Hellenica

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.

Lysander accordingly dropped the matter for the moment; but after dinner, when Cyrus drank his health and asked him by what act he could gratify him most, Lysander replied: By adding an obol to the pay of each sailor.