Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/342

320 HISTOBl OF GREECE ropean side, in the Thracian Chersonese. 1 In that fertile penin* sula there had been many new settlers, who had come in and acquired land under the Lacedaemonian supremacy, especially since the building of the cross-wall by Derkyllidas to defend the isthmus against Thracian invasion. By means of these settlers, dependent on Sparta for the security of their tenures, and of the refugees from various cities all concentrated under his protection, Der- kyllidas maintained his position effectively both at Abydos and at Sestos ; defying the requisition of Pharnabazus that he should forthwith evacuate them. The satrap threatend war, and actually ravaged the lands around Abydos, but without any result. His wrath against the Lacedaemonians, already considerable, was so aggravated by disappointment when he found that he could not yet expel them from his satrapy, that he resolved to act against them with increased energy, and even to strike a blow at them near their own home. For this purpose he transmitted orders to Konon to prepare a commanding naval force for the ensuing spring, and in the mean time to keep both Abydos and Sestoi under blockade. 2 As soon as spring arrived, Pharnabazus embarked on board a powerful fleet equipped by Konon ; directing his course to Melo? to various islands among the Cyclades, and lastly to the coast of Peloponnesus. They here spent some tune on the coast of La conia and Messenia, disembarking at several points to ravage the country. They next landed on the island of Kythera, which thej captured, granting safe retirement to the Lacedaemonian garrison, and leaving in the island a garrison under the Athenian Nikophe- mus. Quitting then the harborless, dangerous, and ill-provided coast of Laconia, they sailed up the Saronic gulf to the isthmus of Corinth. Here they found the confederates, Corinthian, Boeo- tian, Athenian, etc., carrying on war with Corinth as their central post, against the Lacedaemonians at Sikyon. The line across the 1 Lysander, after the victory of JEgospotami and the expulsion of the Athenians from Sestos, had assigned the town and district as a settlement for the pilots and Keleustae aboard his fleet. But the ephors are said tt have reversed the assignment, and restored the town to the fiestians (Plu tarch, Lysand. c. 14). Probably, however, the new settlers -ould reraaii in part upon the lands vacated by the expelled Athenians. 1 Xen. Hellcn. iv, 8, 4-6.