318 HISTORY OF GREECE. only as the signal for countless following losses. Pharnabazus and Konon, with their victorious fleet, sailed from island to island, and from one continental seaport to another, in the -32gean, to expel the Lacedaemonian harmosts, and terminate the empire of Sparta. So universal was the odium which it had inspired, that the task was found easy beyond expectation. Conscious of their unpopu- larity, the harmosts in almost all the towns, on both sides of the Hellespont, deserted theii posts and fled, on the mere news of the battle of Knidus. 1 Everywhere Pharnabazus and Konon found themselves received as liberators, and welcomed with presents of hospitality. They pledged themselves not to introduce any foreign force or governor, nor to fortify any separate citadel, but to guaran- tee to each city its own genuine autonomy. This policy was adopted by Pharnabazus at the urgent representation of Konon, who warned him that if he manifested any design of reducing the cities to subjection, he would find them all his enemies ; that each of them severally would cost him a long siege ; and that a combi- nation would ultimately be formed against him. Such liberal and judicious ideas, when seen to be sincerely acted upon, produced a strong feeling of friendship and even of gratitude, so that the La- cedaemonian maritime empire was dissolved without a blow, by the almost spontaneous movements of the cities themselves. Though the victorious fleet presented itself in many different places, it was nowhere called upon to put down resistance, or to undertake a single siege. Kos, Nisyra, Teos, Chios, Erythrae, Ephesus, Mity- lene, Samos, all declared themselves independent, under the pro tection of the new conquerors. 2 Pharnabazus presently disem- barked at Ephesus and marched by land northward to his own satrapy ; leaving a fleet of forty triremes under the command of Konon. To this general burst of anti-Spartan feeling, Abydos, on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont, formed the solitary exception. That town, steady in hostility to Athens, 3 had been the great military 1 Xenoph. Hellen. iv, 8, 1-5. f Xen. Hellen. iv, 8, 1-3 ; Diodor. xiv, 84. About Samos, xiv, 97. Compare also the speech of Derkyllidas to the Abydenes (Xen. Hellen. iv, 8, 4) 'Gap 6e ^HTCkov at ahhat Tro/leif t-iiv ry TV%I} anecrpufyTjaav J)/*uv t roaovT<f) ovruf TJ vfiETepa TTiaTOTije fiEi&v (paveij], uv, etc.
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