Meanwhile Pedaritus, despatched by land from Milêtus,—at the head of the mercenary force made prisoners at Iasus, as well as of five hundred of the Peloponnesian seamen who had originally crossed the sea with Chalkideus, and since served as hoplites,—had reached Erythræ and from thence crossed the channel to Chios. To him and to the Chians, Astyochus now proposed to undertake the expedition to Lesbos; but he experienced from them the same reluctance as from the Corinthians, a strong proof that the tone of feeling in Lesbos had been found to be decidedly philo-Athenian on the former expedition. Pedaritus even peremptorily refused to let him have the Chian triremes for any such purpose, an act of direct insubordination in a Lacedæmonian officer towards the admiral-in-chief, which Astyochus resented so strongly, that he immediately left Chios for Milêtus, carrying away with him all the Peloponnesian triremes, and telling the Chians, in terms of strong displeasure, that they might look in vain to him for aid, if they should come to need it. He halted with his fleet for the night under the headland of Korykus (in the Erythræan territory), on the north side; but while there, he received an intimation of a supposed plot to betray Erythræ by means of prisoners sent back from the Athenian station at Samos. Instead of pursuing his voyage to Milêtus, he therefore returned on the next day to Erythræ to investigate this plot, which turned out to be a stratagem of the prisoners themselves in order to obtain their liberation.[591]

The fact of his thus going back to Erythræ, instead of pursuing his voyage, proved, by accident, the salvation of his fleet. For it so happened that on that same night the Athenian fleet, under Strombichidês—thirty triremes, accompanied by some triremes carrying hoplites—had its station on the southern side of the same headland. Neither knew of the position of the other, and Astyochus, had he gone forward the next day towards Milêtus, would have fallen in with the superior numbers of his enemy. He farther escaped a terrible storm, which the Athenians encountered when they doubled the headland going northward. Descrying three Chian triremes, they gave chase, but the storm became so violent that even these Chians had great difficulty in making their own harbor, while the three foremost Athenian ships were wrecked on the neighboring shore, all the crews either perishing or becoming prisoners.[592] The rest of the Athenian fleet found shelter in the harbor of Phœnikus on the opposite mainland, under the lofty mountain called Mimas, north of Erythræ.

As soon as weather permitted, they pursued their voyage to Lesbos, from which island they commenced their operations of invading Chios and establishing in it a permanent fortified post. Having transported their land-force across from Lesbos, they occupied a strong maritime site called Delphinium, seemingly a projecting cape having a sheltered harbor on each side, not far from the city of Chios.[593] They bestowed great labor and time in fortifying this post, both on the land and the sea-side, during which process they were scarcely interrupted at all either by the Chians, or by Pedaritus and his garrison; whose inaction arose not merely from the discouragement of the previous defeats, but from the political dissension which now reigned in the city. A strong philo-Athenian party had pronounced itself; and though Tydeus its leader was seized by Pedaritus and put to death, still, his remaining partisans were so numerous, that the government was brought to an oligarchy narrower than ever, and to the extreme of jealous precaution, not knowing whom to trust. In spite of numerous messages sent to Milêtus, intreating succor, and representing the urgent peril to which this greatest among all the Ionian allies of Sparta was exposed, Astyochus adhered to his parting menaces, and refused compliance. The indignant Pedaritus sent to prefer complaint against him at Sparta as a traitor. Meanwhile the fortress at Delphinium advanced so near towards completion, that Chios began to suffer from it as much as Athens suffered from Dekeleia, with the farther misfortune of being blocked up by sea. The slaves in this wealthy island—chiefly foreigners acquired by purchase, but more numerous than in any other Grecian state except Laconia—were emboldened by the manifest superiority and assured position of the invaders to desert in crowds; and the loss arising, not merely from their flight, but from the valuable information and aid which they gave to the enemy was immense.[594] The distress of the island increased every day, nor could anything relieve it except succor from without, which Astyochus still withheld.

