Book 8
With regard to Chalcideus and Alcibiades, while they were on their voyage, they seized all they met with, to prevent any tidings of their approach being carried; and after first touching at Corycus, and leaving them there, they themselves having previously had an interview with some of the Chians who were in co-operation with them, and being urged by them to sail up to the city without sending any notice beforehand, they thus came upon the Chians unexpectedly.
Accordingly the greater part of them were astonished and dismayed; while it had been arranged by the few, that the council should be assembled just at the time. And when speeches were made by Chalcideus and Alcibiades, telling them that many more vessels were sailing up, and not acquainting them with the fact respecting their fleet being blockaded in Piraeus, the Chians revolted from the Athenians, and immediately after them the Erythraeans.
After this they sailed with three vessels and induced Clazomenae to revolt also. The Clazomenians immediately crossed over to the continent, and began to fortify τὴν πολίχναν.] This is a general name which has become a proper one by usage, like Ham, Kirby, etc. in English; or more like ' Borgo' in Italian, the full name of the place being properly τὴν πολίχναν τῶν κλαζομενίων, Borgo dei Clazomeni; and thence in common speech, simply τὴν πολίχναν, Borgo. —Arnold. Polichna, in case they might want it as a place to retreat to from the island on which they lived. They, then, having revolted, were all engaged in raising fortifications and preparing for the war.
News of the revolt of Chios quickly reached Athens, and considering that the danger which had now encompassed them was great and evident, and that the rest of the allies would not remain quiet when the most important state had changed sides; with regard to the thousand talents which throughout the whole war they had earnestly desired not to meddle with, they immediately rescinded, in consequence of their dismay, the penalties attaching to any one who proposed to use them, or put such a proposal to the vote; and passed a decree for taking them, and manning a large number of ships; while of those that were keeping watch at Piraeus they at once sent off the eight which had left the blockade, and after pursuing those with Chalcideus and not overtaking them, had returned, (their commander was Strombichides son of Diotimus,) and resolved that twelve more, under Thrasycles, should also leave the post of observation, and reinforce them shortly afterwards.
They also removed the seven Chian vessels, which joined them in the blockade of Piraeus; and liberated the slaves who were on board of them, while the freemen they put in bonds. In the place of all the ships that had departed they speedily manned others, and sent them to observe the Peloponnesians, resolving at the same time to man thirty more. So great was their ardour; and no trivial measure was undertaken with regard to the forces they sent to Chios.
In the mean time Strombichides with his eight ships arrived at Samos, and having added one Samian vessel to his squadron, he sailed to Teos, and begged them to remain quiet. Chalcideus also was advancing with three and twenty ships from Chios to Teos; while at the same time the land forces of the Clazomenians and Erythraeans moved along the shore. Strombichides, on receiving prior intelligence of this, weighed anchor beforehand;
but when out in the open sea, on observing that the ships coming from Chios were so numerous, he fled towards Samos, while they pursued him.
With regard to the land forces, although the Teians were not at first disposed to admit them, yet when the Athenians had fled, they received them into the city. The troops then waited for some time, expecting Chalcideus also to return from the pursuit: but when he was long in coming, they began themselves to demolish the fort which the Athenians had built on the land side of the city of the Teians; while a small body of the barbarians also, who had joined them under the command of Stages, lieutenant of Tissaphernes, assisted them in the demolition of it.
Chalcideus and Alcibiades, after chasing Strombichides into Samos, armed the seamen on board the vessels from the Peloponnese, and left them at Chios; and having manned these with substitutes from Chios, and twenty besides, they sailed to Miletus to effect its revolt.
For Alcibiades, being on intimate terms with the leading men of the Milesians, wished to anticipate the ships from the Peloponnese by winning them over, and so to secure that honour, as he had promised, to the Chians, himself, Chalcideus, and Endius who had sent them out, by causing the revolt of as many cities as possible in concert with the Chian forces and Chalcideus.
Having made therefore the chief part of their passage unobserved, and having arrived a little before Strombichides and Thrasycles, who had just come from Athens with twelve ships, and joined in the pursuit of them, they prevailed on Miletus to revolt. The Athenians sailed up close after them with nineteen ships, and on the Milesians not admitting them, came to anchor at the adjacent island of Lade.
And now the first alliance made between the king and the Lacedaemonians was concluded by Tissaphernes and Chalcideus, immediately after the revolt of the Milesians, to the following effect:
The following are the terms on which the Lacedaemonians and their confederates concluded an alliance with the king and Tissaphernes. All the country and cities which the king holds, or the forefathers of the king held, shall belong to the king: and from these cities whatever money, or any thing else, came in to the Athenians, shall be stopped by the king, the Lacedaemonians and their confederates, in common; so that the Athenians may receive neither money nor any thing else.
