to gratify him most?" Lysander replied, "Add an obol[5] to the
sailors' pay." After this the pay was raised to four instead of three
obols, as it hitherto had been. Nor did the liberality of Cyrus end
here; he not only paid up all arrears, but further gave a month's pay
in advance, so that, if the enthusiasm of the army had been great
before, it was greater than ever now. The Athenians when they heard
the news were proportionately depressed, and by help of Tissaphernes
despatched ambassadors to Cyrus. That prince, however, refused to
receive them, nor were the prayers of Tissaphernes of any avail,
however much he insisted that Cyrus should adopt the policy which he
himself, on the advice of Alcibiades, had persistently acted on. This
was simply not to suffer any single Hellenic state to grow strong at
the expense of the rest, but to keep them all weak alike, distracted
by internecine strife.

[5] An obol = one-sixth of a drachma; the Attic obol = rather more
    than 1 1/2 pence.

Lysander, now that the organisation of his navy was arranged to his
satisfaction, beached his squadron of ninety vessels at Ephesus, and
sat with hands folded, whilst the vessels dried and underwent repairs.
Alcibiades, being informed that Thrasybulus had come south of the
Hellespont and was fortifying Phocaea, sailed across to join him,
leaving his own pilot Antiochus in command of the fleet, with orders
not to attack Lysander's fleet. Antiochus, however, was tempted to
leave Notium and sail into the harbour of Ephesus with a couple of
ships, his own and another, past the prows of Lysander's squadron. The
Spartan at first contented himself with launching a few of his ships,
and started in pursuit of the intruder; but when the Athenians came
out with other vessels to assist Antiochus, he formed his whole
squadron into line of battle, and bore down upon them, whereupon the
Athenians followed suit, and getting their remaining triremes under
weigh at Notium, stood out to sea as fast as each vessel could clear
the point.[6] Thus it befell in the engagement which ensued, that
while the enemy was in due order, the Athenians came up in scattered
detachments and without concert, and in the end were put to flight
with the loss of fifteen ships of war. Of the crews, indeed, the
majority escaped, though a certain number fell into the hands of the
enemy. Then Lysander collected his vessels, and having erected a
trophy on Cape Notium, sailed across to Ephesus, whilst the Athenians
retired to Samos.

[6] {os ekastos enoixen}, for this nautical term see above.

On his return to Samos a little later, Alcibiades put out to sea with
the whole squadron in the direction of the harbour of Ephesus. At the
mouth of the harbour he marshalled his fleet in battle order, and
tried to tempt the enemy to an engagement; but as Lysander, conscious
of his inferiority in numbers, refused to accept the challenge, he
sailed back again to Samos. Shortly after this the Lacedaemonians
captured Delphinium and Eion.[7]

[7] This should probably be Teos, in Ionia, in spite of the MSS.
    {'Eiona}. The place referred to cannot at any rate be the well-
    known Eion at the mouth of the Strymon in Thrace.

But now the news of the late disaster at Notium had reached the
Athenians at home, and in their indignation they turned upon
Alcibiades, to whose negligence and lack of self-command they
attributed the destruction of the ships. Accordingly they chose ten
new generals--namely Conon, Diomedon, Leon, Pericles, Erasinides,
Aristocrates, Archestratus, Protomachus, Thrasylus, and Aristogenes.
Alcibiades, who was moreover in bad odour in the camp, sailed away
with a single trireme to his private fortress in the Chersonese.

After this Conon, in obedience to a decree of the Athenian people, set
sail from Andros with the twenty vessels under his command in that
island to Samos, and took command of the whole squadron. To fill the
place thus vacated by Conon, Phanosthenes was sent to Andros with four
ships. That captain was fortunate enough to intercept and capture two
Thurian ships of war, crews and all, and these captives were all
imprisoned by the Athenians, with the exception of their leader
Dorieus. He was the Rhodian, who some while back had been banished
from Athens and from his native city by the Athenians, when sentence
of death was passed upon him and his family. This man, who had once
enjoyed the right of citizenship among them, they now took pity on and
released him without ransom.

When Conon had reached Samos he found the armament in a state of great
despondency. Accordingly his first measure was to man seventy ships
with their full complement, instead of the former hundred and odd
vessels. With this squadron he put to sea accompanied by the other
generals, and confined himself to making descents first at one point
and then at another of the enemy's territory, and to collecting
plunder.

And so the year drew to its close: a year signalled further by an
invasion of Sicily by the Carthaginians, with one hundred and twenty
ships of war and a land force of one hundred and twenty thousand men,
which resulted in the capture of Agrigentum. The town was finally
reduced to famine after a siege of seven months, the invaders having
previously been worsted in battle and forced to sit down before its
walls for so long a time.

