Part 521

While Athens was in the throes of its revolution, "the war was prosecuted with vigour on the coast of Asia Minor. Mindarus, who now commanded the Peloponnesian fleet, disgusted at length by the often-broken promises of Tissaphernes, and the scanty and irregular pay which he furnished, set sail from Miletus and proceeded to the Hellespont, with the intention of assisting the satrap Pharnabazus, and of effecting, if possible, the revolt of the Athenian dependencies in that quarter. Hither he was pursued by the Athenian fleet under Thrasyllus. In a few days an engagement ensued (in August, 411 B. C.), in the famous straits between Sestos and Abydos, in which the Athenians, though with a smaller force, gained the victory, and erected a trophy on the promontory of Cynossema [see CYNOSSEMA] near the tomb and chapel of the Trojan queen Hecuba. The Athenians followed up their victory by the reduction of Cyzicus, which had revolted from them. A month or two afterward, another obstinate engagement took place between the Peloponnesian and Athenian fleets near Abydos, which lasted a whole day, and was at length decided in favour of the Athenians by the arrival of Alcibiades with his squadron of 18 ships from Samos."

_W. Smith, Smaller History of Greece, chapter 13. _

{1590}

Alcibiades, although recalled, had "resolved to delay his return until he had performed such exploits as might throw fresh lustre over his name, and endear him to all classes of his fellow-citizens. With this ambition he sailed with a small squadron from Samos, and having gained information that Mindarus, with the Peloponnesian fleet, had gone in pursuit of the Athenian navy, he hastened to afford his countrymen succour. Happily he arrived at the scene of action, near Abydos, at a most critical moment; when, after a severe engagement, the Spartans had on one side obtained an advantage, and were pursuing the broken lines of the Athenians. … He speedily decided the fortune of the day, completely routed the Spartans, … broke many of their ships in pieces, and took 30 from them. … His vanity after this signal success had, however, nearly destroyed him; for, being desirous of appearing to Tissaphernes as a conqueror instead of a fugitive, he hastened with a splendid retinue to visit him, when the crafty barbarian, thinking he should thus appease the suspicions of the Spartans, caused him to be arrested and confined in prison at Sardis. Hence, however, he found means to escape. … He sailed immediately for the Athenian camp to diffuse fresh animation among the soldiers, and induce them hastily to embark on an expedition against Mindarus and Pharnabazus, who were then with the residue of the Peloponnesian fleet at Cyzicum" (Cyzicus). Mindarus was defeated and killed and Pharnabazus driven to flight (B. C. 410). "Alcibiades pursued his victory, took Cyzicum without difficulty, and, staining his conquest with a cruelty with which he was not generally chargeable, put to death all the Peloponnesians whom he found within the city. A very short space of time elapsed after this brilliant success before Alcibiades found another occasion to deserve the gratitude of Athens," by defeating Pharnabazus, who had attacked the troops of Thrasyllus while they were wasting the territory of Abydos. He next reduced Chalcedon, bringing it back into the Athenian alliance, and once more defeating Pharnabazus, when the Persian satrap attempted to relieve the town. He also recovered Selymbria, and took Byzantium (which had revolted) after a severe fight (B. C. 408). "Alcibiades having raised the fortunes of his country from the lowest state of depression, not only by his brilliant victories, but his conciliating policy, prepared to return and enjoy the praise of his successes. He entered the Piræus [B. C. 407] in a galley adorned with the spoils of numerous victories, followed by a long line of ships which he had taken from the foe. … The whole city came down to the harbour to see and welcome him, and took no notice of Thrasybulus or Theramenes, his fellow-commanders. … An assembly of the people being convened, he addressed them in a gentle and modest speech, imputing his calamities not to their envy, but to some evil genius which pursued him. He exhorted them to take courage, bade them oppose their enemies with all the fresh inspiration of their zeal, and taught them to hope for happier days. Delighted with these assurances, they presented him with a crown of brass and gold, which never was before given to any but the Olympic victors, invested him with absolute control over their naval and military affairs, restored to him his confiscated wealth, and ordered the ministers of religion to absolve him from the curses which they had denounced against him. Theodorus, however, the high-priest, evaded the last part of the decree, by alleging that he had never cast any imprecation on him, if he had committed no offence against the republic. The tablets on which the curses against him had been inscribed were taken to the shore, and thrown with eagerness into the sea. His next measure heightened, if possible, the brief lustre of his triumph. In consequence of the fortification of Decelea by the Lacedæmonians, and their having possession of the passes of the country, the procession to Eleusis, in honour of Athene, had been long unable to take its usual course, and being conducted by sea, had lost many of its solemn and august ceremonials. He now, therefore, offered to conduct the solemnity by land. … His proposal being gladly accepted, he placed sentinels on the hills; and, surrounding the consecrated band with his soldiers, conducted the whole to Eleusis and back to Athens, without the slightest opposition, or breach of that order and profound stillness which he had exhorted the troops to maintain. After this graceful act of homage to the religion he was once accused of destroying, he was regarded by the common people as something more than human; they looked on him as destined never to know defeat, and believed their triumph was certain so long as he was their commander. But, in the very height of his popularity, causes of a second exile were maturing. The great envied him in proportion to the people's confidence, and that confidence itself became the means of his ruin: for, as the people really thought the spell of invincibility was upon him, they were prepared to attribute the least pause in his career of glory to a treacherous design. He departed with a hundred vessels, manned under his inspection, with colleagues of his own choice, to reduce the isle of Chios to obedience. At Andros he once more gained a victory over both the natives and the Spartans, who attempted to assist them. But, on his arrival at the chief scene of action, he found that he would be unable to keep the soldiers from deserting, unless he could raise money to pay them sums more nearly equal to those which the Lacedæmonians offered, than the pay he was able to bestow. He was compelled, therefore, to leave the fleet [at Notium] and go into Caria in order to obtain supplies. While absent on this occasion, he left Antiochus in the command. … To this officer Alcibiades gave express directions that he should refrain from coming to an engagement, whatever provocations he might receive. Anxious, however, to display his bravery, Antiochus took the first occasion to sail out in front of the Lacedæmonian fleet, which lay near Ephesus, under the command of Lysander, and attempt, by insults, to incite them to attack him. Lysander accordingly pursued him; the fleets came to the support of their respective admirals, and a general engagement ensued, in which Antiochus was slain, and the Athenians completely defeated. On receiving intelligence of this unhappy reverse, Alcibiades hastened to the fleet, and eager to repair the misfortune, offered battle to the Spartans; Lysander, however, did not choose to risk the loss of his advantage by accepting the challenge, and the Athenians were compelled to retire. This event, for which no blame really attached to Alcibiades, completed the ruin of his influence at Athens. {1591} It was believed that this, the first instance of his failure, must have arisen from corruption, or, at least, from a want of inclination to serve his country. He was also accused of leaving the navy under the direction of those who had no other recommendation to the charge but having been sharers in his luxurious banquets, and of having wandered about to indulge in profligate excesses. … On these grounds, the people in his absence took from him his command, and confided it to other generals. As soon as he heard of this new act of ingratitude, he resolved not to return home, but withdrew into Thrace, and fortified three castles … near to Perinthus. Here, having collected a formidable band, as an independent captain, he made incursions on the territories of those of the Thracians who acknowledged no settled form of government, and acquired considerable spoils."

