A Manual of Ancient History

by M. E. Thalheimer

199. This victory restored to the Athenians the control of the Propontis and the trade of the Euxine. Ships laden with corn now entered Piræus, bearing relief to the hungry poor, and discouragement to King Agis, who still held the heights of Decelea, in the vain hope of starving the city into surrender.

Pharnabazus, meanwhile, was aiding the Spartans by every means in his power. He fed and clothed, armed and paid their seamen, allowed them to cut timber in the forests of Mount Ida, and build their ships at his docks of Antandros. Through his assistance, Chalcedon, on the Bosphorus, was enabled to hold out two years against Alcibiades. It surrendered at last, in 408. Selym´bria and Byzantium were taken about the same time.

200. These repeated successes restored the credit of Alcibiades, and, in the spring of 407, he was welcomed back to his native city. All the people met him at Piræus, with as much joy and enthusiasm as they had escorted him thither, eight years before, when sailing for the fatal expedition to Sicily. He protested his innocence before the Senate and Assembly. His sentence was reversed by acclamation, his property restored, the curse revoked, and he was made general, with unlimited powers. Before his departure, with the large fleet and army which were now at his disposal, he resolved to atone to Demeter for whatever slight had been thrown upon her by his alleged sacrilege. The sacred procession from Athens to Eleusis had been intermitted these seven years, owing to the nearness of the Spartan troops. Alcibiades now delayed his departure, in order to escort and protect the participants.

B. C. 407.

201. The arrival of two new officers upon the Asiatic field of war turned the scale against Athens. The one was Cyrus, a son of the Persian king; the other was Lysander, the new Spartan navarchus, who took command of the Peloponnesian fleet at Ephesus. These two made common cause, and together took measures for severe and unrelenting war against the Athenians. The gold which the Persian prince lavished without stint, the Spartan applied to increasing the wages of his seamen. By this well-timed liberality, he drew over great numbers of men from the opposing fleet, and rendered even those who did not desert, discontented and mutinous.

202. Alcibiades arrived with his fleet to find the situation less favorable than he had hoped. The Spartan troops were better paid and equipped than his own, and to raise funds he resorted to levying forced contributions on friendly states. During his absence on one of these forays, the fleet became engaged in battle with the Spartans, and was defeated with considerable loss. The Athenians began to perceive that eight years’ exile and two or three years’ good behavior, had not altered the character of the man, but that he was as dissolute, fickle, and unscrupulous as ever. They dismissed him from his command, and appointed ten generals, with Conon at their head.

B. C. 406.

203. At the same time that Conon arrived to take command of the Athenians, Cal´licrat´idas succeeded Lysander as navarchus. He found an empty treasury and a cold reception, alike from his own countrymen and the Persians, whom Lysander had purposely prejudiced against him. Cyrus refused to see or aid him. Callicratidas now took bolder counsel. He sailed to Miletus, and urged its citizens to throw off the Persian alliance. Many rich men came forward with generous contributions of money, with which he equipped fifty new triremes, and sailed to Lesbos with a fleet twice as numerous as that of the Athenians.

204. He had a battle with Conon in the harbor of Mytilene, in which the Athenians lost nearly half their ships, and only saved the rest by drawing them ashore under the walls of the town. Callicratidas then blockaded the city by sea and land; and Cyrus, perceiving his success, assisted him with supplies of money. Great efforts were made at Athens, as soon as the condition of Conon was known. A large fleet was sent out in a few days, and being reinforced by the allies at Samos, arrived at the south-eastern extremity of Lesbos, numbering 150 vessels. Callicratidas left fifty ships to continue the blockade, and sailed to meet his enemy.