Alkibiades, a tale of the Great Athenian War

by Charles Hamilton Bromby

Such was his dream. By degrees he unfolded his hopes and fears to Pharnabazos, and persuaded him to give his help in this great and difficult adventure. The satrap, too, could see visions rising up before him of even greater splendour than that which he had so long enjoyed. To be associated with one like this Grecian warrior in saving the king, his master, from treachery and treason must surely be rewarded by the highest honours that the king could possibly bestow. There was a possibility of even greater things, if anything unforeseen should happen to the king, and Kyros should be discomfited by this invincible Greek general; while if the contemplated mission failed, Kyros and his Spartan allies need never know the part that he had taken in it.

With a sufficiency, then, of Persian gold, and the safe-conduct of the satrap, Alkibiades set out late in the autumn, accompanied by Timandra and by the faithful Agrestides. The route to Babylon, the capital, where the king generally lived, was long and mountainous. At least three months, they expected, would be taken on the way.

They started from Daskylion with many expressions of eternal friendship on the part of their host, and making first for Azani and Synnada, they passed along the base of the range of Olympos, the northern boundary of Phrygia.

Pharnabazos had insisted on their taking an escort with them—at least, on the first part of the way; for he had to admit that the mountainous portions of his viceregal dominions were infested with robber tribes. The escort was almost as fierce, and to some of the party as terrible, as the robbers they came to scare away; and, when the open plain was reached by the banks of the Rhyndakos, the country looked so peaceable that Alkibiades sent the escort back with a large reward and a warm message of thanks to his generous friend.

The small party were not sorry to be relieved of their noisy and warlike protectors, who were too fond of displaying their extraordinary horsemanship and their deftness with their swords to the detriment of one another. In the still autumn weather everything on that fertile plain breathed of calm and peace, as though the hard work of the year was finished. So they journeyed on quietly, and with as little fuss as possible, for Alkibiades was anxious, as they got further south, and approached the territories of Kyros, to avoid the larger towns and the notice of the inhabitants. He had no wish for another sojourn in the castle of Sardis.

They reached Azani a week after they left Daskylion. Timandra would fain have rested there a little, being somewhat tired by the journey, but the leader said they must push on to a more secluded place and rest themselves there, before they set out upon the long and unknown road to Babylon. They started again almost immediately for Synnada, the next town of any importance which they must make for. Three days’ good travelling, with the lofty Dindymon upon their left, brought them at last to Synnada.

He had been thus far on the road from the Ionian coast before, and when staying at Magnesia with Tissaphernes, he had become the owner of a little villa, or Persian country house, near the village of Melissa, some five miles from the marble quarries of Synnada. For, some time previously, when tired of the life he was leading at the satrap’s court, and not knowing how long it might be before he was recalled to Athens, he had explored some distance into the interior of the land which we call Asia Minor, and coming suddenly upon this villa, he was struck with the beauty of the woods and hills around it, and had fixed upon the small country place as a spot to which he might retire with a friend, if need be, far from the bustle of the world, and where he might end his days in peace. Like many other energetic and ambitious men, he longed at times to be rid of his constant anxieties, and to enjoy a period of rest. The house he had chosen stood some way from the high-road which leads from Synnada to Metropolis. He had enlarged and improved his small domain, and had there been honoured by the presence of Tissaphernes, who came to visit him on one occasion when he, too, was tired of excess of luxury, and wanted to exchange the pleasures of his court for the undisturbed companionship of his bosom friend. At the end of that visit the satrap presented the small domain to his friend, made him come back with him to Magnesia, and Alkibiades, having been called away soon afterwards to Samos, had not seen since then his rural, calm retreat.

The travellers reached this place at the end of September. Timandra was enraptured with the charms of the lovely spot, and was for making Alkibiades stay there altogether and give up his great enterprise, letting kings and republics go their way, and resting there in peace for ever, without troubling himself more about the rights and wrongs of struggling men and women.

There was much indeed to make him loath to leave the pleasant scene, for it was very beautiful, and the journey before him was full of dangers and fatigues in unknown lands. He would first have to get as best he could to Ikonion by Mount Paroreios, more than a hundred miles away. Thence he would be obliged to journey south to cross the great Tauros chain by the high and dangerous pass to Tarsos on the sea-coast; then, after skirting the Mediterranean, to strike across Syria and North Arabia to the wide Euphrates; and then, perhaps, if the king was not at Babylon, to cross that river and the Tigris, and proceed to Susa.

All this was an unknown world to him. He and Agrestides must go alone,—perhaps never to return, and he might possibly end his life in a Persian dungeon, or leave his body on some mountain pass. However, he must not give way to foolish fears; he had gone through greater perils many times before, and a vista of fresh adventures, larger successes, opened up before him, ending ever with the attainment of the one fixed object of his thoughts and his desire—the liberation and the final triumph of his country.