XXV.  Perikles is accused of going to war with Samos to save the Milesians, at the request of Aspasia.  These States were at war about the possession of the city of Priene, and the Samians, who were victorious, would not lay down their arms and allow the Athenians to settle the matter by arbitration, as they ordered them to do.  For this reason Perikles proceeded to Samos, put an end to the oligarchical form of government there, and sent fifty hostages and as many children to Lemnos, to ensure the good behaviour of the leading men.  It is said that each of these hostages offered him a talent for his own freedom, and that much more was offered by that party which was loth to see a democracy established in the city.  Besides all this, Pissuthnes the Persian, who had a liking for the Samians, sent and offered him ten thousand pieces of gold if he would spare the city.  Perikles, however, took none of these bribes, but dealt with Samos as he had previously determined, and returned to Athens.  The Samians now at once revolted, as Pissuthnes managed to get them back their hostages, and furnished them with the means of carrying on the war.  Perikles now made a second expedition against them, and found them in no mind to submit quietly, but determined to dispute the empire of the seas with the Athenians.  Perikles gained a signal victory over them in a sea-fight off the Goats’ Island, beating a fleet of seventy ships with only forty-four, twenty of which were transports.

XXVI.  Simultaneously with his victory and the flight of the enemy he obtained command of the harbour of Samos, and besieged the Samians in their city.  They, in spite of their defeat, still possessed courage enough to sally out and fight a battle under the walls; but soon a larger force arrived from Athens, and the Samians were completely blockaded.

Perikles now with sixty ships sailed out of the Archipelago into the Mediterranean, according to the most current report intending to meet the Phoenician fleet which was coming to help the Samians, but, according to Stesimbrotus, with the intention of attacking Cyprus, which seems improbable.  Whatever his intention may have been, his expedition was a failure, for Melissus, the son of Ithagenes, a man of culture, who was then in command of the Samian forces, conceiving a contempt for the small force of the Athenians and the want of experience of their leaders after Perikles’s departure, persuaded his countrymen to attack them.  In the battle the Samians proved victorious, taking many Athenians prisoners, and destroying many of their ships.  By this victory they obtained command of the sea, and were able to supply themselves with more warlike stores than they had possessed before.  Aristotle even says that Perikles himself was before this beaten by Melissus in a sea-fight.  The Samians branded the figure of an owl on the foreheads of their Athenian prisoners, to revenge themselves for the branding of their own prisoners by the Athenians with the figure of a samaina.  This is a ship having a beak turned up like a swine’s snout, but with a roomy hull, so as both to carry a large cargo and sail fast.  This class of vessel is called samaina because it was first built at Samos by Polykrates, the despot of that island.  It is said that the verse of Aristophanes,