Diodorus Siculus, Library 8-40

§ 13.51.6 He put up a heroic battle about the ships, fighting in person before all his troops, but though he slew many of the opponents, in the end he was killed by the troops of Alcibiades as he battled nobly for his fatherland. When he had fallen, both the Peloponnesians and all allies banded together and broke into terror-stricken flight.

§ 13.51.7 The Athenians pursued the enemy for a distance, but when they learned that Pharnabazus was hurrying up at full speed with a strong force of cavalry, they returned to the ships, and after they had taken the city they set up two trophies for the two victories, one for the sea-battle at the island of Polydorus, as it is called, and one for the land-battle where they forced the first flight of the enemy.

§ 13.51.8 Now the Peloponnesians in the city and all the fugitives from the battle fled to the camp of Pharnabazus; and the Athenian generals not only captured all the ships but they also took many prisoners and an immeasurable quantity of booty, since they had won the victory at the same time over two armaments of such size.

§ 13.52.1 When the news of the victory came to Athens, the people, contemplating the unexpected good fortune which had come to the city after their former disasters, were elated over their successes and the populace in a body offered sacrifices to the gods and gathered in festive assemblies; and for the war they selected from their most stalwart men one thousand hoplites and one hundred horsemen, and in addition to these they dispatched thirty triremes to Alcibiades, in order that, now that they dominated the sea, they might lay waste with impunity the cities which favoured the Lacedemonians.

§ 13.52.2 The Lacedemonians, on the other hand, when they heard of the disaster they had suffered at Cyzicus, sent ambassadors to Athens to treat for peace, the chief of whom was Endius. When permission was given him, he took the floor and spoke succinctly and in the terse fashion of Laconians, and for this reason I have decided not to omit the speech as he delivered it.

§ 13.52.3 “We want to be at peace with you, men of Athens, and that each party should keep the cities which it now possesses and cease to maintain its garrisons in the other's territory, and that our captives be ransomed, one Laconian for one Athenian. We are not unmindful that the war is hurtful to both of us, but far more to you.

§ 13.52.4 Never mind the words I use but learn from the facts. As for us, we till the entire Peloponnesus, but you only a small part of Attica. While to the Laconians the war has brought many allies, from the Athenians it has taken away as many as it has given to their enemies. For us the richest king to be found in the inhabited world defrays the cost of the war, for you the most poverty-stricken folk of the inhabited world.

§ 13.52.5 Consequently our troops, in view of their generous pay, make war with spirit, while your soldiers, because they pay the war-taxes out of their own pockets, shrink from both the hardships and the costs of war.

§ 13.52.6 In the second place, when we make war at sea, we risk losing only hulls among resources of the state, while you have on board crews most of whom are citizens. And, what is the most important, even if we meet defeat in our actions at sea, we still maintain without dispute the mastery on land — for a Spartan foot-soldier does not even know what flight means — but you, if you are driven from the sea, contend, not for the supremacy on land, but for survival.

§ 13.52.7 ”It remains for me to show you why, despite so many and great advantages we possess in the fighting, we urge you to make peace. I do not affirm that Sparta is profiting from the war, but only that she is suffering less than the Athenians. Only fools find satisfaction in sharing the misfortunes of their enemies, when it is in their power to make no trial whatsoever of misfortune. For the destruction of the enemy brings no joy that can balance the gift caused by the distress of one's own people.

§ 13.52.8 And not for these reasons alone are we eager to come to terms, but because we hold fast to the custom of our fathers; for when we consider the many terrible sufferings which are caused by the rivalries which accompany war, we believe we should make it clear in the sight of all gods and men that we are least responsible of all men for such things."

§ 13.53.1 After the Laconian had made these and similar representations, the sentiments of the most reasonable men among the Athenians inclined toward the peace, but those who made it their practice to foment war and to turn disturbances in the state to their personal profit chose the war.

§ 13.53.2 A supporter of this sentiment was, among others, Cleophon, who was the most influential leader of the populace at this time. He, taking the floor and arguing at length on the question in his own fashion, buoyed up the people, citing the magnitude of their military successes, as if indeed it is not the practice of Fortune to adjudge the advantages in war now to one side and now to the other.

§ 13.53.3 Consequently the Athenians, after taking unwise counsel, repented of it when it could do them no good, and, deceived as they were by words spoken in flattery, they made a blunder so vital that never again at any time were they able truly to recover.

