Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/401

383 IJilVOLT AND RECOVERY" OF LESBOS. 38o its revolt sixteen years before, must have long ago disappeared.* The Cbiaa fleet first went to Methymna and procured the revolt of that place, where four triremes were left in guard, while the remaining nine sailed forward to Mitylene, and succeeded in obtaining that important town also. 2 Their proceedings, however, were not unwatched by the Athe- nian fleet at Samos. Unable to recover possession of Teos, Diomedon had been obliged to content himself with procuring neutrality from that town, and admission for the vessels of Athens as well as of her enemies : he had, moreover, failed in an attacn upon Eras. 3 But he had since been strengthened partly by the democratical revolution at Samos, partly by the arrival of Leon with ten additional triremes from Athens : so that these two com- manders were now enabled to sail, with twenty-five triremes, to the relief of Lesbos. Reaching Mitylene the largest town in that island very shortly after its revolt, they sailed straight into the harbor when no one expected them, seized the nine Ohir.n ships with little resistance, and after a successful battle on shore, regained possession of the city. The Lacedaemonian jxdmiral Astyochus who had only been three days arrived at Chios from Kenchrete with his four triremes saw the Athe- nian fleet pass through the channel between Chios and the main- land, on its way to Lesbos ; and immediately on the same even- ing followed it to that island, to lend what aid he could, with one Chian trireme added to his own four, and some hoplites aboard, lie sailed first to Pyrrha, and on the next day to Eresus, on the west side of the island, where he first learned the recapture of MityMne by the Athenians. He was here also joined by three out of the four Chian triremes which had been left to defend that place, and which had been driven away, with the loss of one of their number, by a portion of the Athenian fleet pushing on thither from Mitylene. Astyochus prevailed on Eresus to revolt from Athens, and having armed the population, sent t'lem by land together with his own hoplites under Eteonikus to Methym- r:a, in hopes of preserving that place, whither he also proceeded vih his fleet along the coast. But in spite of all his endeavor?, 1 See the earlier part of this History, vol. vi, ch. 1, pp. 257, 258.
 * Thucyd. viii, 22. 3 Thuryd. viii, 20.