thus be enabled to contend with the odds in
their favour, and so made their navy lose its efficiency, which had been
very remarkable, and generally betrayed a coolness in the war that was
too plain to be mistaken.
Alcibiades gave this advice to Tissaphernes and the King, with whom he
then was, not merely because he thought it really the best, but because
he was studying means to effect his restoration to his country, well
knowing that if he did not destroy it he might one day hope to persuade
the Athenians to recall him, and thinking that his best chance of
persuading them lay in letting them see that he possessed the favour of
Tissaphernes. The event proved him to be right. When the Athenians at
Samos found that he had influence with Tissaphernes, principally of
their own motion (though partly also through Alcibiades himself sending
word to their chief men to tell the best men in the army that, if there
were only an oligarchy in the place of the rascally democracy that had
banished him, he would be glad to return to his country and to make
Tissaphernes their friend), the captains and chief men in the armament
at once embraced the idea of subverting the democracy.
The design was first mooted in the camp, and afterwards from thence
reached the city. Some persons crossed over from Samos and had an
interview with Alcibiades, who immediately offered to make first
Tissaphernes, and afterwards the King, their friend, if they would give
up the democracy and make it possible for the King to trust them.
The higher class, who also suffered most severely from the war, now
conceived great hopes of getting the government into their own hands,
and of triumphing over the enemy. Upon their return to Samos the
emissaries formed their partisans into a club, and openly told the mass
of the armament that the King would be their friend, and would
provide them with money, if Alcibiades were restored and the democracy
abolished. The multitude, if at first irritated by these intrigues, were
nevertheless kept quiet by the advantageous prospect of the pay from the
King; and the oligarchical conspirators, after making this communication
to the people, now re-examined the proposals of Alcibiades among
themselves, with most of their associates. Unlike the rest, who thought
them advantageous and trustworthy, Phrynichus, who was still general,
by no means approved of the proposals. Alcibiades, he rightly thought,
cared no more for an oligarchy th
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