Anaxilaus was afterwards tried at Sparta for having betrayed the city,
and justified what he had done, saying that he was not a Lacedaemonian,
but a Byzantine, and that he saw Byzantium, not Sparta, in danger, as
the city was surrounded by the enemy's siege works, no provisions being
brought in to it, and what there was in it being consumed by the
Peloponnesians and Boeotians, while the people of Byzantium with their
wives and children were starving. He did not, he said, betray the city
to the enemy, but relieved it from the miseries of war, imitating
therein the noblest Lacedaemonians, whose only idea of what was noble
and just was what would serve their own country. The Lacedaemonians, on
hearing this speech, were ashamed to press the charge, and acquitted
him.
XXXII. Now, at length, Alkibiades began to wish to see his native
country again, and still more to be seen and admired by his countrymen
after his splendid series of victories. He proceeded home with the
Athenian fleet, which was magnificently adorned with shields and
trophies, and had many prizes in tow, and the flags of many more which
he had captured and destroyed--all of them together amounting to not
less than two hundred. But we cannot believe the additions which Douris
the Samian, who says that he is a descendant of Alkibiades, makes to
this story, to the effect that Chrysogonus, the victor at the Pythian
games, played on the flute to mark the time for the rowers, while
Kallipides the tragedian, attired in his buskins, purple robe, and other
theatrical properties, gave them orders, and that the admiral's ship
came into harbour with purple sails, as if returning from a party of
pleasure.
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