B.C. 403-402. Thus the civil strife at Athens had an end. At a subsequent date Cyrus sent messengers to Lacedaemon, claiming requital in kind for the service which he had lately rendered in the war with Athens.126 The demand seemed to the ephorate just and reasonable. Accordingly they ordered Samius,127 who was admiral at the time, to put himself at the disposition of Cyrus for any service which he might require. Samius himself needed no persuasion to carry out the wishes of Cyrus. With his own fleet, accompanied by that of Cyrus, he sailed round to Cilicia, and so made it impossible for Syennesis, the ruler of that province, to oppose Cyrus by land in his advance against the king his brother.
B.C. 401. The particulars of the expedition are to be found in the pages of the Syracusan Themistogenes,128 who describes the mustering of the armament, and the advance of Cyrus at the head of his troops; and then the battle, and death of Cyrus himself, and the consequent retreat of the Hellenes while effecting their escape to the sea.129
B.C. 400. It was in recognition of the service which he had rendered in this affair, that Tissaphernes was despatched to Lower Asia by the king his master. He came as satrap, not only of his own provinces, but of those which had belonged to Cyrus; and he at once demanded the absolute submission of the Ionic cities, without exception, to his authority. These communities, partly from a desire to maintain their freedom, and partly from fear of Tissaphernes himself, whom they had rejected in favour of Cyrus during the lifetime of that prince, were loth to admit the satrap within their gates. They thought it better to send an embassy to the Lacedaemonians, calling upon them as representatives and leaders130 of the Hellenic world to look to the interests of their petitioners, who were Hellenes also, albeit they lived in Asia, and not to suffer their country to be ravaged and themselves enslaved.
In answer to this appeal, the Lacedaemonians sent out Thibron131 as governor, providing him with a body of troops, consisting of one thousand neodamodes132 (i.e. enfranchised helots) and four thousand Peloponnesians. In addition to these, Thibron himself applied to the Athenians for a detachment of three hundred horse, for whose service-money he would hold himself responsible. The Athenians in answer sent him some of the knights who had served under the Thirty,133 thinking that the people of Athens would be well rid of them if they went abroad and perished there.
B.C. 400-399. On their arrival in Asia, Thibron further collected contingents from the Hellenic cities on the continent; for at this time the word of a Lacedaemonian was law. He had only to command, and every city must needs obey.134 But although he had this armament, Thibron, when he saw the cavalry, had no mind to descend into the plain. If he succeeded in protecting from pillage the particular district in which he chanced to be, he was quite content. It was only when the troops135 who had taken part in the expedition of Cyrus had joined him on their safe return, that he assumed a bolder attitude. He was now ready to confront Tissaphernes, army against army, on the level ground, and won over a number of cities. Pergamum came in of her own accord. So did Teuthrania and Halisarna. These were under the government of Eurysthenes and Procles,136 the descendants of Demaratus the Lacedaemonian, who in days of old had received this territory as a gift from the Persian monarch in return for his share in the campaign against Hellas. Gorgion and Gongylus, two brothers, also gave in their adhesion; they were lords, the one of Gambreum and Palae-Gambreum, the other of Myrina and Gryneum, four cities which, like those above named, had originally been gifts from the king to an earlier Gongylus — the sole Eretrian who “joined the Mede,” and in consequence was banished. Other cities which were too weak to resist, Thibron took by force of arms. In the case of one he was not so successful. This was the Egyptian137 Larisa, as it is called, which refused to capitulate, and was forthwith invested and subjected to a regular siege. When all other attempts to take it failed, he set about digging a tank or reservoir, and in connection with the tank an underground channel, by means of which he proposed to draw off the water supply of the inhabitants. In this he was baffled by frequent sallies of the besieged, and a continual discharge of timber and stones into the cutting. He retaliated by the construction of a wooden tortoise which he erected over the tank; but once more the tortoise was burnt to a cinder in a successful night attack on the part of the men of Larisa. These ineffectual efforts induced the ephors to send a despatch bidding Thibron give up Larisa and march upon Caria.
He had already reached Ephesus, and was on the point of marching into Caria, when Dercylidas arrived to take command of his army. The new general was a man whose genius for invention had won him the nickname of Sisyphus. Thus it was that Thibron returned home, where on his arrival he was fined and banished, the allies accusing him of allowing his troops to plunder their friends.
Dercylidas was not slow to perceive and turn to account the jealousy which subsisted between Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus. Coming to terms with the former, he marched into the territory of the latter, preferring, as he said, to be at war with one of the pair at a time, rather than the two together. His hostility, indeed, to Pharnabazus was an old story, dating back to a period during the naval command138 of Lysander, when he was himself governor in Abydos; where, thanks to Pharnabazus, he had got into trouble with his superior officer, and had been made to stand “with his shield on his arm”— a stigma on his honour which no true Lacedaemonian would forgive, since this is the punishment of insubordination.139 For this reason, doubtless, Dercylidas had the greater satisfaction in marching against Pharnabazus. From the moment he assumed command there was a marked difference for the better between his methods and those of his predecessor. Thus he contrived to conduct his troops into that portion of the Aeolid which belonged to Pharnabazus, through the heart of friendly territory without injury to the allies.
This district of Aeolis belonged to Pharnabazus,140 but had been held as a satrapy under him by a Dardanian named Zenis whilst he was alive; but when Zenis fell sick and died, Pharnabazus made preparation to give the satrapy to another. Then Mania the wife of Zenis, herself also a Dardanian, fitted out an expedition, and taking with her gifts wherewith to make a present to Pharnabazus himself, and to gratify his concubines and those whose power was greatest with Pharnabazus, set forth on her journey. When she had obtained audience with him she spoke as follows: “O Pharnabazus, thou knowest that thy servant my husband was in all respects friendly to thee; moreover, he paid my lord the tributes which were thy due, so that thou didst praise and honour him. Now therefore, if I do thee service as faithfully as my husband, why needest thou to appoint another satrap?— nay but, if in any matter I please thee not, is it not in thy power to take from me the government on that day, and to give it to another?” When he had heard her words, Pharnabazus decided that the woman ought to be satrap. She, as soon as she was mistress of the territory, never ceased to render the tribute in due season, even as her husband before her had done. Moreover, whenever she came to the court of Pharnabazus she brought him gifts continually, and whenever Pharnabazus went down to visit her provinces she welcomed him with all fair and courteous entertainment beyond what his other viceroys were wont to do. The cities also which had been left to her by her husband, she guarded safely for him; while of those cities that owed her no allegiance, she acquired, on the seaboard, Larisa and Hamaxitus and Colonae — attacking their walls by aid of Hellenic mercenaries, whilst she herself sat in her carriage and watched the spectacle. Nor was she sparing of her gifts to those who won her admiration; and thus she furnished herself with a mercenary force of exceptional splendour. She also went with Pharnabazus on his campaigns, even when, on pretext of some injury done to the king’s territory, Mysians or Pisidians were the object of attack. In requital, Pharnabazus paid her magnificent honour, and at times invited her to assist him with her counsel.141
Now when Mania was more than forty years old, the husband of her own daughter, Meidias — flustered by the suggestions of certain people who said that it was monstrous a woman should rule and he remain a private person142 — found his way into her presence, as the story goes, and strangled her. ............