Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/73

ALK1BIADES CHOSEN ONE OF THE GENERALS. 51 on, never to let the Athenians want for pay, as soon as he once came to trust them, not even if it were necessary to isr>ue out Ins last daric or to coin his own silver couch into money. Nor would he require any farther condition to induce him to trust them, except that Alkibiades should be restored and should become their guarantee. Not only Avould he furnish the Athe- . nians with pay, but he would, besides, bring up to their aid the Phenician fleet, which was already at Aspendus, instead of plac- ing it at the disposal of the Peloponnesians. In the communications of Alkibiades with Peisander and his coadjutors, Alkibiades had pretended that the Great King could have no confidence in the Athenians unless they not only restored him, but abnegated their democracy. On this occasion, the latter condition was withdrawn, and the confidence of the Great King was said to be more easily accorded. But though Alkibiades thus presented himself with a new falsehood, as well as with a new vein of political sentiment, his discourse was eminently successful. It answered all the various purposes which he con- templated ; partly of intimidating and disuniting the oligarchical conspirators at home, partly of exalting his own grandeur in the eyes of the armament, partly of sowing mistrust between the Spartans and Tissaphernes. It was in such full harmony with both the reigning feelings of the armament, eagerness to put down the Four Hundred, as well as to get the better of their Peloponnesian enemies in Ionia, that the hearers were not dis posed to scrutinize narrowly the grounds upon which his assur- ances rested. In the fulness of confidence and enthusiasm, they elected him general along with Thrasybulus and the rest, conceiving redoubled hopes of victory over their enemies both at Athens and at Miletus. So completely, indeed, were their imaginations filled with the prospect of Persian aid, against theii enemies in Ionia, that alarm for the danger of Athens under the government of the Four Hundred became the predominant leeling; and many voices were even raised in favor of sailing to Peiraeus for the rescue of the city. But Alkibiades, knowing well what the armament did not know that his own promises of Persian pay and fleet were a mere delusion, strenuously dis- suaded such a movement, which would have left the dependencies ir. Ionia defenceless against the Peloponncsians. As soon as the