§ 13.53.4 But these events, which took place at a later date, will be described in connection with the period of time to which they belong; at the time we are discussing the Athenians, being elated by their successes and entertaining many great hopes because they had Alcibiades as the leader of their armed forces, thought that they had quickly won back their supremacy.

§ 13.54.1 When the events of this year had come to an end, in Athens Diocles took over the archonship [409 BCE], and in Rome Quintus Fabius and Gaius Furius held the consulship [412 BCE]. At this time Hannibal, the general of the Carthaginians, gathered together both the mercenaries he had collected from Iberia and the soldiers he had enrolled from Libya, manned sixty ships of war, and made ready some fifteen hundred transports.

§ 13.54.2 On these he loaded the troops, the siege-engines, missiles, and all the other accessories. After crossing with the fleet the Libyan Sea he came to land in Sicily on the promontory which lies opposite Libya and is called Lilybaeum;

§ 13.54.3 and at that very time some Selinuntian cavalry were tarrying in those regions, and having seen the great size of the fleet as it came to land, they speedily informed their fellow citizens of the presence of the enemy. The Selinuntians at once dispatched their letter-carriers to the Syracusans, asking their aid; 4 and Hannibal disembarked his troops and pitched a camp, beginning at the well which in those times had the name Lilybaeum, and many years after these events, when a city was founded near it, the presence of the well occasioned the giving of the name to the city. 5 Hannibal had all told, as Ephorus has recorded, two hundred thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry, but as Timaeus says, not many more than one hundred thousand men. His ships he hauled up on land in the bay about Motye, every one of them, wishing to give the Syracusans the impression that he had not come to make war upon them or to sail along the coast with his naval force against Syracuse. 6 And after adding to his army the soldiers supplied by the Aegestaeans and by the other allies he broke camp and made his way from Lilybaeum toward Selinus. And when he came to the Mazarus River, he took at the first assault the trading-station situated by it, and when he arrived before the city, he divided his army into two parts; then, after he had invested the city and put his siege-engines in position, he began the assaults with all speed. 7 He set up six towers of exceptional size and advanced an equal number of battering-rams plated with iron against the walls; furthermore, by employing his archers and slingers in great numbers he beat back the fighters on the battlements.

§ 13.55.1 The Selinuntians, who had for a long time been without experience in sieges and had been the only Sicilian Greeks to fight on the side of the Carthaginians in the war against Gelon, had never conceived that they would be brought to such a state of fear by the people whom they had befriended.

§ 13.55.2 But when they saw the great size of the engines of war and the hosts of the enemy, they were filled with dread and dismayed at the magnitude of the danger threatening them.

§ 13.55.3 However, they did not totally despair of their deliverance, but in the expectation that the Syracusans and their other allies would soon arrive, the whole populace fought off the enemy from the walls.

§ 13.55.4 Indeed all the men in the prime of life were armed and battled desperately, while the older men busied themselves with the supplies and, as they made the rounds of the wall, begged the young men not to allow them to fall under subjection to the enemy; and women and girls supplied the food and mills to the defenders of the fatherland, counting as naught the modesty and the sense of shame which they cherished in time of peace.

§ 13.55.5 Such consternation prevailed that the magnitude of the emergency called for even the aid of their women. Hannibal, who had promised the soldiers that he would give them the city to pillage, pushed the siege-engines forward and assaulted the walls in waves with his best soldiers.

§ 13.55.6 And all together the trumpets sounded the signal for attack and at one command the army of the Carthaginians as a body raised the war-cry, and by the power of the rams the walls were shaken, while by reason of the height of the towers the fighters on them slew many of the Selinuntians.

§ 13.55.7 For in the long period of peace they had enjoyed they had given no attention whatever even to their walls and of so they were easily subdued, since the wooden towers far excelled the walls in height. When the wall fell the Campanians, being eager to accomplish some outstanding feat, broke swiftly into the city.

§ 13.55.8 Now at the outset they struck terror into their opponents, who were few in number; but after that, when many gathered to the aid of the defenders, they were thrust out with heavy losses among their own soldiers; for since they had forced a passage when the wall had not yet been completely cleared and in their attack had fallen foul of difficult terrain, they were easily overcome. At nightfall the Carthaginians broke off the assault.

§ 13.56.1 The Selinuntians, picking out their best horsemen, dispatched them at once by night, some to Acragas, and others to Gela and Syracuse, asking them to come to their aid with all speed, since their city could not withstand the strength of the enemy for any great time.

