Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/133

 REJOICING AT ATHENS. 1H A victory so incomplete and indecisive would have been little valued by the Athenians, in the times preceding the Sicilian ex- pedition. But since that overwhelming disaster, followed by so many other misfortunes, and last of all, by the defeat of Thym'o- charis, with the revolt of Euboea, their spirit had been so sadly lowered, that the trireme which brought the news of the battle of Kynossema, seemingly towards the end of August 411 B.C., was welcomed with the utmost delight and triumph. They began to feel as if the ebb-tide had reached its lowest point, and had begun to turn in their favor, holding out some hopes of ulti- mate success in the war. Another piece of good fortune soon happened, to strengthen this belief. Mindarus was compelled to reinforce himself at the Hellespont by sending Hippokrates and Epikles to bring the fleet of fifty triremes now acting at Euboea. 1 This was in itself an important relief to Athens, by withdrawing an annoying enemy near home. But it was still further en- hanced by the subsequent misfortunes of this fleet, which, in pass- ing round the headland of Mount Athos to get to Asia, was overtaken by a terrific storm and nearly destroyed, with great loss of life among the crews ; so that a remnant only, under Hippokrates, survived to join Mindarus. 2 But though Athens was thus exempted from -all fear of ag gression on the side of Euboea, the consequences of this departure of the fleet were such as to demonstrate how irreparably the island itself had passed out of her supremacy. The inhabitants the Peloponnesian cpibatre. He states that twenty-five fresh ships arrived to join the Athenians in the middle of the battle, and determined the vic- tory in their favor: this circumstance is evidently borrowed from the subse- quent conflict a few months afterwards. We owe to him. however, the mention of the chapel or tomb of Hecuba on the headland of Kynossema. 1 Thucyd. viii, 107; Diodor. xiii, 41. nnd twelve seamen who escaped from the wreck commemorated their rescue I >y an inscription in the temple of Athene at Koroncia; which inscription was road and copied by Ephorus. By an exaggerated an( j over-literal con- fidence in the words of it, Diodorus is led to affirm that these twelve men were the only persons saved, and that every other person perished. But we know perfectly that Hippokrates himself survived, and that he was alive a the subsequent battle of Kyzikus (Xenoph. Ilellen. i, 1, 23).
 * Diodor. xiii, 41. It is probable that this fleet was in great part Boeotian ;