XXIV.  After the Athenian disaster in Sicily, ambassadors came to Sparta from Chios, Lesbos, and Kyzikus.  The claims of the Lesbians were favoured by the Boeotians, and those of the people of Kyzikus by Pharnabazus; but, at the recommendation of Alkibiades, the Lacedaemonians decided to give the preference to the Chians.  He himself sailed to that island, caused nearly the whole of the cities of Ionia to revolt from Athens, and injured the Athenian cause much by constantly assisting the Lacedaemonian generals.  King Agis, however, was already his personal enemy, because of Alkibiades’s intrigue with his wife, and now was enraged at his successes; for it was said that scarcely anything was done without Alkibiades.  The other leading men in Sparta also hated Alkibiades, because he had thrown them into the shade; and they had sufficient influence with the home government to obtain an order for his execution, to be sent to the generals in Ionia.

Alkibiades received warning of this in good time.  Alarmed at the news, he still continued to co-operate with the Lacedaemonians, but utterly refused to trust his person among them.  To ensure his safety, he betook himself to Tissaphernes, the satrap or viceroy for the king of Persia in that province, and at once became the most important personage amongst his followers.  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.  Although he hated the Greeks as much as any Persian, yet he was so overpowered by the flatteries of Alkibiades, that he in his turn repaid him with compliments even more excessive.  He decreed that the pleasantest of his parks, a place charmingly wooded and watered, with delightful walks and summer-houses, should be called “the Alkibiades;” and all men from that time forth spoke of it by that name.

XXV.  Now that Alkibiades had determined that the Spartans were not to be trusted, and that he was in fear of Agis, their king, he began to speak evil of them to Tissaphernes, withholding him from assisting them thoroughly, and enabling them to conquer the Athenians, but advising him rather to starve the Lacedaemonians forces by insufficient supplies, so as to play one side off against the other, and thus encourage them to wear each other out, in order that in the end both might be so weakened as to fall an easy prey to the Persians.

Tissaphernes at once adopted this policy, and made no secret of his regard and admiration for Alkibiades, who was now looked up to by the Greeks on both sides, while the Athenians repented of their decrees against him.  He also began to fear that if their city were to be utterly destroyed he would necessarily fall into the hands of his enemies, the Lacedaemonians.