From Byzantium, Thrasybulus sailed to Mitylênê, which was already in friendship with Athens,—though Methymna and the other cities in the island were still maintained by a force under the Lacedæmonian harmost, Therimachus. With the aid of the Mitylenæans, and of the exiles from other Lesbian cities, Thrasybulus marched to the borders of Methymna, where he was met by Therimachus; who had also brought together his utmost force, but was now completely defeated and slain. The Athenians thus became masters of Antissa and Eresus, where they were enabled to levy a valuable contribution, as well as to plunder the refractory territory of Methymna. Nevertheless, Thrasybulus, in spite of farther help from Chios and Mitylênê, still thought himself not in a situation to go to Rhodes with advantage. Perhaps he was not sure of pay in advance, and the presence of unpaid troops in an exhausted island might be a doubtful benefit. Accordingly, he sailed from Lesbos along the western and southern coast of Asia Minor, levying contributions at Halikarnassus[698] and other places, until he came to Aspendus in Pamphylia; where he also obtained money and was about to depart with it, when some misdeeds committed by his soldiers so exasperated the inhabitants, that they attacked him by night unprepared in his tent, and slew him.[699]
Thus perished the citizen to whom, more than to any one else, Athens owed not only her renovated democracy, but its wise, generous, and harmonious working, after renovation. Even the philo-Laconian and oligarchical Xenophon bestows upon him a marked and unaffected eulogy.[700] His devoted patriotism in commencing and prosecuting the struggle against the Thirty, at a time when they not only were at the height of their power, but had plausible ground for calculating on the full auxiliary strength of Sparta, deserves high admiration. But the feature which stands yet more eminent in his character,—a feature infinitely rare in the Grecian character, generally,—is, that the energy of a successful leader was combined with complete absence both of vindictive antipathies for the past, and of overbearing ambition for himself. Content to live himself as a simple citizen under the restored democracy, he taught his countrymen to forgive an oligarchical party from whom they had suffered atrocious wrongs, and set the example himself of acquiescing, in the loss of his own large property. The generosity of such a proceeding ought not to count for less, because it was at the same time dictated by the highest political prudence. We find in an oration of Lysias against Ergokles (a citizen who served in the Athenian fleet on this last expedition), in which the latter is accused of gross peculation,—insinuations against Thrasybulus, of having countenanced the delinquency, though coupled with praise of his general character. Even the words as they now stand are so vague as to carry little evidence; but when we reflect that the oration was spoken after the death of Thrasybulus, they are entitled to no weight at all.[701]
The Athenians sent Agyrrhius to succeed Thrasybulus. After the death of the latter, we may conclude that the fleet went to Rhodes, its original destination,—though Xenophon does not expressly say so,—the rather, as neither Teleutias nor any subsequent Lacedæmonian commander appears to have become master of the island, in spite of the considerable force which they had there assembled.[702] The Lacedæmonians, however, on their side, being also much in want of money, Teleutias was obliged (in the same manner as the Athenians), to move from island to island, levying contributions as he could.[703]
When the news of the successful proceedings of Thrasybulus at Byzantium and the Hellespont, again establishing a toll for the profit of Athens, reached Sparta, it excited so much anxiety, that Anaxibius, having great influence with the ephors of the time, prevailed on them to send him out as harmost to Abydos, in the room of Derkyllidas, who had now been in that post for several years. Having been the officer originally employed to procure the revolt of the place from Athens (in 411 B.C.),[704] Derkyllidas had since rendered service not less essential in preserving it to Sparta, during the extensive desertion which followed the battle of Knidus. But it was supposed that he ought to have checked the aggressive plans of Thrasybulus; moreover, Anaxibius promised, if a small force were entrusted to him, to put down effectually the newly-revived Athenian influence. He was supposed to know well, those regions in which he had once already been admiral, at the moment when Xenophon and the Cyreian army first returned; the harshness, treachery, and corruption, which he displayed in his dealing with that gallant body of men, have been already recounted in a former chapter.[705] With three triremes, and funds for the pay of a thousand mercenary troops, Anaxibius accordingly went to Abydos. He began his operations with considerable vigor, both against Athens and Pharnabazus. While he armed a land-force, which he employed in making incursions on the neighboring cities in the territory of that satrap,—he at the same time reinforced his little squadron by three triremes out of the harbor of Abydos, so that he became strong enough to seize the merchant vessels passing along the Hellespont to Athens or to her allies.[706] The force which Thrasybulus had left at Byzantium to secure the strait revenues, was thus inadequate to its object without farther addition.
