For a moment he paused. The anger of the troops was overwhelming and dangerous. Had he power to restrain them any longer? If he refused to lead them, might they not depose him and choose a more pliant leader? So near the completion of his work, was he to see it all destroyed? His hopes so nearly realized—were they all to be abandoned? And for what? For a too sensitive regard for a place and people which had thrust him from them as an evildoer. Must he stay there always to protect her outposts when, by a word, he might be ruling in her midst? How long was he to watch over her here at Samos, while miscreants ate her life out of her at home, and were even now negotiating with her enemies to come and enslave her—enslave his Athens—if only for a little while they might so prop up their falling tyranny? Was it not his duty to put a stop to that? The temptation was getting too strong for him.
Stand firm now, oh man. It may be some years yet before you see her. Not more than half your wandering, troubled exile may be over. And when you do return to her, your sad fate may send you quickly off to fight for her again, and you may again be sacrificed by her. And then through all the ages that shall come, when historians record your exploits, your victories, your wrongs, your triumphs; when new peoples shall have risen on the earth who can afford to smile at all the extraordinary fuss once made about your four-horse chariot races; when there shall be no more wars, and no more massacres of human folk or mangling of poor helpless animals; when nations shall no longer intrigue or conspire against each other, this shall be writ and read concerning you, as your most glorious deed—that you refused at such a time to go to govern Athens at the risk of hurting her, or to return at all to her till you could come unto that lovely mother with hands and arms full to overflowing with the blessings you could shower upon her head.
He rejected the temptation. With such a leader, whom even hostile writers hail as the liberator, the saviour of Athens—with such a one to lead them, his warrior citizens could also wait.
He pointed out to the excited sailors and hoplites what the result must be of abandoning this last Athenian outpost. Though they might save Athens from the usurpers, there would be little left to her when all her insular dependencies were gone.
‘Let the usurping tyrants alone for a while. Through their own rottenness they will fall to pieces of themselves. Athens will have greater cause to thank us if we preserve her distant territories than if we abandon them, even to save her.’
Thus he recalled the troops to reason and to their duty when some of them were in the act of leaving Samos in their ships.
When this ardour was quieted for a time, there came a welcome embassy from Argos. Those old friends and allies of his were true to him still, although he had beaten fifteen hundred of them at Miletos. They had been disgusted with the proceedings of the rest of the Athenians, but now that they heard he was at the head of affairs at Samos, they sent to offer their assistance in restoring to Athens her democracy.
Things were in such a good way in that island now that he was able to send Thrasyboulos with five triremes to blockade Eresos, in the island of Lesbos, which had revolted, and he was preparing another squadron to help the other fleet, which was still blockading Chios, when most exciting news came, interrupting all his other plans and preparations.
He had kept himself well informed of what was going on at Magnesia. The immediate future, perhaps the long-distant future, for both Athens and Sparta depended at this moment on Tissaphernes. The two Greek fleets balanced each other pretty evenly. Any addition to either would turn the scale. An addition of three hundred, or even one hundred, big warships to either side must swamp the other hopelessly. So now, when on the tenth of August, according to our style, 411 years before our era, Agrestides came with secret intelligence that Tissaphernes, at length seriously frightened by threats of Spartan commissioners to break off the alliance and return to Sparta and leave Athens to recover her old dependencies, had actually set off himself for Aspendos to fetch the Persian fleet, and had taken the commissioner Lichas and the commander Philippos with him, that they might see for themselves that he really was this time in earnest, then Alkibiades felt he must act at once, and with the greatest speed and energy, if this decisive action was by any means to be prevented.
When Agrestides left the mainland for Samos with the news, Tissaphernes, in his state long-ship, followed by the Spartans in two triremes, had also left Miletos, and was now coasting down the Asiatic continent, and must, by the time the message reached Alkibiades, have got some distance on his way. The general knew Persian habits, and that Persians were not fond of moving too rapidly. He knew it took some time to overcome the vis inertiæ that was in their nature, and that in the case of Tissaphernes the habitual deliberation which marked their movements would not be easily startled into action on a business which, for more than one reason, he wished to be indefinitely postponed. Alkibiades knew, too, that there were no three hundred ships lying off Aspendos, and that Persian authorities did not waste their wealth on ships of war, which might never be wanted after all. He knew how many and great were the opportunities of spending their revenues in a way which more nearly concerned their own enjoyments. So he guessed that the voyage of Tissaphernes to Aspendos would not be rapid if he were left to himself. But there were two energetic Spartans with the satrap, and these might urge him on. So Agrestides had hardly finished his disquieting news before orders had been given to get thirteen of the quickest triremes in readiness to start in pursuit of the satrap and the persistent Spartans.