The Fall of the Athenian Empire-(A New History of the Peloponnesian War) Donald Kagan - (1987)

THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 125
treachery. Once again Phrynichus' strong nerve and quick wit produced
a stratagem. Before the accusation could arrive, he told the army
at Samos that he had received information of an enemy plan to attack
the Athenian camp, just as he had secretly urged. He told the Athenians
to be watchful and to build fortifications to defend against the
attack, and so they did. When Alcibiades' letter arrived soon after, its
effect had already been undermined by Phrynichus' trick. Alcibiades 1
already suspected by many Athenians, was thought to have given
further evidence of his untrustworthiness. The Athenians believed that
Alcibiades knew of the Peloponnesians' plans because of his association
with them and was acting out of personal enmity in claiming that
Phrynichus knew about them too. Instead of doing Phrynichus harm,
the letter raised his credibility, for he had warned the Athenians of
precisely the danger Alcibiades described."
That is the story, essentially as Thucydides tells it, and it is a difficult
one to understand fully. One scholar has gone so far as to deny the
reality of the entire incident, to assert that there were no such letters
and that the story was created from whole cloth by Alcibiades to
destroy his enemy Phrynichus, but there is no reason to go that far. 76
We must believe that the bizarre epistolary exchange took place and
try to understand the actions and motives of the participants. Some
questions arise at once; how could a man as shrewd as Phrynichus be
so foolish as to speak out against the plan to bring back Alcibiades in
a company strongly committed to his return? How could he have acted
out of fear, as Thucydides says, when everywhere he shows himself
to be a bold and brave man? Why did he write Astyochus a second
letter, knowing that the Spartan navarch had already betrayed him?
If Astyochus had not been bribed and was not acting out of selfinterest,
how can his actions be explained? One way has been to accept
Thucydides' account that fear was the cause of Phrynichus' behavior.
But this does not explain his decision to write a second letter to Astyochus
as part of a shrewd scheme in which he expected to be betrayed
and planned in advance to carry out the trick that undid Alcibiades. 77
However, the idea of a scheme answers too few questions and flatly
758.5 I.
76
The theory is put forth by Hatzfeld (Alcibiade, 235-236). It is refuted effectively
by Westlake,JHS LXXVI (1956), 99-100.
77 That is the suggestion of Grote, VIII, 12-1 J, followed by many others.