CHAPTER XXIII
‘Come, have a care for thine honour, since now this land calls thee saviour for thy former zeal; and never let it be the memory of thy government that we were set upon our feet and afterwards cast down, but lift up this city so that it stand fast for ever.’—Sophocles: Oid. Tyr.
Upon the Hellespont, the Propontis, and the Bosporos, the northern Athenian dependencies were everywhere reduced to their old tributary subjection to their ancient suzerain; the Spartans were driven from the sea, and a truce was made with Pharnabazos, pending negotiations for peace with the Persian king. In the beginning of the year 407 Alkibiades, leaving Thrasyboulos to complete the conquest of the Greek cities on the Thrakian coast, assembled his mighty fleet at Samos.
It is unnecessary to describe the advent of the conqueror once more into that port, where his faithful friends and supporters had been true to him when every other Grecian city had turned against him, and where his statue now stood gloriously in the temple of the special guardian of the island, the witness of the people’s gratitude to the liberator of Ionia.
He had still work to do upon the Karian coast, the last remnant of the late Spartan conquests, and had more tribute to collect from unfaithful cities for impoverished Athens. After reducing these places to subjection and strengthening the forts at Kos, and with a treasure of one hundred talents which he had collected, he returned to Samos.
He now felt that the time was come when he might at last answer the repeated call of Athens, and return to his beloved home. He sent Thrasyllos with the main part of the fleet and a large portion of the captured ships and other spoils before him to Peiræus, to prepare the people for his coming.
The impatience with which they awaited him was indescribable. They were as anxious to see the man whom they had driven from them, and who in return, his justice satisfied, had raised them from despair and misery to their old supremacy, as he was to come back to them. This had been the fixed purpose of his life for eight long years. In spite of the temptation to return at her earnest cry three years ago, he had gone on enduring dangers, imprisonment, and hardships, and adding victory to victory, till he felt his hands were full enough of blessings. Now they were so full they scarcely could hold more, and he returned to her to lay them at her feet.
Collecting his great ships from Samos and the other ports where he had posted them, with all his prisoners and his prizes, he proudly sailed towards Attika. No need now to avoid hostile places; he rather diverged from his straight course, to show the world who was supreme mistress of the seas, and on the twenty-fifth of May he sighted the Peiræus. When the people heard that he was really coming, the city was deserted. All the quays and walls were lined with human beings. The sailors of Peiræus, Mounychia, and Phaleron, all who had ships or boats of any sort, crowded out upon the sea to welcome him. The sea was black with boats. Every mast swarmed with men and boys, and lucky was he thought who should first get sight of him.
While the people waited on the shore in wildest expectation, there was but one thought in all their minds, one and the same subject furnished the topic of their talk with one another. Some old men were heard conversing.