markable, that though, by such a proceeding, they would of course draw upon themselves the full strength of Athens, yet their first step was to resume aggressive hostilities against Miletus,[1] whither they sailed with a powerful naval force of seventy ships, twenty of them carrying troops aboard.
Immediately on the receipt of this grave intelligence, a fleet of sixty triremes — probably all that were in complete readiness — was despatched to Samos under ten generals, two of whom were Perikles himself and the poet Sophokles,[2] both seemingly included among the ten ordinary strategi of the year. But it was necessary to employ sixteen of these ships, partly in summoning contingents from Chios and Lesbos, to which islands Sophokles went in person;[3] partly in keeping watch off the coast of Karia for the arrival of the Phenician fleet, which report stated to be approaching; so that Perikles had only forty-four ships remaining in his squadron. Yet he did not hesitate to attack the Samian fleet of seventy ships on its way back from Miletus, near the island of Tragia, and was victorious in the action. Presently, he was reinforced by forty ships from Athens, and by twenty-five from Chios and Lesbos, so as to be able to disembark at Samos, where he overcame the Samian land-force, and blocked up the harbor with a portion of his fleet, surrounding the city on the land-side with a triple wall. Meanwhile, the Samians had sent Stesagoras with five ships to press the coming of the Phenician fleet, and the report of their approach became again so prevalent that Perikles felt obliged to take sixty ships, out of the total one hundred and twenty-five, to watch for them off the coast of Kaunus and Karia, where he remained for about fourteen days. The Phenician fleet[4] never came, though Diodorus affirms that it was actually on its voyage.
- ↑ Thucyd. i, 114, 115.
- ↑ Strabo, xiv, p. 638; Schol. Aristeides, t. iii, p. 485, Dindorf.
- ↑ See the interesting particulars recounted respecting Sophokles by the Chian poet, Ion, who met and conversed with him during the course of this expedition (Athenæus, xiii, p. 603). He represents the poet as uncommonly pleasing and graceful in society, but noway distinguished for active capacity. Sophokles was at this time in peculiar favor, from the success of his tragedy, Antigone, the year before. See the chronology of these events discussed and elucidated in Baeckh's preliminary Dissertation to the Antigone, c. 6-9.
- ↑ Diodor. xi, 27
