The good pay and hearty coöperation which the Peloponnesians now enjoyed from Pharnabazus, only made them the more indignant at the previous deceit of Tissaphernês. Under the influence of this sentiment, they readily lent aid to the inhabitants of Antandrus in expelling his general Arsakes with the Persian garrison. Arsakes had recently committed an act of murderous perfidy, under the influence of some unexplained pique, against the Delians established at Adramyttium: he had summoned their principal citizens to take part as allies in an expedition, and had caused them all to be surrounded, shot down, and massacred during the morning meal. Such an act was more than sufficient to excite hatred and alarm among the neighboring Antandrians, who invited a body of Peloponnesian hoplites from Abydos, across the mountain range of Ida, by whose aid Antandrus was liberated from the Persians.[155]
In Milêtus, as well as in Knidus, Tissaphernês had already experienced the like humiliation:[156] Lichas was no longer alive to back his pretensions: nor do we hear that he obtained any result from the complaints of his envoy Gaulites at Sparta. Under these circumstances, he began to fear that he had incurred a weight of enmity which might prove seriously mischievous, nor was he without jealousy of the popularity and possible success of Pharnabazus. The delusion respecting the Phenician fleet, now that Mindarus had openly broken with him and quitted Milêtus, was no longer available to any useful purpose. Accordingly, he dismissed the Phenician fleet to their own homes, pretending to have received tidings that the Phenician towns were endangered by sudden attacks from Arabia and Egypt;[157] while he himself quitted Aspendus to revisit Ionia, as well as to go forward to the Hellespont, for the purpose of renewing personal intercourse with the dissatisfied Peloponnesians. He wished, while trying again to excuse his own treachery about the Phenician fleet, at the same time to protest against their recent proceedings at Antandrus; or, at the least, to obtain some assurance against any repetition of such hostility. His visit to Ionia, however, seems to have occupied some time, and he tried to conciliate the Ionic Greeks by a splendid sacrifice to Artemis at Ephesus.[158] Having quitted Aspendus, as far as we can make out, about the beginning of August (411 B.C.), he did not reach the Hellespont until the month of November.[159]
As soon as the Phenician fleet had disappeared, Alkibiadês returned with his thirteen triremes from Phasêlis to Samos. He too, like Tissaphernês, made the proceeding subservient to deceit of his own: he took credit with his countrymen for having enlisted the good-will of the satrap more strongly than ever in the cause of Athens, and for having induced him to abandon his intention of bringing up the Phenician fleet.[160] At this time Dorieus was at Rhodes with thirteen triremes, having been despatched by Mindarus, before his departure from Milêtus, in order to stifle the growth of a philo-Athenian party in the island. Perhaps the presence of this force may have threatened the Athenian interest in Kos and Halikarnassus; for we now find Alkibiadês going to these places from Samos, with nine fresh triremes in addition to his own thirteen. He erected fortifications at the town of Kos, and planted in it an Athenian officer and garrison: from Halikarnassus he levied large contributions; upon what pretence, or whether from simple want of money, we do not know. It was towards the middle of September that he returned to Samos.[161]
At the Hellespont, Mindarus had been reinforced after the battle of Kynossêma by the squadron from Eubœa, at least by that portion of it which had escaped the storm off Mount Athos. The departure of the Peloponnesian fleet from Eubœa enabled the Athenians also to send a few more ships to their fleet at Sestos. Thus ranged on the opposite sides of the strait, the two fleets came to a second action, wherein the Peloponnesians, under Agesandridas, had the advantage; yet with little fruit. It was about the month of October, seemingly, that Dorieus with his fourteen triremes came from Rhodes to rejoin Mindarus at the Hellespont. He had hoped probably to get up the strait to Abydos during the night, but he was caught by daylight a little way from the entrance, near Rhœteium; and the Athenian scouts instantly gave signal of his approach. Twenty Athenian triremes were despatched to attack him: upon which Dorieus fled, and sought safety by hauling his vessel ashore in the receding bay near Dardanus. The Athenian squadron here attacked him, but were repulsed and forced to sail back to Madytus. Mindarus was himself a spectator of this scene, from a distance; being engaged in sacrificing to Athênê, on the venerated hill of Ilium. He immediately hastened to Abydos, where he fitted out his whole fleet of eighty-four triremes, Pharnabazus coöperating on the shore with his land-force. Having rescued the ships of Dorieus, his next care was to resist the entire Athenian fleet, which presently came to attack him under Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus. An obstinate naval combat took place between the two fleets, which lasted nearly the whole day with doubtful issue; at length, towards the evening, twenty fresh triremes were seen approaching. They proved to be the squadron of Alkibiadês sailing from Samos: having probably heard of the rejunction of the squadron of Dorieus with the main Peloponnesian fleet, he had come with his own counter-balancing reinforcement.