, which compelled the
sacred troop to proceed by sea. Alcibiades now escorted them on their
progress and return with his forces, and thus succeeded in reconciling
himself with the offended goddesses and with their holy priests, the
Eumolpidae.

Meanwhile a great change had been going on in the state of affairs in
the East. We have already seen that the Great King was displeased with
the vacillating policy of Tissaphernes, and had determined to adopt
more energetic measures against the Athenians. During the absence of
Alcibiades, Cyrus, the younger son of Darius, a prince of a bold and
enterprising spirit, and animated with a lively hatred of Athens, had
arrived at the coast for the purpose of carrying out the altered policy
of the Persian court; and with that view he had been invested with the
satrapies of Lydia, the Greater Phrygia, and Cappadocia. The arrival
of Cyrus opens the last phase of the Peloponnesian war. Another event,
in the highest degree unfavourable to the Athenian cause, was the
accession of Lysander, as NAVARCHUS, to the command of the
Peloponnesian fleet. Lysander was the third of the remarkable men whom
Sparta produced during the war. In ability, energy, and success he may
be compared with Brasidas and Gylippus, though immeasurably inferior to
the former in every moral quality. He was born of poor parents, and
was by descent one of those Lacedaemonians who could never enjoy the
full rights of Spartan citizenship. His ambition was boundless, and he
was wholly unscrupulous about the means which he employed to gratify
it. In pursuit of his objects he hesitated at neither deceit, nor
perjury, nor cruelty, and he is reported to have laid it down as one of
his maxims in life to avail himself of the fox's skin where the lion's
failed.

Lysander had taken up his station at Ephesus, with the Lacedaemonian
fleet of 70 triremes; and when Cyrus arrived at Sardis, in the spring
of 407 B.C., he hastened to pay his court to the young prince, and was
received with every mark of favour. A vigorous line of action was
resolved on. Cyrus at once offered 500 talents, and affirmed that, if
more were needed, he was prepared even to coin into money the very
throne of gold and silver on which he sat. In a banquet which ensued
Cyrus drank to the health of Lysander, and desired him to name any wish
which he could gratify. Lysander immediately requested an addition of
an obolus to the daily pay of the seamen. Cy