With the death of the veteran and historian Thucydides around 400 BC, the narrative of the Peloponnesian War now, in 410 BC, flips primarily over to Xenophon, a renowned commander of his own time. With Athens striking back hard against Sparta at sea, the war’s focus now shifts over to the north-east of the Greek world, as the Hellespont would bear witness to two of the war’s largest naval engagements yet: the battles of Abydos and Cyzicus.
Check out my previous post on the Spartan-Persian alliance.
THE BATTLE OF ABYDOS
The battle of Cynossema was a stunning turn of events for Athens. Major setbacks in their recent history, with the defection of Alcibiades, the debacle in Sicily, the start of the Decelean War, the alliance between Sparta and Persia and the oligarchic coup, had all nearly brought the state and its League to its knees. Now, with a revived naval strength, and the regaining of Alcibiades, they could hope to get back onto the offensive. Thrasyllus and Thrasyboulus withdrew their victorious navy back to Cyzicus, while Mindarus’s broken Peloponnesian fleet fled back to Abydos, opposite Cyzicus across the Hellespont.
DORIEUS OF RHODES
At the start of the winter of 410 BC, Mindarus called for needed reinforcements. First to respond was Dorieus of Rhodes, with fourteen vessels. Dorieus was the son of a famous Rhodesian boxer, Diagoras. Arriving at dawn, his fleet was spotted by Athenian patrols, before twenty ships made for Dorieus, who fled and landed ashore near Rhoeteum. His skilled rowers and marines were able to fend off Athenian attacks from land and sea, causing the Athenians to retreat. Impressed with his handling of the situation, Mindarus and his eighty-three ships sailed out to meet with Dorieus and his fleet, which the Athenians in turn spotted. Both sides met in November outside the city of Abydos.
[ABOVE: "Diagoras Being Carried by his Two Sons After an Olympic Victory", by French painter Auguste Vinchon, 1814]
THE BATTLE
Mindarus's ships numbered ninety-seven in total, positioning himself on the right wing nearest Abydos and his Syracusan allies on the left. Opposite him, Thrasyboulus led and commanded his right wing, and Thrasyllus the left. Battle began on signal, with flags and trumpets sounding for battle, which lasted from early morning until late afternoon. Xenophon describes the fighting as balanced, with gains and losses made on both sides. Diodorus Siculus describes the engagements as incredibly skilled, with both sides’ oarsmen and sailors being able to turn the boats so perfectly against one another that the rams on the front of the ships would often collide head-on. Archers and javelinmen provided missile fire during the engagement, and boarding with marine hoplites was common.
[ABOVE: A model of a Greek trireme]
When all seemed indecisive, Alcibiades, with between eighteen and twenty of his own warships, sailed into the Hellespont. Allegedly it was unclear to either side whose aid he had come to, until his flagship bore a sail, described as either purple or red, the signal that he was there to aid Athens, causing Mindarus and Dorieus’s overextended fleet to turn, fleeing to the Asian coast. His arrival, however, must have been planned, since his timing in surrounding the enemy was done near flawlessly. In the fighting and their withdrawal to the Asian coast, the Spartans lost thirty ships, and Athens casually recapturing their fifteen previously captured ships from Cynossema.
[ABOVE: Renaissance-era engraving of Alcibiades by Agostino Veneziano, 16th century]
Waiting nearby with his own army was Pharnabazus II, satrap of Phrygia, who ordered his men forward, urging his own horse into the water as far as it dared go. His arrival stopped a disaster from playing out as Mindarus used the cover of night to escape. Beaching, the Spartans formed a barrier with their ships and fought Athens on land. With Spartan military strength combined with the Athenians attempting to fight and disembark simultaneously, Athens was eventually forced to withdraw back to their ships to Sestos. The battle effectively left Athens in command of the Hellespont.
[ABOVE: Coinage depicting Pharnabazus II on the converse (right), c.380 - 379 BC, with Baal of Tarsos depicted on the reverse (left)]
AFTERMATH
Tissaphernes, Persian satrap of Lydia and ally of Alcibiades, arrived at the Hellespont not long after the battle. Alcibiades was ordered by King Darius II himself to make war upon Athens, and in failing this, the king ordered him arrested and shut up in the city of Sardis. He was, after thirty days, able to make his escape on horseback to Clazomenae. Thrasyllus’s fleet made for Cardia upon seeing Mindarus’s repaired fleet making for them. Recent campaigns had drained Athens’s treasury, making an immediate pursuit of Mindarus over the winter undoable.
