with a
hired force of seven hundred soldiers, and succeeded in mastering the
Athenian garrison, and securing the greater part of the chiefs of the
new administration; while, by a secret and well-contrived plot, they
regained their hostages left at Lemnos. They then openly proclaimed
their independence--restored the oligarchy--and, as a formal proof of
defiance, surrendered to Pissuthnes the Athenians they had captured.
Byzantium hastened to join the revolt. Their alliance with Pissuthnes
procured the Samians the promised aid of a Phoenician fleet, and they
now deemed themselves sufficiently strong to renew their hostilities
with Miletus. Their plans were well laid, and their boldness made a
considerable impression on the states hostile to Athens. Among the
Peloponnesian allies it was debated whether or not, despite the
treaty, the Samians should be assisted: opinions were divided, but
Corinth [310], perhaps, turned the scale, by insisting on the right of
every state to deal with its dependants. Corinth had herself colonies
over which she desired to preserve a dictatorial sway; and she was
disposed to regard the Samian revolution less as the gallantry of
freemen than the enterprise of rebels. It was fortunate, too,
perhaps, for Athens, that the Samian insurgents had sought their ally
in the Persian satrap; nor could the Peloponnesian states at that time
have decorously assisted the Persian against the Athenian arms. But
short time for deliberation was left by a government which procured
for the Athenians the character to be not more quick to contrive than
to execute--to be the only people who could simultaneously project and
acquire--and who even considered a festival but as a day on which some
necessary business could be accomplished [311]. With a fleet of sixty
sail, Pericles made for Samos; some of the vessels were stationed on
the Carian coast to watch the movements of the anticipated Phoenician
re-enforcement; others were despatched to collect aid from Chios and
Lesbos. Meanwhile, though thus reduced to forty-four sail, Pericles,
near a small island called Tragia, engaged the Samian fleet returning
from Miletus, consisting of seventy vessels, and gained a victory.
Then, re-enforced by forty galleys from Athens, and twenty-five from
Lesbos and Chios, he landed on the island, defeated the Samians in a
pitched battle, drove them into their city, invested it with a triple
line of ramparts, and simultaneously blo