_Sir T. N. Talfourd, Early History of Greece (Encyclopedia Metropolitana), chapter 11._

ALSO IN: _C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 29 (volume 4)._

_Plutarch, Alcibiades._

_Xenophon, Hellenica, book 1, chapters 1-4._

GREECE: B. C. 406. The Peloponnesian War: Battle of Arginusæ. Trial and execution of the generals at Athens.

Alcibiades was succeeded by Conon and nine colleagues in command of the Athenian fleet on the coast of Asia Minor. The Athenians, soon afterwards, were driven into the harbor of Mitylene, on the island of Lesbos, by a superior Peloponnesian fleet, commanded by Callicratidas, and were blockaded there with small chance of escape. Conon contrived to send news of their desperate situation to Athens, and vigorous measures were promptly taken to rescue the fleet and to save Mitylene. Within thirty days, a fleet of 110 triremes was fitted out at the Piræus, and manned with a crew which took nearly the last able-bodied Athenian to make it complete. At Samos these were joined by 40 more triremes, making 150 in all, against which Callicratidas was able to bring out only 120 ships from Mitylene, when the relieving armament approached. The two fleets encountered one another near the islands of Arginusæ, off Cape Malea, the southern promontory of Lesbos. In the battle that ensued, which was the greatest naval conflict of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians were completely victorious; Callicratidas was drowned and no less than 77 of the Peloponnesian ships were destroyed, while the Athenians themselves lost 25. As the result of this battle Sparta again made overtures of peace, as she had done after the battle of Cyzicus, and Athens, led by her demagogues, again rejected them. But the Athenian demagogues and populace did worse. They summoned home the eight generals who had won the battle of Arginusæ, to answer to a charge of having neglected, after the victory, to pick up the floating bodies of the Athenian dead and to rescue the drowning from the wrecked ships of their fleet. Six of the accused generals came home to meet the charge; but two thought it prudent to go into voluntary exile. The six were brought to trial; the forms of legality were violated to their prejudice and all means were unscrupulously employed to work up the popular passion against them. One man, only, among the prytanes—senators, that is, of the tribe then presiding, and who were the presidents of the popular assembly—stood out, without flinching, against the lawless rage of his fellow citizens, and refused, in calm scorn of all fierce threats against himself, to join in taking the unconstitutional vote. That one was the philosopher Socrates. The generals were condemned to death and received the fatal draught of hemlock from the same populace which pressed it a little later to the lips of the philosopher. "Thus died the son of Pericles and Aspasia [one of the generals, who bore his father's name], to whom his father had made a fatal gift in obtaining for him the Attic citizenship, and with him Erasinides, Thrasylus, Lysias, Aristocrates, and Diomedon. The last-named, the most innocent of all, who had wished that the whole fleet should immediately be employed in search of the wrecked, addressed the people once more; he expressed a wish that the decree dooming him to death might be beneficial to the state, and called upon his fellow-citizens to perform the thanksgiving offerings to the saving gods which they, the generals, had vowed on account of their victory. These words may have sunk deep into the hearts of many of his hearers; but their only effect has been to cast a yet brighter halo in the eyes of subsequent generations around the memory of these martyrs. Their innocence is best proved by the series of glaring infractions of law and morality which were needed to ensure their destruction, as well as by the shame and repugnance which seized upon the citizens, when they had recognized how fearfully, they had been led astray by a traitorous faction.