§ 13.56.2 Now the Acragantini and Geloans waited for the Syracusans, since they wished to lead their troops as one body against the Carthaginians; and the Syracusans, on learning the facts about the siege, first stopped the war they were engaged in with the Chalcidians and then spent some time in gathering the troops from the countryside and making great preparations, thinking that the city might be forced by siege to surrender but would not be taken by storm.

§ 13.56.3 Hannibal, when the night had passed, at daybreak launched assaults from every side, and the part of the city's wall which had already fallen and the portion of the wall next the breach he broke down with the siege-engines.

§ 13.56.4 He then cleared the area of the fallen part of the wall and, attacking in relays of his best troops, gradually forced out the Selinuntians; it was not possible, however, to overpower by force men who were fighting for their very existence.

§ 13.56.5 Both sides suffered heavy losses, but for the Carthaginians fresh troops kept taking over the fighting, while for the Selinuntians there was no reserve to come to their support. The siege continued for nine days with unsurpassed stubbornness, and in the event the Carthaginians suffered and inflicted many terrible injuries.

§ 13.56.6 When the Iberians mounted where the wall had fallen, the women who were on the house-tops raised a great cry, whereupon the Selinuntians, thinking that the city was being taken, were struck with terror, and leaving the walls they gathered in bands at the entrances of the narrow alleys, endeavoured to barricade the streets, and held off the enemy for a long time.

§ 13.56.7 And as the Carthaginians pressed the attack, the multitudes of women and children took refuge on the housetops whence they threw both stones and tiles on the enemy. For a long time the Carthaginians came off baldy, being unable either, because of the walls of the houses, to surround the men in the alleys or, because of those hurling at them from the roofs, to fight it out on equal terms.

§ 13.56.8 However, as the struggle went on until the afternoon, the missiles of the fighters from the houses were exhausted, whereas the troops of the Carthaginians, which constantly relieved those which were suffering heavily, continued the fighting in fresh condition. Finally, since the troops within the walls were being steadily reduced in number and the enemy entered the city in ever-increasing strength, the Selinuntians were forced out of the alleys.

§ 13.57.1 And so, while the city was being taken, there was to be observed among the Greeks lamentation and weeping, and among the barbarians there was cheering and commingled outcries; for the former, as their eyes looked upon the great disaster which surrounded them, were filled with ter, while the latter, elated by their successes, urged on their comrades to slaughter.

§ 13.57.2 The Selinuntians gathered into the market-place and all who reached it died fighting there; and the barbarians, scattering throughout the entire city, plundered whatever of value was to be found in the dwellings, while of the inhabitants they found in them some they burned together with their homes and when others struggled into the streets, without distinction of sex or age but whether infant children or women or old men, they put them to the sword, showing no sign of compassion.

§ 13.57.3 They mutilated even the dead according to the practice of their people, some carrying bunches of hands which they had spitted upon their javelins and spears. Such women as they found to have taken refuge together with their children in the temples they called upon their comrades not to kill, and to these alone did they give assurance of their lives.

§ 13.57.4 This they did, however, not out of pity for the unfortunate people, but because they feared lest the women, despairing of their lives, would burn down the temples, and thus they would not be able to make booty of the great wealth which was stored up in them as dedications.

§ 13.57.5 To such a degree did the barbarians surpass all other men in cruelty, that whereas the rest of mankind spare those who seek refuge in the sanctuaries from the desire not to commit sacrilege against the deity, the Carthaginians, on the contrary, would refrain from laying hands on the enemy in order that they might plunder the temples of their gods.

§ 13.57.6 By nightfall the city had been sacked, and of the dwellings some had been burned and others razed to the ground, while the whole area was filled with blood and corpses. Sixteen thousand was the sum of the inhabitants who were found to have fallen, not counting the more than five thousand who had been taken captive.

§ 13.58.1 The Greeks serving as allies of the Carthaginians, as they contemplated the reversal in the lives of the hapless Selinuntians, felt pity at their lot. The women, deprived now of the pampered life they had enjoyed, spent the nights in the very midst of enemies' lasciviousness, enduring terrible indignities, and some were obliged to see their daughters of marriageable age suffering treatment improper for their years.

