Stand firm now, oh man. It may be some years yet before you see her. Not more than half your wandering, troubled exile may be over. And when you do return to her, your sad fate may send you quickly off to fight for her again, and you may again be sacrificed by her. And then through all the ages that shall come, when historians record your exploits, your victories, your wrongs, your triumphs; when new peoples shall have risen on the earth who can afford to smile at all the extraordinary fuss once made about your four-horse chariot races; when there shall be no more wars, and no more massacres of human folk or mangling of poor helpless animals; when nations shall no longer intrigue or conspire against each other, this shall be writ and read concerning you, as your most glorious deed—that you refused at such a time to go to govern Athens at the risk of hurting her, or to return at all to her till you could come unto that lovely mother with hands and arms full to overflowing with the blessings you could shower upon her head. He rejected the temptation. With such a leader, whom even hostile writers hail as the liberator, the saviour of Athens—with such a one to lead them, his warrior citizens could also wait. He pointed out to the excited sailors and hoplites what the result must be of abandoning this last Athenian outpost. Though they might save Athens from the usurpers, there would be little left to her when all her insular dependencies were gone. ‘Let the usurping tyrants alone for a while. Through their own rottenness they will fall to pieces of themselves. Athens will have greater cause to thank us if we preserve her distant territories than if we abandon them, even to save her.’ Thus he recalled the troops to reason and to their duty when some of them were in the act of leaving Samos in their ships. When this ardour was quieted for a time, there came a welcome embassy from Argos. Those old friends and allies of his were true to him still, although he had beaten fifteen hundred of them at Miletos. They had been disgusted with the proceedings of the rest of the Athenians, but now that they heard he was at the head of affairs at Samos, they sent to offer their assistance in restoring to Athens her democracy. Things were in such a good way in that island now that he was able to send Thrasyboulos with five triremes to blockade Eresos, in the island of Lesbos, which had revolted, and he was preparing another squadron to help the other fleet, which was still blockading Chios, when most exciting news came, interrupting all his other plans and preparations.