Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/390

 368 HISTORY OF GREECE. reflect that the oration was spoken after the death of Thrasybulus, they are entitled to no weight at all. 1 The Athenians sent Agyrrhius to succeed Thrasybulus. After the death of the latter, we may conclude that the fleet went to Rhodes, its original destination, though Xenophon does not expressly say so, the rather, as neither Teleutias nor any subse- quent Lacedaemonian commander appears to have become master of the island, in spite of the considerable force which they had there assembled. 2 The Lacedaemonians, however, on their side, being also much in want of money, Teleutias was obliged (in the same manner as the Athenians), to move from island to island, levying contributions as he could. 3 When the news of the successful proceedings of Thrasybulus at Byzantium and the Hellespont, again establishing a toll for the profit of Athens, reached Sparta, it excited so much anxiety, that Anaxibius, having great influence with the ephors of the time, prevailed on them to send him out as harmost to Abydos, in the room of Derkyllidas, who had now been in that post for several years. Having been the officer originally employed to procure the 1 Lysias, cont. Ergo. Or. xxviii, s. 9. Ergokles is charged in this oration with gross abuse of power, oppression towards allies and citizens of Athens, and peculation for his own profit, during the course of the expedition of Thrasybulus ; who is indirectly ac- cused of conniving at such misconduct. It appears that the Athenians, as soon as they were informed that Thrasybulus had established the toll in the Bosphorus, passed a decree that an account should be sent home of all moneys exacted from the various cities, and that the colleagues of Thrasy- bulus should come home to go through the audit (s. 5) ; implying (so far aa we can understand what is thus briefly noticed) that Thrasybulus himself should not be obliged to come home, but might stay on his Hellespontine or Asiatic command. Ergokles, however, probably one of these colleagues, resented this degree as an insult, and advised Thrasybulus to seize Byzan- tium, to retain the fleet, and to marry the daughter of the Thracian prince Seuthes. It is also affirmed in the oration that the fleet had come home in very bad condition (s. 2-4), and that the money, levied with so much criminal abuse, had been either squandered or fraudulently appropriated. We learn from another oration that Ergokles was condemned to death. His property was confiscated, and was said to amount to thirt7 talents, though he had been poor before the expedition ; but nothing like that amount was discovered after the sentence of confiscation (Lysias, Or. xxx, cont. Philokrat. s. 3).
 * Xen. Hellen. iv, 8, 31. 3 Xen Hcllen. v, 1, 2.