CAPTURE OF IASUS. 389 Athenians and friends, so that the place was entered and takec by surprise ;' though strong in situation and fortifications, and defended by a powerful band of Grecian mercenaries. The cap^ lure of lasus, in which the Syracusans distinguished themselves. was of signal advantage, from the abundant plunder which it distributed among the army ; the place being rich from ancient date, and probably containing the accumulations of the satrap Pissuthnes, father of Amorges. It was handed over to Tissa- phernes, along with all the prisoners, for each head of whom he paid down a Daric stater, or twenty Attic drachmae, and along with Amorges himself, who had been taken alive, and whom the satrap was thus enabled to send up to Susa. The Grecian mer- cenaries captured in the place were enrolled in the service of the captors, and sent by land under Pedaritus to Erythrse, in orde that they might cross over from thence to Chios. 2 The arrival of the recent reinforcements to both the opposing fleets, and the capture of lasus, took place about the autumnal equinox or the end of September ; at which period, the Pelopon- nesian fleet being assembled at Miletus, Tissaphernes paid to them the wages of the crews, at the rate of one Attic drachma per head per diem, as he had promised by his envoy at Sparta. But he at the same time gave notice for the future, partly at the insti- gation of Alkibiades, of which more hereafter, that he could not continue so high a rate of pay, unless he should receive express instructions from Susa ; and that, until such instructions came, he should give only half a drachma per day. Theramenes, being only commander for the interim, until the junction with Astyo- chus, was indifferent to the rate at which the men were paid, a miserable jealousy, which marks the low character of many of 1 Phrynichus the Athenian commander was afterwards displaced by the Athenians, by the recommendation of Peisander, at the time when this displacement suited the purpose of the oligarchical conspirators, on the charge of having abandoned and betrayed Amorges on this occasion, and caused the capture of las as (Thucyd. viii, 54). Phrynichus and his colleagues were certainly guilty of grave omission in not sending notice to Amorges of the sudden retirement of the Athenian eet from Miletus, the ignorance of which circumstance was one rcasor why Amorges mistook the Peloponnesian ships for Athenian
- Thucyd. viii 28.
