23.
Meanwhile Astyochus the Lacedaemonian admiral, with four ships, set forth, as he intended,1 from Cenchreae, and arrived at Chios. On the third day after his arrival a division of the Athenian fleet, numbering twenty-five ships, sailed to Lesbos under the command of Leon and Diomedon; Leon had arrived from Athens later than Diomedon with a reinforcement of ten ships.
[2]
On the same day, towards evening, Astyochus put to sea, and taking with him one Chian ship, sailed to Lesbos, that he might render any assistance which he could to the Chian fleet. He came to Pyrrha, and on the following day to Eresus, where he heard that Mytilenè had been taken by the Athenians at the first blow.
[3]
The Athenian ships had sailed right into the harbour when they were least expected, and captured the Chian vessels;
[4]
the men on board had then landed, and defeating in a battle a Mytilenean force which came out to meet them, had taken possession of the city. Astyochus heard the news from the Eresians, and from the Chian ships which had been left with Eubulus at Methymna. They had fled when Mytilenè was taken, and had now fallen in with him; but only three out of the four, for one of them had been captured by the Athenians. Upon this, instead of going on to Mytilenè, he raised a revolt in Eresus, and armed the inhabitants: he then disembarked the heavy-armed from his ships and sent them by land to Antissa and Methymna under the command of Eteonicus;
[5]
and with his own and the three Chian ships coasted thither himself, hoping that the Methymnaeans would take courage at the sight of them and persevere in their revolt. But everything went against him in Lesbos; so he re-embarked his troops and sailed back to Chios. The land-forces from the ships which were intended to go to the Hellespont2 also returned to their several homes.
[6]
Not long afterwards six ships came to Chios from the allied forces of the Peloponnesians now collected at Cenchreae. The Athenians, when they had re-established their influence in Lesbos, sailed away, and having taken Polichnè on the mainland, which the Clazomenians were fortifying3, brought them all back to their city on the island, except the authors of the revolt, who had escaped to Daphnus. So Clazomenae returned to the Athenian alliance.
1 The Athenians first and afterwards Astyochus who has newly arrived from Cenchreae, sail to Lesbos. Mytilenè is retaken by the Athenians, and the Chian ships captured. Attempt to support Methymna, which fails, like all the plans of Astyochus in Lesbos. The Athenians recover he whole of Lesbos, and afterwards Clazomenae.
2 The meaning is obscure; see note.
3 Cp. viii 14 fin.
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
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