good distance; and taking only forty vessels, he advanced towards the enemy, to offer them battle. The enemy, deceived by this stratagem, and despising this small number, advanced against him, and began the fight. But when they saw the rest of the Athenian fleet come up, they immediately lost courage, and fled. Alcibiades, with twenty of his best ships, pursued them to the shore, landed, and killed a great number of them in the flight. Mindarus and Pharnabasus opposed his efforts in vain; the first, who fought with astonishing valour, he killed, and put the other to flight. The Athenians, by this victory, which made them masters of the slain, the arms, spoils, and whole fleet of the enemy, besides the taking of Cyzicum, not only possessed themselves of the Hellespont, but drove the Spartans entirely out of that sea. Letters were intercepted, in which the latter, with a conciseness truly laconic, advised the ephori of the blow they had received, in terms to this effect: "The flower of your army is cut off; Mindarus is dead; the rest of the troops are dying with hunger; and we neither know what to do, nor what will become of us." The news of this victory occasioned no less joy to the Athenians than consternation to the Spartans. They despatched ambassadors immediately, to demand that an end should be put to the war, equally destructive to both people, and that a peace should be concluded upon reasonable conditions, for the reestablishment of their ancient concord and amity, the salutary effects of which they had for many years experienced.* The wisest and most judicious of the citizens of Athens were unanimously of opinion, that it was proper to take the advantage of so favourable a conjuncture for the concluding of a treaty, which might put an end to all jealousies, appease all animosities, and remove all distrusts. But those who found their advantage in the troubles of the state prevented the good effects of that disposition. Cleophon, among others, the most reputed orator at that time, animated the people from the tribunal of harangues, by a violent and seditious discourse, insinuating, that their interests were betrayed by a secret intelligence with the Lacedæmonians which aimed at depriving them of all the advantages of the important victory they had gained, and at making them lose for ever the opportunity of being fully avenged for all the wrongs and misfortunes Sparta had caused them to suffer.t This Cleophon was an inconsiderable fellow, a musical instrument maker. It was reported also that he had been a slave, and had got himself fraudulently enrolled in the register of the citizens. He carried his audacity and fury so far, as to threaten to plunge his dagger into the throat of any one who should talk of peace. The Athenians, puffed up with their present prosperity, forgetting their past misfortunes, and promising themselves all things from the valour and good fortune of Alcibiades, rejected all proposals of accommodation, without reflecting, that there is nothing so fluctuating and precarious as the success of The ambassadors retired without being able to effect any thing. Such infatuation and irrational pride are generally the fore-runners of some great misfortune. war. Alcibiades knew well how to make use of the victory he had gained, and presently after besieged Chalcedonia, which had revolted from the Athenians, and received a Lacedæmonian garrison. During this siege, he took another town, called Selymbria. Pharnabasus, terrified by the rapidity of his conquests, made a treaty with the Athenians to this effect : That Pharnabasus should pay them a certain sum of money; that the Chalcedonians should return to their obedience, depend upon the Athenians, and pay them tribute; and that the Athenians should commit no hostilities in the province of Pharnabasus, who engaged for the safe conduct of their ambassadors to the great king." Byzantium and several other cities submitted to the Athenians. Alcibiades, who desired with the utmost passion to see his country again, or rather to be seen by his country, after so many victories over their enemies, Diod. l. iii. p. 177-179. Esch. in Orat. de Fals. Legat. 220 set out for Athens. The sides of his ships were covered with bucklers and all sorts of spoils, in form of trophies; and causing a great number of vessels to be towed after him by way of triumph, he displayed also the ensigns and ornaments of those he had burned, which were more than the others; the whole amounting to about two hundred ships. It is said, that reflecting on what had been done against him, upon approaching the fort, he was struck with some terror, and was afraid to quit his vessel, till he saw from the deck a great number of his friends and relations who were come to the shore to receive him, and earnestly entreated him to land.