While they were at anchor in the harbour of Methymna, in Lesbos, they saw sailing past them from Ephesus the twenty-five Syracusan ships; and putting out to the attack they captured four of them, men and all, and chased the rest back to Ephesus.

And Thrasyllus sent home to Athens all the prisoners with the exception of Alcibiades; this Alcibiades, who was an Athenian and a cousin and fellow-exile of Alcibiades the general, he caused to be stoned to death. Then he set sail to Sestus to join the rest of the army; and from Sestus the entire force crossed over to Lampsacus.

And now the winter came on. During the course of it the Syracusan prisoners, who were immured in stone quarries in Piraeus, dug through the rock and made their escape by night, most of them to Decelea and the rest to Megara.

Meanwhile at Lampsacus Alcibiades endeavoured to marshal his entire army as a unit, but the old soldiers were unwilling to be marshalled with the troops of Thrasyllus; for they said that they had never known defeat, while the others had just come from a defeat. Both contingents, however, wintered there together, occupying themselves in fortifying Lampsacus.

They also made an expedition against Abydus; and Pharnabazus, who came to its aid with a large force of cavalry, was defeated in battle and put to flight. And Alcibiades409 B.C. pursued him with the Athenian cavalry and one hundred and twenty of the hoplites, under the command of Menander, until darkness covered the retreat.

As a result of this battle the soldiers came together of their own accord and the old troops fraternised with those under Thrasyllus. The Athenians also made some other expeditions during the winter into the interior and laid waste the King’s territory.

At the same period the Lacedaemonians granted terms to the Helots who had revolted and fled from Malea to Coryphasium, allowing them to evacuate Coryphasium unmolested.Coryphasium, or Pylos, had been in the hands of the Athenians since 425 B.C. It was garrisoned largely by Messenians and Helots. At about the same time, also, the colonists of Heracleia, in Trachis, were betrayed by the Achaeans in a battle where both peoples were drawn up against their enemies, the Oetaeans, and as a result about seven hundred of the Heracleots perished, together with the Lacedaemonian governor, Labotas.

So this year ended, being the year in which the Medes, who had revolted from Darius, king of the Persians, were again reduced to subjection.

During the ensuing year the temple of408 B.C. Athena at Phocaea was struck by lightning and set on fire. When the winter ended and spring began,—Pantacles being now ephor and Antigenes archon, and the war having continued for twenty-two years—the Athenians sailed with their entire force to Proconnesus.

From there they set out against Calchedon and Byzantium, and went into camp near Calchedon. Now the Calchedonians, when they learned that the Athenians were approaching, had put all their portable408 B.C. property in the keeping of the Bithynian Thracians, their neighbours.

Alcibiades, however, taking a few of the hoplites and the cavalry, and giving orders that the ships should sail along the coast, went to the Bithynians and demanded the property of the Calchedonians, saying that if they did not give it to him, he would make war upon them; so they gave it over.

And when Alcibiades returned to his camp with the booty, after having concluded a treaty with the Bithynians, he proceeded with his whole army to invest Calchedon by building a wooden stockade which extended from sea to sea, taking in the river also in so far as this was practicable.From sea to sea, i.e. from Bosporus to Propontis. The river broke the line of the stockade, but the latter was carried as near as possible to each bank of the river.

Thereupon Hippocrates, the Lacedaemonian governor, led forth his troops from the city to do battle; and the Athenians marshalled themselves against him, while Pharnabazus, outside the stockade, with infantry and horsemen in great numbers, tried to aid Hippocrates.

Now for a long time Hippocrates and Thrasyllus fought, each with his hoplites, until Alcibiades came to the rescue with a few hoplites and the cavalry. Then Hippocrates was killed, and those who were with him fled back into the city.

At the same time Pharnabazus, unable to effect a junction with Hippocrates owing to the narrowness of the space, since the stockade came down close to the river, retired to the Heracleium in the Calchedonian territory, where he had his camp.

After this Alcibiades went off to the Hellespont and the Chersonese to collect money; and the rest of the generals concluded a compact with Pharnabazus which provided that, in408 B.C. consideration of their sparing Calchedon, Pharnabazus should give the Athenians twenty talents and should conduct Athenian ambassadors to the King;