Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/387

 NIKIAS CONQUERS KYTHERA. 365 conducted thither a fleet of sixty triremes, with two thousand Athenian hoplites, some few horsemen, and a body of allies, mainly Milesians. There were in the island two towns, Kythera and Skandeia: the former having a lower town close to the sea, fronting Cape Malea, and an upper town on the hill above ; the latter, seemingly, on the south or west coast. Both were attacked at the same time by order of Nikias ; ten triremes and a body of Milesian 1 hoplites disembarked and captured Skandeia ; while the Athenians landed at Kythera, and drove the inhabitants out of the lower town into the upper, where they speedily capitulated. A certain party among them had indeed secretly invited the coming of Nikias, through which intrigue easy terms were obtained for the inhabitants. Some few men, indicated by the Kytherians in intelligence with Nikias, were carried away as prisoners to Athens : but the remainder were left undisturbed, and enrolled among the tributary allies under obligation to pay four talents per annum ; an Athenian garrison being placed at Kythera for the protection of the island. From hence Nikias employed seven days in descents and inroads upon the coast, near Helos, Asine, Aphrodisia, Kotyrta, and elsewhere. The Lacedaemonian force was disseminated in petty garrisons, means that the only portion of the coast of Laconia where a maritime in vader could do much damage, was in the interior of the Laconic gulf, near Helos, Gythium, etc., -which is in fact the only plain portion of the coast of Laconia. The two projecting promontories, which end, the one in Cape Malea, the other in Cape Tsenarus, are high, rocky, harborless, and afford very little temptation to a disembarking enemy. " The whole Laconian coast is high projecting cliff, where it fronts the Sicilian and Kretan seas," nu.cs a uvsxet. The island of Kythera was particularly favorable for facilitating descents on the territory near Helos and Gythium. Tho li/.ijievoTTjc of Laconia is noticed in Xcnophon, Hellen. iv, 8, 7, where ha describes the occupation of the island by Konon and Pharnabazus. See Colonel Leake's description of this coast, and the high cliffs between Cape Matapan Tamarus and Kalamata, which front the Sicilian sea, as well as those eastward of Cape St. Angelo, or Malea, which front the Kretan sea (Travels in Morea, vol. i, ch. vii, p. 261 : "tempestuous, rocky, unsheltered coast of Mesamani," ch. viii, p. 320; ch. vi, p. 205 ; Strabo, viii, p. 368; Pausan. iii, c. xxvi, 2). 1 Thucyd. iv, 54. diaxiMotf 'Mi^r/criuv oir^iraic. It seems impossible to believe that there could have been so many as two thousand APlemcu hoplites : but we cannot tell where the mistake lies.