Thrasybulus, who headed this successful and meritorious sedition, had a mind to conceive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute the most daring designs. He exhorted the soldiers not to despair of effecting in the capital the same revolution which they had produced in the camp. Their most immediate concern was to recall Alcibiades, who had been deceived and disgraced by the tyrants, and who not only felt with peculiar sensibility, but could resent with becoming dignity, the wrongs of his country and his own. The advice of Thrasybulus was approved; soon after he sailed to Magnesia, and returned in company with Alcibiades.
Greek Seals
Though the army immediately saluted him general, Alcibiades left the care of the troops to his colleagues Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, and withdrew himself from the applauses of his admiring countrymen, on pretence of concerting with Tissaphernes the system of their future operations. But his principal motive was to show himself to the Persian, in the new and illustrious character with which he was invested; for having raised his authority among the Athenians by his influence with the satrap, he expected to strengthen this influence by the support of that authority. Before he returned to the camp, ambassadors had been sent by the tyrants, to attempt a negotiation with the partisans of democracy, who, inflamed by continual reports of the indignities and cruelties committed in Athens, prepared to sail thither to protect their friends and take vengeance on their enemies. Alcibiades judiciously opposed this rash resolution which must have left the Hellespont, Ionia, and the islands, at the mercy of the hostile fleet. But he commanded the ambassadors to deliver to their masters a short but pithy message: “That they must divest themselves of their illegal power, and restore the ancient constitution. If they delayed obedience, he would sail to the Piræus, and deprive them of their authority and their lives.”
When this message was reported at Athens, it added to the disorder and confusion in which that unhappy city was involved. The Four Hundred who had acted with unanimity in usurping the government, soon disagreed about the administration, and split into factions, which persecuted each other as furiously as both had persecuted the people. Theramenes and Aristocrates condemned and opposed the tyrannical measures of their colleagues. The perfidious Phrynichus was slain: both parties prepared for taking arms; and the horrors of a Corcyrean sedition were ready to be renewed in Athens, when the old men, the children, the women, and strangers, interposed for the safety of a city which had long been the ornament of Greece, the terror of Persia, and the admiration of the world.
Had the public enemy availed themselves of this opportunity to assault the Piræus, Athens could not have been saved from immediate destruction. But the Peloponnesian forces at Miletus, long clamorous and discontented, had broken out into open mutiny, when they heard of the recall of Alcibiades, and the hostile intentions of Tissaphernes. They destroyed the Persian fortifications in the neighbourhood of Miletus; they put the garrisons to the sword; their treacherous commander, Astyochus, saved his life by flying to an altar; nor was the tumult appeased until the guilty were removed from their sight, and Mindarus, an officer of approved valour and fidelity, arrived from Sparta to assume the principal command.
The dreadful consequences which must have resulted to the Athenians, if, during the fury of their sedition, the enemy had attacked them with a fleet of a hundred and fifty sail, may be conceived by the terror inspired by a much smaller Peloponnesian squadron of only forty-two vessels commanded by the Spartan Agesandridas. The friends of the constitution had assembled in the spacious theatre of Bacchus. The most important matters were in agitation, when the alarm was given that some Peloponnesian ships had been seen on the coast. All ranks of men hastened to the Piræus; and prepared thirty-six vessels for taking the sea. When Agesandridas perceived the ardent opposition which he must encounter in attempting to land, he doubled the promontory of Sunium, and sailed towards the fertile island of Eubœa, from which, since the fortification of Decelea, the Athenians had derived far more plentiful supplies than from the desolated territory of Attica. To defend a country which formed their principal resource, they sailed in pursuit of the enemy, and observed them next day near the shore of Eretria, the most considerable town in the island.
The Eubœans, who had long watched an opportunity to revolt, supplied the Peloponnesian squadron with all necessaries in abundance; but instead of furnishing a market to the Athenians, they retired from the coast on their approach. The commanders were obliged to weaken their strength by despatching several parties into the country to procure provisions; Agesandridas seized this opportunity to attack them: most of the ships were taken; the crews swam to land; many were cruelly murdered by the Eretrians, from whom they expected protection; and such only survived as took refuge in the Athenian garrisons scattered over the island.
The news of this misfortune were most alarming to the Athenians. Neither the invasion of Xerxes, nor even the defeat in Sicily, occasioned such terrible consternation. They dreaded the immediate defection of Eubœa; they had no more ships to launch; no means of resisting their multiplied enemies: the city was divided against the camp, and divided against itself. Yet the magnanimous firmness of Theramenes did not allow the friends of liberty to despair. He encouraged them to disburden the republic of its domestic foes, who had summoned, or who were at least believed to have summoned, the assistance of the Lacedæmonian fleet, that they might be enabled to enslave their fellow citizens. Antiphon, Pisander, and the most obnoxious, seasonably escaped; the rest submitted. A decree was passed, recalling Alcibiades, and approving the conduct of the troops at Samos. The sedition ceased. The democracy, which had been interrupted four months, was restored; and such are the resources of a free government, that even this violent fermentation was not unproductive of benefit to the state.
THE TRIUMPHS OF ALCIBIADES
[411-409 B.C.]
The Spartans, who formerly rejected the friendship, now courted the protection of Pharnabazus; to whose northern province they sailed with the principal strength of their armament, proceeded northwards in pursuit of the enemy; and the important straits, which join the Euxine and Ægean seas, became, and long continued, the scene of conflict. In the twenty-first winter of the war, a year already distinguished by the dissolution and revival of their democracy, the Athenians prevailed in three successive engagements, including Cynossema, the event of which became continually more decisive.
The Spartans yielded possession of the sea, which they hoped soon to recover, and retired to the friendly harbours of Cyzicus, to repair their shattered fleet; while the Athenians profited by the fame of their victory, and by the terror of their arms, to demand contributions from the numerous and wealthy towns in that neighbourhood. It was determined, chiefly by the advice of Alcibiades, to attack the enemy at Cyzicus; for which purpose they sailed, with eighty galleys, to the small island of Proconnesus, near the western extremity of the Propontis, and ten miles distant from the station of the Peloponnesian fleet. Alcibiades surprised sixty vessels on a dark and rainy morning, as they were manœuvring at a distance from the harbour, and skilfully intercepted their retreat. As the day cleared up, the rest sailed forth to their assistance; the action became general; the Athenians obtained a complete victory, and their valour was rewarded by the capture of the whole Peloponnesian fleet, except the Syracusan ships, which were burned, in the face of a victorious enemy, by the enterprising Hermocrates. The Peloponnesians were assisted by Pharnabazus in equipping a new fleet; but were deprived of the wise counsels of Hermocrates, whose abilities were well fitted both to prepare and to employ the resources of war. The success of the Asiatic expedition had not corresponded to the sanguine hopes of his countrymen; the insolent populace accused their commanders of incapacity; and a mandate was sent from Syracuse, depriving them of their office, and punishing them with banishment.