Alcibiades was still destined to experience the instability of fortune. He sailed from Athens in September, 407, and proceeded to Samos. While he was absent from the main body of his fleet on a predatory excursion, one of his subordinates, contrary to instructions, attacked a Spartan fleet and was defeated with a loss of fifteen ships. Although in command of a splendid force, Alcibiades had accomplished really nothing, and had now lost a part of his fleet. An unjust suspicion of treachery fell upon him, the former charges against him were revived, and he was deprived of his command and again banished. In the year 406 the Athenians defeated a large Spartan fleet under Callicrat'idas, but their victory secured them no permanent advantages. Lysander, a general whose abilities the Athenians could not match since they had deprived themselves of the services of Alcibiades, was now in command of the Spartan forces. He obtained the favor of Cyrus, the youngest son of the King of Persia, who had been invested with authority over the whole maritime region of Asia Minor, and, aided by Persian gold, he manned a numerous fleet with which he met the Athenians at Æ'gos-pot'ami, on the Hellespont, destroyed most of their ships, and captured three thousand prisoners (405 B.C.). The maritime allies of Athens immediately submitted to Lysander, who directed the Athenians throughout Greece to repair at once to Athens, with threats of death to all whom he found elsewhere; and when famine began to prey upon the collected multitude in the city, he appeared before the Piræus with his fleet, while a large Spartan army blockaded Athens by land. The Athenians had no hopes of effectual resistance, and only delayed the surrender of their city to plead for the best terms that could be obtained. Compelled at last to submit to whatever terms were dictated to them, they agreed to destroy their long walls and fortifications; to surrender all their ships but twelve; to restore their exiles; to relinquish their conquests; to become a member of the Peloponnesian Confederacy; and to serve Sparta in all her expeditions, whether by land or by sea. Thus fell imperial Athens (404 B.C. ), in the seventy-third year after the formation of the Confederacy of Delos, the origin of her subsequent empire. Soon after this event, and in the same year, Alcibiades, who had been honored by both Athens and Sparta, and was now the dread of both, met his fate in a foreign land. While living in Phrygia he was murdered by the Persian satrap at the instance of Sparta. It has been said of him that, "with qualities which, if properly applied, might have rendered him the greatest benefactor of Athens, he contrived to attain the infamous distinction of being that citizen who had inflicted upon her the most signal amount of damage."