dence of the nobility for his own re-establishment, had the boldness to oppose their resolutions, which were about to take place. He represented, that the change they meditated might very probably excite a civil war, to the ruin of the state; that it was very unlikely that the king of Persia would preter the alliance of the Athenians to that of the Spartans, so much more advantageous to him; that this change would not retain the allies in their duty, nor bring over those who had renounced it, who would persist in preferring their liberty; that the government of a small number of rich and powerful persons would not be more favourable to either the citizens or allies, than that of the people, because ambition was the great cause of all misfortunes in a republic, and the rich were the sole promoters of all troubles for the aggrandizing of themselves; that a state suffered more oppressions and violences under the rule of the nobility than that of the people, whose authority kept the former within due bounds, and was the asylum of such as they desired to oppress; that the allies were too well acquainted with these truths from their own experience, to want any lessons upon the subject.

These remonstrances, wise as they were, had no effect. Pisander was sent to Athens with some of the same faction, to propose the return of Alcibiades, the alliance of Tissaphernes, and the abolition of the democracy. They represented, that by changing the government, and recalling Alcibiades, Athens might obtain a powerful aid from the king of Persia, and by that means to triumph over Sparta. Upon this proposal great numbers exclaimed against it, and especially the enemies of Alcibiades. They alleged, among other reasons, the imprecations pronounced by the priests and all orders of religion, against him, and even against such as should propose to recall him.

But Pisander, advancing into the midst of the assembly, demanded, whether they knew any other means to save the republic in the deplorable condition to which it was reduced: and as there appeared none, he added, that the preservation of the state was the question, and not the authority of the laws, which might be provided for in the sequel; but at present there was no other method for the attainment of the king's friendship, and that of Tissaphernes. Though this change was very offensive to the people, they gave their consent to it at length, with the hope of re-establishing the democracy in time, as Pisander had promised; and they decreed that he should go with ten more deputies to treat with Alcibiades and Tissaphernes, and that in the mean time Phrynicus should be recalled, and another general appointed to command the fleet in his stead.

The deputies did not find Tissaphernes in so good a disposition as they had been made to hope. He was afraid of the Lacedæmonians, but did not wish to render the Athenians too powerful. It was his policy, by the advice of Alcibiades, to leave the two parties always at war, in order to weaken and consume them by each other. He therefore made great difficulties. He demanded at first, that the Athenians should abandon all Ionia to him, and afterwards insisted upon their adding the neighbouring islands. Those demands being complied with, he further required, in a third interview, permission to fit out a fleet, and to cruise in the Grecian seas; which had been expressly provided against in the celebrated treaty concluded with Artaxerxes. The deputies thereupon broke up the conference with indignation, and percieved that Alcibiades had imposed upon them.

Tissaphernes, without loss of time concluded a new treaty with the Lacedæmonians, in which what had displeased in the two preceding treaties was retrenched. The article which yielded to Persia the countries in general that had been in the actual possession of the reigning king Darius, or his predecessors, was limited to the provinces of Asia. The king engaged to defray all expenses of the Lacedæmonian fleet, upon the foot, and in the condition it then was, till the arrival of that of Persia; after which they were to support it themselves; unless they should choose that the king should pay it, to be reimbursed after the conclusion of the war. It was further agreed, that they should

unite their forces, and continue the war, or make peace, by common consent. Tissaphernes, to keep his promise, sent for the fleet of Phoenicia. This treaty was made in the eleventh year of Darius, and the twentieth year of the Peloponnesian war.

SECTION III.-ALTERATION IN THE GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS. ALCIBIADES RECALLED, AND AFTERWARDS APPOINTED GENERALISSIMO.

