Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/179

MUTINY OF THE ARMY. 157 order, or one of the captains forming his audience stole away from the rest, and hastened forward to acquaint his comrades on the outside. The bulk of the army, already irritated by the inhospitable way in which they had been thrust out, needed nothing farther to inflame them into spontaneous mutiny and aggression. While the generals within (who either took the communication more patiently, or <j,t least, looking farther forward, felt that any attempt to resent or resist the ill usage of the Spartan admiral would only make their position worse) were discussing with Anaxibius the details of the march just enjoined, the soldiers without, bursting into spontaneous movement, with a simultaneous and fiery impulse, made a rush back to get possession of the gate. But Eteonikus, seeing their move- ment, closed it without a moment's delay, and fastened the bar. The soldiers on reaching the gate and finding it barred, clamored loudly to get it opened, threatened to break it down, and even be- gan to knock violently against it. Some ran down to the sea-coast, and made their way into the city round the line of stones at the base of the city wall, which protected it against the sea ; while the rearmost soldiers who had not yet marched out, seeing what was passing, and fearful of being cut off from their comrades, assaulted the gate from the inside, severed the fastenings with axes, and threw it wide open to the army. 1 All the soldiers then rushed up, and were soon again in Byzantium. Nothing could exceed the terror of the Lacedaemonians as well as of the native Byzantines, when they saw the excited Cyreiana again within the walls. The town seemed already taken and on the point of being plundered. Neither Anaxibius nor Eteonikus took the smallest means of resistance, nor stayed to brave the ap- proach of the soldiers, whose wrath they were fully conscious of having deserved. Both fled to the citadel the former first run- ning to the sea-shore, and jumping into a fishing-boat to go thither by sea. He even thought the citadel not tenable with its existing garrison, and sent over to Chalkedon for a reinforcement. Still more terrified were the citizens of the town. Every man in the market-place instantly fled ; some to their houses, others to the merchant vessels in the harbor, others to the triremes or ships of war, which they hauled down to the water, and thus put to sea. a 1 Xen. Anab. vii 1 , 15-17 * Xen. Anal), vii, 1, 18, 19.