Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/336

 314 HISTORY OF GREECE. would not perpetrate such a deed, towards a man with whom x had contracted ties of hospitality, without sincere reluctance and great pressure from without ; especially as it wonld have been easy for him to connive underhand at the escape of the intended victim. "We may therefore be sure that it was Cyrus, who, informed of the revelations contemplated by Alkibiades, enforced the requisition of Lysander ; and that the joint demand of the two was too formidable even to be evaded, much less openly disobeyed. Accordingly, Pharnabazus despatched his brother Magaeus and his uncle Sisamithres with a band of armed men, to assassinate Alkibiades in the Phrygian village where he was residing. These men, not daring to force their way into his house, surrounded it and set it on fire ; but Alkibiades, having contrived to extinguish the flames, rushed out upon his assailants with a dagger in his right hand, and a cloak wrapped round his left to serve as a shield. None of them dared to come near him ; but they poured upon him showers of darts and arrows until he perished, undefended as he was either by shield or by armor. A female companion with whom he lived, Timandra, wrapped up his body in garments of her own, and performed towards it all the last affectionate solemnities. 1 Such was the deed which Cyrus and the Lacedaemonians did not scruple to enjoin, nor the uncle and brother of a Persian satrap to execute, and by which this celebrated Athenian per ished, before he had attained the age of fifty. Had he lived, we cannot doubt that he would again have played some conspicuous part, for neither his temper nor his abilities would have allowed him to remain in the shade, but whether to the advan- tage of Athens or not, is more questionable. Certain it is, that taking his life throughout, the good which he did to her bore no 1 1 put together what seems to me the most probable account of the death of Alkibiades from Plutarch, Alkib. c. 38, 39; Diodorus, xiv, 11 (who cites Ephorus, compare Ephor. Fragm. 126, ed. Didot); Cornelius Nepos, Alkibiad. c. 10 ; Justin, v, 8 ; Isokrates, Or. xvi, De Bigis, s. 50. There were evidently different stories, about the antecedent causes and circumstances, among which a selection must be made. The extreme perfidy ascribed by Ephorus to Pharnabazus appears lo me not at all in the character of that satrap.