Hellenica

After this,[*](i.e. after the last events described by Thucydides. The scene is the Hellespont.) not many days later, Thymochares[*](411 B.C.) came from Athens with a few ships; and thereupon the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians fought another naval battle, and the Lacedaemonians were victorious, under the leadership of Agesandridas.

Shortly after this, at the beginning of the winter, Dorieus, the son of Diagoras, sailed into the Hellespont from Rhodes with fourteen ships, arriving at daybreak. And when the Athenian day-watcher described him, he signalled to the generals, and they put out against him with twenty ships; and Dorieus, fleeing from them towards the shore, beached his triremes, as fast as he got them clear of the enemy, in the neighbourhood of Rhoeteum.

And when the Athenians came near, the men under Dorieus fought, from their ships and from the shore, until the Athenians sailed away to Madytus, to the rest of their fleet, without having accomplished anything.

Now Mindarus caught sight of the battle as he was sacrificing to Athena at Ilium, and hurrying to the sea he launched his triremes and set out, in order to pick up the ships under Dorieus.

And the Athenians set out against him and did battle,[*](411 B.C.) along the strand near Abydus, from morning till late afternoon. They were at some points victorious and at others defeated, when Alcibiades sailed into the Hellespont to their support, with eighteen ships.

Thereupon the Peloponnesians took to flight in the direction of Abydus; and Pharnabazus came along the shore to their aid, and riding his horse into the sea as far as possible, bore a share in the fighting and cheered on his followers, cavalry and infantry.

Meanwhile the Peloponnesians made a barrier of their ships and marshalled themselves on the shore and fought. At length the Athenians sailed away to Sestus after capturing thirty of the enemy’s ships, though without their crews, and recovering those which they had previously lost themselves.

From Sestus all but forty of their ships went off in different directions, outside the Hellespont, to collect money; and Thrasyllus, who was one of the generals, set sail for Athens to report these events and to ask for troops and ships.

After this Tissaphernes came to the Hellespont; and when Alcibiades with a single trireme went to visit him, bearing friendly offerings and gifts, Tissaphernes seized him and imprisoned him in Sardis, saying that the King ordered him to make war upon the Athenians.

Thirty days later, however, Alcibiades, together with Mantitheus, who had been taken prisoner in Caria, provided themselves with horses and made their escape from Sardis by night to Clazomenae.

Meanwhile the Athenians at Sestus, learning that[*](410 B.C.) Mindarus was planning to sail against them with sixty ships, withdrew by night to Cardia. There[*](410 B.C.) Alcibiades joined them, coming from Clazomenae with five triremes and a dispatch boat. But upon learning that the Peloponnesian ships had set out from Abydus to Cyzicus, he proceeded overland to Sestus and gave orders that the ships should sail around to that place.

When they had arrived there and he was on the point of putting out to sea for battle, Theramenes sailed in from Macedonia with a reinforcement of twenty ships, and at the same time Thrasybulus arrived from Thasos with twenty more, both of them having been engaged in collecting money.

And after bidding them also to follow after him when they had removed their cruising sails,[*](Thus clearing for action.) Alcibiades set off with his own ships to Parium; and when all the ships had come together at Parium, to the number of eighty-six, they set sail during the ensuing night, and on the next day at breakfast time arrived at Proconnesus.

There they learned that Mindarus was at Cyzicus, and also Pharnabazus with his army. Accordingly they remained that day at Proconnesus, but on the following day Alcibiades called an assembly of his men and told them that they must needs fight at sea, fight on land, and fight against fortresses. For we, he said, have no money, but the enemy have an abundance of it from the King.

Now on the preceding day, when they had come to anchor, Alcibiades had taken into his custody all the vessels in the harbour, even the small ones, in order that no one should report to the enemy the size of his fleet, and he made proclamation that death would be the punishment of any one who was caught sailing across to the other side of the strait.

And after the assembly he made preparations for battle and, in the midst of a heavy rain, set out for Cyzicus. When he[*](410 B.C.) was near Cyzicus, the weather cleared and the sun came out, and he sighted the ships under Mindarus, sixty in number, engaged in practice at some distance from the harbour and already cut off from it by his own fleet.

But the Peloponnesians, when they saw that the Athenian triremes were far more numerous than before and were near the harbour, fled to the shore; and mooring their ships together, they fought with their adversaries as they sailed down upon them.

Alcibiades, however, with twenty of his ships sailed round the fleets and landed on the shore. When Mindarus saw this, he also landed, and fell fighting on the shore; and those who were with him fled. And the Athenians took away with them to Proconnesus all the Peloponnesian ships, except those of the Syracusans; for these were burned by their own crews.From Proconnesus the Athenians sailed on the next day against Cyzicus;

and the Cyzicenes admitted them, inasmuch as the Peloponnesians and Pharnabazus had evacuated the city.

There Alcibiades remained for twenty days, and after obtaining a great deal of money from the Cyzicenes, but without doing any further harm in the city, sailed back to Proconnesus. From there he sailed to Perinthus and Selymbria.