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The Greeks who sailed for the Hellespont from Mycale, after being delayed for a time by foul winds at Lectum, reached Abydos and found, contrary to expectation, that the bridges had already been broken up - to destroy them had, indeed, been the chief purpose of their coming. In these circumstances Leotychides and his Peloponnesians thought that the best thing to do was to return to Greece, but the Athenians under their commander Xanthippus determined to stay where they were and make an attempt upon the Chersonese. Accordingly, after the departure of the Peloponnesians, they crossed thither from Abydos and laid seige to Sestos. This town was the most strongly fortified place in the district, and as soon as the news got about that the Greek fleet had arrived in the Hellespont, men from neighbouring towns came into it to refuge; amongst them was the Persian Oeobazus, who came from Cardia, where he had stored the cables used in the construction of the bridges. The town was held by its own native Aeolians, but there were Persians in it too, and a large number of their allies and depentants. The governor of the district for Xerxes was one Artayctes - a terrible fellow, as clever as he was corrupt. By a pretty piece of deception, during Xerxes' march to Athens, he had got possession of the treasures of Prostesilaus, son of Iphiclus, which were at Elaeus in the Chersonese, where the tomb of that hero stands, surrounded by a plot of sacred ground. There was much here of great value, gold and silver cups, bronze, rich garments, and other things which had been offered at the tomb, and Artayctes stole it all. Actually, he tricked Xerxes into giving it to him, by saying: 'Master, there is the house of a Greek here who made war on your country and met his death which he deserved. Give me his house - it will be a lesson to men hereafter not to do as he did.' It was only to be expected that htese words should easily persuade Xerxes to give him the 'house' - for he no suspicion of what was really in Artayctes mind. Artayctes was right, in a certain sense, in saying that Prostesilaus made war on the king's country; for the Persians consider that the whole of Asia belongs to them, and to their reigning king. So the request was granted, and Artayctes removed the treasures to Sestos and turned over the sacred enclosure to agriculture - and, what is more, whenever he visited Elaeus on subsequent occasions he used to have intercourse with women in the sanctuary.
So now Artayctes was blocked up in Sestos by the Athenians. He was not prepared for a siege and had not expected the arrival of a Greek army, which consequently caught him unawares. As the seige dragged on into the autumn, the Athenians, impatient at their long absence from home and their failure to take the place, pressed their generals to abandon the enterprise, but they refused to do so until either the town fell or they were recalled by the government in Athens. So the troops had to put up with their hardships. Inside the town, the besieged were already reduced to the direst extremity - even to boiling and eating the leather straps of their beds. When these, too, gave out, the Persians, Artayctes and Oeobazus, made their escape under the cover of darkness, letting themselves down from the wall at the back of the town, where the enemy lines were weakest; and on the following day the men of the Chersonese signalled to the Athenians from the bastions to let them know what had happened, and opened the gates. The greater part of the Athenian force thereupon went in pursuit of the fugitives, while the remainder took possession of the town.
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Ohayo!!!
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