The Fall of the Athenian Empire-(A New History of the Peloponnesian War) Donald Kagan - (1987)

SPARTA'S RIPOSTE 87
lespont and those who had not, but opposed Endius and Alcibiades,
were ready to turn against what now seemed a failed strategy toward
what seemed a better one. The letter from Pedaritus must have supplied
the finishing touch to a change of policy already under way. 77
Antisthenes' fleet set out about the time of the winter solstice, then
December 24. 78 At Melos they met ten Athenian ships and captured
three of them. They rightly feared that the others that escaped would
warn the Athenians at Samos of their approach, so they took a circuitous
route to the south, reaching safe anchor at Caunus on the
southern coast of Asia Minor, for that city seems to have revolted from
Athens about the same time as Cnidus. 79 From there they sent word
to Astyochus asking for a convoy to bring them to Miletus, which had
now become the main Peloponnesian base in lonia since the Athenian
siege of Chios. Astyochus probably received their message at the very
end of December, and Thucydides tells us that he at once gave up
any idea of sailing to Chi os, "thinking that nothing should come before
convoying so great a fleet, so that together they might dominate the
sea, and bringing across in safety the Spartans who had come to investigate
him."'" From the point of view of his personal interests and
given the danger of facing the Athenian fleet without reinforcements,
Astyochus' action is fully comprehensible. We should not forget, however,
that as far as he knew it meant the abandonment of Pedaritus
and the force with him as well as the Chians. But Astyochus had never
wanted to sail to Chios anyway, and the summons from Caunus provided
him with an excuse that even the eager allies must accept.
As he hurried south, the navarch found time to sack the town of
77
Busolt (GG Ill:2, 1448) sees the change as the work of Agis• faction, but there is
no evidence to support his view. Originally, Agis had wanted to support rebellion in
Euboea. Then the Boeotians persuaded him to put that aside in favor of a Lesbian
rebellion (8.5). Agis lost out to E;ndius and Alcibiades but helped force a compromise
at the congress of the Spartan alliance at Corinth. There it was decided to go first to
Chios, then to Lesbos, with Alcamenes (Agis' designee) in command, and then to the
Hellespont under the command of Clearchus (8.8). Clearly, Endius and Alcibiades
favored the first plan, Agis the second, and some third faction the third. Astyochus'
attempts to take Lesbos had failed, removing that island as a plausible target for Spartan
action. Agis presumably must have joined the third faction in advocating a Hellespontine
strategy, but it was not his favorite and he was not its author. The failure of
the Chian strategy and the failures of Astyochus appear to have forged an alliance
between the remaining factions.
78
8.39·1; HCT V, 84.
"B·J9·J; HCT V, 86.
808.41. I.