Miletus to
the ships of the Syracusans, Tissaphernes, pressed harder than ever upon
him in his exile, and among other charges against him accused him of
having once asked him for money, and then given himself out as his enemy
because he failed to obtain it.

While Astyochus and the Milesians and Hermocrates made sail for
Lacedaemon, Alcibiades had now crossed back from Tissaphernes to Samos.
After his return the envoys of the Four Hundred sent, as has been
mentioned above, to pacify and explain matters to the forces at Samos,
arrived from Delos; and an assembly was held in which they attempted to
speak. The soldiers at first would not hear them, and cried out to
put to death the subverters of the democracy, but at last, after some
difficulty, calmed down and gave them a hearing. Upon this the envoys
proceeded to inform them that the recent change had been made to save
the city, and not to ruin it or to deliver it over to the enemy, for
they had already had an opportunity of doing this when he invaded the
country during their government; that all the Five Thousand would have
their proper share in the government; and that their hearers' relatives
had neither outrage, as Chaereas had slanderously reported, nor other
ill treatment to complain of, but were all in undisturbed enjoyment of
their property just as they had left them. Besides these they made a
number of other statements which had no better success with their angry
auditors; and amid a host of different opinions the one which found most
favour was that of sailing to Piraeus. Now it was that Alcibiades for
the first time did the state a service, and one of the most signal kind.
For when the Athenians at Samos were bent upon sailing against their
countrymen, in which case Ionia and the Hellespont would most certainly
at once have passed into possession of the enemy, Alcibiades it was who
prevented them. At that moment, when no other man would have been able
to hold back the multitude, he put a stop to the intended expedition,
and rebuked and turned aside the resentment felt, on personal grounds,
against the envoys; he dismissed them with an answer from himself,
to the effect that he did not object to the government of the Five
Thousand, but insisted that the Four Hundred should be deposed and the
Council of Five Hundred reinstated in power: meanwhile any retrenchments
for economy, by which pay might be better found for the armament, met
with his entire approval. Ge