CHAPTER XXII
‘Liber captivus avis feræ consimilis est,Semel fugiendi si data est occasio,Satis est, nunquam post illam possis prendere.’Plautus:Captivi.
‘Liber captivus avis feræ consimilis est,Semel fugiendi si data est occasio,Satis est, nunquam post illam possis prendere.’Plautus:Captivi.
‘Liber captivus avis feræ consimilis est,Semel fugiendi si data est occasio,Satis est, nunquam post illam possis prendere.’Plautus:Captivi.
‘Liber captivus avis feræ consimilis est,Semel fugiendi si data est occasio,Satis est, nunquam post illam possis prendere.’Plautus:Captivi.
‘Liber captivus avis feræ consimilis est,
Semel fugiendi si data est occasio,
Satis est, nunquam post illam possis prendere.’
Plautus:Captivi.
Itis not pleasant to be shut up in prison for a fortnight, expecting every day that poison, or a dagger, will make that one your last. But even to that the prisoner gets accustomed in time, and the danger of assassination begins, at last, to lend some excitement to life, spent in the horrible monotony of such a situation. Alkibiades was not afraid of death. His determined resistance to it when it had been openly decreed against him by the Athenians, and secretly by king Agis and the Ephors at Sparta, was caused as much by the sense of the injustice of it as from any fear of death itself. Now, though he enjoyed his life as much as any man, he expected death with calmness, and thought of it each day as just about to come with perfect equanimity.
Perhaps it could not have come at a time more opportune, if come it must. He had just won a splendid victory for his repentant fellow-countrymen. He had shown his devotion to them, and they had called on him to return to them and forget the past. Their bygone injustice he had forgiven; and if he died now, the victim of a conspiracy among their enemies, it would be a fresh cause for them to honour him.
But the constant thought that he was shut up at such a crisis, while the Lakedaimonians and the Persians were planning fresh attacks and strengthening their forces, while only inexperienced lieutenants were left to protect his country, hung upon him insupportably all day long, and maddened him through the long dark winter’s nights, with its constant crushing weight. He determined to risk everything in his endeavour to get back to join his comrades.
How to escape was now his constant thought. His prison at first was strictly guarded, and if he could surmount the physical difficulty of high walls, there were greater difficulties beyond.
When a man is shut up in prison with nothing but his own thoughts, those thoughts are constantly turning on some means of escape. If he is a man of great resources he will generallymanage, in time, to circumvent his keepers, who only think occasionally, and as a matter of routine, how they may keep him in.
Another week passed, in dull monotony. His gaoler could tell him little of the outside world. He only heard that Tissaphernes was with Pharnabazos on the shores of the Hellespont. Then nearly another week went by in the same dead silence, broken only by the singing of the guard and the exchange of passwords as they relieved each other, while he was consumed with rage, bursting with impatience to be out and doing.
And here, here he was shut up with nothing to look at but the fine Grecian theatre and racecourse, lying at the foot of the high rock, or the constant, endless view from his prison windows of the peaceful valley of the Hermos, and of the country beyond, stretching into the dim distance, a view which may still be seen by the traveller who ascends to-day the crumbling remains of the rock on which stood the citadel of Sardis, where Alkibiades and his companion were imprisoned.
It seemed to him, however, after a time, that the guards grew slacker in their watch. Sometimes, especially in the evening, he noticed that if a fresh guard did not come at the proper time, the others, tired of their cold, dreary duty, wentoff before they were relieved. He knew from old experience how much more the Easterns leave to chance than the better disciplined Greek soldiers would dare to do. He could see through the gateway the tired guard pacing up and down, and one or two beggars who came for broken victuals. He sometimes amused himself by throwing small coins to the half-starved mendicants to see them scramble for the money.
This unwonted good fortune was soon noised about among the beggars, and brought others, till, whenever he took his evening exercise, a number, drawn by news of this largess, clamoured at the gateway. Even the guards were not above joining in the scramble sometimes when no one saw them, and would push the ragged crowd away, to pick up the scattered coins themselves. Alkibiades did not discourage this, and the good-natured warder who was in charge pretended not to see it. Emboldened by their liberty, some beggars would even thrust their hands through the bars, piteously praying for his dole, and still the warder only laughed if he caught them speaking to his prisoner.
