[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] [319] Thucyd. ii, 69.