97 



ALCIDIADE3. 



ALCMAN. 



not even plausibility. Alcibiades begged for a trial before he was sent 

 out in so high a command ; but his enemies had the ear of the people, 

 and it was not their object to give him a fair hearing; it was therefore 

 voted that he should proceed with the fleet, and return when sum- 

 moned to answer the things laid to his charge. On reaching Sicily, 

 those hopes of powerful support by which the expedition had been j 

 recommended were found to be futile. The commanders differed in 

 their views : finally, those of Alcibiades were adopted; but before his 

 talents could tell he was recalled to stand his trial, and trial, in the 

 then temper of the people, he held equivalent to condemnation. He 

 escaped on the voyage ; and, not appearing, was pronounced accursed, 

 and sentenced to death with confiscation of property. 



Whether or not Alcibiades was capable of carrying to a prosperous 

 issue the great hopes with which the Sicilian expedition was under- 

 taken is doubtful, but his colleagues and successors proved unequal to 

 the task. [NICIAS; DEMOSTHENES.] He threw his talents into the 

 opposite scale, and appeared at Sparta as the enemy of his country. 

 (Thucyd., vi. 89-92.) By his advice, a Spartan was given to command 

 the Syracusans, a very sparing yet effectual aid; and a permanent 

 elation was fortified and garrisoned by the Spartans at Deceleia, a 

 town of Attica, about 15 miles from Athens, to the great inconvenience 

 and injury of that city. The total loss of the Sicilian armament 

 (DC. 413) gave new spirits both to the open enemies and the discon- 

 tented allies of Athens. By the ready agency of Alcibiades, the 

 islands and Ionia were urged into revolt ; and a treaty was concluded 

 between Sparta and Tissaphernes, satrap of Ionia, on terms more 

 favourable to the Persian interests than to tho honour of Greece 

 Hut about this time the cordiality and unity of purpose 

 of Alcibiades and tho Spartans declined. By the annual change of 

 magistrates, a party unfriendly to him came into office ; and the king, 

 Agia, hated him, believing him to have seduced his wife, Timoca. 

 This indeed Alcibiades is said to have avowed, intimating that he 

 was governed not so much by any preference for the lady as by 

 ambition that his posterity should fill the throne of Sparta; and it is 

 a remarkable but not solitary instance of the levity with which he 

 would let the indulgence of a whim cross deep schemes of policy. In 

 this, and in other respect?, he strikingly resembles a man much 

 inferior to himself, the second duke of Buckingham. According to 

 the secret and crafty policy of Sparta, the commander of the army in 

 Aeia was instructed to get rid of Alcibiades as a dangerous person ; 

 but he was warned of the danger, and took refuge with Tissaphernes, 

 the Persian satrap above named. * 



Whatever party Alcibiades attached himself to, that party always 

 seems to have taken a start from that moment. Such had been the 

 case when he was driven from Athens ; such was now the case when 

 he was driven from Sparta. He soon estrauged Tissaphernes from 

 his new allies ; made him reduce their pay, upon which the Spartan 

 power of maintaining a fleet greatly depended ; and led him to see 

 that the policy of Persia was, not to substitute the ascendancy of 

 Sparta on the coasts of Asia Minor for that of Athens, but to preserve 

 the one to counterpoise the other. He fascinated Tissapherneg by 

 his unrivalled talents of social intercourse ; and the notoriety of his 

 favour, and belief in his power, goon reached and made a deep impres- 

 sion in the Athenian armament then quartered at Samos. Of tho 

 rich Athenians a large proportion was disgusted by the length of the 

 war, and by the pressure upon property which it occasioned. One 

 heavy burden was the obligation of acting as trierarch, or captain of 

 a ship, which involved a great expense for the equipment of the vessel, 

 and was compulsory upon men of a certain fortune. An influential 

 party in the Samian armament was therefore well disposed to embrace 

 the advantages consequent on tho restoration of Alcibiades, backed 

 by the wealth of Persia : and that he coupled his restoration with 

 the establishment of an oligarchy, professing that he could not feel 

 secure go long as the government rested in the party which had 

 banished him, was probably an additional inducement to further his 

 plans. A deputation was sent to Athens, headed by Pisander, who 

 speedily obtained a decree by which he with ten others was authorised 

 to negotiate with Tissaphernes and Alcibiades. But nothing was 

 effected, in consequence of the excessive demands of Alcibiades, who 

 appears to have resorted to that method of concealing the truth, that 

 hi* influence was not sufficient to induce the satrap to break abso- 

 lutely with the I'eloponnesians. Meanwhile that revolution at Athens 



11 proceeded which lodged (B.C. 411) the sovereign power in the 

 council of Four Hundred. But the temper of the Samiim armament 



is changed. Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, officers of subordinate 

 rank, but men of talent, had gained a commanding influence in the 

 absence of the leading oligarchista. An oath to support the demo- 

 cracy was imposed upon persons suspected of favouring the new 

 ;oyernment ; and Alcibiades was recalled by a vote of the soldier- 

 citizens, who, in the abeyance of the constitution, claimed the 

 sovereignty as vested in their assembly. His first action was an 

 important benefit to his country, inasmuch aa he prevented the army 

 from returning to Athens to restore the constitution by civil war. 

 And in the course of the same year which had witnessed the revolu- 

 tion, the Four Hundred were overthrown without the agency of the 

 army ; tho sovereign power was vested in a selected body of 5000 

 citizen* ; and Alcibiades and other exiles were recalled. 



