g their own for some little while notwithstanding, were at
length put to flight and chased to the shore. Such of their number as
took refuge in Eretria, which they presumed to be friendly to them,
found their fate in that city, being butchered by the inhabitants; while
those who fled to the Athenian fort in the Eretrian territory, and the
vessels which got to Chalcis, were saved. The Peloponnesians, after
taking twenty-two Athenian ships, and killing or making prisoners of the
crews, set up a trophy, and not long afterwards effected the revolt
of the whole of Euboea (except Oreus, which was held by the Athenians
themselves), and made a general settlement of the affairs of the island.

When the news of what had happened in Euboea reached Athens, a panic
ensued such as they had never before known. Neither the disaster in
Sicily, great as it seemed at the time, nor any other had ever so much
alarmed them. The camp at Samos was in revolt; they had no more ships or
men to man them; they were at discord among themselves and might at any
moment come to blows; and a disaster of this magnitude coming on the top
of all, by which they lost their fleet, and worst of all Euboea, which
was of more value to them than Attica, could not occur without throwing
them into the deepest despondency. Meanwhile their greatest and most
immediate trouble was the possibility that the enemy, emboldened by his
victory, might make straight for them and sail against Piraeus, which
they had no longer ships to defend; and every moment they expected him
to arrive. This, with a little more courage, he might easily have done,
in which case he would either have increased the dissensions of the city
by his presence, or, if he had stayed to besiege it, have compelled the
fleet from Ionia, although the enemy of the oligarchy, to come to the
rescue of their country and of their relatives, and in the meantime
would have become master of the Hellespont, Ionia, the islands, and of
everything as far as Euboea, or, to speak roundly, of the whole Athenian
empire. But here, as on so many other occasions, the Lacedaemonians
proved the most convenient people in the world for the Athenians to
be at war with. The wide difference between the two characters, the
slowness and want of energy of the Lacedaemonians as contrasted with the
dash and enterprise of their opponents, proved of the greatest service,
especially to a maritime empire like Athens. Indeed this was shown by
t