Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/302

 280 HISTORY OF GREECE. much, without dismissing the Spartan harmosts and lessening the political power of his own partisans ; neither of which he did. His plans were now all laid for penetrating farther than ever into the interior, and for permanent conquest, if possible, of the western portion of Persian Asia. What he would have perma- nently accomplished towards this scheme, cannot be determined ; for his aggressive march was suspended by a summons home, the reason of which will appear in the next chapter. Meanwhile, Pharnabazus had been called from his satrapy to go and take the command of the Persian fleet in Kilikia and the south of Asia Minor, in conjunction with Konon. Since the revolt of Rhodes from the Lacedaemonians, (in the summer of the pre- ceding year, 395 B. c.) that active Athenian had achieved nothing The burst of activity, produced by the first visit of Pharnabazus at the Persian court, had been paralyzed by the jealousies of the Persian commanders, reluctant to serve under a Greek, by peculation of officers who embezzled the pay destined for the troops, by mutiny in the fleet from absence of pay, and by the many delays arising while the satraps, unwilling to spend their own rev- enues in the war, waited for orders and remittances from court. 1 Hence Konon had been unable to make any efficient use of his fleet, during those months when the Lacedemonian fleet was increased to nearly double its former number. At length he resolved, seemingly at the instigation of his countrymen at home 2 as well as of Euagoras prince of Salamis in Cyprus, and through the encouragement of Ktesias, one of the Grecian physi- cians resident at the Persian court, on going himself into the interior to communicate personally with Artaxerxes. Landing on the Kilikian coast, he crossed by land to Thapsakus on the Eu- 1 Compare Diodor. xv, 41 ad fin. ; and Thucyd. viii, 45. 2 Isokrates Or. viii, De Pace, s. 82) alludes to "many embassies " as hav- ing been sent by Athens to the king of Persia, to protest against the Lace- daemonian dominion. But this mission of Konon is the only one whicil we can verify, prior to the battle of Knidus. Probably Demus, the son of Pyrilampes, an eminent citizen and trie- rarch of Athens, must have been one of the companions of Konon in this mission. He is mentioned in an oration of Lysias as having received from the Great King a present of a golden drr'.nking-txnvl or (ipu'rf.Tj'/- and I do not know on what other occasion he can have received it, except in thi embassy (Lysias, Or. xix, De Bonis Aristopi I. 271.