He was received with general enthusiasm; for the Athenians considered his exile as the cause of all their misfortunes. But this triumph was of short duration. He was sent with one hundred ships to Asia; and, not being supplied with money to pay his soldiers, he saw himself under the necessity of seeking help in Caria, and committed the command to Antiochus, who was drawn into a snare by Lysander, and lost his life and a part of his ships. The enemies of Alcibiades improved this opportunity to accuse him, and procure his removal from office. Alcibiades now went to Pactyæ in Thrace, collected troops, and waged war against the Thracians. He obtained considerable booty, and secured the quiet of the neighboring Greek cities. The Athenian fleet was, at that time, lying at Ægos Potamos. He pointed out to the generals the danger which threatened them, advised them to go to Sestos, and offered his assistance to force the Lacedæmonian general, Lysander, either to fight, or to make peace. But they did not listen to him, and soon after were totally defeated. Alcibiades, fearing the power of the Lacedæmonians, betook himself to Bithynia, and was about to go to Artaxerxes, to procure his assistance for his country. In the meantime, the thirty tyrants, whom Lysander after the capture of Athens, had set up there, requested the latter to cause Alcibiades to be assassinated. But Lysander declined, until he received an order to the same effect from his own government. He then charged Pharnabazes with the execution of it. Alcibiades was at the time with Timandra, his mistress, in a castle in Phrygia. The assistants of Pharnabazes, afraid to encounter Alcibiades, set fire to his house, and when he had already escaped the conflagration, they despatched him with their arrows. Timandra buried the body with due honor. Thus Alcibiades ended his life, 404 B. C., being about forty-five years old. He was endowed by nature with distinguished qualities, a rare talent to captivate and rule mankind, and uncommon eloquence, although he could not pronounce the letter _r_, and had an impediment in his speech. He had, however, no fixed principles, and was governed only by external circumstances. He was without that elevation of soul which steadily pursues the path of virtue. On the other hand, he possessed that boldness which arises from consciousness of superiority, and which shrinks from no difficulty, because confident of success. He was a singular instance of intellectual eminence and moral depravity. His faculty for adapting himself to circumstances enabled him to equal the Spartans in austerity of manners, and to surpass the pomp of the Persians. Plutarch says, that “no man was of so sullen a nature but he would make him merry; nor so churlish but he could make him gentle.” DEMOCRITUS.