PISANDER, at his return to Athens, found the change he had proposed at his setting out, much forwarded, to which he put the last hand soon after. To give a form to this new government, he caused ten commissioners with absofete power to be appointed, who were, however, at a certain time, to give the people an account of what they had done. At the expiration of that term, the general assembly was summoned, wherein their first resolution was, that every one should be admitted to make such proposals as he thought fit, without being liable to any accusation of infringing the law, or consequential penalty. It was afterwards decreed, that a new council should be formed, with full power to administer the public affairs, and to elect new magistrates. For this purpose, five presidents were established, who nominated a hundred persons including themselves. Each of those chose and associated three more at his own pleasure, which made in all four hundred, in whom an absolute power was lodged. But to amuse the people, and to console them with a shadow of popular government, while they instituted a real oligarchy, it was said that the four hundred should call a council of five thousand citizens, to assist them when they should judge it necessary. The council and assemblies of the people were held as usual; nothing was done, however, but by order of the four hundred. The people of Athens were deprived in this manner of their liberty, which they had enjoyed almost a hundred years, after having abolished the tyranny of the Pisistratidæ.*

This decree being passed without opposition, after the separation of the assembly, the four hundred, armed with daggers, and attended by a hundred and twenty young men, whom they made use of when any execution required it, entered the senate, and compelled the senators to retire, after having paid them the arrears due upon their appointments. They elected new magistrates out of their own body, observing the usual ceremonies upon such occasions. They did not think proper to recall those who were banished, lest they should authorize the return of Alcibiades, whose uncontrollable spirit they apprehended, and who would soon have made himself master of the people. Abusing their power in a tyrannical manner, some they put to death, others they banished, confiscating their estates with impunity. All who ventured to oppose this change, or even to complain of it, were butchered upon false pretexts; and those would have met with a bad reception, who demanded justice of the murderers. The four hundred, soon after their establishment, sent ten deputies to Samos for the army's concurrence with it.

All that had passed at Athens was already known tre, and the news had enraged the soldiers to the highest degree. They deposed immediately several of their chiefs, whom they suspected, and put others into their places, of whom Thrasylus and Thrasybulus were the principal, and in highest credit. Alcibiades was recalled, and chosen generalissimo by the whole ariny, which desired to sail directly for Piræus, to attack the tyrants. But he opposed it, representing that it was necessary he should first have an interview with Tissaphernes, and that, as they had chosen him general, they might rely upon him for the care of the war. He set out immediately for Miletus. His principal design was to show himself to that governor, in all the power he had been invested with, and to let him see that he was in a condition to do him much good, or much harm. The consequence of which was, that as he had kept the Athenians in awe by Tissaphernes, he now awed Tissaphernes no less by

* Thucyd. 1. viii. p. 590-594. Plut. in Alcib. p. 165.

the Athenians; and we shall see in the sequel that this interview was not

unnecessary.

*

Alcibiades, upon his return to Samos, found the army more inflamed than at first. The deputies of the four hundred arrived there during his absence, and had endeavoured in vain to justify, to the soldiery, the alteration made at Athens. Their discourses, which were often interrupted by tumultuous cries, served only to exasperate them more, and they earnestly demanded to be led against the tyrants directly. Alcibiades did not act on this occasion, as every body else would have done, in consequence of having been raised to so high a dignity by the favour of the people; for he did not think himself obliged to an absolute and implicit compliance with them in every thing, though, from an ex · ile and fugitive, they had made him general of so great a fleet, and so numerous and formidable an army; but, as a statesman and great politician, he believed it his duty to oppose the blind fury that hurried thein on into evident danger, and to prevent them from committing a fault, which must have been attended with their utter ruin. This wise steadiness preserved the city of Athens. For had they sailed thither at first, the enemy would have made themselves masters of Icnia, the Hellespont, and all the islands, without resistance; while the Athenians, by carrying the war into their own city, would have exhausted their whole forces against one another. He prevented the deputies from being ill treated, and dismissed them, saying, that he did not object to the five thousand citizens having the supreme authority in the republic, but that it was necessary to depose the four hundred, and to re-establish the senate.

During this time, the Phoenician fleet, which the Lacedæmonians impatiently expected, approached, and news came that it was arrived at Aspendus, a city of Pamphylia. Tissaphernes went to meet it; nobody being able to divine the cause of that journey. He had sent for that fleet at first to flatter the Lacedæmonians with the hopes of a powerful aid, and to put a stop to their progress, by making them wait its arrival. It was believed that his journey had the same motive; to prevent their doing any thing in his absence and that their soldiers and mariners might disband for want of pay. However it was, he did not bring the fleet with him, from the view, no doubt, of keeping the balance equal, which was the king of Persia's interest, and to exhaust both parties by the length of the war. For it had been very easy to have put an end to it by the assistance of this additional fleet, as the Lacedæmonians alone were already as strong at sea as the Athenians. His frivolous excuse, of its not being complete, for not bringing it with him, sufficiently shows that he had other reasons for his conduct.t