[ABOVE: Coinage depicting Tissaphernes on the converse (left), c.400 - 395 BC]
EUBOEAN REVOLT
An ongoing revolt of Euboea closer to home meant they had concerns elsewhere to deal with too. Theramenes was able to take thirty ships to deal with this rebellion, with the aid of Boeotian allies. Boeotians were, at the time, undergoing a construction project to link Euboea to mainland Greece, from Aulis to Chalcis, and while Theramenes’s forces were too small to defend even the Boeotian workforce, they were large enough to raid the Euboean lands from their ships, collecting loot before heading to Macedonia to collect timber for new ships. This delay allowed Mindarus to leave Abydos, sailing deeper into the Sea of Marmara to attack Cyzicus.
[ABOVE: The isle of Euboea, in close proximity to the mainland where Chalcis, on the island, meets Aulis, on the mainland]
THE BATTLE OF CYZICUS
[ABOVE: Location of Cyzicus within the Sea of Marmara]
Coming from Asia, Alcibiades, with five triremes, travelled to Sestos before regrouping with the rest of the Athenian fleet at Proconnesus. Here, their combined fleet, totalling eighty-six triremes, got word of Mindarus’s fleet and Pharnabazus’s army at Cyzicus. Knowing a tough fight on land, sea and against the fortifications of Cyzicus was coming, Alcibiades addressed his men with realism:
The fact is that we have no money at all, while the enemy have plenty which they have got from the king.
The next day, the Athenians set out for battle. Seeing part of Mindarus’s sixty to eighty-strong fleet training outside Cyzicus’s harbour, separate from the other part of the fleet, the Athenians lured the Spartan fleet out before turning around on a given signal to surprise attack Mindarus, chasing them down to the coastline, here the rest of the Athenian fleet was waiting for them having cut them off, with many ships being picked off in the process. Mindarus was forced to abandon the harbour and sail to land, where Pharnabazus and his men were waiting for him.
[ABOVE: Order of the battle of Cyzicus, with Athenians depicted in blue and Spartans in black, showing Alcibiades' detachment falsifying a retreat, allowing Thrasyboulus and Thrasyllus to surround the Spartan forces]
Seeing this manoeuvre, Alcibiades took twenty ships to chase this contingent. Alcibiades even resorted to grappling iron hooks to capture some of the ships in their flight to land. Eventually landing, and with Alcibiades reinforced by Thrasyboulus’s men, both sides engaged on land, during which Mindarus himself was killed after putting up a noble struggle, causing the rest of his forces to flee.
[ABOVE: Achaemenid-era coin from Sidon depicting a Sidonian ship, c.425 - 401 BC]
The Athenians pursued until they learnt of Pharnabazus’s approaching cavalry reinforcements, making their way back to the ships. The entire fleet of Spartan ships were captured, with its Syracusan ships being put to the torch. Hippocrates, Mindarus’s vice-admiral, sent a letter back to Sparta after the battle. It was intercepted by Athenians and taken back to Athens. It simply read,
Ships lost. Mindarus dead. Men Starving. Don’t know what to do.
TAKING CYZICUS
[ABOVE: Bas relief of a charioteer from Cyzicus, c.6th century BC, now held in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum]
Alcibiades was granted thirty warships by Athens, manned with one-thousand hoplites and a hundred horsemen. The next say saw the Athenians besiege Cyzicus itself. It had been evacuated by Pharnabazus following the battle, allowing the Athenians to march in. Remaining there for three weeks, Alcibiades was able to raise money for his forces from the locals before making their way to Chrysopolis, fortifying the area and building a custom’s house in the city to tax goods moving through the Bosporus. Alcibiades left thirty ships under Theramenes’s command in garrison there while he returned to the Hellespont.
PHARNABAZUS REGROUPS
Reassuring his own men and the Peloponnesians, Pharnabazus gave each of the men a cloak to keep warm in the winter and two months’ rations, putting them on guard duty down his satrapy’s coastline while ordering the captains to build their ship numbers back up. Once these arrangements were made, Pharnabazus made for Chrysopolis.
[ABOVE: The tomb of Darius II, detailing various ethnic soldiers from across the empire, in Naqsh-e Rostam, Fars Province, Iran]
SPARTA’S PEACE OFFER
In violation of their treaty with Persia, Sparta offered peace to Athens. Their chief negotiator, Endius, a man close to Alcibiades, set forth the proposal:
We wish to make peace with you, men of Athens, and that each side should keep the cities it control but abandon the garrisons it holds in the other’s territory, ransoming prisoners, one Athenian for one Laconian.
