Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/333

 ALKIBIADES IN PIIRYGIA. 31 j there no longer remained any motive to continue such a regulation, so that the exclusive city-feeling, instinctive in the Grecian mind, again became predominant. Such is, perhaps, the explanation of the new restrictive law proposed by Aristophon. Thrasybulus and the gallant handful of exiles who had first seized Phyle, received no larger reward than one thousand drachmas for a common sacrifice and vothe offering, together with wreaths of olive as a token of gratitude from their country- men. 1 The debt which Athens owed to Thrasybulus was indeed such as could not be liquidated by money. To his individual patriotism, in great degree, we may ascribe not only the restora- tion of the democracy, but its good behavior when restored. How different would have been the consequences of the restora- tion and the conduct of the people, had the event been brought about by a man like Alkibiades, applying great abilities princi- pally to the furtherance of his own cupidity and power ! At the restoration of the democracy, however, Alkibiades was already no more. Shortly after the catastrophe at ^Egospotami, he had sought shelter in the satrapy of Pharnabazus, no longer thinking himself safe from Lacedcemonian persecution in his forts on the Thracian Chersonese. He carried with him a good deal of property, though he left still more behind him, in these forts ; how acquired, we do not know. But having crossed apparently to Asia by the Bosphorus, he was plundered by the Thracians in Bithynia, and incurred much loss before he could reach Pharnabazus in Phrygia. Renewing the tie of personal hospitality which he had contracted with Pharnabazus four years before, 2 he now solicited from the satrap a safe-conduct up to Susa. The Athenian envoys whom Pharnabazus, after his former pacification with Alkibiades in 408 B.C., had engaged to escort to Susa, but had been compelled by the mandate of Cyrus to detain as prisoners were just now released from their three years' detention, and enabled to come down to the Propontis ; 3 and Alkibiades, by whom this mission had originally been pro- 1 JEschines, cont. Ktcsiphon. c. 62, p. 437 ; Cornel. Ncpos. Thrasybol. c. 4 3 Xcnoph. Kellcn. i, 3. J2, rov re KO vdv opuov nal Uip tiHAr/tawf -.'m } .OlOVVTO. 1 Xenonh. Ilellea. i 4. 7