When Conon came to Samos, he found the fleet under his command superior in numbers to the enemy: but despondency was prevailing among the men; partly perhaps a consequence of the recent defeat: it was however probably still more owing to the want of full and regular pay, and to the contrast which they saw in this respect between their own prospects and those of the Peloponnesians, who were provided with an ample and unfailing supply from the inexhaustible riches of the Persian treasury. The Athenian crews appear to have been thinned, as Lysander predicted, by frequent desertions, and Conon deemed it expedient to reduce the numbers of his armament from above a hundred to seventy galleys that each might have its proper complement. His next care was to provide for its immediate exigencies; and he was compelled, as Alcibiades had been, to employ it in expeditions which had no other object than the plunder to be collected in the descents which he made on the enemy's coasts. The autumn and winter passed without any more important operations; for Lysander did not stir from Ephesus. He probably did not feel himself strong enough to seek an engagement; but his attention was also deeply engaged by affairs of a different nature. His ambition was not such as commonly animated a Spartan general: the desire of glory earned in his country's service.