The first known of them was their appearance off the entrance to the Thracian Bosphorus, followed by the destruction of the fleet in station there.

Thence to the outlet of the Hellespont everything afloat had fallen their prey.
There were quite sixty galleys in the squadron, all well manned and supplied.

A few were biremes, the rest stout triremes.

A Greek was in command, and the pilots, said to be familiar with all the Eastern seas, were Greek.

The plunder had been incalculable.
The panic, consequently, was not on the sea alone; cities, with closed gates, sent their people nightly to the walls.
Traffic had almost ceased.
Where were the pirates now?
To this question, of most interest to Arrius, he received answer.
After sacking Hephaestia, on the island of Lemnos, the enemy had coursed across to the Thessalian group, and, by last account, disappeared in the gulfs between Euboea and Hellas.
Such were the tidings.
Then the people of the island, drawn to the hill-tops by the rare spectacle of a hundred ships careering in united squadron, beheld the advance division suddenly turn to the north, and the others follow, wheeling upon the same point like cavalry in a column.