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.
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