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Agis, deciding for the time not to lay siege to the city, pitched camp in the Academy,1 but on the next day, after the Athenians had set up a trophy, he drew up his army in battle order and challenged the troops in the city to fight it out for the possession of the trophy. [2] The Athenians led forth their soldiers and drew them up along the wall, and at first the Lacedaemonians advanced to offer battle, but since a great multitude of missiles was hurled at them from the walls, they led their army away from the city. After this they ravaged the rest of Attica and then departed to the Peloponnesus. [3]

Alcibiades, having sailed with all his ships from Samos to Cyme,2 hurled false charges against the Cymaeans, since he wished to have an excuse for plundering their territory. And at the outset he gained possession of many captives and was taking them to his ships; [4] but when the men of the city came out en masse to the rescue and fell unexpectedly on Alcibiades' troops, for a time they stood off the attack, but as later many from the city and countryside reinforced the Cymaeans, they were forced to abandon their prisoners and flee for safety to their ships. [5] Alcibiades, being greatly distressed by his reverses, summoned his hoplites from Mitylene, and drawing up his army before the city he challenged the Cymaeans to battle; but when no one came out of the city, he ravaged its territory and sailed off to Mitylene. [6] The Cymaeans dispatched an embassy to Athens and denounced Alcibiades for having laid waste an allied city which had done no wrong; and there were also many other charges brought against him; for some of the soldiers at Samos, who were at odds with him, sailed to Athens and accused Alcibiades in the Assembly of favouring the Lacedaemonian cause and of forming ties of friendship with Pharnabazus whereby he hoped that at the conclusion of the war he should lord it over his fellow citizens.

1 The grove of olive-trees, where Plato later had his school, six stades north-west of the Dipylon Gate.

2 In Lydia.

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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