_E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 4, chapter 5 (volume 3)._

Mr. Grote attempts to uphold a view more unfavorable to the generals and less severe upon the Athenian people.

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 64._

ALSO IN: _Xenophon, Hellenica, book 1, chapters 5-7._

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 424-406.

GREECE: B. C. 405. The Peloponnesian War Decisive battle of Aigospotamoi. Defeat of the Athenians.

After the execution of the generals, "no long time passed before the Athenians repented of their madness and their crimes: but, yielding still to their old besetting sin, they insisted, as they had done in the days of Miltiades and after the catastrophe at Syracuse, on throwing the blame not on themselves but on their advisers. This great crime began at once to produce its natural fruits. The people were losing confidence in their officers, who, in their turn, felt that no services to the state could secure them against illegal prosecutions and arbitrary penalties. Corruption was eating its way into the heart of the state, and treason was losing its ugliness in the eyes of many who thought themselves none the worse for dallying with it. … The Athenian fleet had fallen back upon Samos; and with this island as a base, the generals were occupying themselves with movements, not for crushing the enemy, but for obtaining money. … The Spartans, whether at home or on the Asiatic coast, were now well aware that one more battle would decide the issue of the war; for with another defeat the subsidies of the Persians would be withdrawn from them as from men doomed to failure, and perhaps be transferred to the Athenians. In the army and fleet the cry was raised that Lysandros was the only man equal to the emergency. Spartan custom could not appoint the same man twice to the office of admiral; but when Arakos was sent out with Lysandros [Lysander] as his secretary, it was understood that the latter was really the man in power." {1592} In the summer of 405 B. C. Lysandros made a sudden movement from the southern Ægean to the Hellespont, and laid siege to the rich town of Lampsacus, on the Asiatic side. The Athenians followed him, but not promptly enough to save Lampsacus, which they found in his possession when they arrived. They took their station, thereupon, at the mouth of the little stream called the Aigospotamoi (the Goat's Stream), directly opposite to Lampsacus, and endeavored for four successive days to provoke Lysandros to fight. He refused, watching his opportunity for the surprise which he effected on the fifth day, when he dashed across the narrow channel and caught the Athenian ships unprepared, their crews mostly scattered on shore. One only, of the six Athenian generals, Conon, had foreseen danger and was alert. Conon, with twelve triremes, escaped. The remaining ships, about one hundred and seventy in number, were captured almost without the loss of a man on the Peloponnesian side. Of the crews, some three or four thousand Athenians were pursued on shore and taken prisoners, to be afterwards slaughtered in cold blood. Two of the incapable generals shared their fate. Of the other generals who escaped, some at least were believed to have been bribed by Lysandros to betray the fleet into his hands. The blow to Athens was deadly. She had no power of resistance left, and when her enemies closed around her, a little later, she starved within her walls until resistance seemed no longer heroic, and then gave herself up to their mercy.

_G. W. Cox, The Athenian Empire, chapter 7._

ALSO IN: _C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 30 (volume 4)._

_Plutarch, Lysander._

_Xenophon, Hellenica, book 2, chapter 1._

GREECE: B. C. 404. End of the Peloponnesian War. Fall of Athens.

See ATHENS: B. C. 404.

GREECE: B. C. 404-403. The Year of Anarchy at Athens. Reign of the Thirty.

See ATHENS: B. C. 404-403.

