The generals, in their public letter, accounted for their omission by
saying that the violence of the storm was too great to allow them to
move. First, was this true as matter of fact? Next, had there been
time to discharge the duty, or at the least to try and discharge it,
before the storm came on to be so intolerable? These points required
examination. The generals, while honored with a vote of thanks for
the victory, were superseded, and directed to come home; all except
Konon, who having been blocked up at Mitylênê, was not concerned in
the question. Two new colleagues, Philoklês and Adeimantus, were
named to go out and join him.[268] The generals probably received
the notice of their recall at Samos, and came home in consequence;
reaching Athens seemingly about the end of September or beginning
of October, the battle of Arginusæ having been fought in August 406
B.C. Two of the generals, however, Protomachus and Aristogenês,
declined to come: warned of the displeasure of the people, and not
confiding in their own case to meet it, they preferred to pay the
price of voluntary exile. The other six, Periklês, Lysias, Diomedon,
Erasinidês, Aristokratês, and Thrasyllus,—Archestratus, one of the
original ten, having died at Mitylênê,[269]—came without their two
colleagues; an unpleasant augury for the result.
[268] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 1; Diodor. xiii, 101: ἐπὶ μὲν τῇ νίκῃ
τοὺς στρατηγοὺς ἐπῄνουν, ἐπὶ δὲ τῷ περιϊδεῖν ἀτάφους τοὺς ὑπὲρ
τῆς ἡγεμονίας τετελευτηκότας χαλεπῶς διετέθησαν.
I have before remarked that Diodorus makes the mistake of talking
about nothing but _dead bodies_, in place of the living ναυαγοὶ
spoken of by Xenophon.
[269] Lysias, Orat. xxi (Ἀπολογία Δωροδοκίας), sect. vii.
On their first arrival, Archedêmus, at that time an acceptable
popular orator, and exercising some magistracy or high office which
we cannot distinctly make out,[270] imposed upon Erasinidês a fine to
that limited amount which was within the competence of magistrates
without the sanction of the dikastery, and accused him besides before
the dikastery; partly for general misconduct in his command, partly
on the specific charge of having purloined some public money on its
way from the Hellespont. Erasinidês was found guilty, and condemned
to be imprisoned, either until the money was made good, or perhaps
until farther examination could take place into the other alleged
misdeeds.
[270] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 2. Archedêmus is described as τῆς
Δεκελείας ἐπιμελούμενος. What is meant by these words, none
of the commentators can explain in a satisfactory manner. The
text must be corrupt. Some conjecture like that of Dobree seems
plausible; some word like τῆς δεκάτης or τῆς δεκατεύσεως, having
reference to the levying of the tithe in the Hellespont; which
would furnish reasonable ground for the proceeding of Archedêmus
against Erasinidês.
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