Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/415

397 AS1YOCHUS AT KNIDUS. 397 Timagoras had caused to be equipped, having come over for that purpose a year before as envoys from the satrap Pharnabazus. Antisthenes was instructed first to get to Miletus and put himself in concert with the main Lacedaemonian fleet ; next, to forward these triremes, or another squadron of equal force under Klear- chus, to the Hellespont, for the purpose of cooperating with Phar- nabazus against the Athenian dependencies in that region. Eleven Spartans, the chief of whom was Lichas, accompanied Antisthenes, to be attached to Astyochus as advisers, according tf? a practice not unusual with the Lacedaemonians. These men were not only directed to review the state of affairs at Miletus, and exercise control coordinate with Astyochus, but even empow- ered, if they saw reason, to dismiss that admiral himself, upon whom the complaints of Pedaritus from Chios had cast suspicion ; and to appoint Antisthenes in his place. 1 No sooner had Astyochus learned at Miletus the arrival of An- tisthenes at Kaunus, than he postponed all idea of lending aid to Chios, and sailed immediately to secure his junction with the twenty-seven new triremes as well as with the new Spartan coun- sellors. In his voyage southward he captured the city of K6s, unfortified and half-ruined by a recent earthquake, and then pass- ed on to Knidus ; where the inhabitants strenuously urged him to go forward at once, even without disembarking his men, in order that he might surprise an Athenian squadron of twenty triremes under Charminus ; which had been despatched from Samos, after the news received from Melos, in order to attack and repel the squadron under Antisthenes. Charminus. having his station at Syme, wai cruising near Rhodes and the Lykian coast, to watch, though he had not been able to keer, back, the Peloponnesian fleet just arrived at Kaunus. In this position he was found by the far more numerous fleet of Asty- ochus, the approach of which he did not at all expect. But the rainy and hazy weather had so dispersed it, that Charminus, seeing at first only a few ships apart from the rest, mistook them for the smaller squadron of new-comers. Attacking the tri- remes thus seen, he at first gained considerable advantage, dis- Thucyd.viii, 39. Kai elprjro avrolf, if M-ityrov utKopevove TUV HpiVTa l^etv, etc.