resolution came the second news of the fleet having taken refuge in
Spiraeum; and disheartened at their first step in the Ionian war proving
a failure, they laid aside the idea of sending the ships from their own
country, and even wished to recall some that had already sailed.

Perceiving this, Alcibiades again persuaded Endius and the other ephors
to persevere in the expedition, saying that the voyage would be made
before the Chians heard of the fleet's misfortune, and that as soon as
he set foot in Ionia, he should, by assuring them of the weakness of the
Athenians and the zeal of Lacedaemon, have no difficulty in persuading
the cities to revolt, as they would readily believe his testimony. He
also represented to Endius himself in private that it would be glorious
for him to be the means of making Ionia revolt and the King become the
ally of Lacedaemon, instead of that honour being left to Agis (Agis,
it must be remembered, was the enemy of Alcibiades); and Endius and his
colleagues thus persuaded, he put to sea with the five ships and the
Lacedaemonian Chalcideus, and made all haste upon the voyage.

About this time the sixteen Peloponnesian ships from Sicily, which had
served through the war with Gylippus, were caught on their return off
Leucadia and roughly handled by the twenty-seven Athenian vessels under
Hippocles, son of Menippus, on the lookout for the ships from Sicily.
After losing one of their number, the rest escaped from the Athenians
and sailed into Corinth.

Meanwhile Chalcideus and Alcibiades seized all they met with on their
voyage, to prevent news of their coming, and let them go at Corycus,
the first point which they touched at in the continent. Here they were
visited by some of their Chian correspondents and, being urged by them
to sail up to the town without announcing their coming, arrived suddenly
before Chios. The many were amazed and confounded, while the few had
so arranged that the council should be sitting at the time; and after
speeches from Chalcideus and Alcibiades stating that many more ships
were sailing up, but saying nothing of the fleet being blockaded in
Spiraeum, the Chians revolted from the Athenians, and the Erythraeans
immediately afterwards. After this three vessels sailed over to
Clazomenae, and made that city revolt also; and the Clazomenians
immediately crossed over to the mainland and began to fortify Polichna,
in order to retreat there, in case of necessity, from the i