Kitap 4
8.3
Pharnabazus was accordingly accepting this counsel. Then, disembarking at Ephesus, he gave Conon forty triremes and told him to meet him at Sestus, while he himself proceeded by land along the coast to his own province. For Dercylidas, who had long been an enemy of his,Cp. III. i. 9. chanced to be in Abydus at the394 B.C. time when the naval battle took place, and he did not, like the other Lacedaemonian governors, quit the city, but took possession of Abydus and was keeping it friendly to the Lacedaemonians. For he called together the people of the town and spoke as follows:
8.4
Gentlemen, at this moment it is possible for you, who even in former days have been friends of our state, to show yourselves benefactors of the Lacedaemonians. For showing loyalty in the midst of prosperity calls for no particular admiration, but always, if men show themselves steadfast when friends have fallen upon misfortunes, this is remembered for all time. Do not suppose that just because we have been defeated in the naval battle, we are therefore ever afterward to be counted for naught. Nay, even in former times, you recall, when the Athenians were rulers of the sea, our state was able both to confer benefit upon friends and to inflict harm upon enemies. And the greater the extent to which the other cities have, along with fortune, turned away from us, by so much the greater in reality would your fidelity be made manifest. But if anyone is afraid that we may be besieged here both by land and by sea, let him reflect that there is not yet a Greek fleet on the sea, and if the barbarians shall undertake to rule the sea, Greece will not tolerate this; so that in helping herself she will also become your ally.