was confirmed, all the Athenians were seized with the utmost consternation; and, as if themselves had not decreed the war, they vented their rage and resentment against the orators who had promoted the enterprise, as well as against the soothsayers, who, by their oracles, or supposed prodigies, had flattered them with the hopes of success. They had never been reduced to so deplorable a condition as now, having neither horse, foot, money, galleys, nor mariners; in a word, they were in the deepest despair, expecting every moment that the enemy, elated with so great a victory, and strengthened by the revolt of the allies, would come and invade Athens, both by sea and land, with all the forces of Peloponnesus. Cicero had reason to ob/serve, speaking of the battles in the harbour of Syracuse, that it was there the troops of Athens, as well as their galleys, were ruined and sunk; and that in this harbour the power and glory of the Athenians were miserably shipwrecked. The Athenians, however, did not suffer themselves to be wholly dejected, but resumed courage. They now resolved to raise money on all sides, and to import timber for building of ships, in order to awe the allies, and particularly the inhabitants of the island of Eubea. They retrenched all superfluous expenses, and established a new council of ancient men, who were to weigh and examine all affairs before they should be proposed to the people. In fine, they omitted nothing which might be of service in the present conjunc < Hic primum opes illius civitatis victa, comminutæ, depressæque sunt ; in hoc portu Atheniensium nobilitatis, imperii, gloriæ naufragium factum existimatur. Cic. Ver. 7. n.97. ture, the alarm in which they were in, and their common danger, obliging every individual to be attentive to the necessities of the state, and docile to all advice that might promote its interests. The defeat of the army under Nicias was followed by the taking of Athens, of which the ancient form of government was entirely changed by Lysander. CHAPTER II. THIS chapter is the sequel of the preceding book, and contains the eight last years of the Peloponnesian war, during as many years of the reign of Darius Nothus. SECTION I. CONSEQUENCES OF THE DEFEAT OF THE ATHENIANS IN d THE defeat of the Athenians before Syracuse gave occasion for great movements throughout all Greece. The people, who had not yet joined either side, and waited to be determined by the event, resolved to declare against them. The allies of the Lacedemonians believed that the time was come to deliver them for ever from the expenses of a war, which lay very heavy upon them, by the speedy and final ruin of Athens. Those of Athens, who followed them only out of constraint, seeing no appearance of any future resource for A. M. 3591. Ant. J. C. 413. Thucyd. 1. viii. p. 553. that republic, after the dreadful blow it had received, thought it best to take the advantage of so favourable a conjuncture for throwing off the yoke of dependence, and resuming their liberty. Dispositions of this kind inspired the Lacedemonians with great views, which were supported by the hopes they had conceived, that their Sicilian allies would join them in the spring with a naval army, augmented by the ruins of the Athenian fleet. • In effect, the people of Eubea, Chio, and Lesbos, with several others, gave the Lacedemonians to understand that they were ready to quit the party of the Athenians, if they would take them under their protection. At the same time came deputies from Tissaphernes and Pharnabasus. The first was governor of Lydia and Ionia, the other of the Hellespont. These viceroys of Darius wanted neither application nor zeal for the interest of their master. Tissaphernes, promising the Lacedemonians all the necessary expenses for their troops, pressed them to arm directly, and to join him; because the Athenian fleet prevented him from levying the usual contributions in his province, and had put it out of his power to remit those of preceding years to the king. He hoped besides with that powerful aid to get into his hands with more ease, a certain nobleman who had revolted, and whom he had the king's orders to send to him dead or alive. This was Amorges the bastard of Pissuthna. Pharnabasus at the same time demanded ships to reduce the cities of the Hellespont from their subjection to the Atheni ans, who also prevented him from levying the tributes of his government. The Lacedemonians thought it proper to begin by satisfying Tissaphernes; and the credit of Alcibiades contributed very much to the taking that resolution. He embarked with Calcideus for Chio, which took arms upon their arrival, and declared for the Lacedemonians. Upon the news of this revolt, the Athenians resolved to take the one thousand talents out of the treasury, which had been deposited there from the beginning of the war, after having repealed the decree which prohibited it. Miletus also revolted soon after. Tissaphernes, having joined his troops with those of Sparta, attacked and took the city of Iasus, in which Amorges had shut himself up, who was taken alive and sent into Persia. That governor gave a month's pay to the whole army, at a drachm or ten pence a day to each soldier, observing that he had orders to give them only half that sum for the future. Calcideus then made a treaty with Tissaphernes, in the name of the Lacedemonians, of wnich one of the principal articles was, that all the country which had been subject to the king or his predecessors, should remain in his hands. It was renewed some time after by Theramenes, another general of the Lacedemonians, with some small alterations. But when this treaty came to be examined at Sparta, it was found that too great concessions had been made to the king of Persia, in giving up all the places held by himself or his ancestors, which was to make him master of the greatest part of Greece, Thessaly, Locris, and the whole country as far as Beotia, without mentioning the islands; from whence the Lacedemonians would appear rather to have enslaved Greece, than reestablished its liberty. It was therefore necessary to make farther alterations in it, with which Tissaphernes and the other governors made great difficulties to comply. A new treaty was however concluded, as we shall see in the sequel. In the mean time, several cities of Ionia declared for Lacedemon, to which Alcibiades contributed very much. i Agis, who was already his enemy in effect of the injury he had done him, could not suffer the glory he acquired; for nothing was done without the advice of Alcibiades, and it was generally said, that the success of all enterprises was owing to him. The most powerful and ambitious of the Spartans, from the same sentiments of jealousy, looked upon him with an evil eye, and at length by their intrigues oblig. ed the principal magistrates to send orders into Ionia for putting him to death. Alcibiades being secretly apprized of this order, did not discontinue his services to the Lacedemonians, but kept himself so well upon his guard, that he avoided all the snares which were laid for him. * For his better security he threw himself into the protection of Tissaphernes, the great king's governor at Sardis, and was not long without seeing himself in the highest degree of credit and authority in the court of the barbarian; for the Persian, who was full of Thucyd. 1. viii. p. 577-579. * A. M. 3598. Plut. in Alcib. p. 164, 165. |