History of the Peloponnesian War

This was a fort of the Athenians in the confines of Boeotia; and (for the loss that the Corinthians had received by the garrison of Oenoe) was by voluntary Corinthians and by some Boeotians by them called in to aid them now besieged.

Aristarchus, therefore, having treated with these, deceived those in Oenoe and told them that the city of Athens had compounded with the Lacedaemonians and that they were to render up the place to the Boeotians, for that it was so conditioned in the agreement. Whereupon, believing him as one that had authority over the soldiery and knowing nothing because besieged, upon security for their pass they gave up the fort.

So the Boeotians receive Oenoe; and the oligarchy and sedition at Athens cease.

About the same time of this summer, when none of those whom Tissaphernes at his going to Aspendus had substituted to pay the Peloponnesian navy at Miletus did it, and seeing neither the Phoenician fleet nor Tissaphernes came to them, and seeing Philip, that was sent along with him, and also another, one Hippocrates, a Spartan, that was lying in Phaselis, had written to Mindarus, the general, that the fleet was not to come at all and in every thing Tissaphernes abused them; seeing also that Pharnabazus had sent for them and was willing, upon the coming to him of their fleet, for his own part also as well as Tissaphernes, to cause the rest of the cities within his own province to revolt from the Athenians; then at length, Mindarus, hoping for benefit by him, with good order and sudden warning that the Athenians at Samos might not be aware of their setting forth, went into the Hellespont with seventythree galleys, besides sixteen which the same summer were gone into the Hellespont before and had overrun part of Chersonnesus. But tossed with the wind she was forced to put in at Icarus; and after he had stayed there through ill weather some five or six days, he arrived at Chios.

Thrasyllus having been advertised of his departure from Miletus, he also puts to sea from Samos with five-and-fifty sail, hasting to be in the Hellespont before him.

But hearing that he was in Chios and conceiving that he would stay there, he appointed spies to lie in Lesbos and in the continent over against it, that the fleet of the enemy might not remove without his knowledge; and he himself, going to Methymna, commanded provision to be made of meal and other necessaries, intending, if they stayed there long, to go from Lesbos and invade them in Chios. Withal, because Eressos was revolted from Lesbos, he purposed to go thither with his fleet;

if he could, to take it in. For the most potent of the Methymnaean exiles had gotten into their society about fifty men of arms out of Cume and hired others out of the continent, and with their whole number in all three hundred, having for their leader Anaxarchus, a Theban, chosen in respect of their descent from the Thebans, first assaulted Methymna. But beaten in the attempt by the Athenian garrison that came against them from Mytilene and again in a skirmish without the city driven quite away, they passed by the way of the mountain to Eressos, and caused it to revolt.

Thrasyllus therefore intended to go thither with his galleys and to assault it. At his coming he found Thrasybulus there also before him with five galleys from Samos, for he had been advertised of the outlaws coming over;

but being too late to prevent them, he went to Eressos and lay before it at anchor. Hither also came two galleys of Methymna that were going home from the Hellespont; so that they were in all threescore and seven sail, out of which they made an army, intending with engines, or any other way they could, to take Eressos by assault.

In the meantime, Mindarus and the Peloponnesian fleet that was at Chios, when they had spent two days in victualling their galleys and had received of the Chians three Chian tessaracostes a man, on the third day put speedily off from Chios and kept far from the shore, that they might not fall amongst the galleys at Eressos.

And leaving Lesbos on the left hand, went to the continent side, and putting in at a haven in Craterei, belonging to the territory of Phocaea, and there dining, passed along the territory of Cume, and came to Arginusae in the continent over against Mytilene, where they supped.