Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/186

 164 HISTORY OF GREECE. petent to protect them, and while they were willing to receive protection from her, during the interval of more than fifty years between the complete organization of the confederacy of Delo3 and the disaster of Nikias before Syracuse. The single-hearted energy of Kaliikratidas imposed upon all who heard him, and even inspired so much alarm to those lead- ing Milesians who were playing underhand the game of Lysan- der, that they were the first to propose a large grant of money towards the war, and to offer considerable sums from their own purses ; an example probably soon followed by other allied cities. Some of the friends of Lysander tried to couple their offers with conditions ; demanding a warrant for the destruction of their polit- ical enemies, and hoping thus to compromise the new admiral. But he strenuously refused all such guilty compliances. 1 He was soon able to collect at Miletus fifty fresh triremes in addition to those left by Lysander, making a fleet of one hundred and forty sail in all. The Chians having furnished him with an out- fit of five drachmas for each seaman, equal to ten days' pay at the usual rate, he sailed with the whole fleet northward towards Lesbos. Of this numerous fleet, the greatest which had yet been assembled throughout the war, only ten triremes were Lacedae- monian ; 2 while a considerable proportion, and among the best equipped, were Boeotian and Eubrean. 3 In his voyage towards Lesbos, Kaliikratidas seems to have made himself master of Phokaea and Kyme, 4 perhaps with the greater facility in conse- quence of the recent ill-treatment of the Kymaeans by Alkibia- des. He then sailed to attack Methymna, on the northern coast of Lesbos ; a town not only strongly attached to the Athenians, but also defended by an Athenian garrison. Though at first repulsed, he renewed his attacks until at length he took the town by storm. The property in it was all plundered by the soldiers, and the slaves collected and sold for their benefit. It was farther demanded by the allies, and expected pursuant V> ordinary cus- Plutarch, Apophthegm. Laconic, p. 222, C, Xenoph. Fellcn. i, 6, 12. 4 I infer this from the fact, that at the period of the battle of Arginussc, both these towns appear as adhering to the Peloponnesians ; wbewas during the command of Alkibiades they had been both Athenian (Xenoj* Holler i, 5, 11 ; i, 6, 33 Diodor. xiii. 73-99).
 * Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 34. s Diortor. xiii, 99.