TO PHARNABAZUS.
There was little sleep that night for the inhabitants of the castle of
Bisanthe. Every one felt that the situation was full of peril. If it had
not been for the confidence which every one brought into contact with
Alcibiades felt in his capacities of leadership there would have been
something like a panic. As it was, the garrison awaited with calmness,
though not without intense anxiety, the course of action which their
commander would take for himself, and recommend to them. They were not
kept long in suspense.
Shortly after dawn the notes of a trumpet were heard through the castle
giving the well known signal by which a general assembly of the garrison
was called. A few minutes sufficed to collect the men. The meeting was
held in the central court of the castle, and Alcibiades, taking his
stand on the topmost step of an outside staircase which led up to one of
the chambers, addressed them.
“Comrades,” he said, “you have heard of the disaster by which Athens has
lost its last fleet. I will blame no man for what happened or inquire
whether it might not have been averted--”
The speaker was interrupted by loud cries of “Long live Alcibiades, the
invincible!”
A flush of pleasure passed over the speaker’s face, but he made a
gesture imperative of silence, and continued.
“The only thing that remains for us is to consider what it is most
expedient to do. Here, my friends, we cannot stay. Bisanthe indeed,
protected by its situation, its walls, and stout hands and tried valor,
it would not be easy to take. But, with both sea and land hostile, with
all the country and cities from which we have drawn our supplies in the
hands of the Spartans, we cannot long continue to hold it. What then
shall we do? You, my friends, I can only advise, for from this day I of
necessity cease to command. Go, then, I would say, to King Seuthes, and
offer yourselves to him. He will receive you kindly. Brave men--and your
valor has been shown times without number--are always valued and honored
by him, and now that, for a time at least, the Spartans and their allies
have became supreme in these parts, he will want men more than ever. If
you require it, you shall have my good word; but your reputation will
speak for you more effectually than I can. My gratitude to you, who have
served me so well, I can never express. Yet such return as I can make
shall not be left undone. The paymaster will pay you all arrears of pay,
with a donation of thrice as much again.”
A loud burst of applause followed this announcement.
The speaker continued: “This gift would be many times greater, if my
means were equal to my sense of your courage and your services. From
some of you I have a favor to ask. It is not expedient publicly to
declare my plans; but I may say that I shall need a few associates in
them. For these I shall not ask you, not because I am doubtful of
raising them, but because I know that you would all offer yourselves--”
A roar of assent went up from the whole assembly.
“I have already exercised the choice which in any case I should have
been compelled afterwards to make. Twelve companions--more I am
forbidden by circumstances to take--will go with me. To the rest I say,
‘Farewell.’ The gods grant that at some happier time we may again render
our service to Athens and to Greece. Till then, Farewell!”
A loud answering cry of farewell went up from the men, which was renewed
again and again as the speaker entered the room at the head of the
staircase. Here the twelve chosen associates were assembled, Callias and
Hipparchus, the messenger from the scene of the late conflict, making up
the number to fourteen. Alcibiades addressed them:
“I have long since anticipated and prepared myself for this misfortune
which has now overtaken us, though the blow has fallen more suddenly and
more heavily than I had feared. To you, my chosen friends, I reveal the
counsels which it would not have been expedient to publish to a
multitude. Briefly they are these: Lysander has conquered by the help of
the Persians, for had it not been for the gold of Cyrus, his fleet could
never have been kept together. We also must go to the Persians for help.
It is an evil necessity, I confess, that makes free-born Greeks court
the favor of their slaves; but a necessity it is. And the time favors us
for using it. Cyrus covets the throne of Persia which he claims against
his elder brother Artaxerxes as having been born after his father’s
accession whereas Artaxerxes was born before it. As Lysander, then, has
used Cyrus against us, so we must use Artaxerxes against Cyrus. ‘How,’
you will ask, ‘is Artaxerxes to be approached?’ Through Pharnabazus, the
Satrap, with whom I have a warm friendship of now some years’ standing.
To Pharnabazus, therefore, I now purpose to go. I shall demand of him
that which he will himself be most willing to grant--for he is no friend
to Cyrus--that he send me up to Susa. This Themistocles did before me;
but he, at least in word, went as the enemy of his country, though
indeed he was unwilling to harm it. I shall go, both in word and in
deed, as its friend. And now for other things. For my most valuable
possessions I have prepared hiding-places. Much I shall leave to King
Seuthes, to whom I sent a message concerning my immediate departure.
This morning, my friends, I would ask you to receive at my hands a
year’s pay. Do not hesitate to receive it; I can give it now, I may not
be able so to do a year hence. We will start this day at sunset. There
is no time to be lost. To-morrow, I doubt not, or the next day at the
latest, Lysander will be here.”
With Callias, after the rest had departed to make preparations for their
departure, Alcibiades had some private conversation as to the subject of
ways and means.
“You must let me be your banker,” he began by saying.