[162] As soon as his purple flag or signal was ascertained, the Athenian fleet became animated with redoubled spirit. The new-comers aided them in pressing the action so vigorously, that the Peloponnesian fleet was driven back to Abydos, and there run ashore. Here the Athenians still followed up their success, and endeavored to tow them all off. But the Persian land-force protected them, and Pharnabazus himself was seen foremost in the combat; even pushing into the water in person, as far as his horse could stand. The main Peloponnesian fleet was thus preserved; yet the Athenians retired with an important victory, carrying off thirty triremes as prizes, and retaking those which they had themselves lost in the two preceding actions.[163]
Mindarus kept his defeated fleet unemployed at Abydos during the winter, sending to Peloponnesus as well as among his allies to solicit reinforcements: in the mean time, he engaged jointly with Pharnabazus in operations by land against various Athenian allies on the continent. The Athenian admirals, on their side, instead of keeping their fleet united to prosecute the victory, were compelled to disperse a large portion of it in flying squadrons, for collecting money, retaining only forty sail at Sestos; while Thrasyllus in person went to Athens to proclaim the victory and ask for reinforcements. Pursuant to this request, thirty triremes were sent out under Theramenês; who first endeavored without success to impede the construction of the bridge between Eubœa and Bœotia, and next sailed on a voyage among the islands for the purpose of collecting money. He acquired considerable plunder by descents upon hostile territory, and also extorted money from various parties, either contemplating or supposed to contemplate revolt, among the dependencies of Athens. At Paros, where the oligarchy established by Peisander in the conspiracy of the Four Hundred still subsisted, Theramenês deposed and fined the men who had exercised it, establishing a democracy in their room. From hence he passed to Macedonia, to the assistance and probably into the temporary pay of Archelaus, king of Macedonia, whom he aided for some time in the siege of Pydna; blocking up the town by sea while the Macedonians besieged it by land. The blockade having lasted the whole winter, Theramenês was summoned away before its capture, to join the main Athenian fleet in Thrace: Archelaus, however, took Pydna not long afterwards, and transported the town with its residents from the seaboard to a distance more than two miles inland.[164] We trace in all these proceedings the evidence of that terrible want of money which now drove the Athenians to injustice, extortion, and interference with their allies, such as they had never committed during the earlier years of the war.
It is at this period that we find mention made of a fresh intestine commotion in Korkyra, less stained, however, with savage enormities than that recounted in the seventh year of the war. It appears that the oligarchical party in the island, which had been for the moment nearly destroyed at that period, had since gained strength, and was encouraged by the misfortunes of Athens to lay plans for putting the island into the hands of the Lacedæmonians. The democratical leaders, apprized of this conspiracy, sent to Naupaktus for the Athenian admiral Konon. He came, with a detachment of six hundred Messenians, by the aid of whom they seized the oligarchical conspirators in the market-place, putting a few to death, and banishing more than a thousand. The extent of their alarm is attested by the fact, that they liberated the slaves and conferred the right of citizenship upon the foreigners. The exiles, having retired to the opposite continent, came back shortly afterwards, and were admitted, by the connivance of a party within, into the market-place. A serious combat took place within the walls, which was at last made up by a compromise and by the restoration of the exiles.[165] We know nothing about the particulars of this compromise, but it seems to have been wisely drawn up and faithfully observed; for we hear nothing about Korkyra until about thirty-five years after this period, and the island is then presented to us as in the highest perfection of cultivation and prosperity.[166] Doubtless the emancipation of slaves and the admission of so many new foreigners to the citizenship, contributed to this result.
