In a Paradise Garden
Alcibiades was one of the most dazzling figures of the Golden Age of Athens. A ward of Pericles and a friend of Socrates, he was spectacularly rich, bewitchingly handsome and charismatic, a skilled general, and a ruthless politician. He was also a serial traitor, infamous for his dizzying changes of loyalty in the Peloponnesian War. Nemesis: Alcibiades and the Fall of Athens tells the story of this extraordinary life and the turbulent world that Alcibiades set out to conquer. David Stuttard recreates ancient Athens at the height of its glory as he follows Alcibiades from childhood to political power. Here is an excerpt from the book.
Surprise was everything. As they bowled on east, Alcibiades and the Spartan fleet seized every vessel that they came across — from labouring merchantman to tiny bobbing fishing boats — to stop their crews from blabbing that the ships were on their way.
When they touched land in Ionia on the western shores of Asia Minor, envoys from the nearby island of Chios hurried to meet the Spartans. Wealthy businessmen and merchants, many were already known to Alcibiades. And many shared his bleak view of democracy. Which was unsurprising. Like their rich Athenian counterparts, they lamented the degree of power wielded by the People. For, although by no means a fully edged democracy, the Chian Council included not just landed aristocrats but successful commoners as well, men who had bene ted from the island’s renaissance in the wake of the Ionian Revolt some eighty years before, who grew rich from the boom in Chios’ prosperity as part of Athens’ empire — not least because of its privileged status. unlike most of Athens’ subject states, Chios was exempt from paying tribute. Instead, it willingly allowed the Athenians to use its powerful fleet as they saw fit. But although the island was populous and thriving, many of its people were increasingly unhappy. Chian ships and men had taken part in Athens’ doomed Sicilian adventure. Lives and money had been lost. With Athens’ star no longer at its zenith, there was an increasing feeling that the time had come to cut free.
Encouraged by the Chian envoys, the Spartans at once put to sea for Chios itself, only now releasing their flotilla of captured boats and ships, their crews turned loose to beetle back to their home ports with news that events had taken an intriguing turn. At Chios, the arrival of the five Spartan triremes was met with incredulity. As citizens rushed to the quayside to view this unexpected sight — a Spartan navy! — Alcibiades was hurried to the Council Chamber. With him was the Spartan admiral, Chalcideus, and together they spun their tale. Omitting the inconvenient detail that it had been first defeated and then blockaded at Spiraeum by the Athenians, they announced that the Peloponnesian fleet, too, was on its way. The Spartans’ easy voyage here to Chios was proof (if proof were needed) that the Athenians no longer ruled the waves. The tide had turned. The old order was coming to an end.
It was music to the Chian Council’s ears. Overturning two generations of tradition, they declared independence from Athens’ empire. And, when across the straits the citizens of mainland Erythrae heard the news, they followed suit. Soon, three of Sparta’s triremes were scudding round the headland to Clazomenae, the hometown of Pericles’ great friend, the philosopher Anaxagoras. On board was almost surely the persuasive Alcibiades: no sooner had they reached the city on its tiny island a stone’s throw from the shore, with its pellucid, shallow waters the haunt of swans and seabirds, than the Spartans brought it, too, into their net. It was all going so swimmingly. Keep up the momentum, and the war would be over before it had even restarted!
But Athens was not prepared simply to let events take their course. Despite still reeling from the Sicilian disaster, and aware of her deepening economic crisis, when the Assembly heard the grim news from the east, it responded with swift resolution. Nineteen years before, at the beginning of the war, Pericles had insisted that a special reserve of 1,000 talents be set aside for use only in extreme emergency. e time had come to use it. Chios was a not just a vital ally. until now it had been reliable as well. If it had so readily rebelled, what of those who were less trustworthy? ere were many in Athens who recalled the dark days of 440, when, aided by the Persians, the revolt of Samos had severely threatened the empire’s stability. e danger now facing them was even greater. It must not be allowed to spread. So, with an overwhelming show of hands, the People voted to send out the navy.
