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Updated: June 18, 2025


The Samians sent a delegation to Athens headed by Pisander, who boldly proposed Alcibiades' return, the dissolution of the democracy in Samos and alliance with Tissaphernes. These proposals were rejected, but the democracy at Athens was not destined to last much longer, power being usurped by the famous Four Hundred in 411.

It was their object to get the Greeks out of Babylonia, where they could easily intrench and support themselves, and then attack them at a disadvantage. So Tissaphernes agreed to conduct them home by a different route. They acceded to his proposal, and he led them to the banks of the Tigris, and advanced on its left bank, north to the Great Zab River, about two hundred miles from Babylon.

Meanwhile the Peloponnesians at Miletus heard of the recall of Alcibiades and, already distrustful of Tissaphernes, now became far more disgusted with him than ever.

The last book is remarkable for the absence of speeches; it is a record of the continued intrigues which followed the Sicilian disaster. Upheavals in Asia Minor brought into the swirl of plots Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap, anxious to recover control of Ionia hitherto saved by Athenian power. In 412 the Athenian subjects began to revolt, seventeen defections being recorded in all.

Driven about from house to house in the city, and from general to general in the camp, the latter had no resort but to place himself in the hands of Tissaphernes; unless we are to suppose that his object in courting favor with him was to avert the entire destruction of his native city, whither he wished himself to return.

Negotiations with Tissaphernês. After three days passed in these restorative quarters, they were visited by Tissaphernês, accompanied by four Persian grandees and a suite of slaves. The satrap began to open a negotiation with Klearchus and the other generals.

He therefore invited Tissaphernes to conclude another and a better treaty, as they certainly would not recognize those existing and did not want any of his pay upon such conditions. This offended Tissaphernes so much that he went away in a rage without settling anything.

But now the Lacedæmonians were engaged in a quarrel with the western satraps, Tissaphernes and Artabazus; six thousand veterans so experienced as those who had followed this famous march into the heart of the Persian empire, had fought their way from Cunaxa to Trapezus, and had supported themselves mainly by their military prowess in getting from Trapezus to Europe, were a force by no means to be neglected, and the bulk of the troops were not unwilling to be incorporated in the Lacedæmonian armies.

Alcibiades finding that Tissaphernes had gone to Aspendus, himself sailed thither with thirteen ships, promising to do a great and certain service to the Athenians at Samos, as he would either bring the Phoenician fleet to the Athenians, or at all events prevent its joining the Peloponnesians.

The barbarian being himself a lover of deceit and of crooked ways, admired his cleverness and versatility; while no man's nature could resist the fascinations and charms of the society of Alkibiades, which Tissaphernes now enjoyed daily.

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