CHAPTER XXVIII
‘The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;He watches from his mountain walls,And like a thunderbolt he falls.’Tennyson.
‘The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;He watches from his mountain walls,And like a thunderbolt he falls.’Tennyson.
‘The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;He watches from his mountain walls,And like a thunderbolt he falls.’Tennyson.
‘The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;He watches from his mountain walls,And like a thunderbolt he falls.’Tennyson.
‘The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.’
Tennyson.
The loss of Alkibiades was soon felt at Athens. Konon, in the spring of 406, through mismanagement, lost thirty ships in an action against the Lakedaimonians near Lesbos. He retreated into the port of Mytilene with the rest of his fleet, and there found himself caught in a trap by the Spartans, and completely shut up both by land and sea. Two ships alone escaped to carry the news of the disaster and perilous position of the general and his fleet to Athens. The Assembly decreed that a new fleet must by all practicable means be raised and sent to rescue the blockaded general at Mytilene. Every old hulk was furbished up, every craft that could possibly be made use of was pressed into the service of the state. In a month one hundred ships were ready, manned byold and young. The lowest classes, as well as the highest, were enlisted. Knights, and even slaves, were made to go on that final and most fatal expedition. The cloud of fate hung over it, the great gods hated it from the beginning.
Facing Lesbos, and close to it, are three small islands, then called the Arginousai. Thither in July the new fleet came. Kallikratidas, who commanded the Lakedaimonians, leaving fifty ships to keep up the blockade of Konon and his armament at Mytilene, foolishly engaged the new Athenian fleet with inferior numbers. During the action the Spartan admiral was drowned. The Spartans fled, the Athenians followed them, and took or destroyed more than sixty of their vessels. But all was of no avail. That last victory was the final blow by which the overthrow of the Athenian state was consummated; the prowess of its sons was as the lurid ray of an angry setting sun before a night of utter gloom.
The generals were charged with having, in the ardour of the pursuit, neglected their sacred duty to the wounded and drowning sailors, whose hands, the accusers said, were in vain uplifted to them, praying to be rescued from the waves. The people of Athens had been brought, through their misfortunes and their exhausting struggle, to acondition of delirious tension. Their feelings were strung to such a pitch that they could be worked upon with ease by designing enemies. The oligarchic faction took advantage of the opportunity. To them, anything which might weaken the existing order of things was a gain, even if it involved the slavery of Athens. The victory at Arginousai was unwelcome news to these men. The alleged inhuman and impious conduct of the generals after the fight was eagerly laid hold of by them. It gave them the means of nullifying the effect of the success, and of getting rid of the only able officers left to Athens. With these intriguing politicians were now, for this same purpose, combined the demagogues, who were not displeased at finding an excuse for attacking men in the high position of the generals.
The people heard with dismay and indignation a highly-coloured tale of dying and dead seamen and soldiers abandoned to their fate. On the same day, and at the same sitting of the Ekklesia, they thanked the generals for the victory they had gained, and dismissed them from their offices at this time of peril, ordering them to return at once to Athens.
Two of them fled, one died, the rest came back. Then, worked upon by many an artifice, by which the designing and unscrupulous knew how to misleadthe people, the Assembly, without proper trial, and without even jurisdiction to try the cause, sentenced them to death. As far as we can judge from the evidence on either side, it seems that the accused men had done everything in their power, consistent with their duty to the state, to save the shipwrecked and the dying. Theramenes, who, if anyone, was guilty of neglect of this duty, which had been specially imposed on him—Theramenes, the evil genius of the time, who always comes upon the scene when there is anything particularly evil to be done, became, to save himself, the principal accuser. All of those in whose breasts the old Athenian love of justice and fair trial burned felt the degrading iniquity of the proceedings and the sentence. But, so low had Athens fallen from her old estate, they dared not raise their voices in protest against the deed, lest perchance they might be involved in the like fate. There was one left who cared not for the consequence of doing right, for the peril of refusing to take part in the wrong. Sokrates alone, as if prophetic of his own doom too soon to come, denounced the violation of the law.
Six of the generals, including Thrasyllos, to whom the people owed so much, and the son of Perikles and Aspasia, were poisoned. Thusthe transient success at Arginousai robbed the Athenians of those who might still have done something towards saving them.
We have seen how at this time Alkibiades was helping his fellow-countrymen in Thrace. Nor was Lysandros idle. With the assistance of his friend Kyros, in a year’s time he was able to raise the Spartan fleet to more than its wonted strength. In September, 405, he appeared at the head of one hundred and twenty triremes before Lampsakos, which was still held by an Athenian garrison. He was soon followed by Konon and five other generals with one hundred and eighty ships, the last fleet which Athens had sent out having been increased by the vessels of the enemy she had captured off the Arginousan islands the year before. But they came too late for the relief of Lampsakos. It had already fallen. So they crossed the Hellespont, and anchored at the mouth of the Aigos Potamoi.
It is difficult to understand how anyone with any knowledge of naval tactics could have chosen to anchor in that unsheltered place, with an enemy so near at hand. Ships of war at that time were constructed to carry men rather than provisions, so that, except on short cruises, the crews were obliged to land day by day to obtain their daily food. There was no town near thestation the generals had chosen where they could procure anything. They had to leave their ships and go some way inland, or along the coast, to buy such things as they were constantly in need of.
