he sailed away in great haste, and, although the Phoenician fleet was at Aspendus, yet Tissaphernes brought it no further, and deceived the Lacedaemonians.  Both parties gave Alkibiades the credit of having detained it, and more especially the Lacedaemonians, who imagined that he was teaching the Persians to allow the Greeks to destroy one another, for it was perfectly clear that such a force, if added to either of the contending parties, must have made them complete masters of the sea.

XXVII.  After this the government of the Four Hundred was dissolved, as the friends of Alkibiades eagerly took the side of the popular party.  Although the Athenians now wished and even commanded Alkibiades to return to his native city, yet he felt that he ought not to come home emptyhanded, and owing his restoration to the good nature of the people, but rather to return after some glorious achievement.  With this intention he at first left Samos with a few ships and cruised in the seas near Knidus and Kos; then, hearing that Mindarus, the Spartan admiral, had gone to the Hellespont with all his fleet, and that the Athenian fleet had followed him, he hurried to the assistance of the Athenian commanders.

Sailing northwards with eighteen triremes he chanced to arrive towards evening, at the end of a sea-fight off Abydos, in which neither party had won any decided advantage.  The appearance of his squadron caused very different feelings among the combatants, for the Athenians were alarmed, and the enemy encouraged.  However, he soon hoisted an Athenian flag, and bore down upon that part of the Peloponnesian fleet which had been hitherto victorious.  He put them to flight, compelled them to run their ships ashore, and then attacking them, disabled their ships, and broke them to pieces, forcing the crews to swim ashore, where Pharnabazus the satrap led a force to the water’s edge to fight for the preservation of the vessels.  In the end the Athenians took thirty ships, recovered those of their own which had been captured, and erected a trophy, as victors.

Alkibiades gained great glory by this splendid piece of good fortune, and at once went off with rich presents and a gorgeous military retinue, to display his fresh laurels to Tissaphernes.  He met, however, with a very different reception to that which he expected, for Tissaphernes, whose mind had been poisoned against him by the Lacedaemonians, and who feared that the king might be displeased with his own dealings with Alkibiades, considered that he had arrived at a very opportune moment, and at once seized him and imprisoned him at Sardis; thinking that this arbitrary act would prove to the world that the other suspicions of an understanding between them were unfounded.