Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
enemy lay, and, as he sailed before the heads of their galleys, used
every provocation possible, both in words and deeds. Lysander at first
manned out a few ships, and pursued him. But all the Athenian ships
coming in to his assistance, Lysander, also, brought up his whole fleet,
which gained an entire victory. He slew Antiochus himself, took many
men and ships, and erected a trophy.
As soon as Alcibiades heard this news, he returned to Samos, and loosing
from thence with his whole fleet, came and offered battle to Lysander.
But Lysander, content with the victory he had gained, would not stir.
Amongst others in the army who hated Alcibiades, Thrasybulus, the son of
Thrason, was his particular enemy, and went purposely to Athens to
accuse him, and to exasperate his enemies in the city against him.
Addressing the people, he represented that Alcibiades had ruined their
affairs and lost their ships by mere self-conceited neglect of his
duties, committing the government of the army, in his absence, to men
who gained his favor by drinking and scurrilous talking, whilst he
wandered up and down at pleasure to raise money, giving himself up to
every sort of luxury and excess amongst the courtesans of Abydos and
Ionia, at a time when the enemy's navy were on the watch close at hand.
It was also objected to him, that he had fortified a castle near
Bisanthe in Thrace, for a safe retreat for himself, as one that either
could not, or would not, live in his own country. The Athenians gave
credit to these informations, and showed the resentment and displeasure
which they had conceived against him, by choosing other generals.
As soon as Alcibiades heard of this, he immediately forsook the army,
afraid of what might follow; and, collecting a body of mercenary
soldiers, made war upon his own account against those Thracians who
called themselves free, and acknowledged no king. By this means he
amassed to himself a considerable treasure, and, at the same time,
secured the bordering Greeks from the incursions of the barbarians.
Tydeus, Menander, and Adimantus, the new-made generals, were at that
time posted at Aegospotami, with all the ships which the Athenians had
left. From whence they were used to go out to sea every morning, and
offer battle to Lysander, who lay near Lampsacus; and when they had done
so, returning back again, lay, all the rest of the day, carelessly and
without order, in contempt of the enemy. Alcibiades, who was not far
off, did not think so slightly of their danger, nor neglect to let them
know it, but, mounting his horse, came to the generals, and represented
to them that they had chosen a very inconvenient station, where there
was no safe harbor, and where they were distant from any town; so that
they were constrained to send for their necessary provisions as far as
Sestos. He also pointed out to them their carelessness in suffering the
soldiers, when they went ashore, to disperse and wander up and down at
their pleasure, while the enemy's fleet, under the command of one
general, and strictly obedient to discipline, lay so very near them. He
advised them to remove the fleet to Sestos. But the admirals not only
disregarded what he said, but Tydeus, with insulting expressions;
commanded him to be gone, saying, that now not he, but others, had the
command of the forces. Alcibiades, suspecting something of treachery in
them, departed, and told his friends, who accompanied him out of the
camp, that if the generals had not used him with such insupportable
contempt, he would within a few days have forced the Lacedaemonians,
however unwilling, either to have fought the Athenians at sea, or to
have deserted their ships. Some looked upon this as a piece of
ostentation only; others said, the thing was probable, for that he might
have brought down by land great numbers of the Thracian cavalry and
archers, to assault and disorder them in their camp. The event
however, soon made it evident how rightly he had judged of the errors
which the Athenians committed. For Lysander fell upon them on a sudden,
when they least suspected it, with such fury that Conon alone, with
eight galleys, escaped him; all the rest, which were about two hundred,
he took and carried away, together with three thousand prisoners, whom
he put to death. And within a short time after, he took Athens itself,
burnt all the ships which he found there, and demolished their long
walls.
After this, Alcibiades, standing in dread of the Lacedaemonians, who
were now masters both at sea and land, retired into Bithynia. He sent
thither great treasure before him, took much with him, but left much
more in the castle where he had before resided. But he lost great part
of his wealth in Bithynia, being robbed by some Thracians who lived in
those parts, and thereupon determined to go to the court of Artaxerxes,
not doubting but that the king, if he would make trial of his abilities,
would find him not inferior to Themistocles, besides that he was
recommended by a more honorable cause. For he went, not as Themistocles
did, to offer his service against his fellow-citizens, but against their
enemies, and to implore the king's aid for the defense of his country.