Peace, alongside re-control of Decelea and recovering their prisoners would have been a welcome proposal to Athens, however maintaining their reputation and status-quo was a different matter; Sparta still retained control over Miletus, Rhodes, Chios, Ephesus, Euboea, Abydos, Thasos, Chalcedon and Byzantium, as well as several Thracian cities along the coast. While most Athenians were ready to accept the offer, other self-interested politicians had private profits to consider, which they would gain in furthering the war. Diodorus Siculus states that chief among these self-interested warmongers was one Cleophon,
the greatest demagogue of that time.
Cleophon was mocked and dismissed by the many writers and poets of the time, including Aristophanes. However, delaying action could allow the Spartans, with their Persian funding, to rebuild their navy far away from Athens near the Hellespont. Depriving Athens of these trade routes could quickly deplete them of resources, a situation they desperately didn’t need to be in especially since the recent campaigns - successful as they were - had depleted the treasury. One major defeat at this point, however, and the war would likely be lost for good.
There was also the hope that Sparta’s alliance with Persia, given Tissaphernes’s recent actions infuriating the Spartans, might not last. Serious revolts elsewhere in the Persian Empire may end up meaning that King Darius would have to abandon his western wars to focus elsewhere. And, given Sparta’s violation of their treaty with Persia in offering a peace deal with Athens, continuing the war, as much as the warmongers would profit from it, was not entirely a bad decision.
HERMOCRATES REPLACED
Ongoings back in Syracuse meant that Hermocrates had been exiled by the city’s democratic party. He urged his soldiers to fight on with equal valour and elect new commanders at once, as much as they did not want to, who would arrive from Syracuse as quickly as was possible. Hermocrates spoke to his reluctant soldiers:
We ought not to form an opposition party to our own government. But if anyone has any charges to bring against us, then you should allow us to speak in our defence. Remember all the naval battles you have won and all the ships you have captured when fighting entirely by yourselves, and how often afterwards in an allied command you have shown yourselves invincible under our leadership, and how you have held the place of honour in the line of battle because of our skill and your own daring and willing spirit which has made itself evident both on land and sea.
[ABOVE: Depiction of Hermocrates, from "Biography of the Illustrious Men of Sicily", by Domenico Lo Faso Pietrasanta, 1821]
Generals Demarchus, Myscon and Potamis eventually sailed over from Syracuse to Miletus to replace Hermocrates, who returned to Sicilian shores. Hermocrates would be missed by his soldiers, known for talking to all men in his army - no matter the rank - as equals. These ongoings in Sicily - namely a large-scale war between Syracuse and Carthage - meant that more Syracusan troops and ships would have to be recalled from the Peloponnesian War, weakening Sparta even further.
DECELEAN RAIDS
Around this time, roughly July, an anti-Spartan revolution took place in Thasos. Its Spartan governor, Pasippidas, was accused of organising the revolt alongside Tissaphernes, forcing him into exile. The general Cratesippidas was sent to replace him, taking over command of the local army and navy.
Meanwhile, King Agis, from his fortifications in Decelea, led his troops on further raids, right up to Athens’s walls. Thrasyllus sent out his hoplites in battle formation, causing Agis to withdraw and lose some soldiers doing so. Seeing this, Athens was more willing to give Thrasyllus what he came for, thus they passed a vote authorising him command over one-thousand hoplites, one-hundred cavalry and ten triremes. From his camp, Agis noted how, despite blockading Athens by land, Port Piraeus was still fully functional, providing the city with all the resources it needed to survive during the war. He thus proposed a motion to combat this, sending Clearchus north with fifteen warships (three of which were sunk on the way by the Athenian navy) to Byzantium.
THRASYLLUS IN IONIA
[ABOVE: The Persian satrapy of Lydia]
Winter passed into summer, and in that year of 409 BC, Thrasyllus took his newly given army to Pygela. Arriving in June, his five-thousand sailors were equipped as skirmishers, using his large army to loot the land and assault the city walls. Pygelan reinforcements would arrive from Miletus, putting to flight many of Thrasyllus’s light troops before they regrouped with the rest of his army, almost entirely destroying the Milesian force. Victorious, Thrasyllus sailed to Cyzicus before marching to Colophon, winning over the town peacefully before raiding deep into Lydia.