That officer, on reaching Milêtus, found the Peloponnesian force on the Asiatic side of the Ægean just reinforced by a squadron of twelve triremes under Dorieus; chiefly from Thurii, which had undergone a political revolution since the Athenian disaster at Syracuse, and was now decidedly in the hands of the active philo-Laconian party; the chief persons friendly to Athens having been exiled.[595] Dorieus and his squadron, crossing the Ægean in its southern latitude, had arrived safely at Knidus, which had already been conquered by Tissaphernês from Athens, and had received a Persian garrison.[596] Orders were sent from Milêtus that half of this newly-arrived squadron should remain on guard at Knidus, while the other half should cruise near the Triopian cape to intercept the trading vessels from Egypt. But the Athenians, who had also learned the arrival of Dorieus, sent a powerful squadron from Samos, which captured all these six triremes off Cape Triopium, though the crews escaped ashore. They farther made an attempt to recover Knidus, which was very nearly successful, as the town was unfortified on the sea-side. On the morrow the attack was renewed,—but additional defences had been provided during the night, while the crews of the ships captured near Triopium had come in to help,—so that the Athenians were forced to return to Samos without any farther advantage than that of ravaging the Knidian territory. Astyochus took no step to intercept them, nor did he think himself strong enough to keep the sea against the seventy-four Athenian triremes at Samos, though his fleet at Milêtus was at this moment in high condition. The rich booty acquired at Iasus was unconsumed; the Milêsians were zealous in the confederate cause; while the pay from Tissaphernês continued to be supplied with tolerable regularity, though at the reduced rate mentioned a little above.[597]

Though the Peloponnesians had yet no ground of complaint—such as they soon came to have—against the satrap for irregularity of payment, still, the powerful fleet now at Milêtus inspired the commanders with a new tone of confidence, so that they became ashamed of the stipulations of that treaty to which Chalkideus and Alkibiadês, when first landing at Milêtus with their scanty armament, had submitted. Accordingly Astyochus, shortly after his arrival at Milêtus, and even before the departure of Theramenês,—whose functions had expired when he had handed over the fleet,—insisted on a fresh treaty with Tissaphernês, which was agreed on, to the following effect:—

“Convention and alliance is concluded, on the following conditions, between the Lacedæmonians, with their allies, and king Darius, his sons, and Tissaphernês. The Lacedæmonians and their allies shall not attack or injure any territory or any city which belongs to Darius, or has belonged to his father or ancestors; nor shall they raise any tribute from any of the said cities. Neither Darius nor any of his subjects shall attack or injure the Lacedæmonians or their allies. Should the Lacedæmonians or their allies have any occasion for the king, or should the king have any occasion for the Lacedæmonians or their allies, let each meet, as much as may be, the wishes expressed by the other. Both will carry on jointly the war against Athens and her allies: neither party shall bring the war to a close, without mutual consent. The king shall pay and keep any army which he may have sent for, and which may be employed in his territory. If any of the cities parties to this convention shall attack the king’s territory, the rest engage to hinder them, and to defend the king with their best power. And if any one within the king’s territory, or within the territory subject to him,[598] shall attack the Lacedæmonians or their allies, the king shall hinder them, and lend his best defensive aid.”

Looked at with the eyes of Pan-Hellenic patriotism, this second treaty of Astyochus and Theramenês was less disgraceful than the first treaty of Chalkideus. It did not formally proclaim that all those Grecian cities which had ever belonged to the king or to his ancestors, should still be considered as his subjects, nor did it pledge the Lacedæmonians to aid the king in hindering any of them from achieving their liberty. It still admitted, however, by implication, the same undiminished extent of the king’s dominion, as it had stood when at its maximum under his predecessors; the same undefined rights of the king to meddle with Grecian affairs; the same unqualified abandonment of all the Greeks on the continent of Asia. The conclusion of this treaty was the last act performed by Theramenês, who was lost at sea shortly afterwards, on his voyage home, in a small boat, no one knew how.[599]

Astyochus, now alone in command, was still importuned by the urgent solicitations of the distressed Chians for relief, and, in spite of his reluctance, was compelled by the murmurs of his own army to lend an ear to them, when a new incident happened which gave him at least a good pretext for directing his attention southward. A Peloponnesian squadron of twenty-seven triremes under the command of Antisthenês, having started from Cape Malea about the winter tropic or close of 412 B.C., had first crossed the sea to Melos, where it dispersed ten Athenian triremes and captured three of them; then afterwards, from apprehension that these fugitive Athenians would make known its approach at Samos, had made a long circuit round by Krete, and thus ultimately reached Kaunus at the southeastern extremity of Asia Minor. This was the squadron which Kalligeitus and Timagoras had caused to be equipped, having come over for that purpose a year before as envoys from the satrap Pharnabazus. Antisthenês was instructed first to get to Milêtus and put himself in concert with the main Lacedæmonian fleet; next, to forward these triremes, or another squadron of equal force under Klearchus, to the Hellespont, for the purpose of coöperating with Pharnabazus against the Athenian dependencies in that region. Eleven Spartans, the chief of whom was Lichas, accompanied Antisthenês, to be attached to Astyochus as advisers, according to a practice not unusual with the Lacedæmonians. These men were not only directed to review the state of affairs at Milêtus, and exercise control coördinate with Astyochus, but even empowered, if they saw reason, to dismiss that admiral himself, upon whom the complaints of Pedaritus from Chios had cast suspicion; and to appoint Antisthenês in his place.[600]