From his fortress Alkibiades saw the arrival of the Lakedaimonians, followed later by the Athenians. He watched the siege of Lampsakos, which he had taken from the enemy; he saw it fall again into the hands of that same enemy. He saw his countrymen approach the base of his high rock, and take up a position where, if they should be attacked, they must inevitably be destroyed. To him, with his quick perception, and with the experienced eye of a strategist, it appeared a token of mere madness in the commanders to have selected such a spot. His first impulse was to leave them there to take the consequence of their stupidity. But there were serving under them many whom he had himself commanded in past years, who had fought bravely under him, and with whom he had shared dangers, men whom he loved and had often led to victory. He was acquainted with the skill and cunning of Lysandros, and the cat-like cruelty of his nature. He saw him preparing for a final blow. He could stand by no longer, nor restrain his compassion for hiscountry and his old comrades-in-arms, whose lives were every moment in such jeopardy, and who, if he did not interfere, must soon be slaughtered through the incapacity of those who led them.
With a great effort, which cost him very much, for it laid his proud soul open to rebuff, he mounted his Thrakian mare, and, tearing down the narrow road which led from his tower to the plain, as fast as she could carry him, lest his pride might make him change his resolution, he rode through the camp, and up to the tent of the six generals. He showed them the various objections to the station they had selected—how Lysandros must destroy them if he came upon them in that perilous position, as assuredly an admiral of his experience would endeavour to do. He offered to lead them himself against the enemy. They would not listen to him.
Then he prayed them by all that they held dear—the great interests of Athens concentrated on that final armament—at least to seek shelter in the neighbouring port of Sestos. ‘There,’ he said, ‘you will find secure anchorage, and markets where your crews can obtain all they want near at hand, and you can await the enemy’s attack in safety, or, when you see your opportunity, strike a blow at them.’
‘We are in command now, not you,’ was the reply of one of them. They bade him go about his business, nor dare to approach the Athenian lines again.
He went back slowly through the camp, an outcast, treated as an enemy. Some of his old friends and comrades recognised him, and sorrowfully followed him as far as they might go. Stopping to look back as he ascended his rugged hill, he saw the vast collection of war vessels lying quietly at anchor in ignorant security. He could see many an old friend among them. He knew some of them by name. Amongst them he discovered his old ship, his ownEros, patched up to do battle for the state once more. How many reminiscences came over him! He thought of the gladsome voyage he had once taken on her to Ephesos, in the heyday of his youth and splendour, when the god of love was emblazoned on her purple sails, and of the sorrowful tidings which met him as he came back home again, and made him pause and meditate a little upon life in the midst of its enjoyments. How many another expedition in her had turned out sorrowfully! He recalled how, decked with the red roses of a hot July, she had borne him off to Sicily, amid the cheering of the fickle people; how she had been taken away from him at Thurii, and how he had found his old companion againat Samos. How many pleasant places they had journeyed to together, and how many fights and triumphs they had shared! How well and steadfastly that good old ship had served him, always true and constant; and there it lay, a thing grown old! Would to the gods men were as true as masts and timber! Then he rode sadly up the steep hill, and reached his solitary fortress.
At least he had done what in him lay to save his country. And, as Athens had dealt with him before, so her degenerate servants had dealt with him that day, treating him with contumely and insult. It seemed worse to them that he should gain the meed of glory by their acting on his counsel than that the state should come to ruin by their rejecting it.
Five days afterwards, on the last day of September, at noon, the Athenian fleet lay unsuspectingly in the same position. The crews had gone to Sestos to buy food; the soldiers were dispersed foraging about the country. From his watch-tower Alkibiades beheld a single Lakedaimonian vessel leave the harbour of Lampsakos and cross the straits, followed at some distance by another ship. Then on a shield raised high upon her mast he saw the sunlight glisten. A similar flash was passed on, reflected in like way, by the second ship to thosein port. He comprehended all its meaning. A sign had been sent that the Athenian fleet was left unguarded. He saw the Spartan ships come out silently and swiftly, and he saw Lysandros pounce upon his prey. Some of the deserted ships had one man on board, some two, some none at all. He saw the Spartans leap into them, cut their hawsers and their rigging, and move them away without resistance. Konon raised an alarm, and escaped with nine triremes. The sacred state ship, theParalos, which was under better discipline and better guarded than the others, also escaped. That was all that was left out of a fleet of near two hundred vessels.
The Spartan hoplites, in their red tunics, landed in the bay, took possession of the camp, and as the Athenian soldiers, hearing the trumpet-call, returned, they were taken, one by one, as in a trap. The Lakedaimonians lost not a single man.
Thus an army of over three thousand soldiers fell into the hands of a remorseless enemy. The whole of those three thousand fighting men, taken as prisoners of war, were, by the orders of Lysandros, murdered deliberately in cold blood. From the scene of carnage we would fain turn away our eyes, as did the Athenian in his lofty tower, his heart bursting with helpless rage.