Classical literature; Greece -- History -- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.; Greece -- History -- Spartan and Theban Supremacies, 404-362 B.C.
In the Senate and Public Assembly (6) he made speeches, defending
himself against the charge of impiety, and asserting that he had been
the victim of injustice, with other like topics, which in the present
temper of the assembly no one ventured to gainsay.
(6) Technically the "Boule" ({Boule}) or Senate, and "Ecclesia" or
Popular Assembly.
He was then formally declared leader and chief of the State, with
irresponsible powers, as being the sole individual capable of recovering
the ancient power and prestige of Athens. Armed with this authority, his
first act was to institute anew the processional march to Eleusis;
for of late years, owing to the war, the Athenians had been forced to
conduct the mysteries by sea. Now, at the head of the troops, he caused
them to be conducted once again by land. This done, his next step was
to muster an armament of one thousand five hundred heavy infantry, one
hundred and fifty cavalry, and one hundred ships; and lastly, within
three months of his return, he set sail for Andros, which had revolted
from Athens.
The generals chosen to co-operate with him on land were Aristocrates and
Adeimantus, the son of Leucophilides. He disembarked his troops on the
island of Andros at Gaurium, and routed the Andrian citizens who sallied
out from the town to resist the invader; forcing them to return and keep
close within their walls, though the number who fell was not large.
This defeat was shared by some Lacedaemonians who were in the place.
Alcibiades erected a trophy, and after a few days set sail himself for
Samos, which became his base of operations in the future conduct of the
war.
V
At a date not much earlier than that of the incidents just described,
the Lacedaemonians had sent out Lysander as their admiral, in the place
of Cratesippidas, whose period of office had expired. The new admiral
first visited Rhodes, where he got some ships, and sailed to Cos and
Miletus, and from the latter place to Ephesus. At Ephesus he waited with
seventy sail, expecting the advent of Cyrus in Sardis, when he at once
went up to pay the prince a visit with the ambassadors from Lacedaemon.
And now an opportunity was given to denounce the proceedings of
Tissaphernes, and at the same time to beg Cyrus himself to show as much
zeal as possible in the prosecution of the war. Cyrus replied that not
only had he received express injunction from his father to the same
effect, but that his own views coincided with their wishes, which he was
determined to carry out to the letter. He had, he informed them, brought
with him five hundred talents; (1) and if that sum failed, he had still
the private revenue, which his father allowed him, to fall back upon,
and when this resource was in its turn exhausted, he would coin the gold
and silver throne on which he sat, into money for their benefit. (2)
(1) About 120,000 pounds. One Euboic or Attic talent = sixty minae =
six thousand drachmae = 243 pounds 15 shillings of our money.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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