongdoing towards the king, and shut him up.[17]
That done, he set off up country to the king to recount the proposals
of Lacedaemon, with his own subsequent capture of Conon as a
mischievous man, and to ask for further guidance on all these matters.

[17] See Diod. xiv. 85; and Corn. Nep. 5.

On the arrival of Tiribazus at the palace, the king sent down Struthas
to take charge of the seaboard district. The latter, however, was a
strong partisan of Athens and her allies, since he found it impossible
to forget the long list of evils which the king's country had suffered
at the hands of Agesilaus; so that the Lacedaemonians, contrasting the
hostile disposition of the new satrap towards themselves with his
friendliness to the Athenians, sent Thibron to deal with him by force
of arms.

B.C. 391.[18] That general crossed over and established his base of
operations in Ephesus and the towns in the plain of the Maeander--
Priene, Leucophrys, and Achilleum--and proceeded to harry the king's
territory, sparing neither live nor dead chattels. But as time went
on, Struthas, who could not but note the disorderly, and indeed
recklessly scornful manner in which the Lacedaemonian brought up his
supports on each occasion, despatched a body of cavalry into the
plain. Their orders were to gallop down and scour the plain, making a
clean sweep[19] of all they could lay their hands on. Thibron, as it
befell, had just finished breakfast, and was returning to the mess
with Thersander the flute-player. The latter was not only a good
flute-player, but, as affecting Lacedaemonian manners, laid claim to
personal prowess. Struthas, then, seeing the disorderly advance of the
supports and the paucity of the vanguard, appeared suddenly at the
head of a large body of cavalry, all in orderly array. Thibron and
Thersander were the first to be cut down, and when these had fallen
the rest of the troops were easily turned. A mere chase ensued, in
which man after man was felled to earth, though a remnant contrived to
escape into the friendly cities; still larger numbers owed their
safety to their late discovery of the business on hand. Nor, indeed,
was this the first time the Spartan commander had rushed to the field,
without even issuing a general order. So ends the history of these
events.

[18] Al. B.C. 392, al. B.C. 390.

[19] See "Hell." VII. i. 40; "Cyrop." I. iv. 17; III. iii. 23; "Anab."
VI. iii. 3.

B.C. 390.[20] We pass on to the arrival at Lacedaemon of a party of
Rhodian exiles expelled by the popular party. They insisted that it
was not equitable to allow the Athenians to subjugate Rhodes and thus
build up so vast a power. The Lacedaemonians were alive to the fact
that the fate of Rhodes depended on which party in the state
prevailed: if the democracy were to dominate, the whole island must
fall into the hands of Athens; if the wealthier classes,[21] into
their own. Accordingly they fitted out for them a fleet of eight
vessels, and put Ecdicus in command of it as admiral.

[20] Grote, "H. G." ix. 504; al. B.C. 391.

[21] Or, "the Lacedaemonians were not slow to perceive that the whole
island of Rhodes was destined to fall either into the hands of
Athens or of themselves, according as the democracy or the
wealthier classes respectively dominated."

At the same time they despatched another officer on board these
vessels named Diphridas, on a separate mission. His orders were to
cross over into Asia and to secure the states which had received
Thibron. He was also to pick up the survivors of Thibron's army, and
with these troops, aided by a second army which he would collect from
any other quarter open to him, he was to prosecute the war against
Struthas. Diphridas followed out his instructions, and amongst other
achievements was fortunate enough to capture Tigranes,[22] the son-in-
law of Struthas, with his wife, on their road to Sardis. The sum paid
for their ransom was so large that he at once had the wherewithal to
pay his mercenaries. Diphridas was no less attractive than his
predecessor Thibron; but he was of a more orderly temperament,
steadier, and incomparably more enterprising as a general; the secret
of this superiority being that he was a man over whom the pleasures of
the body exercised no sway. He became readily absorbed in the business
before him--whatever he had to do he did it with a will.

[22] See "Anab." VII. viii. 9 for a similar exploit.

Ecdicus having reached Cnidus, there learned that the democracy in
Rhones were entirely masters of the situation. They were dominant by
land and sea; indeed they possessed a fleet twice the size of his own.
He was therefore content to keep quiet in Cnidus until the
Lacedaemonians, perceiving that his force was too small to allow him
to benefit their friends, determined to relieve him. With this view
they ordered Teleutias to take the twelve ships which formed his
squadron (at present in the gulf adjoining Achaia and Lechaeum),[23]
and to feel his way round to Ecdicus: that officer he was to send
home. For himself, he was to undertake personally to protect the
interests of all who cared to be their friends, whilst injuring the
enemy by every possible means.

