d a custom-house to collect the tithe dues which
they levied on all merchantmen passing through the Straights from the
Black Sea. Besides this, a detachment of thirty ships was left there
under the two generals, Theramenes and Eubulus, with instructions not
only to keep a look-out on the port itself and on all traders passing
through the channel, but generally to injure the enemy in any way which
might present itself. This done, the rest of the generals hastened back
to the Hellespont.

(5) This is the common spelling, but the coins of Calchedon have the
letters {KALKH}, and so the name is written in the best MSS. of
Herodotus, Xenophon, and other writers, by whom the place is
named. See "Dict. of Greek and Roman Geog." "Chalcedon."

Now a despatch from Hippocrates, Mindarus's vice-admiral, (6) had been
intercepted on its way to Lacedaemon, and taken to Athens. It ran
as follows (in broad Doric): (7) "Ships gone; Mindarus dead; the men
starving; at our wits' end what to do."

(6) "Epistoleus," i.e. secretary or despatch writer, is the Spartan
title of the officer second in command to the admiral.

(7) Reading {'Errei ta kala} (Bergk's conjecture for {kala}) =
"timbers," i.e. "ships" (a Doric word). Cf. Aristoph., "Lys."
1253, {potta kala}. The despatch continues: {Mindaros apessoua}
(al. {apessua}), which is much more racy than the simple word
"dead." "M. is gone off." I cannot find the right English or
"broad Scotch" equivalent. See Thirlwall, "Hist. Gr." IV. xxix. 88
note.

Pharnabazus, however, was ready to meet with encouragement the
despondency which afflicted the whole Peloponnesian army and their
allies. "As long as their own bodies were safe and sound, why need
they take to heart the loss of a few wooden hulls? Was there not timber
enough and to spare in the king's territory?" And so he presented each
man with a cloak and maintenance for a couple of months, after which he
armed the sailors and formed them into a coastguard for the security of
his own seaboard.

He next called a meeting of the generals and trierarchs of the different
States, and instructed them to build just as many new ships in the
dockyards of Antandrus as they had respectively lost. He himself was to
furnish the funds, and he gave them to understand that they might
bring down timber from Mount Ida. While the ships were building, the
Syracusans helped the men of Antandrus to finish a section of