* The people came out of the city in a body to meet him, and at his appearance set up incredible shouts of joy. In the midst of an infinite number of officers and soldiers, a. eyes were fixed solely on him, whom they considered as victory itself, descended from the skies; all around him passionately caressing, blessing and crowning him, in emulation of each other. Those who could not approach him were never tired with contemplating him at a distance, while the old men showed him to their children." They repeated with the highest praises all the good actions he had done for his country; nor could they refuse their admiration even to those he had done against it during his banishment, of which they imputed the fault to themselves alone. This public joy was mingled with tears and regret, from the remembrance of past mis fortunes, which they could not avoid comparing with their present felicity. "We could not have failed," said they, "of the conquest of Sicily; our other hopes could never have proved abortive, if we had referred all our affairs and forces to the disposal of Alcibiades alone. In what a condition was Athens when he took upon him our protection and defence! We had not only almost entirely lost our power at sea, but were scarcely possessed of the suburbs of our city, and to add to our misfortunes, were torn in pieces by a horrid civil war. He, notwithstanding, has raised the republic from its ruins; and, not content with having re-instated it in the possession of the sovereignty of the sea, has rendered it universally victorious by land; as if the fate of Athens had been in his hands alone, either to ruin or preserve it, and victory was annexed to his person, and obeyed his orders." This favourable reception of Alcibiades did not prevent his demanding an assembly of the people, in order to his justification before them; well knowing how necessary it was for his safety to be absolved in form. He appeared therefore, and after having deplored his misfortunes, which he imputed very little to the people, and entirely ascribed to his ill fortune, and some dæmon envious of his prosperity, he represented to them the designs of the enemy, and exhorted them not to conceive any other than great hopes. The Athenians, transported with hearing him speak, decreed him crowns of gold, appointed him general by sea and land with unlimited power, restored him all his fortunes, and ordered the Eumolpides and Cerycest to absolve him from the curses they had pronounced against him by the order of the people; doing their utmost to make him amends for the injury and shame of his banishment, by the glory of his recall, and to efface the remembrance of the anathemas themselves had decreed, by the vows and prayers which they made in his favour. While all the Eumolpides and Ceryces were employed in revoking those imprecations, Theodorus, the principal of them, had the courage to say, "But for me, I have not cursed him, if he has done no evil to his country;" insinuating by that bold expression, that the maledictions, being conditional, could not fall upon the head of the innocent, nor be averted from the guilty. In the midst of this glory and brilliant prosperity of Alcibiades, the majority of the people could not help being concerned, when they considered the time of his return. For it happened precisely upon the day when the Athenians * A. M. 3597. Ant. J. C. 407. †The Eumolpides and Ceryces were two families at Athens who had different functions in the myste ries of Ceres. They took their names from Eumolpus and Ceryx, the first who had exercised these of fices. Perhaps the employment of the latter had some relation to that of a herald. 221 celebrated the feast in honour of Minerva, worshipped under the name of Agraulis. The priests took off all the ornaments from the statue of the goddess to wash it, from whence that feast was called Ivrgia, and afterwards covered it; and that day was accounted one of the most ominous and unfortunate. It was the twenty fifth of the month Thargelion, which answers to the second of July. This circumstance displeased that superstitious people, because it seemed to imply, that the goddess, patroness, and protectress of Athens, did not receive Alcibiades agreeably, and with a benign aspect, since she covered and concealed herself, as if she would keep him off and remove him from her. All things having, however, succeeded according to his wish, and the hundred ships he was to command being ready, he deferred his departure out of a laudable ambition to celebrate the great mysteries; for from the time the Lacedæmonians had fortified Decelia, and taken possession of all the ways from Athens to Eleusina, the feast had not been solemnized in all its pomp, and the procession had been obliged to go by sea.* The particular ceremonies of this solemnity may be seen in book x. chap. iii. Alcibiades believed it would be a most glorious action, and attract the blessings of the gods, and the praises of men, if he restored all its lustre and solemnity to this feast, in making the procession go by land under the convoy of his troops, to defend it against the attacks of the enemy. For either Agis would suffer it to pass quietly, notwithstanding the numerous troops he had at Decelia, which would considerably lessen the reputation of that king, and be a blot in his glory; or, if he should choose to attack it, and oppose the march, he should then have the satisfaction to fight a sacred battle; a battle grateful to the gods, for the greatest and most venerable of all their mysteries, in the sight of his country and citizens, who would be witnesses of his valour and