So a whole month passed. It was on the last day of that first month of his incarceration, when the crowd of beggars was greater, and they were crying out more loudly than ever as they pushedtheir lean, dirty hands through to him, that he noticed a hand which looked different, stronger than the others, and which was unopened. Struck with the strange sight of an unopened hand pushed through the gates, he gently touched it; it opened slightly, and he saw a minute scroll rolled up inside. He took it, unseen by the warder, and throwing some coins to the poor mendicants, retired to his room. He opened the scroll. There was just light enough to read the few words on the rolled-up papyrus leaf. On it was written in well-known characters, ‘Hour after sunset courtyard wall.’
In an hour’s time he and Mantitheos were in the courtyard. It was dark. After waiting a short time they heard the guard go off singing a Persian song. All was quiet. Presently a rope was thrown over the high wall from outside. Mantitheos fastened the end securely to the trunk of a tree. To an athlete like Alkibiades, to haul himself up a wall even of that height was an easy matter. Mantitheos quickly followed, fear aiding him in his ascent. First Alkibiades, then Mantitheos, went down the other side hand over hand, and arrived at the bottom, with no greater injury than bleeding hands and legs. They found a strong, ragged-looking man, in an old Persiansailor’s dress, who, throwing the end of the rope over the wall, walked rapidly in front. The fugitives followed silently.
A light shot for a moment from the warder’s gate across their path. The voice of the warder was heard calling after them. No one heeded it. The light disappeared. The three quickened their pace. The warder, suddenly roused by the noise, had cried out on his first impulse, then, realizing what had happened, held his peace. He had reason to believe that his lord, having shown his good faith towards Sparta and the king, would not be sorry for his prisoner’s escape.
In almost less time than it has taken to write down this speculation on the warder’s thoughts, the fugitives had made their way down the narrow track leading from the citadel, had passed by the side of the ruins of the splendid temple of Kybele, built by the old Lydian kings, and burnt by the Ionians before the town was taken by the Persians, had forded the shallow Paktôlos, and were soon outside the unwalled town. There, in a thick wood on the northern ascent of the hill, they found three small mountain ponies tethered to a tree. The stranger—who of course was Agrestides—loosed them, the three mounted, and away they went!
By a secluded path with which their guide had made himself well acquainted, they got into the wild mountain country of the Tmolian range, and on they rode through the dark, stormy night. It was the depth of winter; the rain at first, and then, as they got higher up, the blinding snow, blew hard in their faces. Progress was slow. They dare not keep the level road along the valley of the Hermos. The only safe path for them was on the ridge of the chain of mountains from Mount Tmôlos, over Drakôn, Clympos, and Mastousia.
The ponies, native to the mountains, knew the path as well in the dark as by day, but their pace was very slow, and morning was breaking over Sardis before they had made much way. They reached at length a ruined temple of Artemis; there they hid themselves. Mantitheos showed signs of breaking down; all three were drenched and tired out.
As the day got on it grew finer, and they determined to venture out again, in hopes of reaching a small village that Agrestides knew of, where they might be able to obtain some food. The snow was thick upon the ground; Mantitheos was getting weaker. Alkibiades gave him his cloak, which they had managed to dry at a smallfire which Agrestides had made inside the ruined temple. Though the snow impeded their progress, it stopped the dreaded pursuit. They heard the wolves howling round them, and saw foxes skulking about, ravenous, like themselves, for food. There was some difficulty in getting Mantitheos along. There was no sign of human habitation till they reached a small, desolate village at nightfall. Mantitheos was quite worn out.
In a poverty-stricken cottage they got shelter for the night, and some coarse bread and goat’s flesh, and a little goat’s milk. Mantitheos became worse. Agrestides would have left him there. ‘Will you risk your own life for him?’ he said; but Alkibiades refused to go without him, and amused them by tales of his adventures and stories about Sokrates—how the philosopher kept his guard all night at Potidaia in the snow without any other raiment on him but his summer dress, and how he would stand sometimes, all day and night, in silent contemplation, thus exemplifying his theory, external circumstances ought never to affect the true philosopher.
There was much he wanted to know about: what had taken place since he left the Hellespont with Thrasyboulos, after the battle of Abydos; what the Spartans and Pharnabazoswere doing; whether the Athenians were making preparations to drive the Spartans from the Hellespont and Bosporos. Agrestides could give him little reliable information about these things, but he entertained them with an account of how he had found them, and had managed to help them to escape. He told his story in a few words, in his blunt way, taking little credit to himself. He could not imagine how anyone would have done less for such a master.
