This cynical defence, suggested by Alkibiades, for the breaking of the solemn promises given at least three times in as many separate treaties, pleased his Persian friend. It suited the wily nature of the man; and when the two parted at Aspendos, as soon as Alkibiades could get away, their love and friendship seemed stronger and likely to be more lasting than it had ever been before. And grave historians ever since have been puzzling their heads why it was that, although Tissaphernes allowed the Spartan envoys to go with him to fetch the fleet, the Spartans never did get it after all, and why he gave so curious an excuse for sending it back to the Phœnikian coast again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Book III ‘That is Alcibiades. In the flower of his manly prime, in the bloom of his wonderful talents ... there stands the great moral antithesis, the living type of the Athenian character—the warrior, the fop—the statesman, the voluptuary—the demagogue, the patriot—the orator ... the lisper on whose utterance assemblies hung—the spendthrift, whose extravagance did honour to his native land—the man who would have made his country mistress of the world....’—SIR D. K. SANDFORD. CHAPTER XXI ‘The fish swam by the castle wall, And they seemed joyous each and all; The eagle rode the rising blast: Methought he never flew so fast As then to me he seemed to fly; And then new tears came in my eye.’ _Prisoner of Chillon._ STRANGE events were happening at home while Alkibiades was successfully chasing the Persian satrap and his Spartan companions. When the envoys of the four hundred to Samos returned to Athens, the account they gave of the force they found there, its strength and unity, and the complete confidence of all in their commander, revived the slumbering or drooping energy of the Athenian people, and roused them to do something more than sigh for their lost liberties. It also alarmed the usurpers, and the more moderate or more timid among them began to tremble for themselves. Alkibiades, they in their guilty consciences thought, with his stalwart hoplites and his gallant sailors, might be on them any day, and they dreaded what would come from the pent-up anger of the people when it was once set free.