As the Athenian fleet in the Aegean and the Hellespont gradually gained ground against the Spartan navy, things went badly for the Four Hundred in Athens. Clearly the fleet was committed to democracy. The regime itself consisted of two factions, the hard-liners who wanted to keep all power in the hands of the few, and the moderates who wanted to include as many Athenians as possible in the regime, namely the middle class. The former wanted a quick end to the war, which would reconcile them with the oligarchic Spartans and banish the democrats forever. The latter wanted to continue the war in a more disciplined manner than the democracy could manage it, and establish an equitable peace.
When the regime sent a peace delegation to Sparta consisting of hard-liners, the crew of the ship carrying them put in at democratic Argos,[64] arrested the delegation, and sailed away to Samos to join the naval forces there.[65]
The oligarchic regime started building a fortification in the port of Piraeus, ostensibly to protect the fleet against a Spartan invasion, but, dissidents feared, also to create a stronghold from which a few hard-liners could betray the port to the Spartans, who then had a fleet in the area. As Phrynicus, one of the chief hard-liners, was walking through the marketplace after a council meeting, he was stabbed to death by an assassin. Soon after this, the soldiers building the suspicious fortification mutinied. The government leaders from Athens met the soldiers from Piraeus in a confrontation that could have turned into a riot. Theramenes, the leading moderate from the Four Hundred, defused the situation by giving the soldiers permission to demolish the fortification, which they did with great zeal.[66] The next day, while the Four Hundred were meeting in Athens, the mutinous army met in Munichia, and then marched toward Athens again for a second confrontation. They demanded that government name the Five Thousand they had promised to enfranchise, but had so far failed to name. The hard-liners were obviously stalling. But under duress, and with the support of moderate leaders such as Theramenes, they were forced to keep their promise.
As they were meeting a few days later to work out the problems, word came that the Spartan fleet was approaching. The soldiers rushed to their duty stations in the Piraeus. When the Spartans saw that the Athenians were ready to repel them, they sailed by. The betrayal of the city had been thwarted.[67]
The Spartan fleet continued on to the big island of Euboea north of Athens, where it supported most of the island in a revolt from Athens, depriving the city of its nearby breadbasket. Around September of 411, a meeting was held in Athens on the Pnyx hill, where democratic assemblies had previously been held, deposing the Four Hundred and establishing the Five Thousand. The hard-liners had been defeated and the moderates were now in power. Some of the leading hard-liners, fearing reprisals, snuck away to the Spartan fort at Decelea.[68]
After the Athenian victory in the Battle of Cyzicus in early 410, the government of the Five Thousand also crumbled.[69] The democratic government of Athens was now restored roughly as it had been before the coup of the Four Hundred. Whereas pay for serving in government positions had been abolished under the Four Hundred and the Five Thousand—because only those with secure incomes were qualified to be citizens—now it was reinstated. In addition, Cleophon, a new popular leader, instituted a subsistence payment of two obols a day for needy citizens, since the Spartan occupation of Attica had deprived many people of land and income.[70]
Alcibiades remained in the north with the Athenian navy, but not much happened in 409, probably because the Athenian treasury was almost empty.[71] In early 408, however, Alcibiades and his fellow generals besieged Chalcedon, allied with Sparta, at the southeast end of the straits of Bosporus. They built a wooden wall around the city as a siege wall and fought off attacks from inside the city and outside, killing the Spartan governor of the city in battle. They negotiated a truce with the Persian satrap Pharnabazus whereby the Persians paid the Athenians twenty talents, while allowing an Athenian delegation to go to Persia to make peace and, if possible, enlist the Persians as allies against Sparta.[72] Alcibiades was away when the settlement was made, and Pharnabazus insisted that he should swear to the terms with the others, which Alcibiades did on condition that Pharnabazus swear as well.[73] Evidently the satrap was convinced that Alcibiades was the Athenians’ commander-in-chief.
The Athenians now turned their attention to Byzantium (modern Istanbul) on the west side of the strait, an ally of Sparta. They besieged that city and tried to storm the walls without success. Inside the walls the people began to go hungry while the Spartan troops took for themselves all available food. Some desperate Byzantines agreed to open the doors to the city in return for lenient treatment, which Alcibiades had practiced in other cities he captured. When the Spartan governor sailed out of the city make diversionary attacks on the Athenians, the Athenian fleet also sailed away from their stations around the harbor while the army withdrew a distance from the town, as if to go on another expedition. In the middle of the night, the Athenian fleet snuck back into the harbor, attacking the few Spartan warships that remained there. The surprise attack drew all the defenders to the harbor, while the plotters let the Athenian army in from the landward side through doors or on ladders. A furious battle ensued, but when Alcibiades proclaimed publicly that no harm would come to the city or its inhabitants, the Byzantines laid down their arms and the Spartan troops were forced to surrender. Alcibiades kept his word; there were no reprisals or retaliations, and the Spartan survivors were taken to Athens as prisoners of war.[74]
Suddenly the Bosporus was in the hands of the Athenians again. In a relatively quick and efficient campaign, two enemy strongholds had been neutralized, and grain shipments to Athens from the north were made secure. Meanwhile, the Spartans had rebuilt their fleet with Persian money, but they dared not challenge the Athenian navy on even terms. The Syracusans had withdrawn their ships from the Spartan fleet because of a Carthaginian attack on Sicily. So now the Athenians were again in control of most of the Aegean and the passageway to the Black Sea.
