‘In war was never lion raged more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was this young and princely gentleman.’
RICHARD II.
AS they drew near Magnesia they were struck with the beauty and
splendour of the place, differing so greatly from the magnificence of
Athens or any other place they had seen. There was little architectural
art in the form of temples or of statues. Art here was found chiefly in
the beauty of the gardens, in directing Nature, and in adding to man’s
luxury and comfort. As they reached the dwelling of the satrap, they
were astonished at the vastness of the grounds through which they rode,
the trees, the flowering shrubs, the roses, the citrons, and the
myrtles. At length they reached the palace. Servants in gay Eastern
dresses, bright with many colours, were about the doors, the courts and
the arcades, some actively engaged in preparing for the banquet, others
lounging about or squatting on the ground as though they had nothing
else to do in life but to enjoy its sunshine, till a court-official came
with whip in hand to set the lazy dogs to work.
The Nubian porter was surprised at the appearance of the travellers. The
commanding presence of one of them increased his wonder. When he saw the
eager joy with which his lord and master, the mighty satrap, embraced
him, his surprise was great indeed. The slaves had never heard of
Alkibiades. They looked upon the Greeks as pale islanders who had
settled on the coast, protected by the satrap of the King of Kings, and
allowed by him to live as long as they paid tribute.
The reception by Tissaphernes was as warm and cordial as could be. After
the traveller had refreshed himself by rest and a luxurious bath, such
as he had not been able to enjoy for many a day, a banquet of more than
usual splendour was given in honour of the Athenian.
He soon became the inseparable companion of the satrap, for there was a
joyaunce in his whole demeanour, something peculiar and loveable about
him, a gaiety and sprightliness in all he said and did, that relieved
the monotony of life, and shed a lustre round it day by day; a
spaciousness and beauty in his graver thoughts, a brightness even in the
small, familiar opinions he expressed, on men and manners, that made all
listen to him when he spoke; while there was a grace and beauty in his
countenance which brightened and adorned everything about him.
He who lately had made the Spartans wonder at the hardness and
simplicity of his life now astonished the effeminate Persians by the
softness, gentleness, even the effeminacy, of his ways. He adopted all
their habits, and amongst those luxurious Easterns none was more
splendidly luxurious than he, or a more joyous companion in the
pleasures and the pastimes of the satrap’s court. But when the viceregal
hunt took place in the vast Magnesian “paradise,” the supple Greek threw
off, for the time, his newly-assumed soft, dallying ways, and showed how
his horse was fleetest in pursuit of deer, his spear of surest aim when
the wild boar came across his path. And when high matters of state had
to be considered, there was no counsellor so wise, none whose judgment
was so luminous, or on whose sage diplomacy his friend and host could so
implicitly rely. In a short time he gained a complete ascendancy in the
councils of the Persian, who entered on no course of action save by the
guidance of his constant companion and incomparable friend.
Alkibiades began by suggesting that perhaps it was not wise to let the
Lakedaimonians become too strong. Athens, he said, was well-nigh crushed
in Greece. Sparta had Athens in her power by land; if she was aided
further by the Persian fleet and Persian money, she would gain complete
mastery by sea, become too strong, be puffed up with pride and
insolence, and kick against the terms of her treaty with the Persian
king. The Spartans were a people of proverbially bad faith. It was
better that these two powers should balance one another than that either
should preponderate. It was the best course to let them go on destroying
one another. Then Persia would gain an ascendancy in Ionia and in the
Aigaian Sea. On the other hand, if it should happen that Athens ever did
become a tributary state to Sparta, which now seemed not impossible, the
Persians would have at great expense and loss to combat the successful
state, in order to keep it within reasonable limits. These arguments had
no little weight with Tissaphernes.
‘What, then, do you advise?’ he asked.
‘Keep back your fleet indefinitely. Reduce your payments to the
Spartans. Pay them no more than three obols a day, and do not pay that
too regularly.’
‘But if the Spartans threaten to break off the alliance before Athens is
sufficiently weakened?’ objected Tissaphernes.
‘Point out to them that the Athenians allow their sailors but three
obols, that the war has already lasted so long without result that it is
impossible to go on paying the subsidy much longer. And the Spartan
admirals and high officials are not above taking a small bribe—pay them,
and they will not complain too loudly of the reduction of the payment to
their men. Treat the towns and islands that have thrown off their
allegiance to Athens in the same way—forget to pay the subsidy that you
have promised.’
This advice was taken. It not only had the appearance of sound policy,
but it happened to agree with the interests of Tissaphernes, who, like
some others, would rather spend the money he squeezed out of the
subjects of the king on his own delights and favourites than squander it
in paying subsidies to other nations.