Callias thanked him heartily, but declined to receive anything more than
would suffice for immediate needs.
“You may as well take it,” returned his host, “there is a good deal more
here than I can take with me; and why should you not? For myself, I
carry most of my possessions about with me in this fashion,”--and he
showed a leather purse filled with pearls and precious stones. “Gold is
too cumbrous to carry in any quantity. This no man will take as long as
I am alive. Besides this, my worthy friend Hippocles, who, as you know,
is as trustworthy as the treasury of Delphi, has most of my property in
his hands. And, if we once get safely to Pharnabazus, we need not
trouble any more about this matter. I must do the Persians the justice
to say that they are always open-handed. And they can afford to be. It
is not too much to say that for one talent of gold that we have in
Greece they have at least a hundred. Any one who should have the
ransacking of one of their great treasure cities--and they have others
besides Susa; Babylon, for instance, and Persepolis and Pasargadæ--would
see something that would astonish them. And”--he added, with a profound
sigh--“if only things had gone straight, I might have been the man.”
The journey along the northern shore of the Propontis was accomplished
in safety. No Spartan ship had as yet made its way so far eastward. At a
little town on the Asiatic shore Alcibiades provided his party with
horses for riding and serviceable mules for the conveyance of their
baggage and of such a selection of his own possessions as he had thought
it well to take with him. The old sailor Hipparchus here wanted to leave
them, and to make his way to Byzantium, where he had relatives. The
remainder Alcibiades addressed before setting out, to the following
effect:
“We have to make our way to Gordium in Phrygia, for it is there that, if
he keeps to his usual habits, we shall find the Satrap Pharnabazus. He
is accustomed to winter there. But we shall not find it easy to get
there. These Bithynians are not effeminate Asiatics, a hundred of whom
will fly before five stout Greeks. They are Thracians from the other
side of the sea, and we all know how hard are their heads, and how
strong their arms. We cannot force our way through them; we must elude
them if we can.”
The route which the party followed lay for some time within sight of the
sea. This was commonly followed by travellers, as the mountaineers
seldom ventured within the border of the maritime plain. When they had
reached the head of the Gulf of Olbia they struck inland. The road
usually followed would have taken them by the valley of Sangarius, a
river which divides the great chain of the Mysian Olympus. Their guide
strongly dissuaded them from taking it. It was constantly watched, he
said, by the mountaineers. No one could hope to escape them, and only a
very strong party could force its way through. The safest plan would be
by certain paths which he knew, and by which they might hope to cross
Olympus unmolested. Only hunters and shepherds know them, or a chance
traveller on foot for whom it would not be worth the robbers’ while to
wait. It was a toilsome and even dangerous journey. The first snows of
Autumn had began to fall, and even the practical eye of the guide found
it difficult to discover the path, while the sufferings of the
travellers, who had to bivouac for several nights in the open air, with
but scanty fire to warm them, were exceedingly severe. Still, but for
one unlucky incident, it would have been accomplished in safety. The
party was now half-way down the southern slopes of Olympus when they
halted for the night at a roadside inn, or rather caravansary. They
found the large reception chamber--it contained two only--already
occupied by a party of the vagrant priests of Cybele. While Alcibiades
and Callias found accommodation, such as it was, in the smaller room,
the rest of the party were thrown upon the hospitality of the priests,
unless indeed, they chose to bivouac outside. Unluckily, the priests
were only too hospitable. They invited the new comers to an
entertainment which was prolonged into a revel. During the passage of
the mountains the allowances of food had been small, and for drink the
party had had perforce to be satisfied with the wayside springs or even
with melted snow. When they found themselves under shelter, in a room
which was at least weather-tight, and warmed with a blazing fire, the
sense of contrast tended to relax their powers of self-restraint. The
priests had roasted a couple of sheep, and broached a cask of the heady
wine of Mount Tmolus, with which a wealthy devotee had presented them.
This they drank, and insisted on their guests drinking, unmixed. By the
time the mutton bones had been picked bare, and the cask drained to its
dregs, not a man out of the twelve was sober. A heavy slumber, lasting
late into the morning, was the natural consequence of this debauch, and
when the sleepers were at last aroused, they set about the preparation
for a start in a very languid fashion. It was nearly noon before the
party was fairly on its way. Darkness came on before the next stage
could be reached. It was while the travellers were bivouacking in a
wholly unprotected situation that a company of marauders, who had indeed
been watching their movements for some days in the hopes of finding such
an opportunity, fell upon them. The result was disastrous. Alcibiades
and Callias, who had been sleeping with their horses picketed close to
their camp fire, were roused by the noise, and springing to their
saddles made their escape. Not one of their followers was equally
fortunate. Some were cut down in their sleep, others as they were
endeavoring to collect their senses. The sumpter-horses and their
burdens of course fell into the hands of the assailants. It was only
with what they carried on their own persons that the two survivors of
the party made their way about six days afterward to the Satrap’s winter
palace at Gordium.