Strombichides

Strombichides was an Athenian admiral and politician who lived around 400BC.

He was a son of Diotimus, was appointed to command the eight ships which the Athenians sent to the coast of Asia Minor, on the news of the revolt of Chios, in 412 BC. On his arrival at Samos he added a Samian trireme to his squadron, and sailed to Teos to check the spirit of rebellion there. But soon after he was compelled to flee to Samos from a superior Peloponnesian fleet, under Chalcideus and Alcibiades, and Teos forthwith revolted.

Not long after this Strombichides seems to have returned to Athens, and later in the same year he was one of three commanders who were sent to the Athenians at Samos with a reinforcement of thirty-five ships, which increased their whole force to 104. This they now divided, retaining the greater part of it at Samos to command the sea, and to carry on the war against Miletus, while Strombichides and two others were despatched to Chios with thirty triremes. On their way they lost three of their vessels in a storm ; but with the rest they pro­ceded to Lesbos, and made preparations for the Siege of Chios, to which island they then crossed over, fortified a strong post named Delphinium, and reduced the Chians for a time to great extremities.

In 411 BC, on the revolt of Abydos and Lampsacus, Strombichides sailed from Chios with twenty four ships, and recovered Lampsacus, but was unable either to persuade or compel Abydos to return to its allegiance ; and accordingly he crossed over to Sestus, and there established a garrison to command the whole of the Hellespont. Hence he was soon after summoned to reinforce the Athenians at Samos, who were unable, before his arrival, to make head against the superior force of the Peloponnesians under Astyochus.

In Lysias we read that Strombichides was one of those friends of democracy, who expressed their indignation at the terms of peace with which Theramenes and his fellow-ambassadors returned to Athens from Lacedaemon in 404 BC. Having thus rendered himself obnoxious to the oligarchs, he was involved with the other prominent men of his party in the accusation brought against them by Agoratus before the council, of a conspiracy to oppose the peace. They were all accordingly thrown into prison, and not long after were put to death with the mockery of a trial under the government of the Thirty. We may perhaps identify the subject of the present article with the father of Autocles, Athenian statesman.