394 HISTORY OF GREECE. tress of the island increased every day, nor could anything relieve it except succor from without, which Astyochus still withheld. That officer, on reaching Miletus, found the Peloponnesian force on the Asiatic side of the ./Egean just reinforced by a squadron of twelve triremes under Dorieus ; chiefly from Thurii, which had undergone a political revolution since the Athenian disaster at Syracuse, and was now decidedly in the hands of the active philo-Laconian party ; the chief persons friendly to Ath- ens having been exiled. 1 Dorieus and his squadron, crossing the j?Egean in its southern latitude, had arrived safely at Knidus, which had already been conquered by Tissaphernes from Athens, and had received a Persian garrison. 2 Orders were sent from Miletus that hah of this newly-arrived squadron should remain on guard at Knidus, while the other half should cruise near the Triopian cape to intercept the trading vessels from Egypt. But the Athenians, who had also learned the arrival of Dorieus, sent a powerful squadron from Samos, which captured all these six triremes off Cape Triopium, though the crews escaped ashore. They farther made an attempt to recover Knidus, which was very nearly successful, as the town was unfortified on the sea- side. On the morrow the attack was renewed, but additional defences had been provided during the night, while the crews of the ships captured near Triopium had come in to help, so that the Athenians were forced to return to Samos without any farther advantage than that of ravaging the Knidian territory. Asty- ochus took no step to intercept them, nor did he think himself strong enough to keep the sea against the seventy-four Athenian triremes at Samos, though his fleet at Miletus was at this moment in high condition. The rich booty acquired at lasus was uncon- Tliat from Nymphodorus appears to bf nothing but a romantic local legend, connected with the Chapel of the Kind-hearted Hero ('Hpuof ei/it- vovf) at Chios. Even in antiquity, though the institution of slavery was universal and noway disapproved, j-et the slave-trade, or the buying and selling of slaves, was accounted more or less odious. 1 See the life of Lysias the Rhetor, in Dionysius of Halikarnassns, c. i, p i53, Reisk., and in Plutarch, Vit. x. Orat. p. 835.
Thucyd. viii, 35-1 09.
