Hellenica | Page 7

capture, within three months, of the two Hellenic cities of
Selinus and Himera.

II
B.C. 409. Next year[1] . . . the Athenians fortified Thoricus; and
Thrasylus, taking the vessels lately voted him and five thousand of his
seamen armed to serve as peltasts,[2] set sail for Samos at the
beginning of summer. At Samos he stayed three days, and then
continued his voyage to Pygela, where he proceeded to ravage the
territory and attack the fortress. Presently a detachment from Miletus
came to the rescue of the men of Pygela, and attacking the scattered
bands of the Athenian light troops, put them to flight. But to the aid of
the light troops came the naval brigade of peltasts, with two companies
of heavy infantry, and all but annihilated the whole detachment from
Miletus. They captured about two hundred shields, and set up a trophy.
Next day they sailed to Notium, and from Notium, after due
preparation, marched upon Colophon. The Colophonians capitulated
without a blow. The following night they made an incursion into Lydia,
where the corn crops were ripe, and burnt several villages, and captured

money, slaves, and other booty in large quantity. But Stages, the
Persian, who was employed in this neighbourhood, fell in with a
reinforcement of cavalry sent to protect the scattered pillaging parties
from the Athenian camp, whilst occupied with their individual plunder,
and took one trooper prisoner, killing seven others. After this Thrasylus
led his troops back to the sea, intending to sail to Ephesus. Meanwhile
Tissaphernes, who had wind of this intention, began collecting a large
army and despatching cavalry with a summons to the inhabitants one
and all to rally to the defence of the goddess Artemis at Ephesus.
[1] The MSS. here give a suspected passage, which may be rendered
thus: "The first of Olympiad 93, celebrated as the year in which the
newly-added two-horse race was won by Evagorias the Eleian, and the
stadion (200 yards foot-race) by the Cyrenaean Eubotas, when
Evarchippus was ephor at Sparta and Euctemon archon at Athens." But
Ol. 93, to which these officers,and the addition of the new race at
Olympia belong, is the year 408. We must therefore suppose either that
this passage has been accidentally inserted in the wrong place by some
editor or copyist, or that the author was confused in his dates. The
"stadium" is the famous foot-race at Olympia, 606 3/4 English feet in
length, run on a course also called the "Stadion," which was exactly a
stade long.
[2] Peltasts, i.e. light infantry armed with the "pelta" or light shield,
instead of the heavy {aspis} of the hoplite or heavy infantry soldiers.
On the seventeenth day after the incursion above mentioned Thrasylus
sailed to Ephesus. He disembarked his troops in two divisions, his
heavy infantry in the neighbourhood of Mount Coressus; his cavalry,
peltasts, and marines, with the remainder of his force, near the marsh
on the other side of the city. At daybreak he pushed forward both
divisions. The citizens of Ephesus, on their side, were not slow to
protect themselves. They had to aid them the troops brought up by
Tissaphernes, as well as two detachments of Syracusans, consisting of
the crews of their former twenty vessels and those of five new vessels
which had opportunely arrived quite recently under Eucles, the son of
Hippon, and Heracleides, the son of Aristogenes, together with two
Selinuntian vessels. All these several forces first attacked the heavy
infantry near Coressus; these they routed, killing about one hundred of
them, and driving the remainder down into the sea. They then turned to

deal with the second division on the marsh. Here, too, the Athenians
were put to flight, and as many as three hundred of them perished. On
this spot the Ephesians erected a trophy, and another at Coressus. The
valour of the Syracusans and Selinuntians had been so conspicuous that
the citizens presented many of them, both publicly and privately, with
prizes for distinction in the field, besides offering the right of residence
in their city with certain immunities to all who at any time might wish
to live there. To the Selinuntians, indeed, as their own city had lately
been destroyed, they offered full citizenship.
The Athenians, after picking up their dead under a truce, set sail for
Notium, and having there buried the slain, continued their vogage
towards Lesbos and the Hellespont. Whilst lying at anchor in the
harbour of Methymna, in that island, they caught sight of the Syracusan
vessels, five-and-twenty in number, coasting along from Ephesus. They
put out to sea to attack them, and captured four ships with their crews,
and chased the remainder back to Ephesus. The prisoners were sent by
Thrasylus to Athens, with one exception. This was an Athenian,
Alcibiades, who