whole fleet should immediately be employed in search of the wrecked, addressed the people once more; he expressed a wish that the decree dooming him to death might be beneficial to the state, and called upon his fellow-citizens to perform the thanksgiving offerings to the saving gods which they, the generals, had vowed on account of their victory. These words may have sunk deep into the hearts of many of his hearers; but their only effect has been to cast a yet brighter halo in the eyes of subsequent generations around the memory of these martyrs. Their innocence is best proved by the series of glaring infractions of law and morality which were needed to ensure their destruction, as well as by the shame and repugnance which seized upon the citizens, when they had recognized how fearfully, they had been led astray by a traitorous faction. _E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 4, chapter 5 (volume 3)._ Mr. Grote attempts to uphold a view more unfavorable to the generals and less severe upon the Athenian people. _G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 64._ ALSO IN: _Xenophon, Hellenica, book 1, chapters 5-7._ See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 424-406. GREECE: B. C. 405. The Peloponnesian War Decisive battle of Aigospotamoi. Defeat of the Athenians. After the execution of the generals, "no long time passed before the Athenians repented of their madness and their crimes: but, yielding still to their old besetting sin, they insisted, as they had done in the days of Miltiades and after the catastrophe at Syracuse, on throwing the blame not on themselves but on their advisers. This great crime began at once to produce its natural fruits. The people were losing confidence in their officers, who, in their turn, felt that no services to the state could secure them against illegal prosecutions and arbitrary penalties. Corruption was eating its way into the heart of the state, and treason was losing its ugliness in the eyes of many who thought themselves none the worse for dallying with it. … The Athenian fleet had fallen back upon Samos; and with this island as a base, the generals were occupying themselves with movements, not for crushing the enemy, but for obtaining money. … The Spartans, whether at home or on the Asiatic coast, were now well aware that one more battle would decide the issue of the war; for with another defeat the subsidies of the Persians would be withdrawn from them as from men doomed to failure, and perhaps be transferred to the Athenians. In the army and fleet the cry was raised that Lysandros was the only man equal to the emergency. Spartan custom could not appoint the same man twice to the office of admiral; but when Arakos was sent out with Lysandros [Lysander] as his secretary, it was understood that