400 HISTORY OF GREECE. fortifications, were partly persuaded, partly frightened, into the step of revolting from Athens and allying themselves with the Pel- oponnesians. The Athenian fleet, whose commanders were just now too busy with political intrigue to keep due military watch, arrived from Samos too late to save Rhodes, and presently re- turned to the former island, leaving detachments at Chalke and Kos to harass the Peloponnesians with desultory attacks. The Peloponnesians now levied from the Rhodians a contribu- tion of thirty-two talents, and adopted the island as the main station for their fleet, instead of Miletus. We can explain this change of place by their recent unfriendly discussion with Tissaphernes, and their desire to be more out of his reach. 1 But what we can- not so easily explain, is, that they remained on the island with- out any movement or military action, and actually hauled their triremes ashore, for the space of no less than eighty days ; that is, from about the middle of January to the end of March 411 B.C. "While their powerful fleet of ninety-four triremes, superior to that of Athens at Samos, was thus lying idle, their allies in Chios were known to be suffering severe and increasing distress, and repeatedly pressing for aid: 2 moreover, the promise of sending to cooperate with Pharnabazus against the Athenian dependencies on the Hellespont, remained unperformed. 3 We may impute such extreme military slackness mainly to the insidi- ous policy of Tissaphernes, now playing a double game between Sparta and Athens. He still kept up intelligence with the Pelo- ponnesians at Rhodes, paralyzed their energies by assurances that the Phenician fleet was actually on its way to aid them, and insured the success of these intrigues by bribes distributed per- dependent allies of Athens, that the general population of the allied city manifests no previous discontent, nor any spontaneous disposition to revolt. The powerful men of the island those who, if the government was demo- cratical, formed the oligarchical minority, but who formed the government itself, if oligarchical conspire and hring in the Peloponnesian force, un- known to the body of the citizens, and thus leave to the latter no free choice. The real feeling towards Athens on the part of the body of the citizens is one of simple acquiescence, with little attachment on the one hand, yet no hatred, or sense of praciical s iffering, on the other. 1 Thucyd. viii, 44 : compare c. 57. * Thncyd. viii, 40-55.
- Thucyd. viii, 39.