[23] See above, IV. viii. 11.

So then Teleutias, having reached Samos, where he added some vessels
to his fleet, set sail to Cnidus. At this point Ecdicus returned home,
and Teleutias, continuing his voyage, reached Rhodes, at the head now
of seven-and-twenty vessels. It was during this portion of the voyage
that he fell in with Philocrates, the son of Ephialtes, who was
sailing from Athens to Cyprus with ten triremes, in aid of their ally
Evagoras.[24] The whole flotilla fell into the Spartan's hands--a
curious instance, it may be added, of cross purposes on the part of
both belligerents. Here were the Athenians, supposed to be on friendly
terms with the king, engaged in sending an allied force to support
Evagoras, who was at open war with him; and here again was Teleutias,
the representative of a people at war with Persia, engaged in
crippling a fleet which had been despatched on a mission hostile to
their adversary. Teleutias put back into Cnidus to dispose of his
captives, and so eventually reached Rhodes, where his arrival brought
timely aid to the party in favour of Lacedaemon.

[24] See Diod. xiv. 98; Hicks, 72; Kohler, "C. I. A." ii. p. 397;
Isoc. "Evag." 54-57; Paus. I. iii. 1; Lys. "de bon. Ar." 20; Dem.
p. 161.

B.C. 389.[25] And now the Athenians, fully impressed with the belief
that their rivals were laying the basis of a new naval supremacy,
despatched Thrasybulus the Steirian to check them, with a fleet of
forty sail. That officer set sail, but abstained from bringing aid to
Rhodes, and for good reasons. In Rhodes the Lacedaemonian party had
hold of the fortress, and would be out of reach of his attack,
especially as Teleutias was close at hand to aid them with his fleet.
On the other hand, his own friends ran no danger of succumbing to the
enemy, as they held the cities and were numerically much stronger, and
they had established their superiority in the field. Consequently he
made for the Hellespont, where, in the absence of any rival power, he
hoped to achieve some stroke of good fortune for his city. Thus, in
the first place, having detected the rivalries existing between
Medocus,[26] the king of the Odrysians, and Seuthes,[27] the rival
ruler of the seaboard, he reconciled them to each other, and made them
friends and allies of Athens; in the belief that if he secured their
friendship the Hellenic cities on the Thracian coast would show
greater proclivity to Athens. Such being the happy state of affairs
not only in Europe but as regards the states in Asia also, thanks to
the friendly attitude of the king to his fellow-citizens, he sailed
into Byzantium and sold the tithe-duty levied on vessels arriving from
the Euxine. By another stroke he converted the oligarchy of Byzantium
into a democracy. The result of this was that the Byzantine demos[28]
were no longer sorry to see as vast a concourse of Athenians in their
city as possible. Having so done, and having further won the
friendship of the men of Calchedon, he set sail south of the
Hellespont. Arrived at Lesbos, he found all the cities devoted to
Lacedaemon with the exception of Mytilene. He was therefore loth to
attack any of the former until he had organised a force within the
latter. This force consisted of four hundred hoplites, furnished from
his own vessels, and a corps of exiles from the different cities who
had sought shelter in Mytilene; to which he added a stout contingent,
the pick of the Mytileneian citizens themselves. He stirred the ardour
of the several contingents by suitable appeals: representing to the
men of Mytilene that by their capture of the cities they would at once
become the chiefs and patrons of Lesbos; to the exiles he made it
appear that if they would but unite to attack each several city in
turn, they might all reckon on their particular restoration; while he
needed only to remind his own warriors that the acquisition of Lesbos
meant not only the attachment of a friendly city, but the discovery of
a mine of wealth. The exhortations ended and the contingents
organised, he advanced against Methymna.

[25] Grote, "H. G." ix. 507.

[26] Al. Amedocus.

[27] For Seuthes, see above, "Hell." III. ii. 2, if the same.

[28] For the varying fortunes of the democrats at Byzantium in 408
B.C. and 405 B.C., see above, "Hell." I. iii. 18; II. ii. 2); for
the present moment, 390-389 B.C., see Demosth. "c. Lept." 475; for
the admission of Byzantium into the new naval confederacy in 378
B.C., see Hicks, 68; Kohler, "C. I. A." ii. 19; and for B.C. 363,
Isocr. "Phil." 53; Diod. xv. 79; and for its commercial
prosperity, Polyb. iv. 38-47.

