Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/305

 TRIUMPH OF KOXON. 283 ity of his fleet, had he confessed himself too weak to fight, hia enemies would have gone unopposed around the islands to excito revolt. Accordingly, he sailed forth from the harbor of Knidus. But when the two fleets were ranged opposite to each other, and the battle was about to commence, so manifest and alarming was the superiority of the Athenians and Persians, that hia Asiatic allies on the left division, noway hearty in the cause, fled almost without striking a blow. Under such discouraging circumstances, he nevertheless led his fleet into action with the greatest valor. But his trireme was overwhelmed by numbers, broken in various places by the beaks of the enemy's ships, and forced back upon the land, together with a large portion of his fleet. Many of the crews jumped out and got to land, abandoning their triremes to the conquerors. Peisander, too, might have es- caped in the same way ; but disdaining either to survive his defeat or to quit his ship, fell gallantly fighting aboard. The victory of Konon and Pharnabazus was complete. More than half of the Spartan ships were either captured or destroyed, though the neigh- borhood of the land enabled a large proportion of the crews to es- cape to Knidus, so that no great number of prisoners were taken. 1 Among the allies of Sparta, the chief loss of course fell upon those who were most attached to her cause ; the disaffected or lukewarm were those who escaped by flight at the beginning. Such was the memorable triumph of Konon at Knidus ; the reversal of that of Lysander at .^Egospotami eleven years before. Its important effects will be recounted in the coming chapter. 1 Xen. Hellen. IT, 3 1 )-14 ; Diodor. xir, 83 ; Cornelius Nepos, Conon, c. 4 ; Justin, vi, 3.