The Anabasis of Alexander/Book II/Chapter II
CHAPTER II.
The Persians Capture Tenedus.— They are Defeated at Sea.
After accomplishing this, Pharnabazus sailed to Lycia, taking with him the Grecian mercenaries; but Autophradates sailed to the other islands. Meantime Darius sent Thymondas, son of Mentor,[1] down to the maritime districts, to take over the Grecian auxiliaries from Pharnabazus and to lead them up to him; and to tell Pharnabazus that he was to be the ruler of all that Memnon had ruled. So Pharnabazus handed over to him the Grecian auxiliaries and then sailed to join Autophradates and the fleet. When they met, they despatched Datames, a Persian, with ten ships to the islands called Cyclades,[2] whilst they with 100 sailed to Tenedus.[3] Having sailed into the harbour of Tenedus which is called Borēus, they sent a message to the inhabitants, commanding them to demolish the pillars on which the treaty made by them with Alexander and the Greeks was inscribed, and to observe in regard to Darius the terms of the peace which they had ratified with the king of Persia in the time of Antalcidas. The Tenedians preferred to be on terms of amity with Alexander and the Greeks; but in the present crisis it seemed impossible to save themselves except by yielding to the Persians, since Hegelochus, who had been commissioned by Alexander to collect another naval force, had not yet gathered so large a fleet as to warrant them in expecting any speedy succour from him. Accordingly Pharnabazus made the Tenedians comply with his demands rather from fear than good-will.
Meantime Proteas, son of Andronicus, by command of Antipater,[4] succeeded in collecting ships of war from Euboea and the Peloponnese, so that there might be some protection both for the islands and for Greece itself, if the foreigners attacked them by sea, as it was reported they intended to do. Learning that Datames with ten ships was moored near Siphnus,[5] Proteas set out by night with fifteen from Chalcis on the Euripus,[6] and approaching the island of Cythnus[7] at dawn, he spent the day there in order to get more certain information of the movements of the ten ships, resolving at the same time to fall upon the Phoenicians by night, when he would be likely to strike them with greater terror. Having discovered with certainty that Datames was moored with his ships at Siphnus, he sailed thither while it was still dark, and just at the very dawn fell upon them when they least expected it, and captured eight of the ships, men and all. But Datames, with the other two triremes, escaped by stealth at the beginning of the attack made by the ships with Proteas, and reached the rest of the Persian fleet in safety.
- ↑ Cf. ii. 13 infra.
- ↑ "Cyclades ideo sio appellatae, quod omnes ambiunt Delon partu deorum insignem."—Ammianus, xxii. 8, 2. Cf. Horace (Carm.,i. 14, 19; iii. 28, 14).
- ↑ Cf. Vergil (Aeneid, ii. 21).
- ↑ The regent of Macedonia and Greece during Alexander's absence.
- ↑ One of the Cyclades, a little to the north-east of Melos. It was noted for the low morality of its inhabitants. See Aristophanes (Fragment, 558; on the authority of Suidas).
- ↑ Euripus properly means any narrow sea, where the ebb and flow of the tide is violent. The name was especially applied to the strait between Boeotia and Euboea, where the ancients asserted the sea ebbed and flowed seven times in the day (Strabo, ix. 1). Modern observers have noticed these extraordinary tides. The present name of the island, Negropont, is the Italian name formed from Egripo, the modern corruption of Euripus. Cf . Cicero, pro Muraena, xvii.:—Quod freturn, quem Euripum tot motus, tantas, tam varias habere putatis agitationes fluctuum, quantas perturbationes et quantos aestus habet ratio comitiorum. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, ix. 6:—τῶν τοιούτων γὰρ μένει τὰ βουλήματα, καὶ οὐ μεταῤῥεῖ ὥσπερ Εὔριπος.
- ↑ One of the Cyclades, about half-way between Attica and Siphnus.