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While these events were taking place Alcibiades and Thrasybulus,1 after fortifying Lampsacus, left a strong garrison in that place and themselves sailed with their force to Theramenes, who was laying waste Chalcedon with seventy ships and five thousand soldiers. And when the armaments had been brought together into one place they threw a wooden stockade about the city from sea to sea.2 [2] Hippocrates, who had been stationed by the Lacedaemonians in the city as commander (the Laconians call such a man a "harmost"), led against them both his own soldiers and all the Chalcedonians. A fierce battle ensued, and since the troops of Alcibiades fought stoutly, not only Hippocrates fell but of the rest of the soldiers some were slain, and the others, disabled by wounds, took refuge in a body in the city. [3] After this Alcibiades sailed out into the Hellespont and to Chersonesus, wishing to collect money, and Theramenes concluded an agreement with the Chalcedonians whereby the Athenians received from them as much tribute as before. Then leading his troops from there to Byzantium he laid siege to the city and with great alacrity set about walling it off. [4] And Alcibiades, after collecting money, persuaded many of the Thracians to join his army and he also took into it the inhabitants of Chersonesus en masse; then, setting forth with his entire force, he first took Selybria3 by betrayal, in which, after exacting from it much money, he left a garrison, and then himself came speedily to Theramenes at Byzantium. [5] When the armaments had been united, the commanders began making the preparations for a siege; for they were setting out to conquer a city of great wealth which was crowded with defenders, since, not counting the Byzantines, who were many, Clearchus, the Lacedaemonian harmost, had in the city many Peloponnesians and mercenaries. [6] Consequently, though they kept launching assaults for some time, they continued to inflict no notable damage on the defenders; but when the governor4 left the city to visit Pharnabazus in order to get money, thereupon certain Byzantines, hating the severity of his administration (for Clearchus was a harsh man), agreed to deliver up the city to Alcibiades and his colleagues.

1 Thrasyllus (cp. 64.1, first note.

2 "From sea to sea," i.e. from Bosporus to Propontis.

3 Or Selymbria, modern Silivri, on the Propontis.

4 Clearchus.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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