BATTLE OF EPHESUS
[ABOVE: Street view of the archaeological remains of Ephesus, modern Türkiye]
In the area at the time was the Persian rebel satrap, Stages, who managed to capture an Athenian soldier and kill seven others. With Thrasyllus planning to sail to Ephesus, Tissaphernes, receiving word of this, ordered local forces to march to the city before the Athenians arrived. Thrasyllus unloaded his hoplites at the foot of Mount Coressus, with the rest docking near the marshes at the other side of the city. The local Ephesian troops and reinforcing Persians moved against the one-thousand Athenian hoplites, killing around one-hundred and putting the rest to flight. Thrasyllus’s soldiers by the marshland were soon put to flight, loosing around three-hundred in total.
[ABOVE: Achaemenid military formation, with Sparabara spearmen (left) forming a shield wall to protect rows of archers, from "World History in Four Volumes" by Adolf Fedorovich Marks, 1904]
Regrouping back at Notium before making for Methymna, Lesbos, Thrasyllus’s forces came across twenty-five Syracusan ships in the area, fresh from Ephesus. In the following engagement, four Syracusan vessels were captured, forcing the rest back to Ephesus. All captured prisoners were sent back to Athens, except one named Alcibiades, cousin of the famous Athenian general. He was stoned to death, before the Athenians put in at Lampsacus. Later that summer, the Syracusan prisoners managed to dig their way out of the stone quarries of Piraeus, fleeing to Megara and Decelea.
ALCIBIADES AND THRASYLLUS
At Lampsacus, Alcibiades wanted the whole army to serve as one unit. Many soldiers, however, refused to serve in the same ranks as those who came with Thrasyllus, since they themselves had never been defeated while Thrasyllus’s men were fresh from their own loss. Both forces were now sharing the winter fortifying Lampsacus, making a campaign against Abydos and putting an army under Pharnabazus to flight, pursuing them into the night and emboldening the Athenians to make a series of raids into Persian lands. Due to this battle, Thrasyllus’s and Alcibiades’s men fraternised. This only made things worse for the Persian King, who was dealing with a revolt in Medea far to the east at the time.
ATTACKING THE HELLESPONT
Come the spring of 408 BC, the entire Athenian force sailed for Chalcedon and Byzantium. Hearing of their coming, the Chalcedonian citizens gave their belongings temporarily to the neighbouring Bithynian Thracians. Alcibiades met with these Thracians in Bithynia, ordering the Chalcedonian property to be given up under threat of violence, to which they complied before being convinced by Alcibiades to join Athens in blockading Chalcedon.
THE SIEGE OF CHALCEDON
A wooden stockade was constructed from coast to coast to blockade the city. This eventually forced the Spartan governor, Hippocrates, out of Chalcedon with his army, being reinforced by Persian soldiers under Pharnabazus nearby. Fighting ensued and lasted a long time, before Alcibiades arrived with his cavalry and hoplites to reinforce. Hippocrates died fighting, forcing his army to withdraw back to Chalcedon, and the Persians, who didn’t manage to engage in time, withdrew back east.
[ABOVE: Byzantium, modern Istanbul, on the European side of the Hellespont, which lay opposite Chalcedon on the Asian side, modern Türkiye]
THE SIEGE OF BYZANTIUM
After the battle, Alcibiades ventured to the Hellespont to raise funds, while an agreement was made with Pharnabazus that Chalcedon would be spared if Athens were provided with money and embassies. In the Hellespont, Alcibiades, along with much of the Athenian forces including three-hundred horsemen and some Thracian mercenaries, marched on Byzantium, since Alcibiades was not a part of the agreement made with Pharnabazus. Eventually the whole Athenian army in the area put Byzantium under siege.
[ABOVE: The mythical Thracian bard Orpheus (centre) singing for two Thracian soldiers, depicted on a Greek Attic red figure vase, c.430 BC]
Fortifications and siege engines were constructed, and attacks on the city walls were frequent. Byzantium’s Spartan governor, Clearchus, led the defence. Seeing how hard Byzantium was to besiege given its naturally defensible location, Athens resorted to convincing some Byzantines to betray the city. This was done while Clearchus sailed across to Asia to meet with Pharnabazus to collect funds and reinforcements for defending Byzantium. One night, the gates were opened for Alcibiades and his men to march into the city centre, forcing an immediate surrender and prisoners being taken to Athens.
