Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/410

392 592 HISTORY OF GREECE. enced from them the same reluctance as from the Corinthians, a strong proof that the tone of feeling in Lesbos had been found to be decidedly philo-Athenian on the former expedition. Pedari- tus even peremptorily refused to let him have the Chian triremes for any such purpose, an act of direct insubordination in a Lace- daemonian officer towards the admiral-in-chief, which Astyochus resented so strongly, that he immediately left Chios for Miletus, carrying away with him all the Peloponnesian triremes, and telling the Chians, in terms of strong displeasure, that they might look in vain to him for aid, if they should come to need it. He halted with his fleet for the night under the headland of Korykus (in the Erythraean territory), on the north side ; but while there, he received an intimation of a supposed plot to betray Erythrae by means of prisoners sent back from the Athenian station at Samos. Instead of pursuing his voyage to Miletus, he therefore returned on the next day to Erythrae to investigate this plot, which turned out to be a stratagem of the prisoners themselves in order to obtain their liberation. 1 The fact of his thus going back to Erythrae, instead of pursu- ing his voyage, proved, by accident, the salvation of his fleet. For it so happened that on that same night the Athenian fleet, under Strombichides thirty triremes, accompanied by some triremes carrying hoplites had its station on the southern side of the same headland. Neither knew of the position of the other, and Astyochus, had he gone forward the next day towards Mile- tus, would have fallen in with the superior numbers of his enemy. He farther escaped a terrible storm, which the Athenians encoun- tered when they doubled the headland going northward. De- scrying three Chian triremes, they gave chase, but the storm became so violent that even these Chians had great difficulty in making their own harbor, while the three foremost Athenian ships were wrecked on the neighboring shore, all the crews either perishing or becoming prisoners. 2 The rest of the Athenian fleet found shelter in the harbor of Phcenikus on the opposite main- land, under the lofty mountain called Mimas, north of Erythrae. As soon as weather permitted, they pursued their voyage tc Lesbos, from which island they commenced their operations of 1 Thucyd, viii, 32, 33. * Ihncyd. viii, 33 34