History of the Peloponnesian War

During this summer, about the same time as these events, the situation of the Peloponnesians in Miletus was as follows:[*](The general purport; there is no verb in the text for the subject οἱ τῇ μιλήτῳ πελοπονήσιοι. After the long parenthesis the subject is resumed in οὕτω δὴ ὁ μίνδαρος, “In these circumstances, then, Mindarus.”) None of the officers appointed by Tissaphernes at the time when he went to Aspendus would give them maintenance, and neither the Phoenician ships nor Tissaphernes himself had yet come; Philippus, who had been sent with him,[*](cf. 8.87.6.) and also another person, a Spartan named Hippocrates who was at Phaselis, had written letters to Mindarus, the admiral, saving that the ships would never come and that they were being wronged in all things by Tissaphernes; moreover, Pharnabazus was inviting them to come and was eager, when he should have got the assistance of the Peloponnesian fleet, to do just what Tissaphernes was to have done and to cause the rest of the cities within his province to revolt from the Athenians, hoping to gain some advantage thereby. In these circumstances, then, Mindarus put off from Miletus, in good order and, giving his fleet the command without previous notice that his move might not become known to the Athenians at Samos, he sailed for the Hellespont with seventy-three ships; for earlier in this same summer sixteen ships had sailed thither and had overrun a portion of the Chersonesus. Mindarus, however, was caught by a storm and forced to make harbour at Icarus; there he remained five or six days by reason of bad weather and then went on to Chios.