Therimachus, who chanced to be the Lacedaemonian governor at the time,
on hearing of the meditated attack of Thrasybulus, had taken a body of
marines from his vessels, and, aided by the citizens of Methymna
themselves, along with all the Mytileneian exiles to be found in that
place, advanced to meet the enemy on their borders. A battle was
fought and Therimachus was slain, a fate shared by several of the
exiles of his party.

As a result[29] of his victory the Athenian general succeeded in
winning the adhesion of some of the states; or, where adhesion was
refused, he could at least raise supplies for his soldiers by
freebooting expeditions, and so hastened to reach his goal, which was
the island of Rhodes. His chief concern was to support as powerful an
army as possible in those parts, and with this object he proceeded to
levy money aids, visiting various cities, until he finally reached
Aspendus, and came to moorings in the river Eurymedon. The money was
safely collected from the Aspendians, and the work completed, when,
taking occasion of some depredations[30] of the soldiers on the
farmsteads, the people of the place in a fit of irritation burst into
the general's quarters at night and butchered him in his tent.

[29] According to some critics, B.C. 389 is only now reached.

[30] See Diod. xiv. 94.

So perished Thrasybulus,[31] a good and great man by all admission. In
room of him the Athenians chose Agyrrhius,[32] who was despatched to
take command of the fleet. And now the Lacedaemonians--alive to the
fact that the sale of the Euxine tithe-dues had been negotiated in
Byzantium by Athens; aware also that as long as the Athenians kept
hold on Calchedon the loyalty of the other Hellespontine cities was
secured to them (at any rate while Pharnabazus remained their friend)
--felt that the state of affairs demanded their serious attention.
They attached no blame indeed to Dercylidas. Anaxibius, however,
through the friendship of the ephors, contrived to get himself
appointed as governor, on a mission to Abydos. With the requisite
funds and ships, he promised to exert such hostile pressure upon
Athens that at least her prospects in the Hellespont would cease to be
so sunny. His friends the ephors granted him in return for these
promises three ships of war and funds to support a thousand
mercenaries, and so they despatched him on his mission. Reaching
Abydos, he set about improving his naval and military position. First
he collected a foreign brigade, by help of which he drew off some of
the Aeolid cities from Pharnabazus. Next he set on foot a series of
retaliatory expeditions against the states which attacked Abydos,
marching upon them and ravaging their territories; and lastly, manning
three vessels besides those which he already held in the harbour of
Abydos, he intercepted and brought into port all the merchant ships of
Athens or of her allies which he could lay hands on.

[31] "Thus perished the citizen to whom, more than any one else,
Athens owed not only her renovated democracy, but its wise,
generous, and harmonious working, after renovation."--Grote, "H.
G." ix. 509.

[32] For this statesman, see Demosth. "c. Timocr." 742; Andoc. "de
Myst." 133; Aristot. "Ath. Pol." 41, and Mr. Kenyon's notes ad
loc.; Aristoph. "Eccles." 102, and the Schol. ad loc.; Diod. xiv.
99; Curtius, "H. G." Eng tr. iv. 280.

Getting wind of these proceedings, the Athenians, fearing lest the
fair foundation laid for them by Thrasybulus in the Hellespont should
be ruined, sent out Iphicrates with eight vessels and twelve hundred
peltasts. The majority of them[33] consisted of troops which he had
commanded at Corinth. In explanation it may be stated that the
Argives, when once they had appropriated Corinth and incorporated it
with Argos, gave out they had no further need of Iphicrates and his
troops; the real fact being that he had put to death some of the
partisans of Argos.[34] And so it was he turned his back on Corinth
and found himself at home in Athens at the present crisis.

[33] Or, "The mass of them."

[34] See Grote, "H. G." ix. p. 491 note. The "Argolising" or philo-
Argeian party, as opposed to the philo-Laconian party. See above,
"Hell." IV. iv. 6.