His promise* to bring the gold of Persia to relievo the Athenian 



EIOO. IJIV. VOL. I. 



exchequer proved vain : as Tissaphernes had deserted the Pelopou- 

 nesian, so now he deserted the Athenian interest. But under tho 

 command of Alcibiades a succession of brilliant victories at Cynos- 

 sema and Abydos (B.C. 411); at Cyzicus (B.C. 410); in the two 

 following years the acquisition of Cha'lcedou and Byzantium ; the 

 renewal of Athenian supremacy throughout the Hellespont and Pro- 

 pontis, whereby the control of the Euxine, and a lucrative revenue 

 derived from tolls levied on ships passing through the straits, wero 

 secured; all these successes testified the ability with which tho 

 affaire of Athens were now conducted. Four years after his recall 

 (B.C. 407), Alcibiades for the first time since his banishment returned 

 to Athens : he was enthusiastically received ; his property was 

 restored ; the records of the proceedings against him were sunk iu 

 the sea; the curse publicly laid on hira was as solemnly revoked, and 

 he was appointed commander-iu-chief of the forces by land and fea. 

 He signalised his abode in Athena, where he stayed four months, by 

 conducting the annual procession to celebrate the mysteries at Eleusis ; 

 a ceremony which had been discontinued since the occupation of 

 Deceleia. lleturning to the scene of war, his first action was an un- 

 successful attempt on the island of Andros. Soon after, while tho 

 fleet was quartered at Notium, near Ephesus, a general engagement 

 was brought ou, in his absence and against his express orders, by the 

 rashness of his lieutenant, Antiochus ; when the Peloponnesian fleet, 

 commanded by Lysauder, gained the advantage. This, though 

 attended with no material loss, was enough to disgust the Athenians, 

 who seem to have considered Alcibiades' past successes only as giving 

 them a claim on him for more brilliant exploits. It was urged that 

 the wealth of the state was squandered upon himself and his favourites ; 

 and the luxurious indulgence of his habits gave plausibility to tha 

 charge. He was superseded, and thereon retired to his estates in the 

 Thracian Chersonese, on which, in anticipation of such an event, he 

 had built a castle, thinking it unsafe to return to Athens. Formerly, 

 when he made his escape on being recalled from Sicily, he is reported 

 to have replied to the question, whether he did not dare trust his 

 country "> " In everything else ; but as to my life, not even my mother, 

 lest by mistake she should put in a black ball for a white." 



Here ends the public life of Alcibiades. He held no further office ; 

 and the only thing recorded of him is that he endeavoured by his 

 advice, being then resident on the spot, to prevent the final defeat of 

 the Athenians at ^Egos-potami, B.C. 405. After the capture of Athena 

 and the establishment of the tyranny of the Thirty he was condemned 

 to banishment. Not thinking himself safe in Thrace, he passed into 

 Asia, and was honourably received by Pharnabazus. He was about 

 to visit the court of Persia, or probably had begun his journey, 

 apparently with the hope of gaining over Artaxerxes to help iu tha 

 enfranchisement of Athens, when the house in which he slept was 

 surrounded at night by a bund of men, who set it on fire, and wheu 

 he rushed out sword in hand (for no one, says Plutarch, awaited his 

 onset) despatched him with missiles, B.c. 404. The authors of this 

 deed are unknown: it is charged severally upon the jealousy of 

 Pharnabazus, the fear and hatred of the Spartan government, ami 

 the revenge of a noble family, one of whose sisters ha had seduced. 

 Alcibiades left a sou of the same name, of no repute or eminence, ami 

 a fortune which, contrary to public expectation, proved smaller than 

 his patrimony. From the terms of the statement we may infer that 

 his patrimony had not been greatly diminished, which is quite as 

 surprising. A speech in defence of the younger Alcibiades was written 

 for him by Isocrates. Two of the speeches of Lysias (xiv. and xv.) are 

 against him. 



(Thucydides; Xenophon, IleUen. ; Plutarch, Alcibiadei ; Thirl wa'l, 

 Hiit. of Greece, vols. iii. and iv. ; Biographical Dictionary of the 

 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.) 



ALCMAN, the lyric poet of Sparta, was originally a Lydian of 

 Sardis, and for some time a slave iu tho house of Agesidas, a Spartan. 

 He was however subsequently emancipated, though it is not probable 

 that he gained the full rights of Spartan citizenship. In ono of the 

 fragments (No. 11) of his poetry, still extant, he makes a chorus of 

 virgins say of himself "that he was no man of rough and unpolished 

 manners, no Thessaliau or ^Etolian, but sprung from the lofty Sardis." 

 The statement of Suidas that he was of Messoa, one of the districts 

 of Sparta, is incorrect, or only means that the residence of his old 

 master was situated there. Accord ing to the ancient chronologists, by 

 some of whom he is called Alcmoeon, he lived about B.C. 671631, 

 and was a contemporary of the Lydian king Ardys. This period 

 agrees with the statement in Suidas, that he was older than Stesi- 

 chorus and the preceptor of Ariou ; and there are some allusions in 

 his extant poems which refer to the same age : consequently he lived 

 at ;i time when music had already been improved by the Spartan 

 poets Thaletas and Terpauder, and when, the Spartans themselves, 

 after the successful termination of the first Messenian war, had both 

 i leisure and inclination for the arts and refinements of life. From 

 1 some'of the fragments of his poetry it would appear that he devoted 

 ' himself to the cultivation of poetic art, and invented some new 

 j metrical forms. According to the Latin metrical writers, several 

 ! different forms of verses were known by the name of 'Alcmanica 

 inetra.' The poetry which he composed was generally choral, and 

 consisted of Parthenia, or songs sung by choruses of virgins, besides 

 hymns to the gods, paaiis, prosodia, or processional songg, and bridal 



