[249] The sentiment of Kallikratidas deserved the designation of Ἑλληνικώτατον πολίτευμα, far more than that of Nikias, to which Plutarch applies those words (Compar. of Nikias and Crassus, c. 2). Kallikratidas sent word by the released prisoners to Konon, that he would presently put an end to his adulterous intercourse with the sea;[250] which he now considered as his wife, and lawfully appertaining to him, having one hundred and forty triremes against the seventy triremes of Konon. That admiral, in spite of his inferior numbers, had advanced near to Methymna, to try and relieve it; but finding the place already captured, had retired to the islands called Hekatonnêsoi, off the continent bearing northeast from Lesbos. Thither he was followed by Kallikratidas, who, leaving Methymna at night, found him quitting his moorings at break of day, and immediately made all sail to try and cut him off from the southerly course towards Samos. But Konon, having diminished the number of his triremes from one hundred to seventy, had been able to preserve all the best rowers, so that in speed he outran Kallikratidas and entered first the harbor of Mitylênê. His pursuers, however, were close behind, and even got into the harbor along with him, before it could be closed and put in a state of defence. Constrained to fight a battle at its entrance, he was completely defeated; thirty of his ships were taken, though the crews escaped to land; and he preserved the remaining forty only by hauling them ashore under the wall.[251] [250] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 15. Κόνωνι δὲ εἶπεν, ὅτι παύσει αὐτὸν μοιχῶντα τὴν θάλασσαν, etc. He could hardly _say this_ to Konon, in any other way than through the Athenian prisoners. [251] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 6, 17; Diodor. xiii, 78, 79. Here, as on so many other occasions, it is impossible to blend these two narratives together. Diodorus conceives the facts in a manner quite different from Xenophon, and much less probable. He tells us that Konon practised a stratagem during his flight (the same in Polyænus, i, 482), whereby he was enabled to fight with and defeat the foremost Peloponnesian ships before the rest came up: also, that he got into the harbor in time to put it into a state of defence before Kallikratidas came up. Diodorus then gives a prolix description of the battle by which Kallikratidas forced his way in. The narrative of Xenophon, which I have followed, plainly implies that Konon could have had no time to make preparations for defending the harbor.