Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/192

 170 HISTORY OF GREECE. Athens was all in consternation at the news of the defeat ol Konon and the blockade of Mitylene. The whole strength an I energy of the city was put forth to relieve him, by an effort greater than any which had been made throughout the whole w-ir. We read with surprise that within the short space of thirty days, a fleet of no less than one hundred and ten triremes was fitted out and sent from Peiraeus. Every man of age and strength to serve, without distinction, was taken to form a good crew ; not only freemen, but slaves, to whom manumission was promised as reward : many also of the horsemen, or knights, 1 and citizens of highest rank, went aboard as epibatae, hanging up their bridles like Kimon before the battle of Salamis. The levy was in fact as democratical and as equalizing as it had been on that memo- rable occasion. The fleet proceeded straight to Samos, whither orders had doubtless been sent to get together all the triremes which the allies could furnish as reinforcements, as well as all the scattered Athenian. By this means, forty additional triremes, ten of them Samian, were assembled, and the whole fleet, one hundred and fifty sail, went from Samos to the little islands called Arginusse, close on the mainland, opposite to Malea, the southeastern cape of Lesbos. Kallikratidas, apprized of the approach of the new fleet while it was yet at Samos, withdrew the greater portion of his force from Mitylene, leaving fifty triremes under Eteonikus to con- tinue the blockade. Less than fifty probably would not have been sufficient, inasmuch as two harbors were to be watched ; but he was thus reduced to meet the Athenian fleet with inferior numbers, one hundred and twenty triremes against one hundred and fifty. His fleet was off Cape Malea, where the crews took their suppers, on the same evening as the Athenians supped at the opposite islands of Arginusae. It was his project to sail across the intermediate channel in the night, and attack them in the morning before they were prepared ; but violent wind and rain forced him to defer all movement till daylight. On the ensuing morning, both parties prepared for the greatest naval encounter which had taken place throughout the whole war Kallikratidas was advised by his pilot, the Megarian Herrnon, to retire for the present without fighting, inasmuch ai the Athenian 1 Xenoph. Hellen. i. 6, 24-25 : Diodor. xiii. 97.