inhabitants, who were not privy to the intrigue, and
who consequently fled, especially as the town was unfortified. They were
afterwards, however, assembled by the Lacedaemonians together with
the inhabitants of the two other towns of Lindus and Ialysus; and the
Rhodians were persuaded to revolt from the Athenians and the island went
over to the Peloponnesians. Meanwhile the Athenians had received the
alarm and set sail with the fleet from Samos to forestall them, and came
within sight of the island, but being a little too late sailed off for
the moment to Chalce, and from thence to Samos, and subsequently waged
war against Rhodes, issuing from Chalce, Cos, and Samos.

The Peloponnesians now levied a contribution of thirty-two talents from
the Rhodians, after which they hauled their ships ashore and for eighty
days remained inactive. During this time, and even earlier, before they
removed to Rhodes, the following intrigues took place. After the
death of Chalcideus and the battle at Miletus, Alcibiades began to be
suspected by the Peloponnesians; and Astyochus received from Lacedaemon
an order from them to put him to death, he being the personal enemy of
Agis, and in other respects thought unworthy of confidence. Alcibiades
in his alarm first withdrew to Tissaphernes, and immediately began to
do all he could with him to injure the Peloponnesian cause. Henceforth
becoming his adviser in everything, he cut down the pay from an Attic
drachma to three obols a day, and even this not paid too regularly; and
told Tissaphernes to say to the Peloponnesians that the Athenians, whose
maritime experience was of an older date than their own, only gave their
men three obols, not so much from poverty as to prevent their seamen
being corrupted by being too well off, and injuring their condition by
spending money upon enervating indulgences, and also paid their crews
irregularly in order to have a security against their deserting in the
arrears which they would leave behind them. He also told Tissaphernes
to bribe the captains and generals of the cities, and so to obtain their
connivance--an expedient which succeeded with all except the Syracusans,
Hermocrates alone opposing him on behalf of the whole confederacy.
Meanwhile the cities asking for money Alcibiades sent off, by roundly
telling them in the name of Tissaphernes that it was great impudence
in the Chians, the richest people in Hellas, not content with being
defended by a foreign