For two days after the sailors had returned to the ship from Magnesia without the strategos theEroswaited, expecting his return. Then some officers had gone to the castle at Magnesia for further orders, and were told that Alkibiades had set out to visit Tissaphernes, and they learnt that Tissaphernes had gone north to meet Pharnabazos. Only by degrees it came out that Alkibiades was a prisoner, and had been sent, under a strong escort, no one knew whither. The sailors were for marching upon Magnesia straight off, though it was occupied by some hundreds of Persian soldiers. It was difficult to make them understand the madness of the attempt. At last Agrestides was allowed to go in search, with orders to return if he found any clue to the prison of the captive strategos.
He knew the country and the language of the barbarians, and, disguised as a Persian sailor, it did not take him long to discover where his master was confined. He bought the three mountain ponies on the way, and brought them to Sardis, pretending he meant to sell them there. When he reached the satrap’s capital, he made friends with the sailors who formed the guard of the citadel, regaling them at the wine-shops on the supposed proceeds of a prosperous voyage, and after waiting many days, he at last found means of getting his message into his master’s hands. Then he gave the guard, who ought to have gone on duty an hour after sunset, so much of the strong wine that grows on the sides of Tmôlos, that he felt sure they would not trouble themselves to be too early at their post, and as soon as the tired guard went off, without waiting for their relief, the sailor’s rope had done the rest.
So two days and nights passed in the rough cottage, till the rest and warmth, and such food as they could get, restored the unfortunate lieutenant sufficiently to let them journey on. In two days more they reached a small fishing-village to the eastward of Klazomenai. At dark they put off in a fishing-boat, and after cruising about all night, at daybreak they sighted theErosstanding off the coast, about a mile north of Klazomenai. The sailors raised such loud cries of joy, when their strategos came on board, that their shouts were heard in the port, as with a head wind theErosmade for the isle of Samos.
The men of Samos were vainly vowing vengeance on the Persians if their chief was murdered. Just as theEroswas seen sailing towards the port, the women were thronging the temple of Heré, where the great bronze statue of Alkibiades, the liberator of Ionia, was to be erected next year, and were sending up prayers for his safety to the all-powerful Queen of Olympos, who was born, they said, at Samos. When they heard that theEroswas arrived, they left the altar of the goddess, in anxious hope that she had heard their prayers. There was theEroscoming onward, with the north-west wind, in festive trim, and lo! standing on the deck, appeared the hero for whom such earnest, tearful prayers had for so many days been offered up. He was soon in their midst, as fair, as fresh, as beautiful, as though no trouble or danger had ever come upon him.
He could not stay long at Samos. The tiresome necessities of glorious war called him away upon its ordinary business. He had to visit those ofthe islands which had not been true to Athens and which had now been abandoned by Sparta, enforcing contributions for the fleet which, he determined, should preserve them from both the Spartan and the Persian. He was at Lesbos when he received a pressing summons from those who were left in charge of the fleet in the north to come at once and take command.
Mindaros had collected ships and men from the islands and from home. He was again at the head of over sixty triremes, and was backed up from the shore by the army of Pharnabazos, and by Pharnabazos himself. As fast as wind and oars could carry him, Alkibiades made for Kardia, on the western coast of the Thrakian Chersonesos. There he collected all the Athenian strength. Thrasyboulos and Theramenes joined him. Thrasyllos was still doing his utmost to collect reinforcements at Athens. When all were told, the Athenian fleet was but little superior in numbers to the Spartan, and they had no army on shore to cover them.
In April Mindaros sailed for the island of Kyzikos, on the Propontis. Pharnabazos marched his troops along the coast of Mysia to the same point. The joint force took Kyzikos, the chief town of the island, at its southern extremity,where it was joined to the mainland by a bridge. On hearing of this attack, Alkibiades set sail from Kardia, doubled the Chersonesos, passed up the Hellespont, cleverly eluding the Spartan look-out at Abydos, and, on a dark, rainy night anchored off the island of Prokonnesos. Next day he assembled his men on shore, taking care that the enemy should have no intelligence of his arrival, and animated them by a stirring harangue.
Though inferior in strength, they must, he said, fight at once. Delay would be ruin to them, as they could expect no more help from Athens, while the Lakedaimonians were fed and paid by their rich allies. They must fight, then, as they never fought before, against ships, against men, against stone walls, and conquer this unholy alliance of Greek and barbarian, or die like heroes.
