ut three thousand prisoners to the sword. He shortly afterwards
captured Athens, burned her ships, and pulled down her Long Walls.
Alkibiades, terrified at seeing the Lacedaemonians omnipotent by sea and
land, shifted his quarters to Bithynia, sending thither a great amount
of treasure, and taking much with him, but leaving much more in his
Thracian fortresses. In Bithynia, however, he suffered much loss at the
hands of the natives, and determined to proceed to the court of
Artaxerxes, thinking that the Persian king, if he would make trial of
him, would find that he was not inferior to Themistokles in ability,
while he sought him in a much more honourable way; for it was not to
revenge himself on his fellow-citizens, as Themistokles did, but to
assist his own country against its enemy that he meant to solicit the
king's aid. Imagining that Pharnabazus would be able to grant him a safe
passage to the Persian court, he went into Phrygia to meet him, and
remained there for some time, paying his court to the satrap, and
receiving from him marks of respect.

XXXVIII. The Athenians were terribly cast down at the loss of their
empire; but when Lysander robbed them of their liberty as well, by
establishing the government of the Thirty Tyrants, they began to
entertain thoughts which never had occurred to them before, while it was
yet possible that the State might be saved from ruin. They bewailed
their past blunders and mistakes, and of these they considered their
second fit of passion with Alkibiades to have been the greatest. They
had cast him off for no fault of his own, but merely because they were
angry with his follower for having lost a few ships disgracefully; they
had much more disgraced themselves by losing the services of the ablest
and bravest general whom they possessed. Even in their present abasement
a vague hope prevailed among them that Athens could not be utterly lost
while Alkibiades was alive; for he had not during his former exile been
satisfied with a quiet life, and surely now, however prosperous his
private circumstances might be, he would not endure to see the triumph
of the Lacedaemonians, and the arrogant tyranny of the Thirty. Indeed
this was proved to be no vain dream by the care which the Thirty took to
watch all the motions of Alkibiades. At last, Kritias informed Lysander,
that while Athens was governed by a democracy, the Lacedaemonian empire
in Greece could never be safe; and if the Athenians wer