Alcibiades

Now the decree for his recall had been passed before this,[*](Nearly three years before, in the late autumn of 411 B.C., after the overthrow of the Four Hundred.) on motion of Critias, the son of Callaeschrus, as Critias himself has written in his elegies, where he reminds Alcibiades of the favour in these words:—

1. Mine was the motion that brought thee back; I made it in public;
2. Words and writing were mine; this the task I performed;
3. Signet and seal of words that were mine give warrant as follows.

At this time,[*](In the early summer of 408 B.C.) therefore, the people had only to meet in assembly, and Alcibiades addressed them. He lamented and bewailed his own lot, but had only little and moderate blame to lay upon the people. The entire mischief he ascribed to a certain evil fortune and envious genius of his own. Then he descanted at great length upon the vain hopes which their enemies were cherishing, and wrought his hearers up to courage. At last they crowned him with crowns of gold, and elected him general with sole powers by land and sea.

They voted also that his property be restored to him, and that the Eumolpidae and Heralds revoke the curses wherewith they had cursed him at the command of the people. The others revoked their curses, but Theodorus the High Priest said: Nay, I invoked no evil upon him if he does no wrong to the city.

But while Alcibiades was thus prospering brilliantly, some were nevertheless disturbed at the particular season of his return. For he had put into harbor on the very day when the Plynteria of the goddess Athena were being celebrated. The Praxiergidae celebrate these rites on the twenty-fifth day of Thargelion in strict secrecy, removing the robes of the goddess and covering up her image. Wherefore the Athenians regard this day as the unluckiest of all days for business of any sort.

The goddess, therefore, did not appear to welcome Alcibiades with kindly favour and good will, but rather to veil herself from him and repel him. However, all things fell out as he wished, and one hundred triremes were manned for service, with which he was minded to sail off again; but a great and laudable ambition took possession of him and detained him there until the Eleusinian mysteries.