Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/137

 EXPLOITS OF MEMNON AT SEA — HIS DEATH. 105 gods ratified by a stoi'm of tliunder and. lightning during the ensuing night, i At Gordium, Alexander was visited by envoys from Athens, entreating the liberation of the Athenian prisoners taken at the Granikus, who were now at Avork chained in the Macedonian mines. But he refused this prayer until a more convenient sea- son. Aware that the Greeks were held attached to him only by their fears, and that, if opportunity occurred, a lai'ge fraction of them would take part with the Persians, he did not think it pru- dent to relax his hold upon their conduct.2 Such opportunity seemed now not unlikely to occur. Mem- non, excluded from efficacious action on the continent since the loss of Halikarnassus, was employed among the islands of the iEgean (during the first half o ■ 333 b. c), with the purpose of carrying war into Greece and Macedonia. Invested with the most ample command, he had a large Phenician fleet and a con- siderable body of Grecian mercenaries, together with his nephew Pharnabazus and the Persian Autopliradates. Having acquired the imjiortant island of Chios, through the cooperation of a part of its inhabitants, he next landed on Lesbos, where four out of the five cities, either from fear or preference, declared in his fa- vor ; while Mitylen^, the greatest of the five, already occupied by a Macedonian garrison, stood out against him. Memnon ac- cordingly disembarked his troops and commenced the blockade of the city both by sea and land, surrounding it with a double palisade wall from sea to sea. In the midst of this operation he died of sickness ; but his nephew Pharnabazus, to whom he had consigned the command provisionally, until the pleasure of Da- rius could be known, prosecuted his measures vigorously, and brought the city to a capitulation. It was stipulated that the gar- rison introduced by Alexander should be dismissed ; that the column, recording alliance with him, should be demolished : thai the Mityleneans should become allies of Darius, upon the terms of the old convention called by the name of Antalkidas ; and that the citizens in banishment should be recalled, with restitution of half their property. But Pharnabazus, as soon as admitted, y'ut- 1 Arrian, ii. 3 ; Curtius, iii. 2, 17 ; Plutarch. Alex. 18 ; Justin, xi. 7. ' Anian, i. 29, 8.