The return of the deputies without success, who had been sent to Samos, and the answer of Alcibiades, excited new troubles in the city, and gave a mortal wound to the authority of the four hundred. The tumult_increased exceedingly, when news was brought that the enemy, after having beaten the fleet sent by the four hundred to the aid of Euboea, had made themselves masters of the island. Athens was in the greatest terror and consternation upon this account. For, neither the defeat of Sicily, nor any other preceding it, were so considerable as the loss of this island, from whence the city received considerable supplies, and almost all its provisions. If, in the confusion in which Athens was at that time, between two factions, the victorious fleet had fallen upon the port, as it might have done, the army of Samos would have been indispensably obliged to have flown to the defence of their country: and then the republic would have had only the city of Athens remaining of all its dominions. For the Hellespont, Ionia, and all the islands, seeing themselves abandoned, would have been reduced to declare themselves, and go over to the Peloponnesians. But the enemy were not capable of such great designs; and this was not the first time the Lacedæmonians had been observed to have lost their advantages by the slowness and protraction natural to them.‡

Thucyd 1. viii. p. 595-604. Plut. in Alcib. p. 205. Diod. I. xiii. p. 165. † Thucyd. 1. viii. p. 604–606. Thucyd. 1. viii.p. 607-614. Plut. in Alcib. p. 206-210. Diod. p. 171, 172, et 175—177, et 169–193. K

Athens without delay deposed the four hundred, as authors of all the trou bles and divisions under which they groaned. Álcibiades was recalled by unanimous consent, and earnestly solicited to make all possible haste to the assistance of the city. But judging, that if he returned immediately to Athens, be should owe his recall to the compassion and favour of the people, he resolved to render his return glorious and triumphant, and to deserve it by some considerable exploit. For this purpose, leaving Samos with a small number of ships, he cruised about the islands of Cos and Cnidos; and having learned that Mindarus, the Spartan admiral, had sailed to the Hellespont with his whole fleet, and that the Athenians were in pursuit of him, he steered that way with the utmost diligence to support them, and arrived happily with his eighteen vessels, at the time the fleets were engaged near Abydos in a battle, which lasted till night, without any advantage on either side. His arrival gave the Spartans new courage at first, who believed him still their friend, and dispirited the Athenians. But Alcibiades, hanging out the Athenian flag in the admiral's galley, fell upon the Lacedæmonians, who were strongest, and were pursuing the Athenians, put them to flight, drove them ashore, and, animated by his success, sunk their vessels, and made a great slaughter of the soldiers, who had thrown themselves into the sea to save themselves by swimming; though Pharnabasus spared no pains to assist them, and had advanced at the head of his troops to the coast, to favour their flight, and to save their ships. The Athenians, after having taken thirty of their galleys, and retaken those they had lost, erected a trophy.*

Alcibiades, vain of his success, had the ambition to desire to appear before Tissaphernes in this triumphant equipage, and to make him rich presents, as well in his own, as in the name of the people of Athens. He went to him, therefore, with a magnificent retinue, worthy of the general of Athens. But he did not meet with the favourable reception he expected. For Tissaphernes, who knew he was accused by the Lacedæinonians, and feared that the king would punish him at length for not having executed his orders, found Alcibiades presenting himself very opportunely, and caused him to be seized and sent prisoner to Sardis; to shelter himself by that injustice against the representations of the Lacedæmonians.

Thirty days after, Alcibiades, having found means to get a horse, escaped from his guards, and fled to Clazomene, where to revenge himself on Tissaphernes, he gave out that he had him set at liberty. From Clazomene he repaired to the Athenian fleet, where he was joined by Theramenes with twenty ships from Macedonia, and by Thrasybulus with twenty more from Thasos. He sailed from thence to Parium in the Propontis. All those ships, to the number of eighty-six being come thither, he left that place in the night, and arrived the next morning at Proconnesus, a small isle near Cyzicum. He heard there, that Mindarus was at Cyzicum with Pharnabasus and his landarmy. He rested that whole day at Proconnesus. On the morrow he harangued his soldiers, and represented to them the necessity there was for attacking the enemy by sea and land, and making themselves masters of Cyzicum; demonstrating, at the same time, that without a complete and absolute victory, they could have neither provisions nor money. He had taken great care that the enemy should not be apprised of his approach. By good for tune for him, a great storm of rain and thunder, followed by a thick gloom, helped him to conceal his enterprise so successfully, that not only the enemy were prevented from perceiving that he advanced, but the Athenians themselves, whom he had caused to embark with precipitation, did not know that he had weighed anchor and put to sea.

