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

S6
THE FALL OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
played in the earlier stages of the war. In the next years the first
important naval engagements of the Ionian War at Cynossema and
Cyzicus would demonstrate that Athenian tactical superiority at sea
continued. 16
Chalcideus' delay put an end to the Peloponnesians' advantage and
the chance of fighting a naval battle quickly against a less numerous
enemy fleet, for the Athenians had already sent a reinforcing fleet of
sixteen ships under Diomedon. They had left Athens soon after Thrasycles
and arrived in time to meet the ten Chian ships sailing north
from Anaea. Diomedon was able to capture four Chian triremes, although
their crews escaped. 17 Soon Leon brought another squadron
of ten ships from Athens, bringing the Athenian fleet in Ionian waters
up to a total of forty-six, one ship having sailed to join the blockading
fleet at Lade and twenty-six at Athens' main base on Samos. 18
While the Athenians were establishing Samos as their chief base of
operations, an uprising occurred on that island unique in its bitterness,
even during the cruel course of the Peloponnesian War. The common
people rose up against the aristocrats of the governing oligarchy with
the assistance of the crews of three Athenian warships that were docked
at the island. 19 They killed 200 of the Samian noblemen and exiled
another 400. They seized their lands and houses, distributing them
among themselves. The vindictive revolutionaries seem to have deprived
the aristocrats of their civic rights and even of the right of
intermarriage with the newly dominant lower class. 20 The new democracy
on Samos was powerfully dependent upon Athens for support
against a countercoup, perhaps supported by a colony of oligarchic
exiles long since established at Anaea on the coast just opposite the
16
Cynossema: 8.ro4-ro6; Cyzicus: Xen. I.II-I8.
"8. I9· 3-4·
"Leon: 8. 23. I; twenty ships at La de: 8. 24. I. For a useful discussion of ship numbers
in the Aegean, see HCT V, 27-32.
19
I formerly held the view that the Athenian settlement of the Samian rebellion of
440 included the establishment of a democratic government there (Kagan, Outbreak,
q6, and n. I6). I have since been persuaded by the arguments of E. Will (REA LXXI
[I969], 305-3 I9) and T.]. Quinn (Athens and Samos, Lesbos and Chios [Manchester, I98I],
I 3-23) that the government of Samos between 439 and 4I 2 was an oligarchy in which
the dynatoi, or aristocrats, played the leading role. For a careful and objective discussion
of the evidence and the issues, see HCT V' 44-47, I 55-I 56, 257· The use of the term
aristocrats is justified by the term Bvvct'roL.
, 20 8.; I. I derive the deprivation of civic rights from 11Ao'TE8(8ocruv omE &l\l\ov
OV8EVO