At the end of the next month the drachma a day for each man in the
Spartan fleet remained unpaid, nor could their leaders get a
satisfactory answer to their importunities. At length some of the high
commissioners came to demand, rather indignantly, the fulfilment of the
treaty. Tissaphernes received them courteously, and promised to put
their grievances before the great king his master, and do his best to
get the Persian fleet to come as soon as possible to their assistance.
He assured them it would not be long before the order was given, and in
the meantime he counselled them not to engage the Athenians at sea. As
to the non-payment of the subsidy, he promised that something should be
given at once, and a private douceur to each of the commissioners
softened their feelings with regard to the ill-paid sailors. They
returned to Rhodes and laid up the chief part of their fleet there for
the present. It remained laid up all the autumn and the winter, a
respite of incalculable benefit to Athens.
When the revolted Ionian towns came to complain that the pecuniary
assistance promised them when they forsook the Athenian alliance was not
paid, they were received in audience by Alkibiades, who seemed to manage
everything now for Tissaphernes.
‘What!’ said he to those from Chios in a tone of anger. ‘You, the
richest of the Greek islands, you who owe your freedom from the yoke of
Athens to the Persians, you ask for money from them! Before you
revolted, how much had you to pay to Athens? Ought you not to make as
great, or greater, sacrifices now when it concerns your liberty?’
They went away dissatisfied.
At Samos the feeling we lately saw growing amongst the Athenians there
was daily becoming more acute. Both army and navy were verging on an
open demonstration against the government at home. Alkibiades, never
idle, in the midst of his apparent indolence, was not ignorant of the
movement. And so it happened that one day, towards the end of the autumn
of 412, a sailor named Agrestides landed at Samos. He was not long in
making friends among the Athenian sailors who swarmed about Samos doing
nothing. They met in the wine-shops, on the quays, in many places.
Agrestides had been in the Sicilian expedition, and had escaped, he
said, after the fatal fight at Syrakuse, when the whole fleet with
almost all the Athenian sailors was lost. He had been picked up by a
Carthaginian vessel, and after many wanderings and adventures had found
himself at Sparta, where he had passed as a Messanian; thence, he told
them, he had got on board a Spartan ship and had gone with certain
Spartan commissioners to Kaunos, and so on to Miletos. While there he
had met his old general, Alkibiades, who was, he heard, greater than
ever, and was now governing, in the satrap’s name, all the Ionian
possessions of the Persian king.’
Having listened to this not improbable romance, they wanted to know more
about Sicily and the fatal expedition, for then they would hear more
about Alkibiades. Alkibiades was the hero of the fleet at Samos. They
all wanted to hear of him. Even while he had been dealing the deadliest
blows at them through Sparta, the Athenians had felt a sort of pride in
him. It was not so much Lakedaimôn that was fighting them as it was one
of themselves, justly incensed at the wrong the misled demos had done
him, who was punishing them. And when Lakedaimôn in turn found he was
too great for them, it was he, an Athenian, who was managing
Tissaphernes, and leading Lakedaimôn such a dance as she had little
bargained for.
Agrestides, having made due observation, got himself taken to Peisandros
and some others of the leaders, who he discovered would be the most fit
to receive his overtures. When he was convinced of their sincerity he
told them that he had come from his great master, who was longing to get
back amongst his countrymen again.
This was, indeed, good news for them. It was soon settled that
Peisandros and two others should return with Agrestides to Magnesia.
When they got there they found he had not exaggerated that part of his
story in which he had told them of his master’s influence with
Tissaphernes. The heart of Alkibiades yearned towards his countrymen
when he saw them coming, as messengers from the Athenian forces at
Samos, to make overtures to him. He felt as a brother meeting his
brethren after a long absence among strangers in a distant land. All the
magnificence, the soft allurements of his eastern life, seemed but the
toys of children to him, as a long vista opened up before him, with home
and Athens and honour at the end of it.
But no one knew better how to be practical when it was necessary so to
be. He had been acquainted with Peisandros in old days—a man of some
ability and power of speech, not to be trusted too far, and of doubtful
courage. Alkibiades saw the difficulty the oligarchic deputation felt.
He went before it, met it boldly and in diplomatic fashion. He told them
frankly of his influence in the councils of the Persian, and of his
efforts to break up the alliance between Sparta and Persia; that he had
delayed the coming of the Persian fleet, and had stopped the Persian
subsidies; that it was through his advice the Spartan fleet was now laid
up inactively at Rhodes; and that he was at work endeavouring to bring
about a Persian-Athenian alliance. ‘But,’ he added truthfully, ‘there is
one thing I cannot do, there is one point on which the Minister of the
king stands firm: he will not even enter into negotiations for a treaty
with a democratic government; much less could I persuade him to make
alliance with one. He distrusts the people; he says they will one thing
to-day and another thing to-morrow. And even if I could overcome the
objections of Tissaphernes to a democracy, neither he nor I could induce
the Persian king to treat with any but a kingly government, or at least
an aristocracy. These things would have been hard for me to say or hear
at one time, but,’ he added sadly, ‘I, too, have been taught to distrust
the justice of the people.’