When the gloom was dispersed, the Lacedæmonian fleet appeared, exercising at some distance before the port. Alcibiades, who apprehended that the enemy, upon the sight of so great a number of ships, would make the harbour, ordered the captains to keep back a little, and to follow him at a

A. M. 3595. Ant. J. C. 409.

good distance; and taking only forty vessels, he advanced towards the enemy. to offer them battle. The enemy, deceived by this stratagem, and despising this small number, advanced against him, and began the fight. But when they saw the rest of the Athenian fleet come up, they immediately lost courage, and fled. Alcibiades, with twenty of his best ships, pursued them to the shore, landed, and killed a great number of them in the flight. Mindarus and Pharnabasus opposed his efforts in vain; the first, who fought with astonishing valour, he killed, and put the other to flight.

The Athenians, by this victory, which made them masters of the slain, the arms, spoils, and whole fleet of the enemy, besides the taking of Cyzicum, not only possessed themselves of the Hellespont, but drove the Spartans entirely out of that sea. Letters were intercepted, in which the latter, with a conciseness truly laconic, advised the ephori of the blow they had received, in terms to this effect: "The flower of your army is cut off; Mindarus is dead; the rest of the troops are dying with hunger; and we neither know what to do, nor what will become of us.

The news of this victory occasioned no less joy to the Athenians than consternation to the Spartans. They despatched ambassadors immediately, to demand that an end should be put to the war, equally destructive to both people, and that a peace should be concluded upon reasonable conditions, for the reestablishment of their ancient concord and amity, the salutary effects of which they had for many years experienced.* The wisest and most judicious of the citizens of Athens were unanimously of opinion, that it was proper to take the advantage of so favourable a conjuncture for the concluding of a treaty, which might put an end to all jealousies, appease all animosities, and remove all distrusts. But those who found their advantage in the troubles of the state prevented the good effects of that disposition. Cleophon, among others, the most reputed orator at that time, animated the people from the tribunal of harangues, by a violent and seditious discourse, insinuating, that their interests were betrayed by a secret intelligence with the Lacedæmonians which aimed at depriving them of all the advantages of the mortant victory they had gained, and at making them lose for ever the opportunity of being fully avenged for all the wrongs and misfortunes Sparta had caused them to suffer.† This Cleophon was an inconsiderable fellow, a musical instrument maker. It was reported also that he had been a slave, and had got himself fraudulently enrolled in the register of the citizens. He carried his audacity and fury so far, as to threaten to plunge his dagger into the throat of any one who should talk of peace. The Athenians, puffed up with their present prosperity, forgetting their past misfortunes, and promising themselves all things from the valour and good fortune of Alcibiades, rejected all proposals of accommodation, without reflecting, that there is nothing so fluctuating and precarious as the success of war. The ambassadors retired without being able to effect any thing. Such infatuation and irrational pride are generally the fore-runners of some great misfortune.

Alcibiades knew well how to make use of the victory he had gained, and presently after besieged Chalcedonia, which had revolted from the Athenians, and received a Lacedæmonian garrison. During this siege, he took another town, called Selymbria. Pharnabasus, terrified by the rapidity of his conquests, made a treaty with the Athenians to this effect: "That Pharnabasus should pay them a certain sum of money; that the Chalcedonians should return to their obedience, depend upon the Athenians, and pay them tribute; and that the Athenians should commit no hostilities in the province of Pharnabasus, who engaged for the safe conduct of their ambassadors to the great king." Byzantium and several other cities submitted to the Athenians. Alcibiades, who desired with the utmost passion to see his country again, or rather to be seen by his country, after so many victories over their enemies, † Asch. in Orat. de Fals. Legat.

• Diod. l. iii. p. 177–179.