Hellenica

But Teleutias sent off the captured merchant vessels to Aegina and gave orders that three or four of the triremes should convoy them thither, while with the rest of the triremes he coasted along the shore of Attica and, inasmuch as he was sailing out of the harbour, captured great numbers of fishing craft and ferryboats full of people as they were sailing in from the[*](388 B.C.) islands. And on coming to Sunium he captured trading vessels also, some of them full of corn, others of merchandise.

Having done all these things he sailed back to Aegina, and when he had sold his booty he gave the soldiers a month’s pay in advance. He likewise from that time forth cruised round and captured whatever he could. And by doing these things he maintained his ships with full complements of sailors, and kept his soldiers in a state of glad and prompt obedience.

And now Antalcidas returned with Tiribazus from[*](387 B.C.) the Persian capital, having effected an agreement that the King should be an ally of the Lacedaemonians if the Athenians and their allies refused to accept the peace which he himself directed them to accept. But when Antalcidas heard that Nicolochus with his ships was being blockaded at Abydus by Iphicrates and Diotimus, he went overland to Abydus. And from there he set out during the night with the fleet, after spreading a report that the Calchedonians were sending for him; then he came to anchor at Percote and remained quiet there.

Now the Athenian forces under Demaenetus, Dionysius, Leontichus, and Phanias, upon learning of his departure, followed after him in the direction of Proconnesus; and when they had sailed past him, Antalcidas turned about and came back to Abydus, for he had heard that Polyxenus was approaching with the ships from Syracuse and Italy, twenty in number, and he wished to join these also to his command. But soon after this Thrasybulus, of the deme Collytus, came sailing from Thrace with eight ships, desiring to unite with the other Athenian ships.

And Antalcidas, when his scouts signalled to[*](387 B.C.) him that eight triremes were approaching, embarked the sailors on twelve of his fastest ships, gave orders that if anyone was lacking men, he should fill up his crew from the ships left behind, and lay in wait with the utmost possible concealment. Then, as the enemy were sailing past him, he pursued; and they, upon seeing him, fled. Now he speedily succeeded in overhauling the slowest of the enemy’s ships with his fastest; but giving orders to the leaders of his own fleet not to attack the hindmost ships, he continued the pursuit of those which were ahead. And when he had captured them, those who were behind, upon seeing that the leaders of their fleet were being taken, out of discouragement were themselves taken even by the slower ships of Antalcidas; and the result was that all the ships were captured.

And after the twenty ships from Syracuse had come and joined Antalcidas, and the ships from all that part of Ionia of which Tiribazus was master had also come, and more still had been manned from the territory of Ariobarzanes — for Antalcidas was an old friend of Ariobarzanes, and Pharnabazus had at this time gone up to the capital in response to a summons, this being the occasion when he married the King’s daughter — then Antalcidas, the whole number of his ships amounting to more than eighty, was master of the sea, so that he also prevented the ships from the Pontus from sailing to Athens, and compelled them to sail to the ports of his people’s allies.

The Athenians, therefore, seeing that the enemy’s ships were many, fearing that they might be completely subdued, as they had been before, now that the King had become an ally of the Lacedaemonians, and being beset by the raiding parties from Aegina, for[*](387 B.C.) these reasons were exceedingly desirous of peace. On the other hand the Lacedaemonians, what with maintaining a garrison of one regiment at Lechaeum and another at Orchomenus, keeping watch upon their allied states — those which they trusted, to prevent their being destroyed, and those which they distrusted, to prevent their revolting — and suffering and causing trouble around Corinth, were out of patience with the war. As for the Argives, knowing that the Lacedaemonian ban had been called out against them, and being aware that their plea of the sacred months[*](cp. IV. vii. 2 f. and note.) would no longer be of any help to them, they also were eager for peace.