In spring of 407 many of the men of the Athenian fleet sailed home after years on campaign. Alcibiades sailed to Samos, then made some side trips to collect funds or reconnoiter enemy forces. He found out that he had been elected general in Athens, his good offices officially recognized by the state. He cautiously made his way back to his native country after receiving promising communications from his friends. He arrived in the Piraeus on Plynteria, “Washing Day,” when the robes of the statue Athena Polias are washed on the 25th of the month Thargelion (around June).[75] While the ship lay at anchor he stood on the deck, cautiously scanning the shore to see what kind of reception he would receive, while curious spectators thronged the shore. Catching sight of his cousin Euryptolemus and other relatives, he took heart and landed among friends, including a bodyguard to protect him against enemies. Joined by throngs of well-wishers, he made his way up to the city center of Athens, where he addressed the Assembly, defending himself against charges that he had participated in the sacrileges that he had been condemned for. The Athenians gave him credit for restoring Athens to a position of strength, forgetting at least for the moment that he had almost fatally damaged the city earlier, and fatuously attributing to him many achievements of his fellow commanders.[76] In his speech Alcibiades did not acknowledge any wrongdoing on his part, but attributed his plight to “a certain bad fortune and a malevolent daemon.” He inspired his audience as he had before his exile. He was crowned with a gold wreath and voted commander with absolute power (autokratōr–the term that would later be the Greek translation of the Latin terms dictator and imperator, emperor).[77]
Alcibiades quickly offered himself as a benefactor to the city by arranging a military escort to protect the procession to the Eleusinian Mysteries. On the 19th of Boedromion in the autumn, initiates traditionally marched from Athens to Eleusis to celebrate the secret religious rites. Since the Spartans had occupied Decelea, the celebrants had been forced to go by sea to the sanctuary. Now Alcibiades marshaled 1500 infantrymen and 50 cavalrymen to protect the marchers, while he himself led the procession. The Spartans did not interfere, and Alcibiades was able to establish both his military prowess and his bona fides as a pious man.[78] His personal enemy King Agis did not march out from Decelea to challenge him.
The prodigal son had returned. The Athenians killed the fatted calf and made merry with him. Critias, another friend of Socrates, had proposed the recall of Alcibiades. Now Alcibiades’ property and rights were restored to him.[79] All was forgiven and forgotten—at least for the time being. Yet the day of Plynteria was considered one of bad omen by those who were superstitious.[80] And Athens and her new-found champion were still far from controlling their own destinies.
Guilty of desertion, defecting to the enemy, treason, and betrayal, betraying his new hosts, plotting against them, deserting them, constant double-dealing and deception, he managed to come out on top again as the deliverer of Athens.
Alcibiades was the most visible of Socrates’ associates. Brilliant, unfailingly charismatic, perceptive, headstrong, and unscrupulous, he had brought to Athens visions of world conquest, only to betray her to the brink of disaster, then to return as her savior. He had every gift but moral character. We shall meet him again in the tragic story of Athens’ downfall.
People were bound to wonder, why could the famous Socrates, his friend and mentor, not tame Alcibiades?
[64]. Thucydides 5.82 on the restoration of democracy in Argos.
[65].Thucydides 8.86.8-9.
[66].Thucydides 8.92.
[67].Thucydides 8.93-94.
[68].Aristotle Constitution of Athens 33.
[69].Aristotle Constitution of Athens 34.1.
[70].Aristotle Constitution of Athens 28.3.
[71].Kagan 1987: 268-269.
[72].Xenophon Hellenica 1.3.4-9.
[73].Xenophon Hellenica 1.3.10-12.
[74].Diodorus Siculus 13.67; Xenophon Hellenica 1.3.14-22.
[75].Plutarch Alcibiades 34.1.
[76].Xenophon Hellenica 1.4.8-13, 18-20; Plutarch Alcibiades 32.
[77].Plutarch Alcibiades 33.2; Xenophon Hellenica 1.4.20.
[78].Xenophon Hellenica 1.4.20-21; Plutarch Alcibiades 34.3-6.
[79].Plutarch Alcibiades 33.
[80].Xenophon Hellenica 1.4.12.