Alkibiades, a tale of the Great Athenian War

by Charles Hamilton Bromby

Erythrai, the neighbouring town upon the coast, followed the example of the Chians. Alkibiades set off for Klazomenai, and persuaded the people there to join the new confederation against Athens. He was making up, indeed, for his late enforced inaction, everywhere at once, and was everywhere successful, serving his new friends well and faithfully, and bringing all beneath the spell of his potent personality.

But neither were his countrymen at Athens quiet. They, as he knew, possessed a treasure of ten thousand talents, laid up by his cousin Perikles, never to be used save at the last peril of the state. By law it was death to anyone who should even propose to touch this fund, unless a hostile fleet was actually approaching Athens. That law was now for the first time abrogated, and part of the money was used to equip a number of triremes. The seven ships of the Chians which had been taking part unwillingly in the blockade of the Spartan fleet were brought to the Peiræus. They were manned by Athenian sailors, and with some twelve or thirteen other ships under Strombichides were sent straightway to Ionia. Strombichides brought his ships to Teos on the mainland, hoping by this show of strength to keep the Teians faithful. Chalkideus and Alkibiades came after him with their fleet, now increased to twenty-five, by an addition of Chian ships and some more from the Peloponnesos. They were supported, too, on land by a body of soldiers from Klazomenai and by some Persian barbarians under the command of Stagès, the lieutenant of Tissaphernes. It was some time since Persian barbarians had been seen fighting in support of a Grecian state.

Strombichides, finding himself in this way attacked by sea and land, sailed off, followed by Chalkideus, who chased the Athenian ships as far as Samos. Alkibiades, with some other of the Spartan ships, sailed for Miletos, another town of Ionian origin, on the Asiatic continent, where he had many friends. He easily persuaded the inhabitants to join the league against his country.

Many reinforcements to each side arrived, during this time, upon the scene. Slight advantages were gained by both parties. At Samos the people, staunch democrats, rose in rebellion, and treated their oligarchic landlords roughly. They slew two hundred of these political opponents, banished four hundred more of them from Samos, and shared their lands amongst themselves. A democratic government was established, with the exiled Hyperbolos at its head. He had gone there on his unsuccessful attempt to ostracize Alkibiades, and was now leader of the popular party at Samos. The new government would have naught to do with Sparta. On the other hand, the Spartan fleet, which was blockaded by the Athenians near the Peiræus, broke out, inflicting some damage as it went, and augmented by fresh ships under Astyochos, who was made Admiral of all the Peloponnesian fleet in Ionia, joined the rest of the Spartan force on the Ionian coast. Thus the two great fleets, each with its full force of hoplites, were drawing towards each other in the eastern Aigaian Sea.

Miletos, the most important town upon the coast, and Chios were both invested by Athenian ships. Throughout the summer many small engagements, both by sea and land, were fought between the contending powers. In one of them Chalkideus, the friend and companion of Alkibiades, was slain. As autumn approached, the war concentrated round Miletos. A further supply of ships and men under one Phrynichos, and two other leaders, arrived from Athens, and with them came fifteen hundred Argives, still true to their allegiance. The ships joined the blockade of the port, after landing some troops, including the Argives, and laid siege to Miletos.

But Alkibiades was in the town working day and night to get the Milesian militia, about eight hundred strong, in fit order to make a desperate sortie. Besides these Milesians there was a body of over a thousand Spartan hoplites and a good force from Klazomenai within the walls of Miletos. There was also another person there who was to play no unimportant part in the remainder of the life of Alkibiades—Tissaphernes had come with some Persian cavalry. It was the first time these two men had met—the first time the finest gentleman in Greece had come into actual contact with the Persian nobleman and high official. The Persian was captivated by the pleasant manners, the wit, the varied powers, the commanding presence and personal beauty of the descendant of the ancient heroes of a race which the Persians had such good cause to hold in high respect.

The day at length arrived—it had seemed long in coming to the impatient exile—when the final effort must be made to drive the Athenians from the walls of Miletos. Much depended on that day’s work. If the Spartans and their allies could succeed in driving the Athenians to their ships, the whole fleet might be attacked at sea, while they were encumbered by the number of their troops on board, together with the wounded and the dying, after the engagement on the land. It was known, too, that another formidable Spartan squadron which had sailed some time since had been seen making for Iasos, not far off, and might soon be at Miletos. If the Athenian fleet and army were both beaten, the other islands and dependencies of Athens, which had feared up to this time to declare themselves, would rise against her domination. Thus, as far as anyone could see, this great effort might decide her fate.

At daybreak the city gates were opened. The Milesians, instructed and inspirited by Alkibiades, who led them, rushed on the Argive fifteen hundred who confronted them on the left of the Athenian siege-works. At the same time the Spartans and Klazomenians, issuing from the eastern gate, reached the Athenian right and centre works. Tissaphernes was so astonished at the way in which Alkibiades took his Milesians into action that he forgot to charge at the head of his Persian cavalry, and reserved them to pursue the enemy when the others should have put them to flight.

Thus Alkibiades, by a strange vicissitude of fortune, found himself face to face in deadly combat with his old friends the Argives, with whom he had no quarrel, whose alliance he had gained for Athens, and whom, by his influence, he had kept constant to her. These thoughts, which could not but come upon him as he led his Milesians against them, did not prevent him from doing desperate work among them. They broke and fled before him, leaving three hundred dead upon the field.

On the other side of the city other events were taking place. The Spartans and men of Klazomenai were utterly discomforted by the Athenian hoplites. On seeing this rout of their allies, the Milesians feared to pursue the Argives farther, lest the victorious Athenians might come round and outflank them, and, in spite of all their leader could do, they retired into the town by the gate from which they had rushed out. They found, when they returned, a host of Spartans and Klazomenians entering the town in terror and confusion, beaten back by those Athenians they had boasted the day before they could drive into the sea. The gates were closed, but the Athenians sat down again before the town, cutting it off almost entirely from supplies by land, while the fleet blockaded its port.