Having at length lost all hope of the Phenician ships, Mindarus resolved to break off all dealing with the perfidious Tissaphernês; the more so, as Tamos, the deputy of the latter, though left ostensibly to pay and keep the fleet, performed that duty with greater irregularity than ever, and to conduct his fleet to the Hellespont into coöperation with Pharnabazus, who still continued his promises and invitations. The Peloponnesian fleet[145]—seventy-three triremes strong, after deducting thirteen which had been sent under Dorieus to suppress some disturbances in Rhodes—having been carefully prepared beforehand, was put in motion by sudden order, so that no previous intimation might reach the Athenians at Samos. After having been delayed some days at Ikarus by bad weather, Mindarus reached Chios in safety. But here he was pursued by Thrasyllus, who passed, with fifty-five triremes, to the northward of Chios, and was thus between the Lacedæmonian admiral and the Hellespont. Believing that Mindarus would remain some time at Chios, Thrasyllus placed scouts both on the high lands of Lesbos and on the continent opposite Chios, in order that he might receive instant notice of any movement on the part of the enemy’s fleet.[146] Meanwhile he employed his Athenian force in reducing the Lesbian town of Eresus, which had been lately prevailed on to revolt by a body of three hundred assailants from Kymê under the Theban Anaxander, partly Methymnæan exiles, with some political sympathizers, partly mercenary foreigners, who succeeded in carrying Eresus after failing in an attack on Methymna. Thrasyllus found before Eresus a small Athenian squadron of five triremes under Thrasybulus, who had been despatched from Samos to try and forestall the revolt, but had arrived too late. He was farther joined by two triremes from the Hellespont, and by others from Methymna, so that his entire fleet reached the number of sixty-seven triremes, with which he proceeded to lay siege to Eresus; trusting to his scouts for timely warning, in case the enemy’s fleet should move northward. [145] Diodor. xiii, 38. [146] Thucyd. viii, 100. Αἰσθόμενος δὲ ὅτι ἐν ~τῇ Χίῳ~ εἴη, καὶ νομίσας αὐτὸν καθέξειν ~αὐτοῦ~, σκοποὺς μὲν κατεστήσατο καὶ ἐν τῇ Λέσβῳ, καὶ ~ἐν τῇ ἀντιπέρας ἠπείρῳ~, εἰ ἄρα ποι κινοῖντο αἱ νῆες, ὅπως μὴ λάθοιεν, etc. I construe τῇ ἀντιπέρας ἠπείρῳ, as meaning the mainland opposite _Chios_, not opposite _Lesbos_. The words may admit either sense, since Χίῳ and αὐτοῦ follow so immediately before: and the situation for the scouts was much more suitable, opposite the northern portion of _Chios_.