Fortunately, Iphikrates was at this moment disengaged at Athens, having recently returned from Corinth with his body of peltasts, for whom doubtless employment was wanted. He was accordingly sent with twelve hundred peltasts and eight triremes, to combat Anaxibius in the Hellespont; which now became again the scene of conflict, as it had been in the latter years of the Peloponnesian war; the Athenians from the European side, the Lacedæmonians from the Asiatic. At first the warfare consisted of desultory privateering, and money-levying excursions, on both sides.[707] But at length, the watchful genius of Iphikrates discovered opportunity for a successful stratagem. Anaxibius, having just drawn the town of Antandrus into his alliance, had marched thither for the purpose of leaving a garrison in it, with his Lacedæmonian and mercenary forces, as well as two hundred hoplites from Abydos itself. His way lay across the mountainous region of Ida, southward to the coast of the gulf of Adramyttium. Accordingly, Iphikrates, foreseeing that he would speedily return, crossed over in the night from the Chersonese, and planted himself in ambush on the line of return march; at a point where it traversed the desert and mountainous extremities of the Abydene territory, near the gold mines of Kremastê. The triremes which carried him across were ordered to sail up the strait on the next day, in order that Anaxibius must be apprised of it, and might suppose Iphikrates to be employed on his ordinary money-levying excursion.
The stratagem was completely successful. Anaxibius returned on the next day, without the least suspicion of any enemy at hand, marching in careless order and with long-stretched files, as well from the narrowness of the mountain path as from the circumstance that he was in the friendly territory of Abydos. Not expecting to fight, he had unfortunately either omitted the morning sacrifice, or taken no pains to ascertain that the victims were favorable; so Xenophon informs us,[708] with that constant regard to the divine judgments and divine warnings which pervades both the Hellenica and the Anabasis. Iphikrates having suffered the Abydenes who were in the van to pass, suddenly sprang from his ambush, to assault Anaxibius with the Lacedæmonians and the mercenaries, as they descended the mountain-pass into the plain of Kremastê. His appearance struck terror and confusion into the whole army; unprepared in its disorderly array for stedfast resistance,—even if the minds of the soldiers had been ever so well strung,—against well-trained peltasts, who were sure to prevail over hoplites not in steady rank. To Anaxibius himself, the truth stood plain at once. Defeat was inevitable, and there remained no other resource for him except to die like a brave man. Accordingly, desiring his shield-bearer to hand to him his shield, he said to those around him,—“Friends, my honor commands me to die here; but do you hasten away, and save yourselves, before the enemy close with us.” Such order was hardly required to determine his panic-stricken troops, who fled with one accord towards Abydos; while Anaxibius himself awaited firmly the approach of the enemy, and fell gallantly fighting on the spot. No less than twelve Spartan harmosts, those who had been expelled from their various governments by the defeat of Knidus, and who had remained ever since under Derkyllidas at Abydos, stood with the like courage and shared his fate. Such disdain of life hardly surprises us in conspicuous Spartan citizens, to whom preservation by flight was “no true preservation” (in the language of Xenophon),[709] but simply prolongation of life under intolerable disgrace at home. But what deserves greater remark is, that the youth to whom Anaxibius was tenderly attached and who was his constant companion, could not endure to leave him, stayed fighting by his side, and perished by the same honorable death.[710] So strong was the mutual devotion which this relation between persons of the male sex inspired in the ancient Greek mind. With these exceptions, no one else made any attempt to stand. All fled, and were pursued by Iphikrates as far as the gates of Abydos, with the slaughter of fifty out of the two hundred Abydene hoplites, and two hundred of the remaining troops.
