The Historians' History of the World 03

When he had arranged matters at Lampsacus, Lysander sailed against Byzantium and Chalcedon; where the inhabitants admitted him, after sending away the Athenian garrison under treaty. The party that had betrayed Byzantium to Alcibiades, at that time fled to Pontus, and afterwards to Athens, and became citizens there. The garrison troops of the Athenians, and whatever other Athenians he found anywhere, Lysander sent to Athens, giving them safe conduct so long as they were sailing to that place alone, and to no other; knowing that the more people were collected in the city and Piræus, the sooner there would be a want of provisions. And now, leaving Sthenelaus as Lacedæmonian harmost of Byzantium and Chalcedon, he himself sailed away to Lampsacus, and refitted his ships.

Greek Vase

At Athens, on the arrival of the Paralus

in the night, the tale of their disaster was told; and the lamentation spread from the Piræus up the Long Walls into the city, one man passing on the tidings to another: so that no one went to bed that night, not only through their mourning for the dead, but much more still because they thought they should themselves suffer the same things as they had done to the Melians (who were a colony from Lacedæmon), when they had reduced them by blockade, and to the Histiæans, Scionæans, Toronæans, Æginetans, and many others of the Greeks. But the next day they convened an assembly, at which it was resolved to block up the harbours, with the exception of one, and to put the walls in order, and mount guard upon them, and in every other way to prepare the city for a siege.

Lysander, having come with two hundred ships from the Hellespont to Lesbos, regulated both the other cities in the island, and especially Mytilene; while he sent Eteonicus with ten ships to the Athenian possessions Thraceward, who brought over all the places there to the Lacedæmonians. And all the rest of Greece too revolted from Athens immediately after the sea-fight, except the Samians; they massacred the notables amongst them, and kept possession of the city. Afterwards Lysander sent word to Agis at Decelea, and to Lacedæmon, that he was sailing up with two hundred ships. And the Lacedæmonians went out to meet him en masse, and all the rest of the Peloponnesians but the Argives, at the command of the other Spartan king, Pausanias. When they were all combined, he took them to the city and encamped before it, in the academy—the gymnasium so called. Then Lysander went to Ægina, and restored the city to the Æginetans, having collected as many of them as he could; and so likewise to the Melians, and as many others as had been deprived of their city. After this, having ravaged Salamis, he came to anchor off the Piræus, with a hundred and fifty ships, and prevented all vessels from sailing into it.

The Athenians, being thus besieged by land and by sea, were at a loss what to do, as they had neither ships, nor allies, nor provisions; and they thought nothing could save them from suffering what they had done to others, not in self-defence, but wantonly wronging men of smaller states, on no other single ground, but their being allies of the Lacedæmonians. Wherefore they restored to their privileges those who had been degraded from them, and held out resolutely; and though many in the city were dying of starvation, they spoke not a word of coming to terms. But when their corn had now entirely failed, they sent ambassadors to Agis, wishing to become allies of the Lacedæmonians, while they retained their walls and the Piræus, and on these conditions to make treaty with them. He told them to go to Lacedæmon, as he had himself no power to treat. When the ambassadors delivered this message to the Athenians, they sent them to Lacedæmon. But when they were at Sellasia, near the Laconian territory, and the ephors heard what they proposed, which was the same as they had done to Agis, they bade them return from that very spot, and if they had any wish at all for peace, to come back after taking better advice.