Hellenica

And now Alcibiades sailed from Samos with his twenty ships and his money to Paros, and from there directed his course straight to Gytheium, in order to take a look at the thirty triremes which he heard the Lacedaemonians were making ready there and to see how his city felt toward him, with reference to his homecoming.

And when he found that the temper of the Athenians was kindly, that they had chosen him general, and that his friends were urging him by personal messages to return, he sailed in to Piraeus, arriving on the day when the city was celebrating the Plynteria[*](When the clothing of the ancient wooden statue of Athena Polias was removed and washed (πλύνειν).) and the statue of Athena was veiled from sight,—a circumstance which some people imagined was of ill omen, both for him and for the state; for on that day no Athenian would venture to engage in any serious business.

When he sailed in, the common crowd of Piraeus and of the city gathered to his ships, filled with wonder and desiring to see the famous Alcibiades. Some of them said that he was the best of the citizens; that he alone was banished without just cause, but rather because he was plotted against by those who had less power than he and spoke less well and ordered their political doings with a view to their own private gain, whereas he was always[*](407 B.C.) advancing the common weal, both by his own means and by the power of the state.

At the time in question,[*](In 415 B.C., just before the departure of Alcibiades with the Syracusan expedition.) they said, he was willing to be brought to trial at once, when the charge had just been made that he had committed sacrilege against the Eleusinian Mysteries; his enemies, however, postponed the trial, which was obviously his right, and then, when he was absent, robbed him of his fatherland;

thereafter, in his exile, helpless as a slave and in danger of his life every day, he was forced to pay court to those whom he hated most[*](The Spartans and the Persians.); and though he saw those who were dearest to him, his fellow-citizens and kinsmen and all Athens, making mistakes, he was debarred by his banishment from the opportunity of helping them.

It was not the way, they said, of men such as he to desire revolution or a change in government; for under the democracy it had been his fortune to be not only superior to his contemporaries but also not inferior to his elders, while his enemies, on the other hand, were held in precisely the same low estimation after his banishment as before; later, however, when they had gained power, they had slain the best men, and since they alone were left, they were accepted by the citizens merely for the reason that better men were not available.

Others, however, said that Alcibiades alone was responsible for their past troubles, and as for the ills which threatened to befall the state, he alone would probably prove to be the prime cause of them.

Meanwhile Alcibiades, who had come to anchor close to the shore, did not at once disembark, through fear of his enemies; but mounting upon the deck of[*](407 B.C.) his ship, he looked to see whether his friends were present.

But when he sighted his cousin Euryptolemus, the son of Peisianax, and his other relatives and with them his friends, then he disembarked and went up to the city, accompanied by a party who were prepared to quell any attack that anyone might make upon him.

And after he had spoken in his own defence before the Senate and the Assembly, saying that he had not committed sacrilege and that he had been unjustly treated, and after more of the same sort had been said, with no one speaking in opposition because the Assembly would not have tolerated it, he was proclaimed general-in-chief with absolute authority, the people thinking that he was the man to recover for the state its former power; then, as his first act, he led out all his troops and conducted by land the procession[*](From Athens to the temple of Demeter at Eleusis.) of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which the Athenians had been conducting by sea on account of the war;

and after this he collected an armament of fifteen hundred hoplites, one hundred and fifty horsemen, and one hundred ships. Then, in the fourth month after his return to Athens, he set sail for Andros, which had revolted from the Athenians; and with him were sent Aristocrates and Adeimantus, the son of Leucolophides, the generals who had been chosen for service by land.

Alcibiades disembarked his army at Gaurium, in the territory of Andros; and when the men of Andros and the Laconians who were there came forth to meet him, the Athenians routed them, shut them up in their city, and killed some few of them.

Accordingly Alcibiades set up a trophy, and after remaining there a few days, sailed to Samos, and[*](407 B.C.) from Samos as a base prosecuted the war.

Not long before this the Lacedaemonians had sent out Lysander as admiral, since Cratesippidas’ term of office had expired. And after Lysander had arrived at Rhodes and secured some ships there, he sailed to Cos and Miletus, and from there to Ephesus, where he remained with seventy ships until Cyrus arrived at Sardis. On his arrival Lysander went up to visit him, accompanied by the ambassadors from Lacedaemon.

Then and there they told Cyrus of the deeds of which Tissaphernes had been guilty, and begged him to show the utmost zeal in the war.

Cyrus replied that this was what his father had instructed him to do, and that he had no other intention himself, but would do everything possible; he had brought with him, he said, five hundred talents; if this amount should prove insufficient, he would use his own money, which his father had given him; and if this too should prove inadequate, he would go so far as to break up the throne whereon he sat, which was of silver and gold.

The ambassadors thanked him, and urged him to make the wage of each sailor an Attic drachma[*](The Attic drachma = about 9 d. or 18 cents; it was the average wage of an ordinary day-labourer.) a day, explaining that if this were made the rate, the sailors of the Athenian fleet would desert their ships, and hence he would spend less money.[*](Since the war would be brought to a speedy conclusion, the Athenian sailors going over to the Lacedaemonian fleet for the sake of the higher wage.)

He replied that their plan was a good one, but that it was not possible for him to act contrary to the King’s instructions; besides, the original compact ran in this way, that the King should give thirty minae[*](A mina=100 drachmae=600 obols. A ship’s crew normally numbered 200 men; hence 30 minae per month per ship=3 obols per day per man.) per month to each ship, whatever number of ships the Lacedaemonians[*](407 B.C.) might wish to maintain.