Alcibiades

But at Samos the friends of Alcibiades soon got the upper hand, and sent Peisander to Athens to change the form of government. He was to encourage the leading men to overthrow the democracy and take control of affairs, with the plea that on these terms alone would Alcibiades make Tissaphernes their friend and ally. This was the pretence and this the pretext of those who established the oligarchy at Athens.

But as soon as the so-called Five Thousand (they were really only four hundred) got the power and took control of affairs, they at once neglected Alcibiades entirely, and waged the war with less vigor, partly because they distrusted the citizens, who still looked askance at the new form of government, and partly because they thought that the Lacedaemonians, who always looked with favour on an oligarchy, would be more lenient towards them.

The popular party in the city was constrained by fear to keep quiet, because many of those who openly opposed the Four Hundred had been slain. But when the army in Samos learned what had been done at home, they were enraged, and were eager to sail forthwith to the Piraeus, and sending for Alcibiades, they appointed him general, and bade him lead them in putting dwn the tyrants.

An ordinary man, thus suddenly raised to great power by the favour of the multitude, would have been full of complaisance, thinking that he must at once gratify them in all things and oppose them in nothing, since they had made him, instead of a wandering exile, leader and general of such a fleet and of so large an armed force. But Alcibiades, as became a great leader, felt that he must oppose them in their career of blind fury, and prevented them from making a fatal mistake. Therefore in this instance, at least, he was the manifest salvation of the city.

For had they sailed off home, their enemies might at once have occupied all Ionia, the Hellespont without a battle, and the islands, while Athenians were fighting Athenians and making their own city the seat of war. Such a war Alcibiades, more than any other one man, prevented, not only persuading and instructing the multitude together, but also, taking them man by man, supplicating some and constraining others.

He had a helper, too, in Thrasybulus of Steiris,[*](This illustrious commander, the son of Lycus, is to be distinguished from Thrasybulus, the son of Thraso (Plut. Nic. 6.1).) who went along with him and did the shouting; for he had, it is said, the biggest voice of all the Athenians. A second honorable proceeding of Alcibiades was his promising to bring over to their side the Phoenician ships which the King had sent out and the Lacedaemonians were expecting,-or at least to see that those expectations were not realized,—and his sailing off swiftly on this errand.

The ships were actually seen off Aspendus, but Tissaphernes did not bring them up, and thereby played the Lacedaemonians false. Alcibiades, however, was credited with this diversion of the ships by both parties, and especially by the Lacedaemonians. The charge was that he instructed the Barbarian to suffer the Hellenes to destroy one another. For it was perfectly clear that the side to which such a naval force attached itself would rob the other altogether of the control of the sea.

After this the Four Hundred were overthrown,[*](They usurped the power in June, of 411 B.C.; they fell in September of the same year.) the friends of Alcibiades now zealously assisting the party of the people. Then the city willingly ordered Alcibiades to come back home. But he thought he must not return with empty hands and without achievement, through the pity and favour of the multitude, but rather in a blaze of glory. So, to begin with, he set sail with a small fleet from Samos and cruised off Cnidus and Cos.

There he heard that Mindarus the Spartan admiral had sailed off to the Hellespont with his entire fleet, followed by the Athenians, and so he hastened to the assistance of their generals. By chance he came up, with his eighteen triremes, at just that critical point when both parties, having joined battle with all their ships off Abydos, and sharing almost equally in victory and defeat until evening, were locked in a great struggle.

The appearance of Alcibiades inspired both sides with a false opinion of his coming: the enemy were emboldened and the Athenians were confounded. But he quickly hoisted Athenian colors on his flagship and darted straight upon the victorious and pursuing Peloponnesians. Routing them, he drove them to land, and following hard after them, rammed and shattered their ships. Their crews swam ashore, and here Pharnabazus came to their aid with his infantry and fought along the beach in defence of their ships.