Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/403

385 THE ATHENIANS ATTACK CHIOS. 335 fortified to defend itself. The leading anti-Athenians in the town made their escape, and went farther up the country to Daplmus. Animated by such additional success as well as by a victory which the Athenians, who were blockading Miletus, gained over Chalkideus, wherein that officer was slain Leon and Diomedon thought themselves in a condition to begin aggres- sive measures against Chios, now their most active enemy in Ionia. Their fleet of twenty-five sail was well equipped with epibatiB ; who, though under ordinary circumstances they were thetes armed at the public cost, yet in the present stress of affairs were impressed from the superior hoplites in the city mus- ter-roll. 1 They occupied the little islets called CEnussae, near Chios on the northeast, as well as the forts of Sidussa and Pteleus in the territory of Erythroe ; from which positions they began a series of harassing operations against Chios itself. Dis- embarking on the island at Kardamyle and Bolissus, they not only ravaged the neighborhood, but inflicted upon the Chian forces a bloody defeat. After two farther defeats, at Phanae and at Leukonium, the Chians no longer dared to quit their fortifica- tions ; so that the invaders were left to ravage at pleasure the whole territory, being at the same time masters of the sea around, and blocking up the port. The Athenians now retaliated upon Chios the hardships under which Attica itself was suffering ; hardships the more painfully felt, inasmuch as this was the first time that an enemy had ever been seen in the island since the repulse of Xerxes from Greece and the organ- ization of the confederacy of Delos, more than sixty years before. The territory of Chios was highly cultivated, 3 its commerce exten- sive, and its wealth among the greatest in all Greece. In fact, under the Athenian empire, its prosperity had been so marked and so un- interrupted, that Thucydides expresses his astonishment at the un- deviating prudence and circumspection of the government, in spite of circumstances well calculated to tempt them into extravagance. " Except Sparta (he says), 3 Chios is the only state that I know, 1 Thucyd. viii, 24, with Dr. Arnold's note. - Aristotcl. Politic, iv, 4, 1 ; Athenseus, vi, p. 265. 1 Thucyd. viii, 24. Kal /nsra TOVTO ol [IEV Xloi Tjtiri OVKETI ETre&jeaav, ol til ,' rjvaloi) rtjv %upav, Ka/lcTf KaTcaKCvaa/j.svr)v Kal airadij ovaav urrb TUV VOL. vi i 17 2ooc.