VI

B.C. 406. In the following year--the year of the evening eclipse of
the moon, and the burning of the old temple of Athena[1] at Athens[2]
--the Lacedaemonians sent out Callicratidas to replace Lysander, whose
period of office had now expired.[3] Lysander, when surrendering the
squadron to his successor, spoke of himself as the winner of a sea
fight, which had left him in undisputed mastery of the sea, and with
this boast he handed over the ships to Callicratidas, who retorted,
"If you will convey the fleet from Ephesus, keeping Samos[4] on your
right" (that is, past where the Athenian navy lay), "and hand it over
to me at Miletus, I will admit that you are master of the sea." But
Lysander had no mind to interfere in the province of another officer.
Thus Callicratidas assumed responsibility. He first manned, in
addition to the squadron which he received from Lysander, fifty new
vessels furnished by the allies from Chios and Rhodes and elsewhere.
When all these contingents were assembled, they formed a total of one
hundred and forty sail, and with these he began making preparations
for engagement with the enemy. But it was impossible for him not to
note the strong current of opposition which he encountered from the
friends of Lysander. Not only was there lack of zeal in their service,
but they openly disseminated an opinion in the States, that it was the
greatest possible blunder on the part of the Lacedaemonians so to
change their admirals. Of course, they must from time to time get
officers altogether unfit for the post--men whose nautical knowledge
dated from yesterday, and who, moreover, had no notion of dealing with
human beings. It would be very odd if this practice of sending out
people ignorant of the sea and unknown to the folk of the country did
not lead to some catastrophe. Callicratidas at once summoned the
Lacedaemonians there present, and addressed them in the following
terms:--

[1] I.e. as some think, the Erechtheion, which was built partly on the
    site of the old temple of Athena Polias, destroyed by the
    Persians. According to Dr. Dorpfeld, a quite separate building of
    the Doric order, the site of which (S. of the Erechtheion) has
    lately been discovered.

[2] The MSS. here add "in the ephorate of Pityas and the archonship of
    Callias at Athens;" but though the date is probably correct (cf.
    Leake, "Topography of Athens," vol. i. p. 576 foll.), the words
    are almost certainly a gloss.

[3] Here the MSS. add "with the twenty-fourth year of the war,"
    probably an annotator's gloss; the correct date should be twenty-
    fifth. Pel. war 26 = B.C. 406. Pel. war 25 ended B.C. 407.

[4] Lit. on the left (or east) of Samos, looking south from Ephesus.

"For my part," he said, "I am content to stay at home: and if Lysander
or any one else claim greater experience in nautical affairs than I
possess, I have no desire to block his path. Only, being sent out by
the State to take command of this fleet, I do not know what is left to
me, save to carry out my instructions to the best of my ability. For
yourselves, all I beg of you, in reference to my personal ambitions
and the kind of charges brought against our common city, and of which
you are as well aware as I am, is to state what you consider to be the
best course: am I to stay where I am, or shall I sail back home, and
explain the position of affairs out here?"

No one ventured to suggest any other course than that he should obey
the authorities, and do what he was sent to do. Callicratidas then
went up to the court of Cyrus to ask for further pay for the sailors,
but the answer he got from Cyrus was that he should wait for two days.
Callicratidas was annoyed at the rebuff: to dance attendance at the
palace gates was little to his taste. In a fit of anger he cried out
at the sorry condition of the Hellenes, thus forced to flatter the
barbarian for the sake of money. "If ever I get back home," he added,
"I will do what in me lies to reconcile the Athenians and the
Lacedaemonians." And so he turned and sailed back to Miletus. From
Miletus he sent some triremes to Lacedaemon to get money, and
convoking the public assembly of the Milesians, addressed them thus:--

"Men of Miletus, necessity is laid upon me to obey the rulers at home;
but for yourselves, whose neighbourhood to the barbarians has exposed
you to many evils at their hands, I only ask you to let your zeal in
the war bear some proportion to your former sufferings. You should set
an example to the rest of the allies, and show us how to inflict the
sharpest and swiftest injury on our enemy, whilst we await the return
from Lacedaemon of my envoys with the necessary funds. Since one of
the last acts of Lysander, before he left us, was to hand back to
Cyrus the funds already on the spot, as though we could well dispense
with them. I was thus forced to turn to Cyrus, but all I got from him
was a series of rebuffs; he refused me an audience, and, for my part,
I could not induce myself to hang about his gates like a mendicant.
But I give you my word, men of Miletus, that in return for any
assistance which you can render us while waiting for these aids, I
will requite you richly. Only by God's help let us show these
barbarians that we do not need to worship them, in order to punish our
foes."

The speech was effective; many members of the assembly arose, and not
the least eagerly those who were accused of opposing him. These, in
some terror, proposed a vote of money, backed by offers of further
private contributions. Furnished with these sums, and having procured
from Chios a further remittance of five drachmas[5] a piece as outfit
for each seaman, he set sail to Methyma in Lesbos, which was in the
hands of the enemy. But as the Methymnaeans were not disposed to come
over to him (since there was an Athenian garrison in the place, and
the men at the head of affairs were partisans of Athens), he assaulted
and took the place by storm. All the property within accordingly
became the spoil of the soldiers. The prisoners were collected for
sale by Callicratidas in the market-place, where, in answer to the
demand of the allies, who called upon him to sell the Methymnaeans
also, he made answer, that as long as he was in command, not a single
Hellene should be enslaved if he could help it. The next day he set at