Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/251

FLEETS IN THE HELLESPONT. 225 and sailed forthwith to the Hellespont, in which narrow strait both fleets were collected, as the Athenians and Lacedaemo- nians had been during the closing years of the Peloponnesian war. A plan of naval action had been concerted by the thret Athenian commanders, and was on the point of taking place, when there supervened a sudden storm, which in the judgment both of Iphikrates and Timotheus, rendered it rash and perilous to persist in the execution. They therefore held off, while Chares, judging differently, called upon the trierachs and seamen to follow him, and rushed into the fight without his colleagues. He was defeated, or at least was obliged to retire without accomplishing anything. But so incensed was he against his two colleagues, that he wrote a despatch to Athens accusing them of corruption and culpable backwardness against the enemy. 1 1 I follow chiefly the account given of these transactions by Diodorus., meagre and unsatisfactory as it is (xvi. 21). Nepos (Timotheus, c. 3) differs from Diodorus on several points. He states that both Samos and the Hellespont had revolted from Athens ; and that the locality in which Chares made his attack, contrary to the judgment of his two colleagues, was near Samos not in the Hellespont. He affirms farther that Menes- thens, son of Iphikrates, was named as colleague of Chares ; and that Iphi krates and Timotheus were appointed as advisers of Menestheus. As to the last assertion that Timotheus only served as adviser to his junior relative and not as a general formally named this is not probable in itself; nor seemingly consistent with Isokrates (Or. xv. De Permutat. s. 137), who represents Timotheus as afterwards passing through the usual trial of accountability. Nor can Nepos be correct in saying that Samos had now revolted : for we find it still in possession of Athens after the Social War, and we know that a fresh batch of Athenian KIcruchs were afterwards sent there. On the other hand, I think Nepos is probably right in his assertion, that the Hellespont now revolted ("descierat Hellespontus"). This is a fact in itself noway improbable, and helping us to understand how it happened that Chares conquered Sestos afterwards in 353 B. c. (Diodor. xvi. 34), and that the Athenians are said to have then recovered the Chersonesus from Kersobleptes. Polysenus (iii. 9, 29) has a story representing the reluctance of Iphikrates to fight, as having been manifested near Embata ; a locality not agreeing either with Nepos or with Diodorus. Embata was on the continent of Asia, in the territory of Erythrai. See respecting the relations of Athens with Sestos, mj l?t pi ecedi'g volume, Vol. X. Ch. Ixxx. p. 380 note.