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Conon and Evagoras seized this opportunity, and, as the generals of the Persian king were at a loss to know how to handle the situation, these two advised them to wage war against the Lacedaemonians, not upon land but upon the sea, their opinion being that if the Persians should organize an army on land and with this should gain a victory, the mainland alone would profit, whereas, if they should be victors on the sea, all Hellas would have a share in the victory.
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And that in fact is what happened: the generals followed this advice, a fleet was assembled, the Lacedaemonians were defeated in a naval battleOff Cnidus, 394 B.C. and lost their supremacy, while the Greeks regained their freedom and our city recovered in some measure its old-time glory and became leader of the allies. And although all this was accomplished with Conon as commander, yet Evagoras both made the outcome possible and furnished the greater part of the armament.
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In gratitude we honored them with the highest honors and set up their statuesIn front of the Zeus Stoa in the Agora: cf. Pausanias i. 3. 2. where stands the image of Zeus the Savior, near to it and to one another, a memorial both of the magnitude of their benefactions and of their mutual friendship. The king of Persia, however, did not have the same opinion of them: on the contrary, the greater and more illustrious their deeds the more he feared them. Concerning Conon I will give an account elsewhereIsocrates gives a brief discussion of Conon’s affairs in Isoc. 5.62-64.; but that toward Evagoras he entertained this feeling not even the king himself sought to conceal.