§ 13.58.2 For the savagery of the barbarians spared night free-born youths nor maidens, but exposed these unfortunates to dreadful disasters. Consequently, as the women reflected upon the slavery that would be their lot in Libya, as they saw themselves together with their children in a condition in which they possessed no legal rights and were subject to insolent treatment and thus compelled to obey masters, and as they noted that these masters used an unintelligible speech and had a bestial character, they mourned for their living children as dead, and receiving into their souls as a piercing wound each and every outrage committed against them, they became frantic with suffering and vehemently deplored their own fate; while as for their fathers and brothers who had died fighting for their country, them they counted blessed, since they had not witnessed any sight unworthy of their own valour.

§ 13.58.3 The Selinuntians who had escaped capture, twenty-six hundred in number, made their way in safety to Acragas and there received all possible kindness; for Acragantini, after portioning out food to them at public expense, divided them for billeting among their homes, urging the private citizens, who were indeed eager enough, to supply them with every necessity of life.

§ 13.59.1 While these events were taking place there arrived at Acragas three thousand picked soldiers from Syracusans, who had been dispatched in advance with all speed to bring aid. On learning of the fall of Selinus, they sent ambassadors to Hannibal urging him both to release the captives on the payment of ransom and to spare the temples of the gods.

§ 13.59.2 Hannibal replied that the Selinuntians, having proved incapable of defending their freedom, would now undergo the experience of slavery, and that the gods had departed from Selinus, having become offended with its inhabitants.

§ 13.59.3 However, since the fugitives had sent Empedion as an ambassador, to him Hannibal restored his possessions; for Empedion had always favoured the cause of the Carthaginians and before the siege had counselled the citizens not to go to war against the Carthaginians. Hannibal also graciously delivered up to him his kinsmen who were among the captives and to the Selinuntians who had escaped he gave permission to dwell in the city and to cultivate its fields upon payment of tribute to the Carthaginians.

§ 13.59.4 Now this city was taken after it had been inhabited from its founding for a period of two hundred and forty-two years. And Hannibal, after destroying the walls of Selinus, departed with his whole army to Himera, being especially bent on razing this city to the ground.

§ 13.59.5 For it was this city which had caused his father to be exiled and before its walls his grandfather Hamilcar had been out-generalled by Gelon and then met his end, and with him one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers had perished and no fewer than these had been taken captive.

§ 13.59.6 These were the reasons why Hannibal was eager to exact punishment, and with forty thousand men he pitched camp upon some hills not far from the city, while with the rest of his entire army he invested the city, twenty thousand additional soldiers from both Siceli and Sicani having joined him.

§ 13.59.7 Setting up his siege-engines he shook the walls at a number of points, and since he pressed the battle with waves of troops in great strength, he wore down the defenders, especially since his soldiers were elated by their successes.

§ 13.59.8 He also set about undermining the walls, which he then shored up with wooden supports, and when these were set on fire, a large section of the wall soon fell. Thereupon there ensued a most bitter battle, one side struggling to force its way inside the wall and the other fearing lest they should suffer the same fate as the Selinuntians.

§ 13.59.9 Consequently, since the defenders put up a struggle to the death on behalf of children and parents and the fatherland which all men fight to defend, the barbarians were thrust out and the section of the wall quickly restored. To their aid came also the Syracusans from Acragas and troops from their other allies, some four thousand in all, who were under the command of Diocles the Syracusan.

§ 13.60.1 At that juncture, when night brought an end to all further striving for victory, the Carthaginians abandoned the attack. And when day came, the Himeraeans decided not to allow themselves to be shut in and surrounded in this ignominious manner, as were the Selinuntians, and so they stationed guards on the walls and led out of the city the rest of their soldiers together with the allies who had arrived, some ten thousand men.

§ 13.60.2 And by engaging the enemy thus unexpectedly, they threw the barbarians into consternation, thinking as they did that allied forces had arrived to aid those who were penned in by the siege. And because the Himeraeans were far superior in deeds of daring and of skill, and especially because their single hope of safety lay in their prevailing in the battle, at the outset they slew the first opponents.

§ 13.60.3 And since the multitude of the barbarians thronged together in great disorder because they never would have expected that the besieged would dare such a move, they were under no little disadvantage; for when eighty thousand men streamed together without order into one place, the result was that the barbarians clashed with each other and suffered more heavily from themselves than from the enemy.

§ 13.60.4 The Himeraeans, having as spectators on the walls parents and children as well as all their relatives, spent their own lives unsparingly for the salvation of them all.