He was not afraid to engage the whole Spartan force at sea. But his difficulty was to get them out into the open, away from their Persian protection ashore. With this view he concealed the strength of his fleet. The night was dark; under cover of the darkness he sailed in three separate divisions from Prokonnesos. Theramenes he stationed with one division to the west, behind the small island of Alone; Thrasyboulos he sent with another tothe east, round the north point of the island of Kyzikos; while he himself, with a picked squadron of twenty triremes, took the centre or front line, and made straight for the fleet of Mindaros at the capital of the island.
Mindaros, seeing the centre division only coming against him in the early morning, advanced in line to meet it with his whole fleet of sixty triremes. Alkibiades retreated, the Spartan admiral, with all his force, following him into the straits between Kyzikos and Alone. Then Alkibiades wheeled round upon them, the Athenian sailors managing their long ships splendidly, and at that moment, on a given signal, Thrasyboulos, with his division, came round the north point of Kyzikos, and Theramenes from behind Alone, taking the Spartan fleet on either flank.
The Spartans, attacked thus unexpectedly on each side, as well as on their main line in front, were seized with panic. They turned and fled, followed by the Athenians, who in their pursuit took or destroyed many of the retreating ships. The rest made for the mainland, about a mile from where Pharnabazos was stationed with his Persian troops. Those on board, running their ships aground, clambered on to the shore, followed by the centre line of the Athenian ships, led byAlkibiades. Thrasyboulos landed his hoplites on the right of the Persians, and Theramenes, turning his ships behind the main line, landed his men near the Persian left flank. The Persians charged Thrasyboulos, and were overwhelming him by their superior numbers, when Theramenes came, unperceived by them, upon their rear. Taken thus in the rear while they were resolutely opposed in front, they were thrown into disorder, and fled with enormous loss. Thrasyboulos and his force were saved.
Meanwhile Alkibiades had landed with a small picked body in order, if possible, to prevent the Spartans from protecting their stranded vessels, while the rest of his men were seizing those they could get at. Thus he found himself opposed to the whole Spartan force. For a long time he held his own, fighting himself in the front of his men. This small band of warriors was gradually falling by his side. He was hard pressed, and that fight was near proving his last. He was surrounded by the enemy, who cut off his retreat. There could have been no possible escape had not his two colleagues, fresh from their triumph over the Persians, come up just in time to save him. Victory was thus snatched from Mindaros and the Lakedaimonians. The valiant Spartan admiral,undismayed at this turn of affairs, so sudden and little expected by him, fought on with his accustomed bravery till he fell, mortally wounded, at the head of his followers, encouraging them to the last by his words and his example. The Spartans, seeing their leader fall, broke and fled, pursued by the conquerors, leaving the whole of their fleet behind, and a multitude of slain and wounded.
Alkibiades was hailed by his army as ‘the invincible,’ and well they might so call him. He had rid Ionia, the Hellespont, the Bosporos, of Spartan interference, and undone the work of three years’ strenuous labour of the enemy. Their fleet was destroyed, and their army was reduced to a miserable number and condition, broken in spirit, and without a leader. They knew not what to do.
At Sparta the news of the defeat was received with consternation. In her necessity she thought at last of peace. Endios, the old friend and relative of Alkibiades, was sent to sound the Athenian senate. Alas! the Athenians were too elated. Unhappily for them, they spurned the overtures, which, had they been accepted, might have changed the coming pages of their history and the future life of Alkibiades. Peace wasnot to be either for them or for him; he had to abide the course of destiny, and live and die in constant toil and struggle.
Having put in order his fleet, which had been enormously increased by all the triremes taken from the enemy, he proceeded to reduce the towns upon the coast, which still held out against him, and to receive the submission and tribute of the others. A whole year was spent in these active and profitable operations. In June of the next year, 409, Thrasyllos joined him at Lampsakos with a new squadron of fifty triremes and a body of hoplites from Athens.
Pharnabazos had during this last year shown much more spirit than the Lakedaimonian government. Persian gold was freely spent among the Spartan soldiers, and a naval arsenal was provided for them by him at Antandros, near Mount Ida, where wood for the building of new ships could be obtained by them in abundance. An immense body of men were there set to work to form a fresh navy, to replace the one they had lost at Kyzikos. But Alkibiades did not leave him long in peace. He attacked and routed him at Abydos, taking a prodigious amount of booty, including the money that was on its way to pay the Spartan soldiers and sailors at Antandros, andalso making many prisoners. Among the captives were some Persian priests. These he treated with respect and courtesy, and sent them back to Pharnabazos unransomed and with presents.