No sooner had Astyochus learned at Milêtus the arrival of Antisthenês at Kaunus, than he postponed all idea of lending aid to Chios, and sailed immediately to secure his junction with the twenty-seven new triremes as well as with the new Spartan counsellors. In his voyage southward he captured the city of Kôs, unfortified and half-ruined by a recent earthquake, and then passed on to Knidus; where the inhabitants strenuously urged him to go forward at once, even without disembarking his men, in order that he might surprise an Athenian squadron of twenty triremes under Charmînus; which had been despatched from Samos, after the news received from Melos, in order to attack and repel the squadron under Antisthenês. Charmînus, having his station at Symê, was cruising near Rhodes and the Lykian coast, to watch, though he had not been able to keep back, the Peloponnesian fleet just arrived at Kaunus. In this position he was found by the far more numerous fleet of Astyochus, the approach of which he did not at all expect. But the rainy and hazy weather had so dispersed it, that Charmînus, seeing at first only a few ships apart from the rest, mistook them for the smaller squadron of new-comers. Attacking the triremes thus seen, he at first gained considerable advantage, disabling three and damaging several others. But presently the dispersed vessels of the main fleet came in sight and closed round him, so that he was forced to make the best speed in escaping, first to the island called Teutlussa, next to Halikarnassus. He did not effect his escape without the loss of six ships; while the victorious Peloponnesians, after erecting their trophy on the island of Symê, returned to Knidus, where the entire fleet, including the twenty-seven triremes newly arrived, was now united.[601] The Athenians in Samos—whose affairs were now in confusion, from causes which will be explained in the ensuing chapter—had kept no watch on the movements of the main Peloponnesian fleet at Milêtus, and seem to have been ignorant of its departure until they were apprized of the defeat of Charmînus. They then sailed down to Symê, took up the sails and rigging belonging to that squadron, which had been there deposited, and then, after an attack upon Loryma, carried back their whole fleet, probably including the remnant of the squadron of Charmînus, to Samos.[602]

Though the Peloponnesian fleet now assembled at Knidus consisted of ninety-four triremes, much superior in number to the Athenian, it did not try to provoke any general action. The time of Lichas and his brother commissioners was at first spent in negotiations with Tissaphernês, who had joined them at Knidus, and against whom they found a strong feeling of discontent prevalent in the fleet. That satrap—now acting greatly under the advice of Alkibiadês, of which also more in the coming chapter—had of late become slack in the Peloponnesian cause, and irregular in furnishing pay to their seamen, during the last weeks of their stay at Milêtus. He was at the same time full of promises, paralyzing all their operations by assurances that he was bringing up the vast fleet of Phenicia to their aid: but in reality his object was, under fair appearances, merely to prolong the contest and waste the strength of both parties. Arriving in the midst of this state of feeling, and discussing with Tissaphernês the future conduct of the war, Lichas not only expressed displeasure at his past conduct, but even protested against the two conventions concluded by Chalkideus and by Theramenês, as being, both the one and the other, a disgrace to the Hellenic name. By the express terms of the former, and by the implications of the latter, not merely all the islands of the Ægean, but even Thessaly and Bœotia, were acknowledged as subject to Persia; so that Sparta, if she sanctioned such conditions, would be merely imposing upon the Greeks a Persian sceptre, instead of general freedom, for which she professed to be struggling. Lichas, declaring that he would rather renounce all prospect of Persian pay, than submit to such conditions, proposed to negotiate for a fresh treaty upon other and better terms, a proposition which Tissaphernês rejected with so much indignation as to depart without settling anything.[603]