He concluded that Pharnabazus would most readily procure him a safe
conduct, and therefore went into Phrygia to him, and continued to dwell
there some time, paying him great respect, and being honorably treated
by him. The Athenians, in the meantime, were miserably afflicted at
their loss of empire, but when they were deprived of liberty also, and
Lysander set up thirty despotic rulers in the city, in their ruin now
they began to turn to those thoughts which, while safety was yet
possible, they would not entertain; they acknowledged and bewailed their
former errors and follies, and judged this second ill-usage of
Alcibiades to be of all the most inexcusable. For he was rejected,
without any fault committed by himself; and only because they were
incensed against his subordinate for having shamefully lost a few ships,
they much more shamefully deprived the commonwealth of its most valiant
and accomplished general. Yet in this sad state of affairs, they had
still some faint hopes left them, nor would they utterly despair of the
Athenian commonwealth, while Alcibiades was safe. For they persuaded
themselves that if before, when he was an exile, he could not content
himself to live idly and at ease, much less now, if he could find any
favorable opportunity, would he endure the insolence of the
Lacedaemonians, and the outrages of the Thirty. Nor was it an absurd
thing in the people to entertain such imaginations, when the Thirty
themselves were so very solicitous to be informed and to get
intelligence of all his actions and designs. In fine, Critias
represented to Lysander that the Lacedaemonians could never securely
enjoy the dominion of Greece, till the Athenian democracy was absolutely
destroyed; and though now the people of Athens seemed quietly and
patiently to submit to so small a number of governors, yet so long as
Alcibiades lived, the knowledge of this fact would never suffer them to
acquiesce in their present circumstances.
Yet Lysander would not be prevailed upon by these representations, till
at last he received secret orders from the magistrates of Lacedaemon,
expressly requiring him to get Alcibiades dispatched: whether it was
that they feared his energy and boldness in enterprising what was
hazardous, or that it was done to gratify king Agis. Upon receipt of
this order, Lysander sent away a messenger to Pharnabazus, desiring him
to put it in execution. Pharnabazus committed the affair to Magaeus,
his brother, and to his uncle Susamithres. Alcibiades resided at that
time in a small village in Phrygia, together with Timandra, a mistress
of his. As he slept, he had this dream: he thought himself attired in
his mistress's habit, and that she, holding him in her arms, dressed his
head and painted his face as if he had been a woman; others say, he
dreamed that he saw Magaeus cut off his head and burn his body; at any
rate, it was but a little while before his death that he had these
visions. Those who were sent to assassinate him had not courage enough
to enter the house, but surrounded it first, and set it on fire.
Alcibiades, as soon as he perceived it, getting together great
quantities of clothes and furniture, threw them upon the fire to choke
it, and, having wrapped his cloak about his left arm, and holding his
naked sword in his right, he cast himself into the middle of the fire,
and escaped securely through it, before his clothes were burnt. The
barbarians, as soon as they saw him, retreated, and none of them durst
stay to expect him, or to engage with him, but, standing at a distance,
they slew him with their darts and arrows. When he was dead, the
barbarians departed, and Timandra took up his dead body, and, covering
and wrapping it up in her own robes, she buried it as decently and as
honorably as her circumstances would allow. It is said, that the famous
Lais, who was called the Corinthian, though she was a native of Hyccara,
a small town in Sicily, from whence she was brought a captive, was the
daughter of this Timandra. There are some who agree with this account
of Alcibiades's death in all points, except that they impute the cause
of it neither to Pharnabazus, nor Lysander, nor the Lacedaemonians:
but, they say, he was keeping with him a young lady of a noble house,
whom he had debauched, and that her brothers, not being able to endure
the indignity, set fire by night to the house where he was living, and,
as he endeavored to save himself from the flames, slew him with their
darts, in the manner just related.
CORIOLANUS
The patrician house of the Marcii in Rome produced many men of
distinction, and among the rest, Ancus Marcius, grandson to Numa by his
daughter, and king after Tullus Hostilius. Of the same family were also
Publius and Quintus Marcius, which two conveyed into the city the best
and most abundant supply of water they have at Rome. As likewise
Censorinus, who, having been twice chosen censor by the people,
afterwards himself induced them to make a law that nobody should bear
that office twice. But Caius Marcius, of whom I now write, being left
an orphan, and brought up under the widowhood of his mother, has shown
us by experience, that, although the early loss of a father may be
attended with other disadvantages, yet it can hinder none from being
either virtuous or eminent in the world, and that it is no obstacle to
true goodness and excellence; however bad men may be pleased to lay the
blame of their corruptions upon that misfortune and the neglect of them
in their minority. Nor is he less an evidence to the truth of their
opinion, who conceive that a generous and worthy nature without proper
discipline, like a rich soil without culture, is apt, with its better
fruits, to produce also much that is bad and faulty. While the force
and vigor of his soul, and a persevering constancy in all he undertook,
led him successfully into many noble achievements, yet, on the other
side, also, by indulging the vehemence of his passion, and through all
obstinate reluctance to yield or accommodate his humors and sentiments
to those of people about him, he rendered himself incapable of acting
and associating with others. Those who saw with admiration how proof
his nature was against all the softnesses of pleasure, the hardships of
service, and the allurements of gain, while allowing to that universal
firmness of his the respective names of temperance, fortitude, and
justice, yet, in the life of the citizen and the statesman, could not
choose but be disgusted at the severity and ruggedness of his