There was a strong feeling of respect growing up mutually between these two leaders. If Pharnabazos was invariably defeated by Alkibiades, he could not but feel admiration for the bravery and skill with which his opponent fought. Pharnabazos from this time began to grow colder in his support of Sparta, or, at any rate, he began to feel the hopelessness of continuing the struggle with one who seemed endowed with more than ordinary force and genius.
Thus the winter passed. In the spring Alkibiades continued his victorious career. The history of this year is a catalogue of the coast towns and islands which he took from the control of Sparta, and brought back to their old tributary dependence upon Athens. Then he made an expedition into Thrace. Here the cultured Athenian, who had astonished the frugal Lakedaimonians by the stern rigour of his life at Sparta, and the soft Persians by his sumptuous magnificence at the court of the gentle Lydian satrap, now caused no less astonishment to the strong and hardy Thrakians. Bred from their infancy to tame andride their famous wild white horses, they looked with admiration on his splendid horsemanship. From very love of him a large body followed him as volunteers when he returned to carry on the war against his twofold enemy.
At that time the siege of Chalkedôn was being carried on by Thrasyllos, who had nearly succeeded in carrying a palisade round the city on its land side. This wall was now nearly completed. Placed almost immediately opposite Byzantion and thus forming a firm base of operations whenever he should attack that most important city, Chalkedôn, which had lately thrown off its dependency on Athens, was strenuously defended by the Spartans. While Thrasyllos was pushing on his works the Spartan garrison made a sortie from the town, and Pharnabazos, co-operating with them, made a simultaneous dash upon the besieging force with all his army. At that critical moment Alkibiades arrived in time to prevent the destruction of the Athenians thus caught between the Spartans in front of them and the Persians at their back. With his new Thrakian cavalry he charged Pharnabazos with such effect that the gallant Persian fled discomforted. He then led his troop round against the Spartans, who retired behind thewalls of Chalkedôn, leaving a large part of their numbers behind them dead upon the field, including their commander, Hippokrates.
Having finished the wall of palisades by which the town was completely cut off from the land, he recrossed the Bosporos, with such troops as could be spared from the siege of Chalkedôn, to raise contributions for the war. At Selymbria, a Greek town on the Thrakian coast of the Propontis, he was called upon once more to prove his fearless intrepidity, his calmness and resource in the midst of danger, and his gentleness in the hour of victory. He arrived before the town with a body of his own hoplites and his Thrakian horsemen. Some of the citizens were willing to ally themselves with Athens, or rather, perhaps, were unwilling to struggle against one who seemed to be invincible. They agreed to open the gates to him at midnight, and promised to display a lighted torch upon the walls as a signal that they were ready to receive him. One of them betrayed the design to the authorities of Selymbria. The others, fearing the vengeance of the citizens, showed the signal from the walls an hour before the appointed time, and opened the city gates. Alkibiades, who had given orders for the main body of his men to be ready to enter the townwith him at midnight, on seeing the signal, though his men were not yet ready, rushed to the open gate, followed by only thirty of his guard. He was joined by twenty of those who were friendly to him within the town. With this handful of followers he found himself in the narrow streets and in the midst of an angry multitude. Here again he was in imminent peril of his life. He refused to retreat, although he could not hope that thirty men, however brave, assisted by only twenty citizens, could hold their ground until his hoplites and his Thrakians should come to his aid. He ordered a trumpet to be sounded, and as calmly as if he was at the head of a victorious army, he made a proclamation ‘that the Selymbrians would incur the anger of the state of Athens if they dared to take up arms against the Athenians.’ His extraordinary coolness so frightened the people, who supposed a proclamation such as this would never have been made unless the whole army was behind him and entering the city, that they asked for conditions. While these were being arranged the rest of his army entered.
Selymbria was now at his mercy. According to the rights or wrongs of war, he might have robbed it of its riches and allowed the outrageof its citizens. He forbade both, and risked the anger of his half-tamed Thrakians, who could not understand how a hostile city could be taken without the necessary consequence of rapine, by sending them out of Selymbria baulked of their prey. Taking only a reasonable sum of money by way of tribute, he left a garrison behind to protect Selymbria from the Spartans.
