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

THE RESTORATION 265
annoying but of no great strategic importance. The fate of Athens
would be decided in the Aegean and the straits, but the year 409 also
brought a reversal to the Athenians in this area. The Spartans sent a
fleet of twenty-five ships to Ionia under their new admiral, Cratesippidas.
The Chian exiles persuaded him to restore them and drive out
their opponents, and in this way Chios returned to Spartan control.
The newly exiled anti-Spartan Chians then established a base at Atarneus
on the opposite mainland from which they launched attacks on
their homeland. 73
These losses were troubling, but much more serious was Athens'
failure to provide its generals in the straits the resources with which
to exploit the great victory at Cyzicus. That victory had driven the
enemy fleet from Hellespontine waters, but vital cities such as Sestos,
Byzantium, and Chalcedon remained in hostile hands. Immediately
after the battle at Cyzicus, Pharnabazus had given the Spartans encouragement
and money to build another fleet as great as the one
destroyed. 74 Unless the Athenians recaptured the ports, they would
be compelled to fight more naval battles to win control of the narrow
seas once again. Without more resources, moreover, they could not
attempt to regain the lost cities of the Aegean and with them the lost
imperial income. Yet between December of 4" and April or May of
409 Thrasyllus remained in Athens, and between the spring of 410
and the winter of 409/8 the generals in the Hellespont did nothing of
note. 75 Why did the Athenians fail to supply Thrasyllus with the forces
he requested and send him out to reinforce the generals in the summer
of 410?
One explanation that has been offered involves political motives."
It assumes a major split between the generals in the Hellespont­
Theramenes, Alcibiades, and Thrasybulus-with supporters of the
departed Five Thousand on the one side against the restored democrats
and their favorite general, Thrasyllus, on the other side. In this view,
the very greatness of the victory at Cyzicus worked against the vienDiod.
q.6s.J-4·
71 Xen. I. I. 24-26.
75
See Andrewes' brief statement of Ferguson's chronology, also accepted here: "The
battle of Kyzikos in March or April 410, Thrasyllos' expedition to Ionia in summer
409, the recovery of Byzantium and Kalchedon in 408, Alkibiades' return to Athens
in 407, the battle of Notion late in 407 or early in 406" (}HS LXXIII [1953], 2).
76 Andrewes, )HS LXXIII (1953), 2-9. Bloedow (Alcibiades, 57, ·n. 332) accepts the
general imerpretation while rejecting its belief in Alcibiades' leading position after
Cyzicus.