[317] Thucyd. ii, 67-69; Herodot. vii, 137. Respecting the Lacedæmonian privateering during the Peloponnesian war, compare Thucyd. v, 115: compare also Xenophon, Hellen. v, 1, 29.
[318] Thucyd. ii, 67. Οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ὕπηρξαν, τοὺς ἐμπόρους οὓς ἔλαβον Ἀθηναίων καὶ τῶν ξυμμάχων ἐν ὁλκάσι περὶ Πελοπόννησον πλέοντας ἀποκτείναντες καὶ ἐς φάραγγας ἐσβαλόντες. Πάντας γὰρ δὴ κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς τοῦ πολέμου οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, ὅσους λάβοιεν ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ, ὡς πολεμίους διέφθειρον, καὶ τοὺς μετὰ Ἀθηναίων ξυμπολεμοῦντας καὶ τοὺς μηδὲ μεθ᾽ ἑτέρων.
The Lacedæmonian admiral Alkidas slew all the prisoners taken on board merchantmen off the coast of Ionia, in the ensuing year (Thucyd. iii, 32). Even this was considered extremely rigorous, and excited strong remonstrance; yet the mariners slain were not neutrals, but belonged to the subject-allies of Athens: moreover, Alkidas was in his flight, and obliged to make choice between killing his prisoners or setting them free.
Some of these Peloponnesian privateers ranged as far as the southwestern coast of Asia Minor, where they found temporary shelter, and interrupted the trading-vessels from Phasêlis and Phenicia to Athens; to protect which, the Athenians despatched, in the course of the autumn, a squadron of six triremes under Melêsander. He was farther directed to insure the collection of the ordinary tribute from Athenian subject-allies, and probably to raise such contributions as he could elsewhere. In the prosecution of this latter duty, he undertook an expedition from the sea-coast against one of the Lykian towns in the interior, but his attack was repelled with loss, and he himself slain.[319]
An opportunity soon offered itself to the Athenians, of retaliating on Sparta for this cruel treatment of the maritime prisoners. In execution of the idea projected at the commencement of the war, the Lacedæmonians sent Anêristus and two others as envoys to Persia, for the purpose of soliciting from the Great King aids of money and troops against Athens; the dissensions among the Greeks thus gradually paving the way for him to regain his ascendency in the Ægean. Timagoras of Tegea, together with an Argeian named Pollis, without any formal mission from his city, and the Corinthian Aristeus, accompanied them. As the sea was in the power of Athens, they travelled overland through Thrace to the Hellespont; and Aristeus, eager to leave nothing untried for the relief of Potidæa, prevailed upon them to make application to Sitalkês, king of the Odrysian Thracians. That prince was then in alliance with Athens, and his son Sadokus had even received the grant of Athenian citizenship: yet the envoys thought it possible not only to detach him from the Athenian alliance, but even to obtain from him an army to act against the Athenians and raise the blockade of Potidæa,—this being refused, they lastly applied to him for a safe escort to the banks of the Hellespont, in their way towards Persia. But Learchus and Ameiniadês, then Athenian residents near the person of Sitalkês, had influence enough not only to cause rejection of these requests, but also to induce Sadokus, as a testimony of zeal in his new character of Athenian citizen, to assist them in seizing the persons of Aristeus and his companions in their journey through Thrace. Accordingly, the whole party were seized and conducted as prisoners to Athens, where they were forthwith put to death, without trial or permission to speak,—and their bodies cast into rocky chasms, as a reprisal for the captured seamen slain by the Lacedæmonians.[320]