Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/241

CAPTURE OF THE WHOLE ATHENIAN FLEET. 219 hear only of three thousand or four thousand native Athenians, though this number cannot represent all the native Athenians in the fleet. The Athenian generals Philokles and Adeimantus were certainly taken, and seemingly all except Konon. Some of the defeated armament took refuge in Sestos, which, however, surrendered with little resistance to the victor. He admitted them to capitulation, on condition of their going back immediately to Athens, and nowhere else : for he was desirous to multiply as much as possible the numbers assembled in that city, knowing well that the city would be the sooner starved out. Konon too was well aware that, to go back to Athens, after the ruin of the entire fleet, was to become one of the certain prisoners in a doomed city, and to meet, besides, the indignation of his fellow- citizens, so well deserved by the generals collectively. Accord- ingly, he resolved to take shelter with Evagoras, prince of Salamis in the island of Cyprus, sending the paralus, with some others of the twelve fugitive triremes, to make known the fatal news at Athens. But before he went thither, he crossed the strait with singular daring, under the circumstances to Cape Abarnis in the territory of Lampsakus, where the great sails of Lysander's triremes, always taken out when a trireme was made ready for fighting, lay seemingly unguarded. These sails he took away, so as to lessen the enemy's powers of pursuit, and then made the best of his way to Cyprus. 1 On the very day of the victory, Lysander sent off the Milesian privateer Theopompus to proclaim it at Sparta, who, by a wonderful speed of rowing, arrived there and made it known on the third day after starting. The captured ships were towed off and the prisoners carried across to Lampsakus, where a general assembly of the victorious allies was convened, to determine in what manner the prisoners should be treated. In this assembly, the most bitter inculpations were put forth against the Athenians, as to the manner in which they had recently dealt with their cap- tives. The Athenian general PhilokltJs, having captured a Co- Tpbq ri) yjy roi>c fie TrTieiorovc uvfipaf h ry yy v v i X e % e v ol 6e KOI t^v- yov if Tii Tetxvdoia. 1 Xenoph. Ilcllcn. ii, 1,29; Diodor. xiii, 106: tic latter is discordant^ however, on many points.