CYRUS ARRIVES
News of Byzantium’s capture reached Pharnabazus in Gordium. At the beginning of the Spring of 407 BC, the Spartan embassy sent to deliver the message to Darius met with a separate party on the way. Their report was that the Spartans received everything they required from Persia, and that a new commander, Cyrus the Younger, Darius’s son, was on his way to reinforce the Spartans. Cyrus had a letter with him from Darius which stated,
I am sending Cyrus down the coast as caranus [lord] of all those whose mobilisation centre is Castolus.
[ABOVE: Portrait of an anonymous satrap of Ionia, from c.478 - 387 BC, possibly being Cyrus the Younger]
Once the Athenians heard this news and met Cyrus himself, they wished to go on and see the king, or to return home if failing that. Cyrus, however, didn’t want the Athenians back in Athens to know of the ongoings, thus he demanded Pharnabazus to leave the ambassadors in his charge. Eventually, Pharnabazus asked Cyrus to release them back to the Athenian army.
ALCIBIADES RETURNS TO ATHENS
Meanwhile, Alcibiades wished to return to Athens. On the way he raised money from much of the Delian League’s allied states, while Thrasyllus raided the Thracian coastline, targeting cities which had revolted against Athens, before arriving in Athens. Alcibiades, despite still being in exile, was elected general alongside Thrasyboulus, who was absent at the time, alongside another prominent figure named Conon, who was there.
[ABOVE: Portrait of Conon from "A List of Iconic Icons", published by Guillaume Rouille, 1553]
HIS RECEPTION
Arriving in Piraeus in the Spring of 407 BC, crowds from all over the port city and from Athens itself gathered round to witness the famous general’s return. People believed him to have been exiled only because of the inferiority and jealousy of those around him. Many even held him in such high regard that they believed him to have been sent down from Heaven itself. It was not the debacle on Sicily that was mentioned regarding him, but his successes near Asia. Some still saw him as a self-interested enemy of the state, and that his return would only spell doom for them. Either way, his recent campaigns on the Asian coastline alone had seen over two-hundred enemy vessels sunk or captured, alongside the capture of much plunder and booty for the Athenian state and people.
[ABOVE: "The Return of Alcibiades to Athens in 407 BC", from "The Illustrated History of the World", published c.1881 - 1884]
Hesitant to land at first, being weary of his enemies within, Alcibiades only came off his ship once reassured by the sight of his cousin, Euryptolemus, amongst other friends and relatives. Surrounded by armed guards, he made his way to Athens’s city centre, defending himself to the council against his former charges and claiming innocence. The people accepted his words, forcing his enemies in the council to reluctantly do the same. With that, Alcibiades was elected as supreme commander, being given authority over all other Athenian generals. It was thought by many that it would be he who would be the one to restore Athens to its former glory and power.
[ABOVE: "Alcibiades Returns in Triumph to Athens", by Walter Crane, from "The Story of Greece" by Mary Macgregor, c.1910]
TO ASIA
He thus raised a force of 1,500 hoplites, 150 cavalry and one-hundred warships. When they were trained up, recruited and outfitted, four months had passed, and Alcibiades took his new force into the Aegean in October, to Andros, which was revolting against the Delian League. His fellow self-picked generals were Aristocrates, Adeimantus and Conon. Landing at Gaureum, the men of Andros, alongside their local Spartan allies, came out to oppose them, were routed back into the city, taking losses during the retreat. Successful, Alcibiades sailed once again for Samos, setting up fortification there for future campaigns to come...
NEXT POST: THE 2nd SICILIAN WAR, 410 - 404 BC: Hannibal's Vengeance
SOURCES
- Xenophon, “A History of my Times”, Book 1.1.1 - 23
- Diodorus Siculus, “Library of History”, Book 13.45.2 - 46.5, 49.2 - 53
- Plutarch, “Parallel Lives”, Alcibiades, 27.1 - 7
- Justin, “Philippic Histories”, Book V.
- Donald Kagan, “The Peloponnesian War”, pg’s 408 - 437
YOUTUBE LINKS
(I do NOT own these videos)
"Persians Join the Conflict - Peloponnesian War DOCUMENTARY" by "Kings and Generals"
"Ancient Greek History - Part 13 of the Peloponnesian War - 29" by "Historyden"
MY ANCIENT GREEK HISTORY BLOG PAGE
MY ANCIENT PERSIAN HISTORY BLOG PAGE
All feedback - positive and/or critical - is appreciated!
All images used are copyright-free
Don't forget to rate this post, share it and leave a tip if you enjoyed it
Follow my FACEBOOK
Follow my INSTAGRAM
Follow my REDDIT
Follow my TRUTH SOCIAL
Follow my TUMBLR
Thanks for reading :)
