Pissuthnes certainly seems to have promised, and the Samians to have expected it: but I incline to believe that, though willing to hold out hopes and encourage revolt among the Athenian allies, the satrap, nevertheless, did not choose openly to violate the convention of Kallias, whereby the Persians were forbidden to send a fleet westward of the Chelidonian promontory. The departure of Perikles, however, so much weakened the Athenian fleet off Samos, that the Samians, suddenly sailing out of their harbor in an opportune moment, at the instigation and under the command of one of their most eminent citizens, the philosopher Melissus, — surprised and ruined the blockading squadron, and gained a victory over the remaining fleet, before the ships could be fairly got out to sea.[1] For fourteen days they remained masters of the sea, carrying in and out all that they thought proper: nor was it until the return of Perikles that they were again blocked up. Reinforcements, however, were now multiplied to the blockading squadron, from Athens, forty ships, under Thucydides,[2] Agnon, and Phormion, and twenty under Tlepole-
- ↑ Plutarch, Perikles, c. 26. Plutarch seems to have had before him ac counts respecting this Samian campaign, not only from Ephorus, Stesimbrotus, and Duris, but also from Aristotle: and the statements of the latter must have differed thus far from Thucydides, that he affirmed Melissus the Samian general to have been victorious over Perikles himself, which is not to be reconciled with the narrative of Thucydides. The Samian historian, Duris, living about a century after this siege, seems to have introduced many falsehoods respecting the cruelties of Athens: see Plutarch, I. c.
- ↑ It appears very improbable that this Thucydides can be the historian himself. If it be Thucydides son of Melesias, we must suppose him to have been restored from ostracism before the regular time. a supposition indeed noway inadmissible in itself, but which there is nothing else to countenance. The author of the Life of Sophokles, as well as most of the recent critics, adopt this opinion. On the other hand, it may have been a third person named Thucydides for the name seems to have been common, as we might guess from the two words of which it is compounded. We find a third Thucydides mentioned viii, 92, a native of Pharsalus: and the biographer, Marcelliuus seems to have read of many persons so called Θουκύδιδαι πολλοὶ, p. xvi, ed. Arnold). The subsequent history of Thucydides son of Melesias, is involved in complete obscurity. We do not know the incident to which the remarkable passage in Aristophanes (Acharn. 703) alludes. compare