The feeling of discontent with the policy of supporting Sparta against such an opponent now reached its height in the mind of Pharnabazos. He opened communications with Thrasyllos, who had been left to carry on the siege of Chalkedôn while Alkibiades was away strengthening the power of Athens on the Propontis, and collecting tribute for the support of her defenders. He promised an immediate payment of twenty talents, proposed a treaty of peace, and offered an escort and safe-conduct to an Athenian embassy, which he suggested should be sent to the Great King to settle the terms upon which a final peace might be made between Persia and Athens.
In the meantime a truce was to be made between the satrap and Alkibiades. The satrap’s terms were accepted and the embassy was sent. It included one whose travels and troubles wehave already spoken about—the unfortunate Mantitheos, whose sufferings were now to be continued for three years to come. But Pharnabazos was not content with the word or oath of a subordinate before he withdrew his troops finally from the support of the Spartans. He insisted that the general-in-chief must himself attest his consent to all the terms of the treaty. Alkibiades confirming them by his own solemn oath, the satrap made mutual covenants of friendship, alliance, and hospitality with him, treating him throughout more as an autocratic sovereign than as a general-in-chief of a republic.
Having fortified Chrysopolis, the port of Chalkedôn, by building a strong tower which looked across the narrow strait to Byzantion, Alkibiades now set about his long-meditated siege of that important place which was the bulwark of the Bosporus and the key to the Euxine trade. But Byzantion was strongly guarded by stone walls without and by an unrelenting warrior within, the iron-willed and iron-hearted Klearchos, whom Sparta had sent as her best commander to hold a place of such inestimable value. He was supported by a strong body of his trained citizens and sturdy Boiotians. The Athenian fleet blockaded the port and every entrance by sea;the Athenian army gradually drew round it on the land side, and stopped all help from coming to the famine-stricken people of that great city. Klearchos closely hoarded the food he had stored up within. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is wanted by those who can bear arms and fight; the rest, if needs be, can starve.’
There was no sign of surrender, and the summer passed away. Overtures were at length made to the Athenian general by some of the principal inhabitants. They told him they had no love for their defenders, that they detested the Spartan general, who had left them in their dire want to go to seek aid from Pharnabazos. They agreed to open the Thrakian gate to the besiegers. Alkibiades knew how much blood must be wasted on the assault of such a place. No commander was ever more careful of the lives of men committed to his trust than he. In the whole of his career there is no instance of any reckless sacrifice of life in order to gain even the most important conquest, nor of any cruelty done, or permitted to be done, on those whom the fortune of war delivered over to his power.
If it was possible to get possession of the coveted city in any other way, he determined to avoid the carnage on both sides, which must inevitablyhappen if a place so strongly fortified was stormed. As clever in stratagem as he was fearless in fight, he made a pretence of retiring from the siege and carrying his troops away. He ordered the triremes to row off into the Bosporos, as though he was abandoning a hopeless task. Then, at midnight, some of the ships returned, and the sailors, landing with great clamour, attacked the eastern gate. The Spartan troops rushed to that spot and forced the few Athenian sailors who had landed to retreat to their ships. At that moment the Thrakian gate was opened by friends within, and Alkibiades, at the head of his hoplites, who had silently returned in the darkness of the night, entered Byzantion.
The Spartans and their allies discovered the trick that had been played upon them, and hastily came back to meet the enemy, who were now in the centre of the city. But, posted in strong positions in the main streets and squares, the Athenians made havoc of both Boiotians and Spartans, and the Byzantine soldiers turned upon those whom the people had good reason to look upon rather as oppressors than protectors. The Spartans fought with the courage of despair, but they were all slain at length, except some five hundred, who surrendered. The inhabitantswere well treated, although they had revolted from Athens when she was in her greatest need. They again accepted her mild sovereignty, and agreed to pay the usual tribute.
Now, with Chalkedôn in his power, Chrysopolis in his hands, and Byzantion garrisoned by Athens, Alkibiades placed the Euxine Sea in her control once more. What that meant at such a time can only be understood when one recollects the extensive trade of the great inland sea and the low state to which Athens of late had been reduced. It drove her enemies out of these waters, and it gave her whatever dues she chose to impose on all the rich merchant ships passing to and fro with their cargoes of slaves, of skins, of fish, and, what to Athens was more than all, their loads of corn from the Euxine shores. For she had been deprived of the produce of her own lands ever since King Agis and the Spartans had Dekeleia in their possession, and since the defection of Euboia, her other granary, she had to look to the Euxine to supply her with the bare necessities of life. This was now thrown open to her.