ext commander of the fleet, which consisted of
110 ships, with which he met the Spartan Kallikratidas with only fifty,
near the three little islets called Arginusae, near Malea. The numbers
were so unequal that the Spartan was advised not to fight, but he
answered that "his death would not hurt Sparta, but dishonour would hurt
him." The Athenians gained a complete victory, Kallikratidas was killed,
and the whole Spartan fleet broken up; but the Athenian fleet lost a
great many men by a violent storm, which hindered the vessels from coming
to the aid of those which had been disabled, and which therefore sunk in
the tempest.

The relations of the men who had been drowned called for a trial of the
commanders for neglecting to save the lives of their fellow-citizens, and
there was such a bad spirit of party feeling in Athens at the time that
they were actually condemned to death, all except Konon, though happily
they were out of reach, and their sentence could not be executed.
Lysander was, in the meantime, hard at work to collect a fresh fleet from
the Spartan allies and to build new ships, for which he obtained money
from the Persians at Sardis, where the satrap at that time was Cyrus, the
son of Darius, the Great King, a clever prince, who understood something
of Greek courage, and saw that the best thing for Persia was to keep the
Greeks fighting with one another, so that no one state should be
mightiest, or able to meddle with the Persian domains in Asia Minor. He
gave Lysander the means of adding to his forces, and with his new fleet
he plundered the shores of the islands of Salamis and Euboea, and even of
Attica itself, to insult the Athenians. Their fleet came out to drive
him off. It had just been agreed by the Athenians that every prisoner
they might take in the fight they expected should have his right thumb
cut off, to punish the Greeks who had taken Persian gold. Lysander
sailed away, with the Athenian fleet pursuing him up to the Hellespont,
where he took the city of Lampsacus and plundered it before they came up,
and anchored at a place called AEgos Potami, or the Goat's River, about
two miles from Sestos. In the morning Lysander made all his men eat
their first meal and then go on board, but gave orders that no ship
should stir from its place. The Athenians too embarked, rowed up to
Lampsacus and defied them; but as no Spartan vessel moved, they went back
again to their anchorage, a mere open shore wh