their allies, to undertake any joint effective movement by sea and land against Attica. They therefore returned home, resolving to send an expedition of forty triremes, under Alkidas, to the relief of Mitylênê itself; at the same time transmitting requisitions to their various allies, in order that these triremes might be furnished.[385] [384] Thucyd. iii, 7-16. [385] Thucyd. iii, 15, 16. Meanwhile, Asôpius, with his thirty triremes, had arrived in Akarnania, from whence all the ships except twelve were sent home. He had been nominated commander as the son of Phormio, who appears either to have died, or to have become unfit for service, since his victories of the preceding year; and the Akarnanians had preferred a special request that a son, or at least some relative of Phormio, should be invested with the command of the squadron; so beloved was his name and character among them. Asôpius, however, accomplished nothing of importance, though he again undertook conjointly with the Akarnanians a fruitless march against Œniadæ. Ultimately, he was defeated and slain, in attempting a disembarkation on the territory of Leukas.[386] [386] Thucyd. iii, 7. The sanguine announcement made by the Mitylenæans at Olympia, that Athens was rendered helpless by the epidemic, had indeed been strikingly contradicted by her recent display; since, taking numbers and equipment together, the maritime force which she had put forth this summer, manned as it was by a higher class of seamen, surpassed all former years; although, in point of number only, it was inferior to the two hundred and fifty triremes which she had sent out during the first summer of the war.[387] But the assertion that Athens was impoverished in finances was not so destitute of foundation: for the whole treasure in the acropolis, six thousand talents at the commencement of the war, was now consumed, with the exception of that reserve of one thousand talents which had been solemnly set aside against the last exigences of defensive resistance. This is not surprising, when we learn that every hoplite engaged for near two years and a half in the blockade of Potidæa, received two drachmas per day, one for himself and a second for an attendant: there were during the whole time of the blockade three thousand hoplites engaged there,—and for a considerable portion of the time, four thousand six hundred; besides the fleet, all the seamen of which received one drachma per day per man. Accordingly the Athenians were now for the first time obliged to raise a direct contribution among themselves, to the amount of two hundred talents, for the purpose of prosecuting the siege of Mitylênê: and they at the same time despatched Lysiklês with four colleagues, in command of twelve triremes, to collect money. What relation these money-gathering ships bore to the regular tribute paid by the subject-allies, or whether they were allowed to visit these latter, we do not know: in the present case, Lysiklês