wind of his movement, and were in hot pursuit towards
Proconnesus. As soon as they were well past, the Spartan veered round
and returned to Abydos, trusting to information brought him of the
approach of Polyxenus with the Syracusan (14) and Italian squadron of
twenty ships, which he wished to pick up and incorporate with his own.

(13) See above; Lysias, "de bon. Arist." (Jebb, "Att. Or." i. p. 327).

(14) See below, VI. ii. 4 foll; Hicks, 71, 84, 88.

A little later the Athenian Thrasybulus (15) (of Collytus) was making
his way up with eight ships from Thrace, his object being to effect
a junction with the main Athenian squadron. The scouts signalled the
approach of eight triremes, whereupon Antalcidas, embarking his marines
on board twelve of the fastest sailers of his fleet, ordered them to
make up their full complements, where defective, from the remaining
vessels; and so lay to, skulking in his lair with all possible secrecy.
As soon as the enemy's vessels came sailing past he gave chase; and
they catching sight of him took to flight. With his swiftest sailors
he speedily overhauled their laggards, and ordering his vanguard to let
these alone, he followed hard on those ahead. But when the foremost
had fallen into his clutches, the enemy's hinder vessels, seeing their
leaders taken one by one, out of sheer despondency fell an easy prey
to the slower sailors of the foe, so that not one of the eight vessels
escaped.

(15) His name occurs on the famous stele of the new Athenian
confederacy, B.C. 378. See Hicks, 81; Kohler, "C. I. A." ii. 17;
Demos. "de. Cor." p. 301; Arist. "Rhet." ii. 23; Demos. "c.
Timocr." 742.

Presently the Syracusan squadron of twenty vessels joined him, and again
another squadron from Ionia, or rather so much of that district as lay
under the control of Tiribazus. The full quota of the contingent
was further made up from the territory of Ariobarzanes (which whom
Antalcidas kept up a friendship of long standing), in the absence of
Pharnabazus, who by this date had already been summoned up country on
the occasion of his marriage with the king's daughter. With this fleet,
which, from whatever sources derived, amounted to more than eighty sail,
Antalcidas ruled the seas, and was in a position not only to cut off the
passage of vessels bound to Athens from the Euxine, but to convoy them
into the harbours of Sparta's allies.

The Athenians could not but watch with alarm the growt