CHAPTER XXVI
‘Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms,
Quite vanquished him.’
Julius Cæsar.
We must now return to Athens for awhile, and with amazement behold the people there when news of the affair of Notion reached them, and see a piteous spectacle,—one of the most piteous that is recorded in the pages of history,—an exhibition of the inconstancy, the childish instability, of this great people, for the sake of whom their greatest citizen had refused a crown.
Amid the shouting crowd that we lately saw welcoming back the man who had rescued and protected them, among the grateful mass who were ready to throw themselves and their cherished freedom at his feet, it must not be supposed he had no enemies. Quiet they were obliged to be while he was present, as the open enemies at Dekeleia had been constrained to be; but they were there, and the more the people shouted and adored, the more their jealousy and anger burned.
At the head of them was Theramenes. He was one who had taken a foremost part among the odious four hundred. He was the first to desert them and turn against them when he saw their end approaching. He was the subordinate colleague of Alkibiades in the Hellespont. Under him he had fought, and commanded a division of the fleet with ability, and bravely attacked, and helped to repulse, the Persians on shore at Kyzikos. He returned with Alkibiades to Athens. But so great was the enthusiasm of the people for the greater hero that they had overlooked the smaller one, and he had been allowed to land unnoticed.
Besides the oligarchic enemies of the absent strategos there were other enemies of greater influence among the people, the fanatic demagogues and wily orators. These men either sincerely feared, or professed to dread, the power of such a favourite. They were not ignorant of the offer that had been made to him. They had good cause to think that, if he should accept the proffered dignity while he was still the idol of Athens, not all their arguments, nor all their eloquence, would be able to prevent or modify the despotism which they feared. These persons now made common cause with those of their usual opponents who hated Alkibiades. Both sets of foes together instilled their doubts into the people’s ears. The secret work was made more easy from the very power and reputation of the object of their hate and dread. One who had proved himself invincible and had beaten every foe on previous occasions must, they said, if he ever failed to win, have failed on purpose. If he delayed too long before he fought, he did so, they argued, from some hidden motive. Doubtless, they said, he who at Abydos and Kyzikos, with smaller numbers, had vanquished the combined power of Persia and Sparta, could, if he wished, with the larger fleet which they had given him, have long ago humbled the smaller force of Spartans alone and by themselves at Ephesos. The fact that he had not attempted to do this showed that he had some cause for letting the enemy escape. And why did he leave the fleet in the face of the Spartan admiral, and go off to Phokaia, where he was not wanted? Why had he left the main force of Athens, nearly all she had now to depend upon for protection, in charge of an inexperienced, unknown, ordinary pilot like Antiochos? Why did he let him engage the enemy, and lose so large a number of the ships which it had cost them so much expense and labour to fit out, and so many of their stalwart sons whom they could ill afford to lose? Were not these things proofs, they asked, of some ulterior motive, some secret dealing with the enemy, or some sinister design upon Athens?
To add to these covert suspicions artfully set afloat, a deserter at this time came from Samos,—one who had a private grudge against his general,—and made absurd and lying charges against him, which were listened to with eagerness by a crowd of politicians, ever on the watch for some new thing. And last of all came citizens from Kyme, complaining that, without cause, Alkibiades had attacked them while they were at peace with Athens, had slain their soldiers, and carried off, for his own profit, an enormous treasure.