vessels. With this squadron he put to sea accompanied by the other
generals, and confined himself to making descents first at one point
and then at another of the enemy's territory, and to collecting
plunder.

And so the year drew to its close: a year signalled further by an
invasion of Sicily by the Carthaginians, with one hundred and twenty
ships of war and a land force of one hundred and twenty thousand men,
which resulted in the capture of Agrigentum. The town was finally
reduced to famine after a siege of seven months, the invaders having
previously been worsted in battle and forced to sit down before its
walls for so long a time.



VI

B.C. 406. In the following year--the year of the evening eclipse of
the moon, and the burning of the old temple of Athena[1] at Athens[2]
--the Lacedaemonians sent out Callicratidas to replace Lysander, whose
period of office had now expired.[3] Lysander, when surrendering the
squadron to his successor, spoke of himself as the winner of a sea
fight, which had left him in undisputed mastery of the sea, and with
this boast he handed over the ships to Callicratidas, who retorted,
"If you will convey the fleet from Ephesus, keeping Samos[4] on your
right" (that is, past where the Athenian navy lay), "and hand it over
to me at Miletus, I will admit that you are master of the sea." But
Lysander had no mind to interfere in the province of another officer.
Thus Callicratidas assumed responsibility. He first manned, in
addition to the squadron which he received from Lysander, fifty new