chapter 29 (volume 4)._

_Plutarch, Alcibiades._

_Xenophon, Hellenica, book 1, chapters 1-4._

GREECE: B. C. 406. The Peloponnesian War: Battle of Arginusæ. Trial and execution of the generals at Athens.

Alcibiades was succeeded by Conon and nine colleagues in command of the Athenian fleet on the coast of Asia Minor. The Athenians, soon afterwards, were driven into the harbor of Mitylene, on the island of Lesbos, by a superior Peloponnesian fleet, commanded by Callicratidas, and were blockaded there with small chance of escape. Conon contrived to send news of their desperate situation to Athens, and vigorous measures were promptly taken to rescue the fleet and to save Mitylene. Within thirty days, a fleet of 110 triremes was fitted out at the Piræus, and manned with a crew which took nearly the last able-bodied Athenian to make it complete. At Samos these were joined by 40 more triremes, making 150 in all, against which Callicratidas was able to bring out only 120 ships from Mitylene, when the relieving armament approached. The two fleets encountered one another near the islands of Arginusæ, off Cape Malea, the southern promontory of Lesbos. In the battle that ensued, which was the greatest naval conflict of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians were completely victorious; Callicratidas was drowned and no less than 77 of the Peloponnesian ships were destroyed, while the Athenians themselves lost 25. As the result of this battle Sparta again made overtures of peace, as she had done after the battle of Cyzicus, and Athens, led by her demagogues, again rejected them. But the Athenian demagogues and populace did worse. They summoned home the eight generals who had won the battle of Arginusæ, to answer to a charge of having neglected, after the victory, to pick up the floating bodies of the Athenian dead and to rescue the drowning from the wrecked ships of their fleet. Six of the accused generals came home to meet the charge; but two thought it prudent to go into voluntary exile. The six were brought to trial; the forms of legality were violated to their prejudice and all means were unscrupulously employed to work up the popular passion against them. One man, only, among the prytanes—senators, that is, of the tribe then presiding, and who were the presidents of the popular assembly—stood out, without flinching, against the lawless rage of his fellow citizens, and refused, in calm scorn of all fierce threats against himself, to join in taking the unconstitutional vote. That one was the philosopher Socrates. The generals were condemned to death and received the fatal draught of hemlock from the same populace which pressed it a little later to the lips of the philosopher. "Thus died the son of Pericles and Aspasia [one of the generals, who bore his father's name], to whom his father had made a fatal gift in obtaining for him the Attic citizenship, and with him Erasinides, Thrasylus, Lysias, Aristocrates, and Diomedon. The last-named, the most innocent of all, who had wished that the whole fleet should immediately be employed in search of the wrecked, addressed the people once more; he expressed a wish that the decree dooming him to death might be beneficial to the state, and called upon his fellow-citizens to perform the thanksgiving offerings to the saving gods which they, the generals, had vowed on account of their victory. These words may have sunk deep into the hearts of many of his hearers; but their only effect has been to cast a yet brighter halo in the eyes of subsequent generations around the memory of these martyrs. Their innocence is best proved by the series of glaring infractions of law and morality which were needed to ensure their destruction, as well as by the shame and repugnance which seized upon the citizens, when they had recognized how fearfully, they had been led astray by a traitorous faction.

_E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 4, chapter 5 (volume 3)._

Mr. Grote attempts to uphold a view more unfavorable to the generals and less severe upon the Athenian people.

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 64._

ALSO IN: _Xenophon, Hellenica, book 1, chapters 5-7._

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 424-406.

GREECE: B. C. 405. The Peloponnesian War Decisive battle of Aigospotamoi. Defeat of the Athenians.

After the execution of the generals, "no long time passed before the Athenians repented of their madness and their crimes: but, yielding still to their old besetting sin, they insisted, as they had done in the days of Miltiades and after the catastrophe at Syracuse, on throwing the blame not on themselves but on their advisers. This great crime began at once to produce its natural fruits. The people were losing confidence in their officers, who, in their turn, felt that no services to the state could secure them against illegal prosecutions and arbitrary penalties. Corruption was eating its way into the heart of the state, and treason was losing its ugliness in the eyes of many who thought themselves none the worse for dallying with it. … The Athenian fleet had fallen back upon Samos; and with this island as a base, the generals were occupying themselves with movements, not for crushing the enemy, but for obtaining money. … The Spartans, whether at home or on the Asiatic coast, were now well aware that one more battle would decide the issue of the war; for with another defeat the subsidies of the Persians would be withdrawn from them as from men doomed to failure, and perhaps be transferred to the Athenians. In the army and fleet the cry was raised that Lysandros was the only man equal to the emergency. Spartan custom could not appoint the same man twice to the office of admiral; but when Arakos was sent out with Lysandros [Lysander] as his secretary, it was understood that the latter was really the man in power." {1592} In the summer of 405 B. C. Lysandros made a sudden movement from the southern Ægean to the Hellespont, and laid siege to the rich town of Lampsacus, on the Asiatic side. The Athenians followed him, but not promptly enough to save Lampsacus, which they found in his possession when they arrived. They took their station, thereupon, at the mouth of the little stream called the Aigospotamoi (the Goat's Stream), directly opposite to Lampsacus, and endeavored for four successive days to provoke Lysandros to fight. He refused, watching his opportunity for the surprise which he effected on the fifth day, when he dashed across the narrow channel and caught the Athenian ships unprepared, their crews mostly scattered on shore. One only, of the six Athenian generals, Conon, had foreseen danger and was alert. Conon, with twelve triremes, escaped. The remaining ships, about one hundred and seventy in number, were captured almost without the loss of a man on the Peloponnesian side. Of the crews, some three or four thousand Athenians were pursued on shore and taken prisoners, to be afterwards slaughtered in cold blood. Two of the incapable generals shared their fate. Of the other generals who escaped, some at least were believed to have been bribed by Lysandros to betray the fleet into his hands. The blow to Athens was deadly. She had no power of resistance left, and when her enemies closed around her, a little later, she starved within her walls until resistance seemed no longer heroic, and then gave herself up to their mercy.

_G. W. Cox, The Athenian Empire,

ALSO IN: _C. Thirlwall, History of Greece,