This repulse at Chios was a serious misfortune to Athens. Such was the dearth of military men and the decline of the military spirit, in that city, that the loss of a warlike citizen, daring as a soldier and tried as a commander, like Chabrias, was never afterwards repaired. To the Chians and their allies, on the other hand, the event was highly encouraging. They were enabled, not merely to maintain their revolt, but even to obtain fresh support, and to draw into the like defection other allies of Athens,—among them, seemingly, Sestos, and other cities on the Hellespont. For some months they appear to have remained masters of the sea, with a fleet of one hundred triremes, disembarking and inflicting devastation on the Athenian islands of Lemnos, Imbros, Samos, and elsewhere, so as to collect a sum for defraying their expenses. They were even strong enough to press the town of Samos, by close siege, until at length the Athenians, not without delay and difficulty, got together a fleet of one hundred and twenty triremes, under the joint command of Chares, Iphikrates with his son Menestheus, and Timotheus. Notwithstanding that Samos was under siege, the Athenian admirals thought it prudent to direct their first efforts to the reduction of Byzantium; probably from the paramount importance of keeping open the two straits between the Euxine and the Ægean, in order that the corn-ships, out of the former, might come through in safety.[471] To protect Byzantium, the Chians and their allies raised the siege of Samos, and sailed forthwith to the Hellespont, in which narrow strait both fleets were collected,—as the Athenians and Lacedæmonians had been during the closing years of the Peloponnesian war. A plan of naval action had been concerted by the three Athenian commanders, and was on the point of taking place, when there supervened a sudden storm, which in the judgment both of Iphikrates and Timotheus, rendered it rash and perilous to persist in the execution. They therefore held off, while Chares, judging differently, called upon the trierachs and seamen to follow him, and rushed into the fight without his colleagues. He was defeated, or at least was obliged to retire without accomplishing anything. But so incensed was he against his two colleagues, that he wrote a despatch to Athens accusing them of corruption and culpable backwardness against the enemy.[472] [471] It appears that there was a great and general scarcity of corn during this year 357 B. C. Demosthenes adv. Leptinem, p. 467. s. 38. ~προπέρυσι~ σιτοδείας παρὰ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις γενομένης, etc. That oration was delivered in 355 B. C.