The troops and sailors and all the people were looking out for him at Samos. As the triremes came out to meet and welcome him on the bright May day on which he reached the port, he could almost imagine that his long exile was already ended. An assembly of Athenians was speedily called together. Alkibiades stood up before them; but what could he say to them? His usual clear, incisive sentences were broken by his unconcealed emotion. He could not but be affected when standing once more before his countrymen, after his long and weary wanderings. It was a foretaste of another great assembly, in another place, to which he knew he would be recalled some day, and in which he would be received with even greater shouts and gratulations by the people.
He spoke to them at first a little of his wanderings and sufferings. But this, he said, was not a time for speaking of the past. It was as active men, prepared to meet with many difficulties and a dangerous future, that he met them there that day. He spoke with courage and with the certitude of final triumph. Whatever he could do to aid them with his right arm, or his counsel, they might claim from him. Whatever influence he had with Persia, through the Ionian satrap, he would use to its utmost on their behalf. He told them of his great friendship with the satrap, and how that potent Minister of the Persian king had promised to assist them.
The story of what he had undergone through the unjust suspicions of his countrymen, excited by the slanders of his enemies, moved all who heard him. His self-reliance, his ability, cheered and encouraged them. His assurance of Persian aid raised their hopes to the highest pitch of expectation. They chose him with one voice commander of the Athenian forces, with absolute power to deal with friends and foes.
CHAPTER XX
‘Thassay so sharp, so hard the conquering.’
Chaucer: Par. of Foules.
There was plenty of work to do at Samos all that summer—defences to be made secure, old ships to be repaired and new ones built, military exercises to be gone through day by day. There were constant alarms to keep them on the alert. The Spartan fleet, which had been laid up for the most part at Rhodes through the past winter, pending the arrival of the long-promised armament from Persia, had been launched again, and taken in state to Miletos, where it stood threatening those at Samos. A Lakedaimonian general, they heard, had marched north towards the Hellespont, and was engaged in stirring up the cities on the way which were still faithful to the Athenian alliance. Abydos and Lampsakos had already thrown off the yoke. Spartan emissaries were at Byzantion, and in treaty with Pharnabazos, satrap of the Propontis, who, three years ago, had made offers of alliance to Sparta.
Then appalling news came that Tissaphernes was again negotiating with the Lakedaimonian commissioners. It was reported that he had actually concluded a fresh treaty with them, by which he pledged himself to renew his promised pay, and bring that wonderful fleet at last from Aspendos, that much-desired aid which was always coming, but which never came.
As soon as Alkibiades was elected general, he determined to go and see for himself what his Persian friend was doing. He knew the weakness of the Viceroy’s character—how easily, in his absence, the Spartans might persuade or frighten him into carrying out his promises to them. The whole Athenian fleet at the new Athens, as Samos was called, escorted him some way upon his journey, making no secret of the mission upon which the general was going to Tissaphernes. The Eros was refitted, and if not quite so gay as it had been before time, and if hard work had made both the ship and its commander look less glorious than they had once appeared, yet, as he stood once more on the well-known deck, he could almost fancy that all was as it had been four years ago.