Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/396

 3,4 HISTORY OF GREKCh. of Athens, and endeavored to prevail on Iphikrates to take part in his projects. But that general, though he had assisted Kotya in defence against Athens, refused to commit the more patent trea- son involved in aggressive hostility against her. He even quitted Thrace, but not daring at once to visit Athens, retired to Lesbos. 1 In spite of his refusal, however, the settlers and possessions of Al hens in the Chersonese were attacked and imperiled by Kotys, who claimed the whole peninsula as his own, and established toll- gatherers at Sestos to levy the dues both of strait and harbor. 2 The fortune of Athens in these regions was still unpropitious. All her late commanders, Ergophilus, Autokles, Menon, Timoma- chus, had been successively deficient in means, in skill, or in fidel- ity, and had undergone accusation at home. 3 Timomachus was now superseded by Kephisodotus, a man of known enmity towards Doth Iphikrates and Kotys. 4 But Kephisodotus achieved no more than his predecessors, and had even to contend against a new enemy, who crossed over from Abydos to Sestos to reinforce Kotys Charidemus with the mercenary division under his com mand. That officer, since his service three years before under Timotheus against Amphipolis, had been for some time in Asia, especially in the troad. He hired himself to the satrap Arta- bazus ; of whose embarrassments he took advantage to seize by fraud the towns of Skepsis, Kebren, and Ilium ; intending to hold them as a little principality. 5 Finding his position, however, ulti- mately untenable against the probable force of the satrap, he sent a letter across to the Chersonese, to the Athenian commander Kephisodotus, asking for Athenian triremes to transport his divi- sion across to Europe ; in return for which, if granted, he engaged to crush Kotys and reconquer the Chersonese for Athens. This proposition, whether accepted or not, was never realized ; for 1 Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 664, s. 155. 8 Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 658, s. 136 ; p. 679, s. 211. What is said in the latter passage about the youthful Kersobleptes, in doubtless not less true of his father Kotys. 3 Demosthen. pro Phormione, p. 960, s. 64 ; Dcmosth. Fals. Leg. p. 398, . 200. 6 Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 671 s 183. Compare Psendo-Aristot (Economic, ii, 30.
 * Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 672, s. 184.