Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/409

87-89] have been all the better pleased, for his money would have been saved and Tissaphernes would have accomplished the same result at less expense. Whatever may have been his intention, Tissaphernes came to Aspendus and conferred with the Phoenicians, and the Peloponnesians at his request sent Philip, a Lacedaemonian, with two triremes to fetch the ships.

Alcibiades, when he learned that Tissaphernes was going

to Aspendus, sailed thitherward himself with thirteen ships, promising the army at Samos that he would not fail to do them a great service. He would either bring the Phoenician ships to the Athenians, or, at any rate, make sure that they did not join the Peloponnesians. He had probably known all along the real mind of Tissaphernes, and that he never meant to bring them at all. He wanted further to injure him as much as possible in the opinion of the Peloponnesians when they observed how friendly Tissaphernes was towards himself and the Athenians; their distrust would compel him to change sides. So he set sail and went on his voyage eastward, making directly for Phaselis and Caunus.

The commissioners sent by the Four Hundred returned

from Samos to Athens and reported the words of Alcibiades-how he bade them stand firm and not give way to the enemy, and what great hopes he entertained of reconciling the army to the city, and of overcoming the Pelo- ponnesians. The greater number of the oligarchs, who were already dissatisfied, and would have gladly got out of the whole affair if they safely could, were now much encouraged. They began to come together and to criticise the conduct of affairs. Their leaders were some of the oligarchical generals and actually in office at the time, for example, Theramenes the son of Hagnon and