History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Crawley, Richard, translator. London and Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd.; New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1914.

As soon as the Athenians knew of the sea-fight they sailed with all the ships at Samos to Syme, and without attacking or being attacked by the fleet at Cnidus, took the ships' tackle left at Syme, and touching at Lorymi on the main land sailed back to Samos.

Meanwhile the Peloponnesian ships being now all at Cnidus, underwent such repairs as were needed; while the eleven Lacedaemonian commissioners conferred with Tissaphernes, who had come to meet them, upon the points which did not satisfy them in the past transactions, and upon the best and mutually most advantageous manner of conducting the war in future.

The severest critic of the present proceeding was Lichas, who said that neither of the treaties could stand, neither that of Chalcideus, nor that of Therimenes; it being monstrous that the king should at this date pretend to the possession of all country formerly ruled by himself or by his ancestors—a pretension which implicitly put back under the yoke all the islands, Thessaly, Locris, and everything as far as Boeotia, and made the Lacedaemonians give to the Hellenes instead of liberty a Median master.

He therefore invited Tissaphernes to conclude another and a better treaty, as they certainly would not recognise those existing and did not want any of his pay upon such conditions. This offended Tissaphernes so much that he went away in a rage without settling anything.