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

62 THE FALL OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
ASIA MINOR
~'ragia
AEGMN St'A
Leros
6 Pharmacussa
GULF OF IASUS
MAP 4· MILETUS AND lAsus
circumstances. But as evening was approaching on the day of the
Athenian victory, news arrived that changed the situation significantly.
From the nearby island of Leros word came to Phrynichus and his
colleagues that a large enemy fleet, fifty-five strong, had arrived and
was on its way to Miletus. From Sicily came Hermocrates, nemesis
of the Athenians, leading twenty triremes from Syracuse and two from
Selinus. With some difficulty, he had persuaded the weary and distracted
Syracusans and the Selinuntines, alone among their Sicilian
allies, "to take a hand in the final destruction of Athens. " 44 The remaining
ships were Peloponnesian, and the whole fleet was commanded
by the Spartan Therimenes as it sailed across the Aegean. He
was under orders to bring it to the navarch Astyochus at the end of
the voyage.
Therimenes touched land at Leros, where he learned that the Athenians
were at Miletus. Since Leros is some forty miles away, he sailed
44
8.26. 1. For the situation in Sicily, see Busolt (GG Ilb, I42 3). Diodorus (I 3· 34·4,
63. r) gives the number of ships under Hermocrates as thirty-five, but see HCT V, 61.