Nothing could have been more welcome to Peisandros and the other
Athenian deputies from Samos. This was the one thing they wanted, the
one thing they feared it would be impossible to get. With Alkibiades
friendly to an oligarchy, all difficulties vanished. The very condition
they shrank from mentioning to him he had insisted on himself. He had
smoothed the way. All was plain sailing now, they thought, at Samos,
except for that miscreant Phrynichos; they only doubted about him. They
knew his inveterate hatred of Alkibiades.
As soon as they got back to Samos they called together their friends,
the chiefs of the oligarchic party there. Nearly all the leaders were
oligarchic. Phrynichos, of course, was oligarchic. They told the happy
outcome of their mission; all were delighted except that one. He avowed
his scepticism. He knew the steadfast nature of Alkibiades too well to
believe that he seriously intended to join himself to the enemies of the
people, however little the people deserved his staunch fidelity. However
much the people had injured him, the oligarchs had hurt him more.
Phrynichos remembered how in years gone by they had tried to attract him
to their side; he more than suspected that the old charges brought
against Alkibiades had been due to the vengeance of that party, whose
proposals he had scorned.
Passing by the doubts of Phrynichos as unworthy of consideration,
Peisandros and his colleagues announced to the sailors and hoplites the
joyful news that the great king was about to desert their enemies and
make a grand alliance with them and pay them an enormous subsidy, and
that Alkibiades was to be recalled. The people could not be restrained
on hearing it. As each item of the news was told it was difficult to
keep them still enough to listen to the next. It was almost too good to
be true. When they came to the recall of Alkibiades their generous
emotion overcame them; many a hard sailor’s face was moist with tears.
Most of these common sailors, indeed, showed some dismay when, at the
end, Peisandros told them of the one condition—that the democracy must
be abolished, or at least greatly modified, for a time. ‘But, after all,
what mattered the form of government,’ they began to think, ‘if they
could but be extricated from their present dangers, and the great
Alkibiades be back again to manage everything? He was the wisest. If he
did not mind the change, who need care? He must be right.’
It was then resolved amongst the chiefs to send Peisandros and ten other
deputies to Athens to prepare the way for a peaceful revolution. The
deputies set off upon their mission, not unaware of the strength of the
prejudices they would have to overcome.
Phrynichos was trembling with rage and terror; his cunning was not
allowed to sleep. He determined to destroy Alkibiades by the hand of
Astyochos, and scrupled not, in order to carry out his intended murder,
to betray secrets of the state which had come to his knowledge as
strategos, to this country’s enemy. He wrote privately to the Spartan
admiral at Miletos, telling him who it was that was stopping the Persian
payment of the Spartan fleet, and was endeavouring to dissolve the
alliance between Persia and Lakedaimôn, and to bring about a treaty
between the Persian king and Athens, and advised him to get rid, by any
practicable means, of such a dangerous enemy as Alkibiades had become.
Astyochos, who, like every other honest man who knew him, loved his old
friend and comrade, refused to take advantage of this odious treachery,
by which Phrynichos, while entrusted with his country’s interests, was
doing all he could to stop the services Alkibiades was rendering to
Athens. He sent the treacherous letter on to Alkibiades. Alkibiades in
turn sent it back to the other leaders at Samos, and so convicted
Phrynichos. The soldiers when they heard of the base deed would have
slain their general then and there but for their inbred Athenian respect
for the due formalities of law. The criminal was reserved for future
trial by the proper courts.
The cup of this man’s iniquity was not full, nor his cunning nearly
exhausted. By a piece of trickery, so subtle that we can hardly help
feeling some sort of admiration for it, he wrote again to the
Lakedaimonian admiral betraying the weak point of the defence of Samos,
and offering to help him whenever he should invade the island, and
gently complaining that his first letter had, by some accident, found
its way into the hands of Alkibiades. Then, knowing that Astyochos would
do with this overture as he had done with the other, and that it would
soon come back to Samos, even as that other one had come, he advised his
brother generals to strengthen with new forts the spot which he had
suggested to Astyochos as the weak point of resistance. Astyochos
refused to take advantage of this further apparent act of treason, and
made it known to Alkibiades, who, as had been foreseen by the fox-like
Phrynichos, straightway informed the Athenian generals at Samos.
The culprit, called upon for his defence to this second charge, declared
that both were base calumnies got up by his enemy to ruin him, and he
pointed to the fact that he had himself advised the fortifying of the
very place he was now absurdly charged with betraying to the Spartans as
the weak spot for their attack. This answer seemed conclusive, and, for
a time, both charges were allowed to drop.
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