Meanwhile Tissaphernês, having completed his measures in Ionia, arrived at the Hellespont not long after the battle of Abydos, seemingly about November, 411 B.C. He was anxious to regain some credit with the Peloponnesians, for which an opportunity soon presented itself. Alkibiadês, then in command of the Athenian fleet at Sestos, came to visit him in all the pride of victory, bringing the customary presents; but the satrap seized his person and sent him away to Sardis as a prisoner in custody, affirming that he had the Great King’s express orders for carrying on war with the Athenians.[167] Here was an end of all the delusions of Alkibiadês, respecting pretended power of influencing the Persian counsels. Yet these delusions had already served his purpose by procuring for him a renewed position in the Athenian camp, which his own military energy enabled him to sustain and justify.
Towards the middle of this winter the superiority of the fleet of Mindarus at Abydos, over the Athenian fleet at Sestos, had become so great,—partly, as it would appear, through reinforcements obtained by the former, partly through the dispersion of the latter into flying squadrons from want of pay,—that the Athenians no longer dared to maintain their position in the Hellespont. They sailed round the southern point of the Chersonese, and took station at Kardia, on the western side of the isthmus of that peninsula. Here, about the commencement of spring, they were rejoined by Alkibiadês; who had found means to escape from Sardis, along with Mantitheus, another Athenian prisoner, first to Klazomenæ, and next to Lesbos, where he collected a small squadron of five triremes. The dispersed squadrons of the Athenian fleet being now all summoned to concentrate, Theramenês came to Kardia from Macedonia, and Thrasybulus from Thasos; whereby the Athenian fleet was rendered superior in number to that of Mindarus. News was brought that the latter had moved with his fleet from the Hellespont to Kyzikus, and was now engaged in the siege of that place, jointly with Pharnabazus and the Persian land-force.
His vigorous attacks had in fact already carried the place, when the Athenian admirals resolved to attack him there, and contrived to do it by surprise. Having passed first from Kardia to Elæûs at the south of the Chersonese, they sailed up the Hellespont to Prokonnesus by night, so that their passage escaped the notice of the Peloponnesian guardships at Abydos.[168]
Resting at Prokonnesus one night, and seizing every boat on the island, in order that their movements might be kept secret, Alkibiadês warned the assembled seamen that they must prepare for a sea-fight, a land-fight, and a wall-fight, all at once. “We have no money (said he), while our enemies have plenty from the Great King.” Neither zeal in the men nor contrivance in the commanders was wanting. A body of hoplites were landed on the mainland in the territory of Kyzikus, for the purpose of operating a diversion; after which the fleet was distributed into three divisions under Alkibiadês, Theramenês, and Thrasybulus. The former, advancing near to Kyzikus with his single division, challenged the fleet of Mindarus, and contrived to inveigle him by pretended flight to a distance from the harbor; while the other Athenian divisions, assisted by hazy and rainy weather, came up unexpectedly, cut off his retreat, and forced him to run his ships ashore on the neighboring mainland. After a gallant and hard-fought battle, partly on shipboard, partly ashore,—at one time unpromising to the Athenians, in spite of their superiority of number, but not very intelligible in its details, and differently conceived by our two authorities,—both the Peloponnesian fleet by sea and the forces of Pharnabazus on land were completely defeated. Mindarus himself was slain; and the entire fleet, every single trireme, was captured, except the triremes of Syracuse, which were burnt by their own crews; while Kyzikus itself surrendered to the Athenians, and submitted to a large contribution, being spared from all other harm. The booty taken by the victors was abundant and valuable. The numbers of the triremes thus captured or destroyed is differently given; the lowest estimate states it at sixty, the highest at eighty.[169]