B.C. 389-388. When Iphicrates first reached the Chersonese he and
Anaxibius carried on war against each other by the despatch of
guerilla or piratic bands across the straits. But as time wore on,
information reached him of the departure of Anaxibius to Antandrus,
accompanied by his mercenaries and his own bodyguard of Laconians and
two hundred Abydenian hoplites. Hearing further that Anaxibius had won
the friendly adhesion of Antandrus, Iphicrates conjectured that after
establishing a garrison in that place he would make the best of his
way back, if only to bring the Abydenians home again. He therefore
crossed in the night, selecting a desert point on the Abydene coast,
from which he scaled the hills above the town and planted himself in
ambuscade within their folds. The triremes which brought him across
had orders at break of day to coast up northwards along the
Chersonese, which would suggest the notion that he was only out on one
of his customary voyages to collect money. The sequel more than
fulfilled his expectations. Anaxibius began his return march, and if
report speaks truly, he did so notwithstanding that the victims were
against his marching that day; contemptuously disregarding the
warning, and satisfied that his march lay all along through a friendly
country and was directed to a friendly city. Besides which, those whom
he met assured him that Iphicrates was off on a voyage to Proconnesus:
hence the unusual absence of precaution on the march. On his side
Iphicrates saw the chance, but, so long as the troops of Anaxibius
lingered on the level bottoms, refused to spring from his lair,
waiting for the moment when the Abydenian division in the van was
safely landed in the plain of Cremaste, at the point where the gold
mines stand; the main column following on the downward slope, and
Anaxibius with his Laconians just beginning the descent. At that
instant Iphicrates set his ambuscade in motion, and dashed against the
Spartan at full speed. The latter quickly discerned that there was no
hope of escape as he scanned the long straggling line of his
attenuated column. The troops in advance, he was persuaded, would
never be able to come back to his aid up the face of that acclivity;
besides which, he observed the utter bewilderment of the whole body at
sight of the ambuscade. He therefore turned to those next him, and
spoke as follows: "Sirs, it is good for me to die on this spot, where
honour bids me; but for you, sirs, yonder your path lies, haste and
save yourselves[35] before the enemy can close with us." As the words
died on his lips he took from the hands of his attendant shield-bearer
his heavy shield, and there, at his post, unflinchingly fought and
fell; not quite alone, for by his side faithfully lingered a favourite
youth, and of the Lacedaemonian governors who had rallied to Abydos
from their several cities yet other twelve fought and fell beside the
pair. The rest fled, dropping down one by one as the army pursued them
to the walls of the city. The death-roll amounted to something like
fifty hoplites of the Abydenians, and of the rest two hundred. After
this exploit Iphicrates returned to the Chersonese.[36]

[35] Or, "sauve qui peut."

[36] See Hicks, 76; and below, "Hell." V. i. 31.

BOOK V

I

B.C. 388. Such was the state of affairs in the Hellespont, so far at
least as Athens and Sparta are concerned. Eteonicus was once more in
Aegina; and notwithstanding that the Aeginetans and Athenians had up
to this time held commercial intercourse, yet now that the war was
plainly to be fought out on the sea, that officer, with the
concurrence of the ephorate, gave permission to any one who liked to
plunder Attica.[1] The Athenians retaliated by despatching a body of
hoplites under their general Pamphilus, who constructed a fort against
the Aeginetans,[2] and proceeded to blockade them by land and sea with
ten warships. Teleutias, however, while threading his way among the
islands in question of contributions, had chanced to reach a point
where he received information of the turn in affairs with regard to
the construction of the fortress, whereupon he came to the rescue of
the beleaguered Aeginetans, and so far succeeded that he drove off the
enemy's blockading squadron. But Pamphilus kept a firm hold on the
offensive fortress, and was not to be dislodged.

[1] Or, "determined to let slip the hounds of war;" or, more
prosaically, "issued letters of marque." See Grote, "H. G." ix.
517.

[2] I.e. in Aegina as an {epiteikhisma}.

After this the new admiral Hierax arrived from Lacedaemon. The naval
force was transferred into his successor's hands, and under the
happiest auspices Teleutias set sail for home. As he descended to the
seashore to start on his homeward voyage there was not one among his
soldiers who had not a warm shake of the hand for their old admiral.
Here one presented him with a crown, and there another with a victor's
wreath; and those who arrived too late, still, as the ship weighed
anchor, threw garlands into the sea and wafted him many a blessing
with prayerful lips. I am well aware that in the above incident I have
no memorable story of munificence, peril, or invention to narrate, but
in all sincerity I protest that a man may find food for reflection in
the inquiry what Teleutias had done to create such a disposition in
his subordinates. Here we are brought face to face with a true man's
work more worthy of account than multitudes of riches or adventure.[3]

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