GREECE: B. C. 401-400. The expedition of Cyrus, and the Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks.

See PERSIA: B. C.,401-400.

GREECE: B. C. 399-387. Spartan war with Persia. Greek confederacy against Sparta. The Corinthian War. Peace of Antalcidas.

The successful retreat of the Ten Thousand from Cunaxa, through the length of the Persian dominions (B. C. 401-400), and the account which they brought of the essential hollowness of the power of the Great King, produced an important change among the Greeks in their estimate of the Persian monarchy as an enemy to be feared. Sparta became ashamed of having abandoned the Greek cities of Asia Minor to their old oppressors, as she did after breaking the strength of their protector, Athens, in the Peloponnesian War. When, therefore, the Persians began to lay siege to the coast cities which resisted them, Sparta found spirit enough to interfere (B. C. 399) and sent over a small army, into which the surviving Cyreans were also enlisted. The only immediate result was a truce with the Persian satrap. But, meantime, the Athenian general Conon—he who escaped with a few triremes from Ægospotami and fled to Cyprus—had there established relations with the Persian court at Susa and had acquired a great influence, which he used to bring about the creation of a powerful Persian armament against Sparta, himself in command. The news of this armament, reaching Sparta, provoked the latter to a more vigorous prosecution of the war in Asia Minor. King Agesilaus took the field in Ionia with a strong army and conducted two brilliant campaigns (B. C. 396-395), pointing the way, as it were, to the expedition of Alexander a couple of generations later. The most important victory won was on the Pactolus, not far from Sardis. But, in the midst of his successes, Agesilaus was called home by troubles which arose in Greece. Sparta, by her arrogance and oppressive policy, had already alienated all the Greek states which helped her to break down Athens in the Peloponnesian War. Persian agents, with money, had assisted her enemies to organize a league against her. Thebes and Athens, first, then Argos and Corinth, with several of the lesser states, became confederated in an agreement to overthrow her domination. In an attempt to crush Thebes, the Spartans were badly beaten at Haliartus (B. C. 395), where their famous Lysander, conqueror of Athens, was killed. Their power in central and northern Greece was virtually annihilated, and then followed a struggle with their leagued enemies for the control or the Corinthian isthmus, whence came the name of the Corinthian War. It was this situation of things at home which called back King Agesilaus from his campaigns in Asia Minor. He had scarcely crossed the Hellespont on his return, in July B. C. 394, before all his work in Asia was undone by an overwhelming naval victory achieved at Cnydus by the Athenian Conon, commanding the Persian-Phœnician fleet. With his veteran army, including the old Cyreans, now returning home after seven years of incredible adventures and hardships, he made his way through all enemies into Bœotia and fought a battle with the league at Coronea, in which he so far gained a victory that he held the field, although the fruits of it were doubtful. The Spartans on the isthmus had also just gained a considerable success near Corinth, on the banks of the Nemea. On the whole, the results of the war were in their favor, until Conon and the Persian satrap, Pharnabazus, came over with the victorious fleet from Cnydus and lent its aid to the league. The most important proceeding of Conon was to rebuild (B. C. 393), with the help of his Persian friends, the Long Walls of Athens, which the Peloponnesians had required to be thrown down eleven years before. By this means he restored to Athens her independence and secured for her a new career of commercial prosperity. During six years more the war was tediously prolonged, without important or decisive events, while Sparta intrigued to detach the Persian king from his Athenian allies and the latter intrigued to retain his friendship. In the end, all parties were exhausted—Sparta, perhaps, least so—and accepted a shameful peace which was practically dictated by the Persian and had the form of an edict or mandate from Susa, in the following terms: "The king, Artaxerxes, deems it just that the cities in Asia, with the islands of Clazomenae and Cyprus, should belong to himself; the rest of the Hellenic cities he thinks it just to leave independent, both small and great, with the exception of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which three are to belong to Athens as of yore. Should any of the parties concerned not accept this peace, I, Artaxerxes, will war against him or them with those who share my views. {1593} This will I do by land and by sea, with ships and with money." By this, called the Peace of Antalcidas (B. C. 387) from the Lacedæmonian who was instrumental in bringing it about, the Ionian Greeks were once more abandoned to the Persian king and his satraps, while Sparta, which assumed to be the administrator and executor of the treaty, was confirmed in her supremacy over the other Grecian states.

_Xenophon, Hellenica (translated by Dakyns), books 3-5 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN: _C. Sankey, The Spartan and Theban Supremacies, chapters 7-9._

_W. Mitford, History of Greece, chapters 24-25 (volume 4)._

_G. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, volume 3; Persia, chapter 7._

GREECE: B. C. 385. Destruction of Mantinea by the Spartans.