This well-planned and successful exploit, while it added to the reputation of Iphikrates, rendered the Athenians again masters of the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, ensuring both the levy of the dues and the transit of their trading vessels. But while the Athenians were thus carrying on naval war at Rhodes and the Hellespont, they began to experience annoyance nearer home, from Ægina.
That island (within sight as the eyesore of Peiræus, as Perikles was wont to call it) had been occupied fifty years before by a population eminently hostile to Athens, afterwards conquered and expelled by her,—at last again captured in the new abode which they had obtained in Laconia,—and put to death by her order. During the Peloponnesian war, Ægina had been tenanted by Athenian citizens as outsettlers or kleruchs; all of whom had been driven in after the battle of Ægospotami. The island was then restored by Lysander to the remnant of the former population,—as many of them at least as he could find.
These new Æginetans, though doubtless animated by associations highly unfavorable to Athens, had nevertheless remained not only at peace, but also in reciprocal commerce, with her, until a considerable time after the battle of Knidus and the rebuilding of her Long Walls. And so they would have continued, of their own accord,—since they could gain but little, and were likely to lose all the security of their traffic, by her hostility,—had they not been forced to commence the war by Eteonikus, the Lacedæmonian harmost in the island;[711] one amidst many examples of the manner in which the smaller Grecian states were dragged into war, without any motive of their own, by the ambition of the greater,—by Sparta as well as by Athens.[712] With the concurrence of the ephors, Eteonikus authorized and encouraged all Æginetans to fit out privateers for depredation on Attica; which aggression the Athenians resented, after suffering considerable inconvenience by sending a force of ten triremes to block up Ægina from the sea, with a body of hoplites under Pamphilus to construct and occupy a permanent fort in the island. This squadron, however, was soon driven off (though Pamphilus still continued to occupy the fort) by Teleutias, who came to Ægina on hearing of the blockade; having been engaged, with the fleet which he commanded at Rhodes, in an expedition among the Cyclades, for the purpose of levying contributions. He seems to have been now at the term of his year of command, and while he was at Ægina, his successor, Hierax, arrived from Sparta, on his way to Rhodes, to supersede him. The fleet was, accordingly, handed over to Hierax at Ægina, while Teleutias went directly home to Sparta. So remarkable was his popularity among the seamen, that numbers of them accompanied him down to the water-edge, testifying their regret and attachment by crowning him with wreaths, or pressing his hand. Some, who came down too late, when he was already under weigh, cast their wreaths on the sea, uttering prayers for his health and happiness.[713]
Hierax, while carrying back to Rhodes the remaining fleet which Teleutias had brought from that island, left his subordinate Gorgôpas as harmost at Ægina with twelve triremes; a force which protected the island completely, and caused the fortified post occupied by the Athenians under Pamphilus to be itself blocked up, insomuch that after an interval of four months, a special decree was passed at Athens to send a numerous squadron and fetch away the garrison. As the Æginetan privateers, aided by the squadron of Gorgôpas, now recommenced their annoyances against Attica, thirteen Athenian triremes were put in equipment under Eunomus as a guard-squadron against Ægina. But Gorgôpas and his squadron were now for the time withdrawn, to escort Antalkidas, the new Lacedæmonian admiral sent to Asia chiefly for the purpose of again negotiating with Tiribazus. On returning back, after landing Antalkidas at Ephesus, Gorgôpas fell in with Eunomus, whose pursuit, however, he escaped, landing at Ægina just before sunset. The Athenian admiral, after watching for a short time until he saw the Lacedæmonian seamen out of their vessels and ashore, departed as it grew dark to Attica, carrying a light to prevent his ships from parting company. But Gorgôpas, causing his men to take a hasty meal, immediately reëmbarked and pursued; keeping on the track by means of the light, and taking care not to betray himself either by the noise of oars or by the chant of the Keleustês. Eunomus had no suspicion of the accompanying enemy. Just after he had touched land near cape Zostêr in Attica, when his men were in the act of disembarking, Gorgôpas gave signal by trumpet to attack. After a short action by moonlight, four of the Athenian squadrons were captured, and carried off to Ægina; with the remainder, Eunomus escaped to Peiræus.[714]