Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/27

 ALKIBIADES AND TISSAPHERXES. 5 occupied about fifty years before by another Athenian exile, equally unprincipled, and yet abler, Thetnistokles, Alkibiadea served as interpreter of his views in all his conversations with the Greeks, and appeared to be thoroughly in his confidence : an appearance of which he took advantage to pass himself off falsely upon the Athenians at Samos, as having the power of turning Persian wealth to the aid of Athens. The first payment made by Tissaphernes, immediately after the capture of lasus and of the revolted Amorges, to the Pelo- ponnesians at Miletus, was at the rate of one drachma per head. But notice was given that for the future it would be reduced one half, and for this reduction AlkibiadGs undertook to furnish a reason. The Athenians, he urged, gave no more than half a drachma ; not because they could not afford more, but because, from their long experience of nautical affairs, they had found that higher pay spoiled the discipline of the seamen by leading them into excesses and over-indulgence, as well as by inducing too ready leave of absence to be granted, in confidence that the high pay would induce them to return when called for. 1 As he probably never expected that such subterfuges, employed at a moment when Athens was so poor that she could not even pay the half drachma per head, would carry conviction to any one, so he in- duced Tissaphernes to strengthen their effect by individual bribes to the generals and trierarchs : a mode of argument which was found effectual in silencing the complaints of all, with the single exception of the Syracusan Hermokrates. In regard to other Gre- cian cities who sent to ask pecuniary aid, and especially Chios, Alkibiades spoke out with less reserve. They had been hitherto compelled to contribute to Athens, he said, and now that they had shaken off this payment, they must not shrink from imposing upon themselves equal or even greater burdens in their own defence. Nor was it anything less, he added, than sheer impu- dence in the Chians, the richest people in Greece, if they required Thucyd. viii, 45. Oi <5e rdf vat'f uTtol.e'nruaiv, VTroXnrovref tf r'uv Trpoooei%Mfievov p.ia'&ov. This passage is both doubtful in the text and difficult in the translation. Among the many different explanations given by the commentators, I adopt that of Dr. Arnold as the least unsatisfactory, though without anj confidence that it is right.