fraud and artifice, a great friend to knaves and bad men, and set no value upon simplicity and integrity, infinitely admired the smooth address of Alcibiades, the ease with which he assumed all kinds of manners and characters, and his great ability in the conduct of affairs; and indeed there was no heart so hard, or temper so untractable, as to hold out against the graces and charms of his conversation and intimacy. Even those who feared and envied him most, enchanted in a manner by his affable air and engaging behaviour, could not dissemble the infinite satisfaction they felt in seeing and conversing with him.

Tissaphernes therefore, though otherwise very haughty and brutal, and who of all the Persians hated the Greeks most, was so much taken with the complacency and insinuation of Alcibiades, that he gave himself wholly up to him, and flattered him more than he was flattered by him; insomuch that he gave the name of Alcibiades to the finest and most delightful of his gardens, as well from the abundance of its fountains and canals, and the verdure of its groves, as the surprising beauty of its retreats and solitudes, which art and nature seemed to vie in embellishing, and wherein a more than royal magnificence was displayed.

Alcibiades, who found there was no longer any safety for him in the party of the Spartans, and who always apprehended the resentment of Agis, began to do them ill offices with Tissaphernes, to prevent his aiding them with all his forces, and ruining the Athenians entirely. He had no difficulty in bringing the Persian into his views, which were conformable to his VOL. 3.

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master's interests, and to the orders he had received from him. For after the famous treaty concluded under Cimon, the kings of Persia, not daring to attack the Greeks with open force, took other measures to ruin them. They endeavoured underhand to excite divisions among them, and to foment troubles by considerable sums of money, which they found means to convey sometimes to Athens and sometimes to Sparta. They applied themselves so successfully to keep up a balance of power between these two republics, that the one could never entirely reduce the other. They granted them only slight aids that could effect nothing decisive, in order to undermine them insensibly, and exhaust both parties gradually, by weakening them upon one another.

It is in this kind of conduct that policy makes the ability of ministers consist; who, from the recess of their cabinets, without noise or emotion, without any great expenses, or setting numerous armies on foot, effect the reduction of the states whose power gives them umbrage, either by sowing domestic divisions among them, or by promoting the jealousy of their neighbours, in order to set them at variance with each other.

We must confess, however, that this kind of policy gives us no very favourable idea of the kings of Persia. To reduce themselves, powerful as they were, to such mean, obscure, and indirect measures, was to confess their weakness, and how unable they believed themselves to attack their enemies with open force, and to reduce them by honourable means. Besides, does it consist with justice to employ such methods in regard to people, against whom there is no foundation of com

plaint, who live in peace under the faith of treaties, and whose sole crime is the apprehension of their being one day in a condition to do hurt? And is it lawful, by secret corruptions, to ensnare the fidelity of subjects, and to be the accomplice of their treasons, by putting arms into their hands, against their native country?

What glory and renown would not the kings of Persia have acquired, if, content with the vast and rich dominions which Providence had given them, they had applied their good offices, power, and even treasures, to conciliate the neighbouring people with each other; to remove their jealousies, to prevent injustice and oppression; and if, feared and honoured by them all, they had made themselves the mediators of their differences, the security of their peace, and the guarantee of their treaties? Can any conquest, however great, be compared with such glory?

Tissaphernes acted upon other principles, and had no thought but of preventing the Greeks from being in a condition to attack the Persians, their common enemy. He entered freely therefore into the views of Alcibiades, and at the same time that he declared himself openly for the Lacedemonians, did not fail to assist the Athenians underhand, and by a thousand secret methods; deferring the payment of the Lacedemonian fleet, and retarding the arrival of the Phenician ships, of which he had long kept them in hopes. He omitted no occasion of giving Alcibiades new marks of his friendship and esteem, which rendered that general equally considerable to both parties. The Athenians, who had sadly experienced the effects of having drawn

his anger upon them, were not now to repent their passing sentence of condemnation upon him. Alcibiades also on his side, who was extremely sorry to see the Athenians in so mournful a situation, began to fear, that the city of Athens, being entirely ruined, he might fall into the hands of the Spartans who mortally hated him.

SECTION II.

ALCIBIADES RETURNS TO ATHENS. TISSAPHERNES CONCLUDES A NEW TREATY WITH THE LACEDEMONIANS.

m

THE Athenians were intent upon nothing so much as Samos' where they had all their forces. From thence with their fleet they reduced all the cities that had abandoned them under their obedience, kept the rest in their duty, and found themselves still in a condition to make head against their enemies, over whom they had obtained several advantages. But they were afraid of Tissaphernes, and the hundred and fifty Phenician ships which he hourly expected; and rightly perceived, that if so powerful a fleet should join the enemy, there was no longer any safety for their city. Alcibiades, who was well informed of all that passed among the Athenians, sent secretly to the principal of them at Samos, to sound their sentiments, and let them know, that he was not averse to returning to Athens, provided the administration of the republic were put into the hands of the great and powerful, and not left to the populace, who had expelled him. Some of the

Thucyd. I. viii. p. 579-587. m Plut. in Alcib. p. 204-206:

principal officers went from Samos, with design to concert with him the proper measures for the success of that undertaking. He promised to procure the Athenians not only the favour of Tissaphernes, but of the king himself, upon condition they would abolish the democracy or popular government; because the king would place more confidence in the engagements of the nobility, than upon those of the inconstant and capricious multitude.

The deputies lent a willing ear to these proposals, and conceived great hopes of discharging themselves from part of the public impositions, because, being the richest of the people, the burden lay heaviest upon them, and of making their country triumph after having possessed themselves of the government. At their return, they began by bringing over such as were most proper to share in their design; after which they caused a report to be spread amongst the troops that the king was inclined to declare in favour of the Athenians, upon condition that Alcibiades were reinstated, and the popular government abolished. That proposal surprised the soldiers and was generally rejected at first; but the charm of gain, and the hope of a change to their advantage, soon softened what was harsh and shocking in it, and even made them ardently desire the recal of Alcibiades.

Phrynicus, one of their generals, rightly judging that Alcibiades affected an oligarchy no more than he did the democracy, and that in decrying the people's conduct, he had no other view than to acquire the favour and confidence of the nobility for his own reestablishment, had the boldness to oppose their resolu