His desertion did not discourage the Peloponnesian counsellors. Possessing a fleet larger than they had ever before had united in Asia, together with a numerous body of allies, they calculated on being able to get money to pay their men without Persian aid; and an invitation, which they just now received from various powerful men at Rhodes, tended to strengthen such confidence. The island of Rhodes, inhabited by a Dorian population considerable in number as well as distinguished for nautical skill, was at this time divided between three separate city governments, as it had been at the epoch of the Homeric Catalogue,—Lindus, Ialysus, and Kameirus; for the city called Rhodes, formed by a coalescence of all these three, dates only from two or three years after the period which we have now reached. Invited by several of the wealthy men of the island, the Peloponnesian fleet first attacked Kameirus, the population of which, intimidated by a force of ninety-four triremes, and altogether uninformed of their approach, abandoned their city, which had no defences, and fled to the mountains.[604] All the three Rhodian towns, destitute of fortifications, were partly persuaded, partly frightened, into the step of revolting from Athens and allying themselves with the Peloponnesians. The Athenian fleet, whose commanders were just now too busy with political intrigue to keep due military watch, arrived from Samos too late to save Rhodes, and presently returned to the former island, leaving detachments at Chalkê and Kôs to harass the Peloponnesians with desultory attacks.

The Peloponnesians now levied from the Rhodians a contribution of thirty-two talents, and adopted the island as the main station for their fleet, instead of Milêtus. We can explain this change of place by their recent unfriendly discussion with Tissaphernês, and their desire to be more out of his reach.[605] But what we cannot so easily explain, is, that they remained on the island without any movement or military action, and actually hauled their triremes ashore, for the space of no less than eighty days; that is, from about the middle of January to the end of March 411 B.C. While their powerful fleet of ninety-four triremes, superior to that of Athens at Samos, was thus lying idle, their allies in Chios were known to be suffering severe and increasing distress, and repeatedly pressing for aid:[606] moreover, the promise of sending to coöperate with Pharnabazus against the Athenian dependencies on the Hellespont, remained unperformed.[607] We may impute such extreme military slackness mainly to the insidious policy of Tissaphernês, now playing a double game between Sparta and Athens. He still kept up intelligence with the Peloponnesians at Rhodes, paralyzed their energies by assurances that the Phenician fleet was actually on its way to aid them, and insured the success of these intrigues by bribes distributed personally among the generals and the trierarchs. Even Astyochus, the general-in-chief, took his share in this corrupt bargain, against which not one stood out except the Syracusan Hermokratês.[608] Such prolonged inaction of the armament, at the moment of its greatest force, was thus not simply the fruit of honest mistake, like the tardiness of Nikias in Sicily, but proceeded from the dishonesty and personal avidity of the Peloponnesian officers.

I have noticed, on more than one previous occasion, the many evidences which exist of the prevalence of personal corruption—even in its coarsest form, that of direct bribery—among the leading Greeks of all the cities, when acting individually. Of such evidences the incident here recorded is not the least remarkable. Nor ought this general fact ever to be forgotten by those who discuss the question between oligarchy and democracy, as it stood in the Grecian world. The confident pretensions put forth by the wealthy and oligarchical Greeks to superior virtue, public as well as private,—and the quiet repetition, by various writers modern and ancient, of the laudatory epithets implying such assumed virtue,—are so far from being borne out by history, that these individuals were perpetually ready as statesmen to betray their countrymen, or as generals even to betray the interests of their soldiers, for the purpose of acquiring money themselves. Of course, it is not meant that this was true of all of them; but it was true sufficiently often, to be reckoned upon as a contingency more than probable. If, speaking on the average, the leading men of a Grecian community were not above the commission of political misdeeds thus palpable, and of a nature not to be disguised even from themselves, far less would they be above the vices, always more or less mingled with self-delusion, of pride, power-seeking, party-antipathy or sympathy, love of ease, etc. And if the community were to have any chance of guarantee against such abuses, it could only be by full license of accusation against delinquents, and certainty of trial before judges identified in interest with the people themselves. Such were the securities which the Grecian democracies, especially that of Athens, tried to provide; in a manner not always wise, still less always effectual, but assuredly justified, in the amplest manner, by the urgency and prevalence of the evil. Yet in the common representations given of Athenian affairs, this evil is overlooked or evaded; the precautions taken against it are denounced as so many evidences of democratical ill-temper and injustice; and the class of men, through whose initiatory action alone such precautions were enforced, are held up to scorn as demagogues and sycophants. Had these Peloponnesian generals and trierarchs, who under the influence of bribes wasted two important months in inaction, been Athenians, there might have been some chance of their being tried and punished; though even at Athens the chance of impunity to offenders, through powerful political clubs and other sinister artifices, was much greater than it ought to have been. So little is it consistent with the truth, however often affirmed, that judicial accusation was too easy, and judicial condemnation too frequent. When the judicial precautions provided at Athens are looked at, as they ought to be, side by side with the evil, they will be found imperfect, indeed, both in the scheme and in the working, but certainly neither uncalled for nor over-severe.