§ 13.60.5 And since they fought brilliantly, the barbarians, dismayed by their deeds of daring and unexpected resistance, turned in flight. They fled in disorder to the troops encamped on the hills, and the Himeraeans pressed hard upon them, crying out to each other to take no man captive, and they slew more than six thousand of them, according to Timaeus, or, as Ephorus states, more than twenty thousand.

§ 13.60.6 But Hannibal, seeing that his men were becoming exhausted, brought down his troops who were encamped on the hills, and reinforcing his beaten soldiers caught the Himeraeans in disorder as they were pushing the pursuit.

§ 13.60.7 In the fierce battle which ensued the main body of the Himeraeans turned in flight, but three thousand of them who tried to oppose the Carthaginian army, though they accomplished great deeds, were slain to a man.

§ 13.61.1 This battle had already come to an end when there arrived at Himera from the Sicilian Greeks the twenty-five triremes which had previously been sent to aid the Lacedemonians but at this time had returned from the campaign.

§ 13.61.2 And a report also spread through the city that the Syracusans en masse together with their allies were on the march to the aid of the Himeraeans and that Hannibal was planning to man his triremes in Motye with his choicest troops and, sailing to Syracuse, seize that city while it was stripped of its defenders.

§ 13.61.3 Consequently Diocles, who commanded the forces in Himera, advised the admirals of the fleet to set sail with all speed for Syracuse, in order that it might not happen that the city should be taken by storm while its best troops were fighting a war abroad.

§ 13.61.4 They decided, therefore, that their best course was to abandon the city, and that they should embark half the populace on the triremes (for these would convey them until they had got beyond Himeraean territory) and with the other half keep guard until the triremes should return.

§ 13.61.5 Although the Himeraeans complained indignantly at this conclusion, since there was no other course they could take, the triremes were hastily loaded by night with a mixed throng of women and children and of other inhabitants also, who sailed on them as far as Messene;

§ 13.61.6 and Diocles, taking his own soldiers and leaving behind the bodies of those who had fallen in the fighting, set forth upon the journey home. And many Himeraeans with children and wives set out with Diocles, since the triremes could not carry the whole populace.

§ 13.62.1 Those who had been left behind in Himera spent the night under arms on the walls; and when with the coming of day the Carthaginians surrounded the city and launched repeated attacks, the remaining Himeraeans fought with no thought for their lives, expecting the arrival of the ships.

§ 13.62.2 For that day, therefore, they continued to hold out, but on the next, even when the triremes were already in sight, it so happened that the wall began to fall before the blows of the siege-engines and the Iberians to pour in a body into the city. Some of the barbarians thereupon would hold off the Himeraeans who rushed up to bring aid, while others, gaining command of the walls, would help their comrades get in.

§ 13.62.3 Now that the city had been taken by storm, for a long time the barbarians continued, with no sign of compassion, to slaughter everyone they seized.

§ 13.62.4 But when Hannibal issued orders to take prisoners, although the slaughter stopped, the wealth of the dwellings now became the objects of plunder. Hannibal, after sacking the temples and dragging out the suppliants who had fled to them for safety, set them afire, and the city he razed to the ground, two hundred and forty years after its founding. Of the captives the women and children he distributed among the army and kept them under guard, but the men whom he took captive, some three thousand, he led to the spot where once his grandfather Hamilcar had been slain by Gelon and after torturing them put them all to death.

§ 13.62.5 After this, breaking up his army, he sent the Sicilian allies back to their countries, and accepting them also were the Campanians, who bitterly complained to the Carthaginians that, though they had been the ones chiefly responsible for the Carthaginian successes, the rewards they had received were not a fair return for their accomplishments.

§ 13.62.6 Then Hannibal embarked his army on the warships and merchant vessels, and leaving behind sufficient troops for the needs of his allies he set sail from Sicily. And when he arrived at Carthage with much booty, the whole city came out to meet him, paying him homage and honour as one who in a brief time had performed greater deeds than any general before him.

§ 13.63.1 Hermocrates the Syracusan arrived in Sicily. This man, who had served as general in the war against the Athenians and had been of great service to his country, had acquired the greatest influence among the Syracusans, but afterwards, when he had been sent as admiral in command of thirty-five triremes to support the Lacedemonians, he was overpowered by his political opponents and, upon being condemned to exile, he handed over the fleet in the Peloponnesus to the men who had been dispatched to succeed him.

§ 13.63.2 And since he had struck up a friendship with Pharnabazus, the satrap of the Persians, as a result of the campaign, he accepted from him a great sum of money with which, after he had arrived at Messene, he had five triremes built and hired a thousand soldiers.

