Hellenica

Lysander accordingly dropped the matter for the moment; but after dinner, when Cyrus drank his health and asked him by what act he could gratify him most, Lysander replied: By adding an obol to the pay of each sailor.

And from this time forth the wage was four obols, whereas it had previously been three. Cyrus also settled the arrears of pay and gave them a month’s wage in advance besides, so that the men of the fleet were much more zealous.

Now when the Athenians heard of this, they were despondent, and sent ambassadors to Cyrus through Tissaphernes.

Cyrus, however, would not receive them, although Tissaphernes urged him to do so and advised him to see to it that no single Greek state should become strong, but that all be kept weak through constant quarrelling among themselves,—the policy he himself had followed on the advice of Alcibiades.[*](cp. Thuc. 8. 46.)

As for Lysander, when he had finished organising his fleet, he hauled ashore the ships which were at Ephesus, now ninety in number, and kept quiet, while the ships were being dried out and repaired.

Meantime Alcibiades, hearing that Thrasybulus had come out from the Hellespont and was investing Phocaea, sailed across to see him, leaving in command of the fleet Antiochus, the pilot of his own ship, with orders not to attack Lysander’s ships.

Antiochus, however, with his own ship and one other sailed from Notium into the harbour of Ephesus and coasted along past the very prows of Lysander’s ships.[*](On this incident see Plutarch, Alc. 35.)

Lysander at first launched a few ships and pursued him, but when the Athenians came to the aid of Antiochus with more ships, he then formed[*](407 B.C.) into line of battle every ship he had and sailed against them. Thereupon the Athenians also launched the rest of their triremes at Notium and set out, as each one got a clear course.

From that moment they fell to fighting, the one side in good order, but the Athenians with their ships scattered, and fought until the Athenians took to flight, after losing fifteen triremes. As for the men upon them, the greater part escaped, but some were taken prisoners. Then Lysander, after taking possession of his prizes and setting up a trophy at Notium, sailed across to Ephesus, while the Athenians went to Samos.

After this Alcibiades came to Samos, set sail with all his ships to the harbour of Ephesus, and formed the fleet in line at the mouth of the harbour as a challenge to battle, in case anyone cared to fight. But when Lysander did not sail out against him, because his fleet was considerably inferior in numbers, Alcibiades sailed back to Samos. And a little later the Lacedaemonians captured Delphinium and Eion.

When the Athenians at home got the news of the battle at Notium, they were angry with Alcibiades, thinking that he had lost the ships through neglect of duty and dissolute conduct, and they chose ten new generals, Conon, Diomedon, Leon, Pericles, Erasinides, Aristocrates, Archestratus, Protomachus, Thrasyllus, and Aristogenes.

So Alcibiades, who was in disfavour with the army as well, took a trireme and sailed away to his castle[*](Which he had constructed, says Plutarch (Alc.36), to serve him as a place of refuge in case of possible trouble.) in the Chersonese.

After this Conon set sail from Andros, with the twenty ships which he had, to Samos, there to[*](407 B.C.) assume command of the fleet in accordance with the vote which the Athenians had passed. They also sent Phanosthenes to Andros, with four ships, to replace Conon.

On the way Phanosthenes fell in with two Thurian triremes and captured them, crews and all; and the men who were thus taken were all imprisoned by the Athenians, but their commander, Dorieus, a Rhodian by birth, but some time before exiled from both Athens and Rhodes by the Athenians, who had condemned him and his kinsmen to death, and now a citizen of Thurii, they set free without even exacting a ransom, taking pity upon him.

When, meanwhile, Conon had arrived at Samos, where he found the Athenian fleet in a state of despondency, he manned with full complements seventy triremes instead of the former number, which was more than a hundred, and setting out with this fleet, in company with the other generals, landed here and there in the enemy’s territory and plundered it.

So the year ended, being the year in which the Carthaginians made an expedition to Sicily with one hundred and twenty triremes and an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men, and although defeated in battle, starved Acragas into submission after besieging it for seven months.

In the ensuing year—the year in which there[*](406 B.C.) was an eclipse of the moon one evening, and the old temple[*](On the Acropolis. On its identity see D’Ooge, Acropolis of Athens, Appendix III.) of Athena at Athens was burned, Pityas being now ephor at Sparta and Callias archon at Athens—the Lacedaemonians sent Callicratidas to take command[*](406 B.C.) of the fleet, since Lysander’s term of office had ended (and with it the twenty-fourth year of the war).

And when Lysander delivered over the ships, he told Callicratidas that he did so as master of the sea and victor in battle. Callicratidas, however, bade him coast along from Ephesus on the left of Samos, where the Athenian ships were, and deliver over the fleet at Miletus; then, he said, he would grant him that he was master of the sea.