—Moreover, the war with the Athenians shall be carried on in common by the king, the Lacedaemonians, and their confederates; and it shall not be lawful to bring the war with the Athenians to a conclusion, except both parties shall agree to it, the king, and the Lacedaemonians with their confederates.
—Should any revolt from the king, they shall be considered as enemies to the Lacedaemonians and their confederates; and if any revolt from the Lacedaemonians and their confederates, they shall be considered as enemies to the king, in like manner.
This, then, was the alliance that was concluded; immediately after which the Chians manned ten more ships, and sailed to Anaea, wishing both to get intelligence of those in Miletus, and at the same time to urge the cities to revolt.
But a message having reached them from Chalcideus, that they were to sail back again, and that Amorges would be upon them with an army on shore, they sailed to the temple of Jupiter, and then descried sixteen ships, with which Diomedon again, subsequently to the arrival of Thrasicles, was sailing up from Athens.
On seeing them they fled with one ship to Ephesus, while the rest proceeded towards Teos. The Athenians, then, took four of their ships empty, the men having escaped to shore beforehand; but the rest took refuge in the city of the Teians.
And now the Athenians sailed away from Samos; while the Chians put out with their remaining vessels, and their land forces with them, and procured the re volt of Lebedos, and then again of Erae. After this they returned to their respective homes, both the land and the sea forces.
About the same time, the twenty ships of the Peloponnesians that were in Piraeus, which had been chased to land at the time we last mentioned them, and were blockaded by the Athenians with an equal number, having made a sudden sally against the Athenian squadron, and defeated it in an engagement, took four of the ships, and after sailing back to Cenchrea, proceeded to prepare again for their voyage to Chios and Ionia. Astyochus also joined them from Lacedaemon, as high admiral, to whom now belonged the command of all the naval forces.
Meanwhile, after the troops had returned from Teos, Tissaphernes himself also repaired thither with an army, and further demolished the fort at Teos, whatever had been left of it, and then returned. Not long after his departure, Diomedon, having arrived with ten Athenian ships, concluded a treaty with the Teians for admitting his force, as they did the enemy's. And after coasting along to Erae, and assaulting the city without taking it, he sailed away.
About the same time, too, occurred at Samos the insurrection of the commons against the nobles, in conjunction with some Athenians who happened to be there on board three vessels. The popular party of the Samians, then, put to death some two hundred of the nobles, in all, and condemned four hundred to banishment; and having themselves taken possession of their land and houses, (the Athenians, moreover, having after this passed a decree for their independence, considering them now as trusty allies,) they governed the city henceforth, and neither admitted the landowners to any other privilege, nor allowed any of the commons in future to give his daughter in marriage to them, nor to take a wife from them.
After these things, in the course of the same summer, the Chians went on as they had begun, without any falling off in their zeal; and as they found themselves, even independently of the Lacedaemonians, with a large force for bringing over the states, and at the same time were desirous that as many as possible should share the danger with them, they made an expedition by themselves with thirteen ships to Lesbos, according to the arrangement of the Lacedaemonians to go to that island in the second place, and thence to the Hellespont, while at the same time the land forces of the Peloponnesians who were there, and of the allies from the country itself, moved along shore towards Clazomenae and Cuma; the commander of the troops being Evalas, a Spartan, and of the ships, Diniadas, one of the Perioeci.
The fleet having sailed first to Methymna, effected the revolt of the place, and four vessels were left there; while the remainder, again, effected that of Mytilene also.
Now Astyochus, the Lacedaemonian admiral, set sail, as he had intended, with four ships from Cenchrea, and arrived at Chios On the third day after his coming there, the Athenian ships, five and twenty in number, sailed to Lesbos under the command of Leon and Diomedon; for Leon had subsequently brought a reinforcement of ten ships from Athens.
The same day, at a late hour, Astyochus also put out, and taking one Chian vessel in addition to his own, sailed to Lesbos, to render it whatever assistance he could. Accordingly he came to Pyrrha, and thence the next day to Eresus, where he heard that Mitylene had been taken by the Athenians on the first assault.
For the Athenians, immediately on sailing to the place, unexpectedly put into the harbour, and defeated the Chian ships; and having landed, and conquered in a battle those who opposed them, they took possession of the city.
