‘Why should we toil alone, * * * * Still from one sorrow to another thrown, Nor ever fold our wings, And cease from wanderings.’ TENNYSON. THE people soon repented of their conduct to Alkibiades. Not long after they drove him away, when Konon was beaten near Mytilene, we begin to hear the murmur growing more distinct—‘Had he been there, this would not have happened.’ Some at first believed the old fables that were told about him. Some thought he would try to make himself despotic. But these suspicions gradually died away. The desire for his wise counsel, and his strong generalship, growing as disaster followed on disaster, came to its fulness during the terrible siege. And as death and famine stalked about among the people, and their dear ones died in cruel agony before their eyes, while they awaited their own turn in consuming, gnawing hunger, and it at last was plain to those who were still left alive what must be the conditions by which alone death could be avoided, we can still, in imagination, hear the cry of impotent remorse sounding loud amongst all the other vain regrets of men throughout the ages—sorrow, contrition, repentance, anger with those who had misled them, and regret come too late. Then in the reign of terror, in the year of anarchy, as the greatest fell, not now by famine nobly suffered, but by the sword and poison of their countrymen, who, encouraged by an enemy encamped within the citadel and holy places, in Athens trampled on Athenians, all within the city, except the Thirty and their creatures and the enemy, were ever casting longing, but forlorn and hopeless, eyes towards that fortress on the Hellespont where they believed their former saviour dwelt. The Thirty were not ignorant of this desire among their indignant subjects. They trembled at the thought of what Alkibiades even yet might do. Neither were the Spartans certain of the fruits of their victory while their old opponent was alive.