ALCIBIADES AGAIN TO THE FORE
[415-412 B.C.]
During his long residence in Sparta, Alcibiades assumed the outward gravity of deportment, and conformed himself to the spare diet, and laborious exercises, which prevailed in that austere republic; but his character and his principles remained as licentious as ever. His intrigue with Timæa, the spouse of king Agis, was discovered by an excess of female levity. The queen, vain of the attachment of so celebrated a character, familiarly gave the name of Alcibiades to her son Leotychides; a name which, first confined to the privacy of her female companions, was soon spread abroad in the world. Alcibiades punished her folly by a most mortifying but well-merited declaration, boasting that he had solicited her favours from no other motive but that he might indulge the ambitious desire of giving a king to Sparta. The offence itself, and the shameless avowal, still more provoking than the offence, excited the keenest resentment in the breast of the injured husband. The magistrates and generals of Sparta, jealous of the fame, and envious of the merit of a stranger, readily sympathised with the misfortune, and encouraged the revenge of Agis; and, as the horrid practice of assassination was still disgracing the manners of Greece, orders were sent to Astyochus, who commanded in chief the Peloponnesian forces in Asia, secretly to destroy Alcibiades, whose power defied those laws which in every Grecian republic condemned adulterers to death. But the active and subtile Athenian had secured too faithful domestic intelligence in the principal families of Sparta to become the victim of this execrable design. With his usual address he eluded all the snares of Astyochus: his safety, however, required perpetual vigilance and caution, and he determined to escape from the situation, which subjected him to such irksome restraint.
Publicly banished from Athens, secretly persecuted by Sparta, he had recourse to the friendship of Tissaphernes, who admired his accomplishments, and respected his abilities, which, though far superior in degree, were similar in kind to his own. Tissaphernes was of a temper the more readily to serve a friend, in proportion as he less needed his services. Alcibiades, therefore, carefully concealed from him the dangerous resentment of the Spartans. In the selfish breast of the Persian no attachment could be durable unless founded on interest; and Alcibiades, who had deeply studied his character, began to flatter his avarice, that he might insure his protection. He informed him, that by allowing the Peloponnesian sailors a drachma, or sevenpence sterling, of daily pay, he treated them with a useless and even dangerous liberality: that the pay given by the Athenians, even in the most flourishing times, amounted only to three oboli. Should the sailors prove dissatisfied with this equitable reduction, the Grecian character afforded an easy expedient for silencing their licentious clamours. It would be sufficient to bribe the naval commanders and a few mercenary orators, and the careless and improvident seamen would submit, without suspicion, the rate of their pay, as well as every other concern, to the influence and the authority of those who were accustomed to govern them.
Tissaphernes heard this advice with all the attention of an avaricious man to every proposal for saving his money; and so true a judgment had Alcibiades formed of the Greeks, that Hermocrates the Syracusan was the only officer who disdained, meanly and perfidiously, to betray the interest of the men under his command: yet through the influence of his colleagues, the plan of economy was universally adopted.
The intrigues of Alcibiades sowed jealousy and distrust in the Peloponnesian fleet: they alienated the minds of the troops both from Tissaphernes and from their commanders: the Persian was ready to forsake those whom he had learned to despise; and Alcibiades profited by this disposition to insinuate that the alliance of the Lacedæmonians was equally expensive and inconvenient for the Great King and his lieutenants.
These artful representations produced almost an open breach between Tissaphernes and his confederates. The advantage which Athens would derive from this rupture might have paved the way for Alcibiades to return to his country: but he dreaded to encounter that popular fury, whose effects he had fatally experienced, and whose mad resentment no degree of merit could appease; he therefore applied secretly to Pisander, Theramenes, and other persons of distinction in the Athenian camp. To them he deplored the desperate state of public affairs, expatiated on his own credit with Tissaphernes, and insinuated that it might be yet possible to prevent the Phœnician fleet from sailing to assist the enemy. Assuming gradually more boldness, he finally declared that the Athenians might obtain not merely the neutrality, but perhaps the assistance of Tissaphernes, should they consent to abolish their turbulent democracy, so odious to the Persians, and to entrust the administration of government to men worthy to negotiate with so mighty a monarch.
When the illustrious exile proposed this measure, it is uncertain whether he was acquainted with the secret cabals which had been already formed, both in the city and in the camp, for executing the design which he suggested. One man, the personal enemy of Alcibiades, alone opposed the general current. But this man was Phrynichus. The courage with which he invited dangers many have equalled, but none ever surpassed the boldness with which he extricated himself from difficulties. When he perceived that his colleagues were deaf to every objection against recalling the friend of Tissaphernes, he secretly informed the Spartan admiral Astyochus, of the intrigues which were carrying on to the disadvantage of his country. Daring as this treachery was, Phrynichus addressed a traitor not less perfidious than himself. Astyochus was become the pensioner and creature of Tissaphernes, to whom he communicated the intelligence. The Persian again communicated it to his favourite Alcibiades, who complained in strong terms to the Athenians of the baseness and villainy of Phrynichus.
The latter exculpated himself with address; but as the return of Alcibiades might prove fatal to his safety, he ventured, a second time, to write to Astyochus, gently reproaching him with his breach of confidence, and explaining by what means he might surprise the whole Athenian fleet at Samos; an exploit that must forever establish his fame and fortune. Astyochus again betrayed the secret to Tissaphernes and Alcibiades; but before their letters could be conveyed to the Athenian camp, Phrynichus, who, by some unknown channel, was informed of this second treachery, anticipated the dangerous discovery, by apprising the Athenians of their enemy’s design to surprise their fleet. They had scarcely employed the proper means to counteract that purpose when messengers came from Alcibiades to announce the horrid perfidy of a wretch who had basely sacrificed to private resentment the last hope of his country. But the messengers arrived too late; the prior information of Phrynichus, as well as the bold and singular wickedness of his design, which no common degree of evidence was thought sufficient to prove, were sustained as arguments for his exculpation; and it was believed that Alcibiades had made use of a stratagem most infamous in itself, but not unexampled among the Greeks, for destroying a man whom he detested.
The opposition of Phrynichus, though it retarded the designs of Alcibiades, prevented not the measures of Pisander and his associates for abolishing the democracy. The soldiers at Samos were induced, by reasons above mentioned, to acquiesce in the resolution of their generals. But a more difficult task remained; to deprive the people of Athens of their liberty which, since the expulsion of the family of Pisistratus, they had enjoyed a hundred years. Pisander headed the deputation which was sent from the camp to the city to effect this important revolution. He acquainted the extraordinary assembly, summoned on that occasion in the theatre of Bacchus, of the measures which had been adopted by their soldiers and fellow-citizens at Samos. The compact band of conspirators warmly approved the example; but loud murmurs of discontent resounded in different quarters of that spacious theatre. Pisander asked the reason of this disapprobation. “Had his opponents anything better to propose? If they had, let them come forward and explain the grounds of their dissent: but, above all, let them explain how they could save themselves, their families, and their country, unless they complied with the demand of Tissaphernes. The imperious voice of necessity was superior to law; and when the actual danger had ceased, they might re-establish their ancient constitution.” The opponents of Pisander were unable or afraid to reply: and the assembly passed a decree, investing ten ambassadors with full powers to treat with the Persian satrap.