Alkibiades, on learning this, left the
Athenian camp altogether, got together a force of foreign troops, and
made war on the irregular Thracian tribes on his own account, thus
obtaining much plunder and freeing the neighbouring Greek cities from
the dread of the barbarians. Now when the generals Tydeus, Menander, and
Adeimantus came with the entire Athenian fleet to Aegospotamoi, they
used early every morning to go to Lampsakus to challenge the fleet of
Lysander, which lay there, to a sea-fight. After this ceremony they
would return and spend the whole day in careless indolence, as if
despising their enemy. Alkibiades, who lived close by, did not disregard
their danger, but even rode over on horseback and pointed out to the
generals that they were very badly quartered in a place where there was
no harbour and no city, having to obtain all their provisions from
Sestos, and, when the ships were once hauled up on shore, allowing the
men to leave them unguarded and straggle where they pleased, although
they were in the presence of a fleet which was trained to act in silence
and good order at the command of one man.
XXXVII. Though Alkibiades gave this advice, and urged the generals to
remove to Sestos, they would not listen to him. Tydeus indeed rudely
bade him begone, for they, not he, were now generals. Alkibiades, too,
suspected that there was some treachery in the case, and retired,
telling his personal friends, who escorted him out of the camp, that if
he had not been so outrageously insulted by the generals, he could in a
few days have compelled the Lacedaemonians either to fight a battle at
sea against their will, or abandon their ships.
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