selves by land, he commanded the rest of the
captains to slacken, and follow him slowly, whilst he, advancing with
forty ships, showed himself to the enemy and provoked them to fight. The
enemy, being deceived as to their numbers, despised them, and, supposing
they were to contend with those only, made ready and began the fight.
But as soon as they were engaged, they perceived the other part of the
fleet coming down upon them, at which they were so terrified that they
fled immediately. Upon that, Alcibiades, breaking through the midst of
them with twenty of his best ships, hastened to the shore, disembarked,
and pursued those who abandoned their ships and fled to land, and made
a great slaughter of them. Mindarus and Pharnabazus, coming to their
succor were utterly defeated. Mindarus was slain fighting valiantly;
Pharnabazus saved himself by flight. The Athenians slew great numbers of
their enemies, won much spoil, and took all their ships. They also made
themselves masters of Cyzicus, which was deserted by Pharnabazus, and
destroyed its Peloponnesian garrison, and thereby not only secured to
themselves the Hellespont, but by force drove the Lacedaemonians out of
all the rest of the sea. They intercepted some letters written to the
ephors, which gave an account of this fatal overthrow, after their
short, Iaconic manner. "Our hopes are at an end. Mindarus is slain. The
men are starving. We know not what to do."

And now Alcibiades began to desire to see his native country again,
or rather to show his fellow-citizens a person who had gained so many
victories for them. He set sail for Athens, the ships that accompanied
him being adorned with great numbers of shields and other spoils, and
towing after them many galleys taken from the enemy, and the ensigns and
ornaments of many others which he had sunk and destroyed; all of them
together amounting to two hundred. Little credit, perhaps, can be given
to what Duris the Samian, who professed to be descended from Alcibiades,
adds, that Chrysogonus, who had gained a victory at the Pythian games,
played upon his flute for the galleys, whilst the oars kept time with
the music; and that Callippides, the tragedian, attired in his buskins,
his purple robes, and other ornaments used in the theatre, gave the word
to the rowers, and that the admiral's galley entered into the port with
a purple sail. It is not credible, that one who had returned from so
long an exile, and such a variety o