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In Greece proper, where the Chians, Rhodians, Coans, and also the Byzantians were continuing the Social War against the Athenians, both sides were making great preparations, for they wished to decide the war by a naval battle. The Athenians had previously1 sent Chares forth with sixty ships, but now, manning sixty more and placing as generals in command the most distinguished of their citizens, Iphicrates and Timotheus, they dispatched this expedition along with Chares to continue war upon their allies who had revolted. [2] The Chians, Rhodians, and Byzantians together with their allies manned one hundred ships and then sacked Imbros and Lemnos, Athenian islands, and having descended on Samos with a large contingent laid waste the countryside and besieged the city by land and by sea; and by ravaging many other islands that were subject to Athens they collected money for the needs of the war. [3] All the Athenian generals now met and planned at first to besiege the city of the Byzantians, and when later the Chians and their allies abandoned the siege of Samos and turned to assist the Byzantians, all the fleets became massed in the Hellespont. But just at the time when the naval battle was about to take place a great wind fell upon them and thwarted their plans. [4] When Chares, however, though the elements were against him, wished to fight, but Iphicrates and Timotheus opposed on account of the heavy sea, Chares, calling upon his soldiers to bear him witness, accused his colleagues of treason and wrote to the assembly about them, charging that they had purposely shirked the sea-fight.2 And the Athenians were so incensed that they indicted Iphicrates and Timotheus, fined them many talents, and removed them from the generalship.3

1 See chap. 7.3-4.

2 See Nepos Timotheus 3. Menestheus, son of Iphicrates and son-in-law of Timotheus, was also associated with the command and later brought to trial. A battle was actually begun, the battle of Embata, not in the Hellespont, but near Erythrae. See Nepos, l.c.: "hinc male re gesta, compluribus amissis navibus"; Polyaenus 3.9.29; Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Ἔμβατον.

3 See Nepos Timotheus 3.5; Nepos Iphicrates 3.3; Isoc. 15.129; Polyaenus 3.9.29; Din. Dem. 14 and Schaefer, Demosthenes, 1（2）. 175 ff. For an interesting appraisal of these generals see chap. 85.7.

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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    • Dinarchus, Against Demosthenes, 14
    • Isocrates, Antidosis, 129
    • Cornelius Nepos, Iphicrates, 3.3
    • Cornelius Nepos, Timotheus, 3
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