regard for religion. It is very likely, that by this public and ostentatious act of piety, which struck the people's view in so sensible a manner, and was so extremely to his taste, the principal design of Alcibiades was to efface entirely from their minds the suspicions of impiety, to which the mutilation of statues, and profanation of mysteries, had given birth. Having taken the resolution, he gave notice to the Eumolpides and Ceryces to hold themselves in readiness, posted centinels upon the hills, sent out runners at the break of day, and taking with him the priests, the initiated, and the probationers, with those who initiated them, he covered them with his army, and disposed the whole pomp with wonderful order and profound silence. "Never was show," says Plutarch, "more august, nor more worthy the majesty of the gods, than this warlike procession and religious expedition; in which even those who envied the glory of Alcibiades were obliged to own, that he was no less happy in discharging the functions of a high-priest than those of a general. No enemy dared to appear to disturb that pompous march, and Alcibiades re-conducted the sacred troops to Athens with entire safety. This success gave him new courage, and raised the valour and boldness of his army to such a degree, that they looked upon themselves as invincible while he commanded them." He acquired the affection of the poor and the lower sort of people to such a degree, that they most ardently desired to have him for their king. Many of them openly declared themselves to that effect; and there were some who addressed themselves to him, and exhorted him to set himself above envy, and not to trouble himself about laws, degrees or suffrages; to put down those wordy impertinents that disturbed the state with their vain harangues, to make himself master of affairs, and to govern with entire authority, without fearing accusers. For him, what his thoughts of the tyranny and his designs were, are unknown; but the most powerful citizens, apprehending the breaking out of a fire, of which they already saw the sparks, pressed him to depart without delay; granting whatever he demanded, and giving him, for colleagues, the *Plut. in Alcib. p. 210. 222 generals most agreeable to him. He set sail accordingly with one hundred ships, and steered for the island of Andros which had revolted. His high reputation and the good fortune which had attended him in all his enterprises caused the citizens to expect nothing from him but what was great and extraordinary. HE BEATS SECTION IV.-THE LACEDÆMONIANS APPOINT LYSANDER ADMIRAL. THE Lacedæmonians, justly alarmed at the return and success of Alcibiades, conceived that such an enemy made it necessary to oppose him with an able general, capable of making head against him. For this reason they made choice of Lysander, and gave him the command of the fleet. When he arrived at Ephesus, he found the city very well disposed in his favour, and well affected to Sparta; but otherwise in a very unhappy situation. For it was in danger of becoming barbarous by assuming the manners and customs of the Persians, who had great commerce with it, as well from the neighbourhood of Lydia, as because the king's generals commonly took up their winter-quarters there. An idle and voluptuous life, filled up with luxury and empty show, could not fail of disgusting infinitely a man like Lysander, who had been bred from his birth in the simplicity, poverty, and severe discipline of Sparta. Having brought his army to Ephesus, he gave orders for assembling ships of burden there from all parts, erected an arsenal for building galleys, made the ports free for merchants, gave the public places to artificers, put all arts in motion, and held them in honour; and by these means filled the city with riches, and laid the foundations of that grandeur and magnificence to which it afterwards attained. So great a change can the application and ability of a single person occasion in a state.* While he was making these dispositions, he received advice, that Cyrus, the king's youngest son had arrived at Sardis. That prince could not be above sixteen years old at that time, being born after his father's accession to the crown in the seventeenth year of his reign. Parysatis, his mother, loved him to idolatry, and had the entire ascendant over her husband. It was she that occasioned his having the supreme government of all the provinces of Asia Minor given to him; a command that subjected all the provincial governors of the most important part of the empire to his authority. The view of Parysatis was, without doubt, to put the young prince into a condition to dispute the throne with his brother, after the king's death; as we shall see he does to some effect. One of the principal instructions given him by his father, upon sending him to his government, was to give effectual aid to the Lacedæmonians against Athens, an order very contrary to the measures observed till then by Tissaphernes, and the other governors of those provinces. It had always been their maxim, sometimes to assist one party, sometimes the other, in order to hold their power in such a balance, that the one might never be able to crush the other entirely; from