returning at nightfall to Piraeus. Of the city party no one ventured
to take the field under arms; only, from time to time, the cavalry
would capture stray pillagers from Piraeus or inflict some damage on
the main body of their opponents. Once they fell in with a party
belonging to the deme Aexone,[12] marching to their own farms in
search of provisions. These, in spite of many prayers for mercy and
the strong disapprobation of many of the knights, were ruthlessly
slaughtered by Lysimachus, the general of cavalry. The men of Piraeus
retaliated by putting to death a horseman, named Callistratus, of the
tribe Leontis, whom they captured in the country. Indeed their courage
ran so high at present that they even meditated an assault upon the
city walls. And here perhaps the reader will pardon the record of a
somewhat ingenious device on the part of the city engineer, who, aware
of the enemy's intention to advance his batteries along the
racecourse, which slopes from the Lyceum, had all the carts and
waggons which were to be found laden with blocks of stone, each one a
cartload in itself, and so sent them to deposit their freights
"pele-mele" on the course in question. The annoyance created by these
separate blocks of stone was enormous, and quite out of proportion to
the simplicity of the contrivance.

[12] On the coast south of Phalerum, celebrated for its fisheries. Cf.
"Athen." vii. 325.

But it was to Lacedaemon that men's eyes now turned. The Thirty
despatched one set of ambassadors from Eleusis, while another set
representing the government of the city, that is to say the men on the
list, was despatched to summon the Lacedaemonians to their aid, on the
plea that the people had revolted from Sparta. At Sparta, Lysander,
taking into account the possibility of speedily reducing the party in