Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/135

 REVOLT AND RECAPTURE OF KYZIKUS. 1J3 little while before, the revolt of Byzantium. But, on the other hand, as soon as the Athenian fleet had left Sestos, Mindarus sailed from his station at Abydos to Elacus, and there recovered all the triremes captured from him at Kynossema, which the Athenians had there deposited, except some of them which were so much damaged that the inhabitants of Elaeus set them on fire." But that which now began to constitute a far more important element of the war, was, the difference of character between Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus, and the transfer of the Pelo- ponnesian fleet from the satrapy of the former to that of the latter. Tissaphernes, while furnishing neither aid nor pay to the Peloponnesians, had by his treacherous promises and bribes ener- vated all their proceedings for the last year, with the deliberate view of wasting both the belligerent parties. Pharnabazus was a brave and earnest man, who set himself to strengthen them strenuously, by men as well as by money, and who labored hard to put down the Athenian power ; as we shall find him laboring equally hard, eighteen years afterwards, to bring about its par- tial renovation. From this time forward, Persian aid become? a reality in the Grecian war ; and in the main first, through the hands of Pharnabazus, next, through those of the younger Cyrus the determining reality. For we shall find that while the Pelo- ponnesians are for the most part well paid, out of the Persian treasury, the Athenians, destitute of any such resource, are com- pelled to rely on the contributions which they can levy here and there, without established or accepted right ; and to interrupt for this purpose even the most promising career of success. Twenty- six years after this, at a time when Sparta had lost her Persian allies, the Lacedaemonian Teleutias tried to appease the mutiny of his unpaid seamen, by telling them how much nobler it was to extort pay from the enemy by means of their own swords, than Athenian generals, during these previous years of struggle, tried 1 Thuej-d. viii, 10". s Xcnoph. Hcllcn. v, 1, 17. Cooipare a like exclamation, under noblei circumstances, from the Spartan Kallikiatidas, Xenoph. Hellcn. i, 6, 7' I'lutarch, Lysandcr, c. 6. VOL. VIII. 8OC,
 * o obtain it by truckling to the foreigner; 2 and probably the