§ 13.63.3 Then, after adding to this force also above a thousand of the Himeraeans who had been driven from their home, he endeavoured with the aid of his friends to make good his return to Syracuse; but when he failed in this design, he set out through the middle of the island and seizing Selinus he built a wall about a part of the city and called to him from all quarters the Selinuntians who were still alive.

§ 13.63.4 He also received many others into the place and thus gathered a force of six thousand picked warriors. Making Selinus his base he first laid waste the territory of the inhabitants of Motye and defeating in battle those who came out from the city against him he slew many and pursued the rest within the wall of the city. After this he ravaged the territory of the people of Panormus and acquired countless booty, and when the inhabitants offered battle en masse before the city he slew about five hundred of them and shut up the rest within their walls.

§ 13.63.5 And since he also laid waste in like fashion all the rest of the territory in the hands of the Carthaginians, he won the commendation of the Sicilian Greeks. And among other things the majority of the Syracusans also repented of their treatment of him, realizing that Hermocrates had been banished contrary to the merits of his valour.

§ 13.63.6 Consequently, after much discussion of him in meetings of the assembly, it was evident that the people desired to receive the man back from exile, and Hermocrates, on hearing of the talk about himself that was current in Syracuse, laid careful plans regarding his return from exile, knowing that his political opponents would work against it. Such was the course of events in Sicily.

§ 13.64.1 In Greece Thrasybulus, who had been sent out by the Athenians with thirty ships and a strong force of hoplites as well as a hundred horsemen, put in at Ephesus; and after disembarking his troops at two points he launched assaults upon the city. The inhabitants came out of the city against them and a fierce battle ensued; and since the entire populace of the Ephesians joined in the fighting, four hundred Athenians were slain and the remainder Thrasybulus took aboard his ships and sailed off to Lesbos.

§ 13.64.2 The Athenian generals who were in the neighbourhood of Cyzicus, sailing to Chalcedon, established there the fortress of Chrysopolis and left an adequate force behind; and the officers in charge they ordered to collect a tenth from all merchants sailing out of the Pontus.

§ 13.64.3 After this they divided their forces and Theramenes was left behind with fifty ships with which to lay siege to Chalcedon and Byzantium, and Thrasybulus was sent to Thrace, where he brought the cities in those regions over to the Athenians.

§ 13.64.4 And Alcibiades, after giving Thrasybulus a separate command with the thirty ships, sailed to the territory held by Pharnabazus, and when they had conjointly laid waste a great amount of that territory, they not only sated the soldiers with plunder but also themselves realized money from the booty, since they wished to relieve the Athenian people of the property-taxes imposed for the prosecution of their war.

§ 13.64.5 When the Lacedemonians learned that all the armaments of the Athenians were in the region of the Hellespont, they undertook a campaign against Pylos, which the Messenians held with a garrison; on the sea they had eleven ships, of which five were from Sicily and six were manned by their own citizens, while on land they had gathered an adequate army, and after investing the fortress they began to wreak havoc both by land and by sea.

§ 13.64.6 As soon as the Athenian people learned of this they dispatched to the aid of the besieged thirty ships and as general Anytus the son of Anthemion. Now Anytus sailed out on his mission, but when he was unable to round Cape Malea because of storms he returned to Athens. The people were so incensed at this that they accused him of treason and brought him to trial; but Anytus, being in great danger, saved his own life by the use of money, and he is reputed to have been the first Athenian to have bribed a jury.

§ 13.64.7 Meanwhile the Messenians in Pylos held out for some time, awaiting aid from the Athenians; but since the enemy kept launching successive assaults and of their own number some were dying of wounds and others were reduced to sad straits for lack of food, they abandoned the place under a truce. And so the Lacedemonians became masters of Pylos, after the Athenians had held it fifteen years from the time Demosthenes had fortified it.

§ 13.65.1 While these events were taking place, the Megarians seized Nisaea, which was in the hands of Athenians, and the Athenians dispatched against them Leotrophides and Timarchus with a thousand infantry and four hundred cavalry. The Megarians went out to meet them en masse under arms, and after adding to their number some of the troops from Sicily they drew up for battle near the hills called “The Cerata.”

