32 HISTORY OF GREECE. fleet at Peiroeum, which was thus enabled to get to Kenchreae, and to refit in order that it might be sent to Ionia. The sixteen Pcloponnesian ships which had fought at Syracuse had already come back to Lechaeum, in spite of the obstructions thrown in their way by the Athenian squadron under Hippokles at Naupak tus. 1 The Lacedaemonian admiral Astyochus was sent to Ken- chreae to take the command and proceed to Ionia as admiral-in- chief : but it was some time before he could depart for Chios, whither he arrived with only four triremes, followed by six more afterwards. 2 Before he reached that island, however, the -Chians, zealous iii the new part which they had taken up, and interested for their own safety in multiplying defections from Athens, had themselves undertaken the prosecution of the plans concerted by Agis and the Lacedemonians at Corinth. They originated an expedition of their own, with thirteen triremes under a Lacedaemonian peri- (jekus named Deiniadas, to procure the revolt of Lesbos ; with the view, if successful, of proceeding afterwards to do the same among the Hellespontine dependencies of Athens. A land force under the Spartan Eualas, partly Peloponnesian, partly Asiatic, marched along the coast of the mainland northward towards Kyme, to cooperate in both these objects. Lesbos was at this time divided into at least five separate city governments ; Me- thymna at the north of the island, Mitylene towards the south- east, Antissa, Eresus, and Pyrrha on the west. "Whether these governments were oligarchical or democratical we do not know, but the Athenian kleruchs who had been sent to Mityleue after Nor do I see any difficulty in believing this to be the fact, though I cannot state when and how the oligarchy became established there. So long as the island performed its duty as a subject ally, Athens did not interfere with the form of its government. And she was least of all likely to inter- fere during the seven years of peace intervening between the years 421-414 K.C. There was nothing then to excite her apprehensions. The degree to which Athens intermeddled generally with the internal affairs of her sub- ject-allies, seems to me to have been much exaggerated. The Samian oligarchy, or geomori, dispossessed of the government cu this occasion, were restored by Lysander after his victorious close of t afl Peloponnesian war. Xenoph. Hellen. iii ; 3, 6. where they are called el
1 Thucyd. viii, 13. 2 Thucyd. viii, '10-23.
