A Manual of Ancient History

by M. E. Thalheimer

192. In the midst of private grief and national dismay, the Athenians learned that their allies were deserting them. Alcibiades was stirring up revolts in Chios, which, with Lesbos and Eubœa, implored the aid of Sparta to free them from their dependence. The two satraps of Asia Minor sent envoys to the same power, inviting her coöperation in overthrowing the Athenian empire in Asia, and pledging Persian gold for the entire expense. To the lasting shame of Sparta, she concluded a treaty at Miletus, engaging to unite with Persia in a war against Athens, and to restore to the Persian dominion all the cities and territories which it had formerly embraced. This clause was explained, in a subsequent treaty, to include not only all the islands of the Ægean, but Thessaly and Bœotia, thus yielding to the Persians the field of Platæa, and fixing, their frontier on the very border of Attica. Miletus itself was immediately surrendered to Tissaphernes.

193. In this general defection Samos remained faithful, and afforded a most important station for the Athenian fleet during the remaining years of the war. The Samians, warned by the example of Chios, overthrew their oligarchical government, and the democracy thus established was acknowledged by Athens as an equal and independent ally. Great preparations were now made in Athens. The reserve fund of a thousand talents, which had lain untouched since the time of Pericles, was applied to fitting out a fleet against Chios. Once more the Athenians were successful, both by sea and land. Lesbos and Clazomenæ were reconquered, the Chians defeated, and, in a battle near Miletus, the Spartans themselves were overcome. That city remained in the hands of the Persians and Lacedæmonians, but the relations between these widely contrasted allies were no longer cordial. The Spartans were ashamed of their dealings with the great enemy of Greece, and Tissaphernes was under the influence of Alcibiades. This deeply plotting Athenian persuaded the satrap that it was not the interest of Persia to allow any party in Greece to become powerful, but, rather, to let them wear each other out by mutual hostilities, and then appropriate the domains of both. This advice tended most against the Spartans, who were now so strongly reinforced that they might soon have put an end to the war. Tissaphernes, accordingly, held the Spartan fleet inactive, waiting for the Phœnicians, who were never to appear; and when this pretext would no longer avail, he applied his golden arguments to its commanders with the same effect.

194. Alcibiades now sought to bring the satrap into alliance with Athens; and failing in this, he tried at least to convince his countrymen at Samos that he had power to effect such an alliance, for his sole desire was to be recalled to his native city. Hating and fearing the Athenian democracy, he made one condition, however, to his intercession with the Persian, which was, that a revolution should be effected, and an oligarchical government established. The generals at Samos acceded to this plan, and Pisander was sent to Athens to organize the political clubs in favor of the revolution.

When he presented the scheme of Alcibiades in the Assembly, a great tumult arose. The people clamored against the surrender of their rights; the Eumolpidæ protested against the return of a wretch who had profaned the Mysteries. Pisander could only plead the exhaustion and the misery of the Republic; but this argument, though distasteful, was unanswerable. The people reluctantly consented to the change in the constitution, and Pisander, with ten colleagues, was sent to treat with Alcibiades. The exile well knew that he had promised more than he could perform. To save his credit, he received the eleven ambassadors in the presence of Tissaphernes, and made such extravagant demands in his name, that they themselves angrily broke up the conference and withdrew.

B. C. 411.

195. Though convinced that they had been cheated by Alcibiades, they had now gone too far to recede from the proposed revolution. Pisander, with five of his colleagues, returned to Athens, while the rest went about among the allies to establish oligarchies. At Athens the old offices were abolished, and a Council of Four Hundred, chiefly self-elected, held power for four months. By the aid of the army at Samos, a counter-revolution was effected, and the leaders of the oligarchy were accused of treason for their dealings with the Spartans. Most of them fled; but two, Ar´cheptol´emus and Antiphon, were tried and executed.

196. The remainder of the Peloponnesian war was wholly maritime, and its scene of operations was on the coast of Asia Minor. The Spartans, by long practice and close collision with their great rivals, had become nearly equal to the Athenians in naval skill. Their attention to this arm of the service was shown by the yearly appointment of the navarchus, an officer whose power, while it lasted, was even greater than that of the kings, for he was above the control of the ephors.

B. C. 411.

197. Min´darus, the Spartan commander at Miletus, becoming disgusted with the fickle policy of Tissaphernes, set sail for the Hellespont, hoping to find the other satrap more constant to the Spartan alliance. He was followed by an Athenian fleet, under Thrasyl´lus, which, though less numerous than his own, inflicted upon him a severe defeat in the strait between Sestus and Abydus. Mindarus now sent for the allied fleet at Eubœa, but in passing Mount Athos it was overtaken by a violent storm, and wholly destroyed. The Athenians followed up their advantage by the capture of Cyz´icus, which had revolted from them; and, a few weeks later, gained another great battle near Abydus, by the timely aid of Alcibiades.

198. In the spring of 410, Mindarus was besieging Cyzicus, and the Athenians determined to relieve it. They passed up the Hellespont in the night, and assembled at Proconnesus. Alcibiades moved toward Cyzicus with his division of the fleet, and succeeded in enticing Mindarus to a distance from the harbor, while the other two divisions stole between him and the city, and thus cut off his retreat. A battle ensued, in which Mindarus was slain, the Spartans and their Persian allies routed, and the entire Peloponnesian fleet captured, except the Syracusan ships, which Hermocrates caused to be burnt.