Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/42

 20 HISTORY OF GREECE. sally and attack upon the Athenians with his whole force, foreign as well as Chian. Though at first he obtained some success, the battle ended in his complete defeat and death, with great slaugh- ter of the Chian troops, and with the loss of many whose shields were captured in the pursuit. 1 The Chians, now reduced to greater straits than before, and beginning to suffer severely from famine, were only enabled to hold out by a partial reinforcement soon afterwards obtained from the Peloponnesian guardships at Miletus. A Spartan named Leon, who had come out in the vessel of Antisthenes as one of the epibatse, or marines, conducted this reinforcing squadron of twelve triremes, chiefly Thurian and Syracusan, succeeding Pedaritus in the general command of the island. 2 It was while Chios seemed thus likely to be recovered by Athens and while the superior Peloponnesian fleet was par- alyzed at Rhodes by Persian intrigues and bribes that Peisan- der arrived in Ionia to open his negotiations with Alkibiades and Tissaphernes. He was enabled to announce that the subversion of the democracy at Athens was already begun, and would soon be consummated : and he now required the price which had been promised in exchange, Persian alliance and aid to Athens against 1 Thucyd. viii, 55, 56. eovru re uvSpa ZTTapTiaryv, o 'A.VTia&evei iiripdrijf gvvenfat.) rovTOv KEKOjuffftevoi fieru rbv Hedapirov -Quvarov upxovra, etc. I do not sec why the word iTn^arrjf should not he construed here, as else- where, in its ordinary sense of miles dassiarius. The commentators, see Lhe notes of Dr. Arnold, Poppo, and Goller start difficulties which seem to me of little importance ; and they imagine divers new meanings, for none of which any authority is produced. "We ought not to wonder that a com- mon miles dassiarius, or marine, being a Spartan citizen, should be appointed commander at Chios, when, a few chapters afterwards, we find Thrasybulus at Samos promoted, from being a common hoplite in the ranks, to be one of the Athenian generals (viii. 73). The like remark maybe made on the passage cited from Xenophon (Hel- lenic, i. 3, 17), about Hegesandridas trnfiuTijc uv MtixJupov, where also the tommentators reject the common meaning (see Schneider's note in the Addenda to his edition of 1791, p. 97). The participle uv in that passage must be considered as an inaccuratr substitute for yeyevij/ievof, since Miu- darus was dead at the time. Hegesandridas had been among the epibata of Mindarns, and was now in ommand of a squadron on the coast of Thraco
 * Thucyd. viii, 61. ervgov 6e ETI kv 'Podc? ovrof 'Aarvoxov tic TJjf MM/rov