Receiving this intelligence, both from the Eresians and from the Chian ships coming from Methymna with Eubulus, three of which fell in with him, (for one had been taken by the Athenians,) after being left behind at the time, and so escaping when Mitylene was taken, Astyochus no longer advanced to Mitylene, but having persuaded Eresus to revolt, and supplied it with arms, he both sent the heavy-armed from on board his own ships to Antissa and Methymna, having appointed Eteonicus to the command, and himself coasted along thither with his own ships and the three Chians; hoping that the Methymnaeans would be encouraged by the sight of them, and persevere in their revolt.
But when every thing at Lesbos went against him, he took his own force on board, and sailed back to Chios; while the land forces also that had been disembarked from the vessels, and were to have proceeded to the Hellespont, returned again to their several cities. After this, six of the allied ships from the Peloponnese that were at Cenchrea came to them at Chios.
The Athenians, on the other hand, arranged matters again at Lesbos, and sailing thence, took Polichna, belonging to the Clazornenians, which was being fortified on the mainland, and carried them over again to their city on the island, excepting the authors of the revolt, who had departed to Daphnus. And thus Clazomenae came over again to the Athenians.
The same summer the Athenians, who were with their twenty ships at Lade for the observation of Miletus, having made a descent at Panormus in the Milesian territory, slew Chalcideus, the Lacedaemonian commander, who had come against them with a few men, and sailing across three days after, erected a trophy; which, as it had been raised without their having command of the country, the Milesians threw down.
And now Leon and Diomedon, with the Athenian ships from Lesbos, advancing from the Oenussae, the islands off Chios, and from Sidussa and Pteleum, fortresses which they held in the Erythraean country, as well as from Lesbos, carried on the war against the Chians from their ships, having as epibatae, some of the The ἐπιβάται were usually drawn from the fourth class, or Thetes; although on some occasions men of the higher classes seem to have volunteered to serve amongst them. See III. 98. 3, note. Now, however, the citizens of the higher classes were actually compelled to serve as ἐπιβάται, owing to the peculiar exigency of the crisis. —Arnold. heavy-armed from the muster-roll, who had been pressed into the service.
Having landed at Cardamyle and Bolissus, after defeating in battle those of the Chians who had come out against them, and killing many of them, they desolated the places in that neighbourhood. They defeated them again in another battle at Phanae, and in a third at Leuconium, after which the Chians no longer went out to meet them; while they ravaged their country, which was finely stocked, and had continued unhurt from the Median wars down to that time.
For the Chians are the only people that I am acquainted with, after the Lacedaemonians, who were at once prosperous and prudent; and the more their city increased in greatness, the more secure were their arrangements.
And even their present revolt, if any think that they executed this without regard for the safer course, they did not venture to make, before they were likely to run the risk in concert with many brave allies, and perceived that even the Athenians themselves no longer denied, after their disaster in Sicily, that without doubt their circumstances were utterly bad. But if they were somewhat disappointed by the unexpected results that occur in the life of man, they found out their mistake in company with many others, who had in the same way imagined that the power of the Athenians would be quickly destroyed.
When therefore they were excluded from the sea, and were being ravaged by land, a party of them endeavoured to bring over the city to the Athenians. Though the magistrates detected them, they remained quiet themselves, and having brought Astyochus the admiral from Erythrae with four ships, which he had with him, considered how they might stop the conspiracy by the mildest measures, whether by taking hostages, or in any other way. They, then, were engaged with this business.
At the close of the same summer, there sailed from Athens a thousand Athenian heavy-armed, fifteen hundred of the Argives, (for five hundred of the Argives who were lightarmed, were provided with full armour by the Athenians,) and a thousand of the allies, in forty-eight ships, some of which were transports, under the command of Phrynichus, Onomacles, and Scironides: these sailed into port at Samos, and after crossing over to Miletus, formed their camp there.
The Milesians marched out, themselves to the number of eight hundred heavy-armed, the Peloponnesians who had come with Chalcideus, and a body of foreign ξενικόν,]i. e. foreigners to Tissaphernes, not Asiatics. mercenaries with Tissaphernes himself, who was present with his cavalry, and gave battle to the Athenians and their allies.
The Argives, advancing from the line with their own wing, and despising the enemy, while they pushed forward in some disorder, as against Ionians and men who would not receive their charge, were defeated by the Milesians, and not less than three hundred of them slain.
But the Athenians defeated the Peloponnesians first, then beat back the barbarians and the rest of the multitude, and without engaging the Milesians, (for they retreated into their city after their rout of the Argives, on seeing the rest of their army worsted,) they pitched their camp, as being now victorious, close to the very city of Miletus.