the men of Selymbria under arms marching down the street to meet him.  To await their onset would have been ruin, while pride forbade a hitherto invincible general to retire.  Ordering his trumpet to sound, he bade one of those present proclaim aloud that the Selymbrians ought not to appear in arms against the Athenians.  This speech made some of the townspeople less eager to fight, as they imagined that their enemies were all within the walls, while it encouraged others who hoped to arrange matters peaceably.  While they were standing opposite to one another and parleying, Alkibiades’s army came up, and he, truly conjecturing that the Selymbrians were really disposed to be friendly, began to fear that his Thracian troops might sack the city; for many of these barbarians were serving in his army as volunteers, from a particular attachment they had to his person.  He therefore sent them all out of the city, and did not permit the terrified people of Selymbria to suffer any violence, but, having exacted a contribution of money and placed a garrison in the town, he sailed away.

[Footnote A:  Peltasts were light-armed troops, so called because they carried light round shields instead of the large unwieldy oblong shield of the Hoplite, or heavy-armed infantry soldier.  These light troops came gradually into favour with the Greeks during the Peloponnesian war, and afterward became very extensively used.]

XXXI.  Meanwhile the generals who were besieging Chalkedon made an agreement with Pharnabazus, on these conditions.  They were to receive a sum of money; the people of Chalkedon were to become subjects of Athens as before; Pharnabazus was not to lay waste the province; and he was to provide an escort and a safe-conduct for an Athenian embassy to the Persian king.  On the return of Alkibiades, Pharnabazus desired him to swear to observe these conditions, but Alkibiades refused to do so unless Pharnabazus swore first.  After this capitulation he proceeded to Byzantium, which had revolted from Athens, and built a wall round that city.  Anaxilaus and Lykurgus, with some others, now offered to betray the city if the lives and property of the inhabitants were spared.  Upon this Alkibiades put about a report that his presence was urgently required on the Ionian coast, and sailed away by daylight with all his fleet.  The same night he landed with all his soldiers, and marched up to the walls in silence, while the fleet, with a great clamour and disturbance, forced its way into the harbour.  The suddenness of this assault, entirely unexpected as it was, terrified the people of Byzantium, and gave those of them who inclined to the Athenian side an opportunity of admitting Alkibiades quietly, while the attention of every one was directed to the ships in the harbour.  The town did not, however, surrender altogether without fighting; for the Peloponnesians, Megarians, and Boeotians who were in it drove the Athenians back into their ships with