Hellenica. Xenophon
The reader will recollect that we are giving in "the Deceleian"
period of the war, 413–404 B.C. The Spartan king was in command of
the fortress of Deceleia, only fourteen miles distant from Athens,
and erected on a spot within sight of the city. See Thuc. vii. 19,
27, 28.
Meanwhile Agis, as he looked out from Deceleia, and saw vessel after vessel laden with corn running down to Piraeus, declared that it was useless for his troops to go on week after week excluding the Athenians from their own land, while no one stopped the source of their corn supply by sea: the best plan would be to send Clearchus, (11) the son of Rhamphius, who was proxenos (12) of the Byzantines, to Chalcedon and Byzantium. The suggestion was approved, and with fifteen vessels duly manned from Megara, or furnished by other allies, Clearchus set out. These were troop-ships rather than swift-sailing men-of-war. Three of them, on reaching the Hellespont, were destroyed by the Athenian ships employed to keep a sharp look-out on all merchant craft in those waters. The other twelve escaped to Sestos, and thence finally reached Byzantium in safety.
(11) Of Clearchus we shall hear more in the sequel, and in the
"Anabasis."
(12) The Proxenus answered pretty nearly to our "Consul," "Agent,"
"Resident"; but he differed in this respect, that he was always a
member of the foreign State. An Athenian represented Sparta at
Athens; a Laconian represented Athens at Sparta, and so forth. See
Liddell and Scott.
So closed the year—a year notable also for the expedition against Sicily of the Carthaginians under Hannibal with one hundred thousand men, and the capture, within three months, of the two Hellenic cities of Selinus and Himera.
II
B.C. 409. Next year (1) … the Athenians fortified Thoricus; and Thrasylus, taking the vessels lately voted him and five thousand of his seamen armed to serve as peltasts, (2) set sail for Samos at the beginning of summer. At Samos he stayed three days, and then continued his voyage to Pygela, where he proceeded to ravage the territory and attack the fortress. Presently a detachment from Miletus came to the rescue of the men of Pygela, and attacking the scattered bands of the Athenian light troops, put them to flight. But to the aid of the light troops came the naval brigade of peltasts, with two companies of heavy infantry, and all but annihilated the whole detachment from Miletus. They captured about two hundred shields, and set up a trophy. Next day they sailed to Notium, and from Notium, after due preparation, marched upon Colophon. The Colophonians capitulated without a blow. The following night they made an incursion into Lydia, where the corn crops were ripe, and burnt several villages, and captured money, slaves, and other booty in large quantity. But Stages, the Persian, who was employed in this neighbourhood, fell in with a reinforcement of cavalry sent to protect the scattered pillaging parties from the Athenian camp, whilst occupied with their individual plunder, and took one trooper prisoner, killing seven others. After this Thrasylus led his troops back to the sea, intending to sail to Ephesus. Meanwhile Tissaphernes, who had wind of this intention, began collecting a large army and despatching cavalry with a summons to the inhabitants one and all to rally to the defence of the goddess Artemis at Ephesus.
(1) The MSS. here give a suspected passage, which may be rendered
thus: "The first of Olympiad 93, celebrated as the year in which
the newly-added two-horse race was won by Evagorias the Eleian,
and the stadion (200 yards foot-race) by the Cyrenaean Eubotas,
when Evarchippus was ephor at Sparta and Euctemon archon at
Athens." But Ol. 93, to which these officers,and the addition of
the new race at Olympia belong, is the year 408. We must therefore
suppose either that this passage has been accidentally inserted in
the wrong place by some editor or copyist, or that the author was
confused in his dates. The "stadium" is the famous foot-race at
Olympia, 606¾ English feet in length, run on a course also
called the "Stadion," which was exactly a stade long.
(2) Peltasts, i.e. light infantry armed with the "pelta" or light
shield, instead of the heavy {aspis} of the hoplite or heavy
infantry soldiers.
On the seventeenth day after the incursion above mentioned Thrasylus sailed to Ephesus. He disembarked his troops in two divisions, his heavy infantry in the neighbourhood of Mount Coressus; his cavalry, peltasts, and marines, with the remainder of his force, near the marsh on the other side of the city. At daybreak he pushed forward both divisions. The citizens of Ephesus, on their side, were not slow to protect themselves. They had to aid them the troops brought up by Tissaphernes, as well as two detachments of Syracusans, consisting of the crews of their former twenty vessels and those of five new vessels which had opportunely arrived quite recently under Eucles, the son of Hippon, and Heracleides, the son of Aristogenes, together with two Selinuntian vessels. All these several forces first attacked the heavy infantry near Coressus; these they routed, killing about one hundred of them, and driving the remainder down into the sea. They then turned to deal with the second division on the marsh. Here, too, the Athenians were put to flight, and as many as three hundred of them perished. On this spot the Ephesians erected a trophy, and another at Coressus. The valour of the Syracusans and Selinuntians had been so conspicuous that the citizens presented many of them, both publicly and privately, with prizes for distinction in the field, besides offering the right of residence in their city with certain immunities to all who at any time might wish to live there. To the Selinuntians, indeed, as their own city had lately been destroyed, they offered full citizenship.
The Athenians, after picking up their dead under a truce, set sail for Notium, and having there buried the slain, continued their voyage towards Lesbos and the Hellespont. Whilst lying at anchor in the harbour of Methymna, in that island, they caught sight of the Syracusan vessels, five-and-twenty in number, coasting along from Ephesus. They put out to sea to attack them, and captured four ships with their crews, and chased the remainder back to Ephesus. The prisoners were sent by Thrasylus to Athens, with one exception. This was an Athenian, Alcibiades, who was a cousin and fellow-exile of Alcibiades. Him Thrasylus released. (3) From Methymna Thrasylus set sail to Sestos to join the main body of the army, after which the united forces crossed to Lampsacus. And now winter was approaching. It was the winter in which the Syracusan prisoners who had been immured in the stone quarries of Piraeus dug through the rock and escaped one night, some to Decelia and others to Megara. At Lampsacus Alcibiades was anxious to marshal the whole military force there collected in one body, but the old troops refused to be incorporated with those of Thrasylus. "They, who had never yet been beaten, with these newcomers who had just suffered a defeat." So they devoted the winter to fortifying Lampsacus. They also made an expedition against Abydos, where Pharnabazus, coming to the rescue of the place, encountered them with numerous cavalry, but was defeated and forced to flee, Alcibiades pursuing hard with his cavalry and one hundred and twenty infantry under the command of Menander, till darkness intervened. After this battle the soldiers came together of their own accord, and freely fraternised with the troops of Thrasylus. This expedition was followed by other incursions during the winter into the interior, where they found plenty to do ravaging the king's territory.
(3) Reading {apelusen}. Wolf's conjecture for the MSS. {katelousen} =
stoned. See Thirlwall, "Hist. Gr." IV. xxix. 93 note.
It was at this period also that the Lacedaemonians allowed their revolted helots from Malea, who had found an asylum at Coryphasium, to depart under a flag of truce. It was also about the same period that the Achaeans betrayed the colonists of Heracleia Trachinia, when they were all drawn up in battle to meet the hostile Oetaeans, whereby as many as seven hundred of them were lost, together with the governor (4) from Lacedaemon, Labotas. Thus the year came to its close—a year marked further by a revolt of the Medes from Darius,