Hellenica

ent of spring, they were met by a former embassy, which was now on its return journey. These were the Lacedaemonian ambassadors, Boeotius and his party, with the other envoys; who told them that the

eir journey to the king, or, failing that, to return home. Cyrus, however, urged upon Pharnabazus either to deliver them up to himself, or to defer sending them home at present; his object being to prevent the Athenians learning what was going on. Pharnabazus, wishing to escape all blame, for the time being detained them, telling them, at one time, that he would presently escort them up country to the king, and at another time t

y set sail for Samos; and from that island, taking twenty of the ships, he sailed to th

ed various places which had revolted to Lacedaemon, including the island of T

und that the Athenians had already chosen as their general Alcibiades, who was still in ex

vourable point of observation from which to gauge the disposition of his fellow-countrymen and the prospects of his recall. When at length their good disposition seemed to him established, not only by his election as general, but by the messages of invitation which he received in private from his friends, he sail

his private means as by all the power of the State. His own choice, eight years ago, when the charge of impiety in the matter of the mysteries was still fresh, would have been to submit to trial at once. It was his personal foes, who had succeeded in postponing that undeniably just procedure; who waited till his back was turned, and then robbed him of his fatherland. Then it was that, being made the very slave of circumstance, he was driven to court the men he hated most; and at a time when his own life was in daily peril, he must see his dearest friends and fellow-citizens, nay, the very State itself, bent on a suicidal course, and yet, in th

ibiades alone was responsible: “If more trials were still in store for the Sta

ed the multitude,26 anxious to make certain of the presence of his friends. Presently his eyes lit upon Euryptolemus, the son of Peisianax, who was his cousin, and then on

charge of impiety, and asserting that he had been the victim of injustice, with othe

anew the processional march to Eleusis; for of late years, owing to the war, the Athenians had been forced to conduct the mysteries by sea. Now, at the head of the troops, he caused them to be conducted once again by land. This done, his

rian citizens who sallied out from the town to resist the invader; forcing them to return and keep close within their walls, though the number who fell was not large. This defeat was shared b