whence it followed, that both parties were kept weak by the war, and neither in condition to form any enterprises against the Persian empire. Upon Lysander's being apprised therefore of the arrival of Cyrus at Sardis, he set out from Ephesus to make him a visit and to complain of the delays and breach of faith of Tissaphernes, who, notwithstanding the orders he had received to support the Lacedæmonians, and to drive the Athenians out of the sea, had always covertly favoured the latter, out of regard for Alcibiades, whose measures he entirely gave into, and had been the sole cause of the loss of the fleet, by not supplying it with the necessary quantity of provisions. This discourse pleased Cyrus, who looked upon Tissaphernes as a very bad man, and his particular enemy; and he answered, that the king had given him Xenoph. Hellen. 1. xi. p. 440-442. Plut. in Lysand. p. 434, 435. Diod. 1. xiii. p. 192-197 orders to support the Lacedæmonians powerfully, and that he had received five hundred talents for that purpose. Lysander, contrary to the common character of the Spartans, was submissive and condescending, full of complacency for the grandees, always ready to pay court to them, and supporting, for the good of the service, all the weight of their haughtiness and vanity with incredible patience; in which behaviour some people make the whole address and merit of a courtier consist. He did not forget himself on this occasion, and setting at work all that the industry and art of a complete courtier could suggest of flattery and insinuation, he perfectly gained the young prince's favour and good opinion. After having praised his generosity, magnificence, and zeal for the Lacedæmonians, he desired him to give each soldier and mariner a drachmt per day in order to debauch those of the enemy by that means, and thereby terminate the war the sooner. Cyrus very much approved the project; but said, that he could make no change in the king's order, and that the treaty with them expressly settled only half a talent to be paid monthly for each galley. The prince, however, at the end of a banquet, which he gave him before his departure, drinking to his health, and pressing him to ask something of him, Lysander desired that an obolus§ a day might be added to the seamen's pay. This was granted, and he gave them four oboli, instead of three which they received before, and paid them all the arrears due to them, with a month's advance; giving Lysander ten thousand darics for that purpose, that is, a hundred thousand livres, or upwards of twenty thousand dollars. This largess filled the whole fleet with ardour and alacrity, and almost unmanned the enemy's galleys; the greatest part of the mariners deserting to the party where the pay was best. The Athenians, in despair upon receiving this news, endeavoured to conciliate Cyrus, by the interposition of Tissaphernes; but he would not hearken to them, notwithstanding the satrap represented, that it was not for the king's interest to aggrandize the Lacedæmonians, but to balance the power of one side with that of the other, in order to perpetuate the war, and to ruin both by their own divisions. Though Lysander had considerably weakened the enemy by augmenting the mariner's pay, and thereby very much hurt their naval power, he dared not, however, hazard a battle with them, particularly apprehending Alcibiades, who was a man of execution, had the greater number of ships, and had never been overthrown in any battle either by sea or land. But after Alcibiades had left Samos to go into Phocæa and Ionia, to raise money, of which he was in want for the payment of his troops, and had given the command of his fleet to Antiochus, with express orders not to fight or attack the enemy in his absence; the new commander, to make show of his courage and to brave Lysander, entered the port of Ephesus with two galleys, and after having made a great noise, retired with loud laughter, and an air of contempt and insult. Lysander enraged at that affront, immediately detached some galleys, and went himself in pursuit of him. But as the Athenians advanced to support Antiochus, he ordered other galleys of his side to come on, till the whole fleet arrived, and the engagement became general on both sides. Lysander gained the victory, and having taken fifteen of the Athenian galleys, he erected a trophy. Alcibiades, on his return to Samos, sailed even into the port to offer him battle; but Lysander was contented with his victory, and did not think proper to accept it; so that he retired without doing any thing. Thrasybulus at the same time, the most dangerous enemy he had in his army, left the camp, and went to Athens to accuse him. To inflame his enemies in the city the more, he told the people in a full assembly, that Alcibiades had entirely ruined their affairs, and the navy, by the licentiousness he had introduced; that he had given himself up to the most notorious debauchees and Tenpence, French. About five hundred thousand dollars, Nearly 500 dollars. The drachm was six oboli, or tenpence, French; each obolus being three halfpence; so that the four oboli were sixpence halfpenny a day, instead of five pence, or three oboli. A Daric is about $1.87). |