Alkibiades agreed to do whatever he could against the Apsinthii, one of the most hostile and dangerous tribes. He promised to return next day and set off at once in pursuit of the dreaded enemy, who were reported to be at this time not far off on the western side of the river. Then, with many expressions of goodwill from the king, he went back to his camp, taking as many of his followers with him as were in a fit state to cross the river—a process which had a salutary effect upon some of them.
Next day Amadokos bade farewell to Alkibiades, who, with a force of nearly five hundred fighting men, two hundred of whom were mounted, again crossed the Hebros, and set out in search of the Apsinthii. After two days’ march he came up with that wild tribe as they were returning towards the river, encumbered with the flocks and herds and other treasure they had taken. He routed them without much difficulty, took their booty from them and some hostages, and drove them back across the Hebros. Some of the treasure and all the hostages he sent to his new ally, king Amadokos. When he was about to return to his fastness in the Chersonesos, an embassy arrived from the Greek colony of Abdera, further west, upon the southern coast, praying him to come to the help of that town against an unknown tribe from the north, supposed to be the dreaded Treballi. Abdera was not an Athenian colony, but it had submitted to Thrasyboulos two years before, and Alkibiades could not refuse the summons. With his strange followers, whose love of pillage could be with difficulty restrained, he marched westward through the hill country of the Bistones and the Chorpilli. The marauding tribe from the far north, more ferocious and stronger than any he had yet encountered, were laying waste the territory round Abdera, and threatening the town itself and other Grecian cities along the coast. They withdrew to the neighbouring hills as he approached. It was only after a long and difficult search that he discovered their stronghold, and succeeded in coming to close quarters with them.
He heard that they had made a fortified encampment on the summit of a densely-wooded hill nearly twenty miles to the north of Abdera, which they made use of as a sort of rude basis for their freebooting expeditions. Coming up to the foot of the rising ground, under cover of a dark night, he divided his cavalry into two divisions, posting one on the level plain to the north, the other to the south of the barbarians’ camp. His heavy-armed foot he placed in ambush on the western side where the wood was thickest.
Before daylight, while the savage horde were sleeping off the effects of the last night’s carouse, he, with his light-armed peltasts, or sharp-shooters, stole up the hill on its steepest side, towards the east, and, reaching the rough palisades which the rude warriors had thrown round their camp, suddenly broke in upon them. The barbarians, roused from their sleep by this unexpected assault, finding their fort broken at a point where, from the steepness of the hill, they thought themselves secure, and exaggerating in their fear the number of their assailants, who raised the most fearful shouts and yells as they rushed in, retreated from their high camp, after a faint resistance, and rushed, wherever they could find a way of escape, pell-mell down the hill. Those, the majority, who took the north side, as well as those who in their hurry chose the south, were despatched by the horsemen waiting for them on the plain below. Others, as the day broke, seeing the slaughter of their friends, made for the wood on the west, and were either taken prisoners or slain by the heavy-armed foot, who were there in ambush expecting them.
Alkibiades found a camp deserted by all except the women, who were chiefly those whom they had carried off from the villages round about; though the chiefs had brought a few with them from their own country. He gave the camp up to pillage, and, gathering the women together, he and Agrestides stood guard over them. His rude soldiers could not understand this. Satiated with the plunder they found, they hoped for a further reward. It was only by the voice and sword of the leader and his faithful friend that the otherwise defenceless prisoners were protected. The women who were natives of the country he sent to their homes with gifts; the women of the chiefs of the invading ruffians he kept as hostages. The prisoners taken were found to be men of gigantic size, and so hardy that no fatigue seemed to affect them. He confessed they would have been indeed formidable foes if they had been well armed and disciplined.
Thus he rescued Abdera from her terrible enemy. He also gave the people of that town some wise advice as to preparations for defending themselves, if others of that ferocious tribe, as was not improbable, should come at some future time upon them when he was not there to help them. This advice the citizens of Abdera remembered when it was too late. A few years afterwards the Treballi poured down again from their mountains in the north, and destroyed the effeminate inhabitants.
In return for what he had done for them, the citizens provided him with pay for his followers, and ships to transport them to the Chersonesos. He arrived at his fortress at the end of the summer, with the spoils of his barbaric enemies and considerable gifts and treasure, the marks of the gratitude of Grecian cities. He now paid off his men, and sent most of them as valuable auxiliaries to his friend Amadokos, who was still at war with his northern enemies, bargaining only that they should return to him whenever he might need their services.
Amadokos entreated him to come himself to lead his forces, but Alkibiades had other objects in view, and higher hopes than perpetual tribal warfare amongst the Thrakians. The king received this important assistance with expressions of eternal gratitude, and promised to come to fight with him against the enemies of Athens, if at any time the Athenians, his relations, might require his aid.