§ 13.65.2 Since the Athenians fought brilliantly and put to flight the enemy, who greatly outnumbered them, many of the Megarians were slain but only twenty Lacedemonians; for the Athenians, made angry by the seizure of Nisaea, did not pursue the Lacedemonians but slew great numbers of the Megarians with whom they were indignant.

§ 13.65.3 The Lacedemonians, having chosen Cratesippidas as admiral and manned twenty-five of their own ships with troops furnished by their allies, ordered them to go to the aid of their allies. Cratesippidas spent some time near Ionia without accomplishing anything worthy of mention; but later, after receiving may have from the exiles of Chios, he restored them to their homes and seized the acropolis of the Chians.

§ 13.65.4 And the returned exiles of the Chians banished the men who were their political opponents and had been responsible for their exile to the number of approximately six hundred. These men then seized a place called Atarneus on the opposite mainland, which was by nature extremely rugged, and henceforth, from that as their base, continued to make war on their opponents who held Chios.

§ 13.66.1 While these events were taking place Alcibiades and Thrasybulus, after fortifying Lampsacus, left a strong garrison in that place and themselves sailed with their force to Theramenes, who was laying waste Chalcedon with seventy ships and five thousand soldiers. And when the armaments had been brought together into one place they threw a wooden stockade about the city from sea to sea.

§ 13.66.2 Hippocrates, who had been stationed by the Lacedemonians in the city as commander (the Laconians call such a man a “harmost”), led against them both his own soldiers and all the Chalcedonians. A fierce battle ensued, and since the troops of Alcibiades fought stoutly, not only Hippocrates fell but of the rest of the soldiers some were slain, and the others, disabled by wounds, took refuge in a body in the city.

§ 13.66.3 After this Alcibiades sailed out into the Hellespont and to Chersonesus, wishing to contract money, and Theramenes concluded an agreement with the Chalcedonians whereby the Athenians received from them as much tribe as before. Then leading his troops from there to Byzantium he laid siege to the city and with great alacrity set about walling it off.

§ 13.66.4 And Alcibiades, after collecting money, persuaded many of the Thracians to join his army and he also took into it the inhabitants of Chersonesus en masse; then, setting forth with his entire force, he first took Selybria by betrayal, in which, after exacting from it much money, he left a garrison, and then himself came speedily to Theramenes at Byzantium.

§ 13.66.5 When the armaments had been united, the commanders began making the preparations for a siege; for they were setting out to conquer a city of great wealth which was crowded with defenders, since, not counting the Byzantines, who were many, Clearchus, the Lacedemonian harmost, had in the city many Peloponnesians and mercenaries.

§ 13.66.6 Consequently, though they kept launching assaults for some time, they continued to inflict no notable damage on the defenders; but when the governor left the city to visit Pharnabazus in order to get money, thereupon certain Byzantines, hating the severity of his administration (for Clearchus was a harsh man), agreed to deliver up the city to Alcibiades and his colleagues.

§ 13.67.1 The Athenian generals, giving the impression that they intended to raise the siege and take their armaments to Ionia, sailed out in the afternoon with all their ships and withdrew the land army some distance; but when night came, they turned back again and about the middle of the night drew near the city, and they dispatched the triremes with orders to drag off the boats and to raise a clamour as if the entire force were at that point, while they themselves, holding the land army before the walls, watched for the signal which had been agreed upon with those who were yielding the city.

§ 13.67.2 And when the crews of the triremes set about carrying their orders, shattering some of the boats with their rams, trying to haul off others with their grappling irons, and all the while raising a tremendous outcry, the Peloponnesians in the city and everyone who was unaware of the trickery rushed out to the harbours to bring aid.

§ 13.67.3 Consequently the betrayers of the city raised the signal from the wall and admitted Alcibiades' troops by means of ladders in complete safety, since the multitude had thronged down to the harbour.

§ 13.67.4 When the Peloponnesians learned what had happened, at first they left half their troops at the harbour and with the rest speedily rushed back to attack the walls which had been seized.

§ 13.67.5 And although practically the entire force of the Athenians had already effected an entrance, they nonetheless were not panic-stricken but resisted stoutly for a long while and battled the Athenians with the help of the Byzantines. And in the end the Athenians would not have conquered the city by fighting, had not Alcibiades, perceiving opportunity, had the announcement made that no wrong should be done to the Byzantines; for at this word the citizens changed sides and turned upon the Peloponnesians.

§ 13.67.6 Thereupon the most of them were slain fighting gallantly, and the survivors, about five hundred, fled for refuge to the altars of the temples.