(with the exception of the Syracusan vessels, which were burnt by
their crews), and made off with their prizes to Proconnesus. From
thence on the following day they sailed to attack Cyzicus. The men of
that place, seeing that the Peloponnesians and Pharnabazus had
evacuated the town, admitted the Athenians. Here Alcibiades remained
twenty days, obtaining large sums of money from the Cyzicenes, but
otherwise inflicting no sort of mischief on the community. He then
sailed back to Proconnesus, and from there to Perinthus and Selybria.
The inhabitants of the former place welcomed his troops into their
city, but the Selybrians preferred to give money, and so escape the
admission of the troops. Continuing the voyage the squadron reached
Chrysopolis in Chalcedonia,[5] where they built a fort, and
established a custom-house to collect the tithe dues which they levied
on all merchantmen passing through the Straights from the Black Sea.
Besides this, a detachment of thirty ships was left there under the
two generals, Theramenes and Eubulus, with instructions not only to
keep a look-out on the port itself and on all traders passing through
the channel, but generally to injure the enemy in any way which might
present itself. This done, the rest of the generals hastened back to
the Hellespont.

[5] This is the common spelling, but the coins of Calchedon have the
letters {KALKH}, and so the name is written in the best MSS. of
Herodotus, Xenophon, and other writers, by whom the place is
named. See "Dict. of Greek and Roman Geog." "Chalcedon."

Now a despatch from Hippocrates, Mindarus's vice-admiral,[6] had been
intercepted on its way to Lacedaemon, and taken to Athens. It ran as
follows (in broad Doric):[7] "Ships gone; Mindarus dead; the men
starving; at our wits' end what to do."