Scurried preparations. Hasty precautions. The officers of seven Chian triremes, serving in the blockade at Spiraeum, taken into custody. Their slave crews liberated, rowing now for Athens. en the speedy embarkation and the thump of oars as eight sleek warships shot out from Piraeus and scudded with all haste towards the firestorm.
For both sides, time was of the essence. Even as the small Athenian fleet was straining to make landfall, Alcibiades and Chalcideus sailed south for Teos, a well-appointed city on the southern shores of the Erythraean peninsula, whose hills stretched sun-baked between Chios and the Gulf of Smyrna. Take Teos and they would secure the territory they already had. As the Athenians, too, knew well. With both squadrons racing hard to reach the city, it was the Athenians who First pulled into harbour. Their admiral hurried ashore and pleaded with the Teans to stay loyal. For a little while, it seemed they would. And then the combined fleets of the Spartans and the Chians swung into view, outnumbering the Athenian ships three-to-one. For the first time, Alcibiades faced fighting his fellow citizens. But as his triremes scudded ever closer towards Teos harbour, the white foam hissing round their deadly rams, the Athenian ships put out to sea and, rather than attack, turned tail and rowed with all speed south for Samos. It must have been a moment of pure exhilaration. The first phase in the new campaign was over. The Athenians were routed! And with their warships fleeing, Teos and key swathes of Ionia were already in Spartan hands. Alcibiades’ strategy was working perfectly. It was time to begin the next stage in his plan.
If the Athenians were expecting him to pursue them into Samos, they were wrong. Alcibiades’ sights were on another prize: Miletus, on the mainland further south, a city known to him since adolescence, where he had old friends and good contacts, a trading hub, a busy port. The city where his grandfather had lived out his years of exile. e city of Aspasia. The jewel in Ionia’s crown. With Miletus in his hands, Samos and that other wealthy city, Ephesus, would be sandwiched north and south between Spartan-held territories. Surely, they would not hold out for long. It was a strategy that he had tried (albeit unsuccessfully) to implement against Corinth eight years earlier. is time it must surely succeed.
Again, a sense of urgency drove Alcibiades. It was his fervent wish to secure Miletus for the Spartans before Athenian reinforcements could arrive. Besides, the other Peloponnesians, too, were sending him fresh ships, and he wanted to prove he had no need of them. With just five Spartan triremes and the Chian fleet, he, Alcibiades, could achieve miracles! undoubtedly his contacts in Miletus were awaiting him. ere had been ample time since Alcibiades set out from Sparta to apprise his allies of his plans. So, the Athenians at Samos were caught o balance. As the Spartan ships swept round the headland of Mycale and down across the great bay to Miletus, they were unopposed. By the time Athens’ fleet was scrambled, the city was already in Spartan hands.
It was a signal triumph. And the Persian satrap Chithrafarna made sure he was on hand to share in it. As the Athenian triremes skulked nervously o the rocky islet of nearby Ladē, Chithrafarna, with his courtiers, jangled jubilantly into Miletus for the first of a series of high level talks with his new Spartan allies. But it was Alcibiades who most took the satrap’s fancy. Ever adaptable, always knowing perfectly how best to beguile and captivate, Alcibiades from the start set out to charm Chithrafarna. Here, in Ionia, the liberating victor, he no longer needed to subject himself to Spartan rigours. It was, after all, as the sparkling hedonist that the Milesians best knew Alcibiades. To appear otherwise have would been simply to confuse them! And it must have been such an almighty relief to wash again, to enjoy fine delicacies, to wallow unashamedly in sensuous luxury. For Chithrafarna, himself not just a hardened soldier and a seasoned diplomat, but a man acutely sensitive to worldly pleasures, Alcibiades must have seemed sent by Ahura Mazda to be his soul mate, his brother, his friend.
