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

128 THE FALL OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
expected it to fail. Modern historians, as we have seen, find this impossible.
Surely, since Phrynichus knew his first letter had been betrayed,
he must have expected the same treatment for the second. The
first letter had asked Astyochus to do something that turned out to be
impossible and whose consequence would be neither dramatic nor
decisive, even if it were possible. In the circumstances, Astyochus'
action was not remarkable. The second letter, however, invited the
navarch to do something within his power that promised to produce
an astonishing victory that might put an end to the war in a single
stroke. As Westlake says, "the prospect of destroying the Athenian
forces at Samos and thus probably being instrumental in bringing the
war to a speedy end was a dazzling one that can hardly have failed to
attract him. " 86 Phrynichus, in his desperation, might well have hoped
that Astyochus would deal with the second letter differently from the
first. Presumably, a victorious Astyochus and a grateful Sparta would
honor and reward the man responsible for their success. In any case,
Phrynichus would avoid the doom surely awaiting him on the return
of his bitter enemy. Alcibiades was not the only Athenian politician
with remarkable flexibility and grandiose personal ambitions who was
ready to betray his city to secure his safety and advance his career. 87
It is usual to treat Phrynichus' invitation as though it were truly
irresistible and to explain Astyochus' unwillingness to accept it either
by the alleged bribery on the part of Tissaphernes or by his "lack of
initiative and imagination," his ''weakness" and lack of "diplomatic
finesse," and his "Spartan caution and distrust. " 88 But he would have
been very stupid indeed had he put any trust in the offer of Phrynichus,
of whose treacherous character he had ample proof. It did not require
un-Spartan imagination, initiative, and daring, only the usual Spartan
"caution and distrust," to fear exactly what Westlake alleges Phryni-
"JHS LXXVI (1956), 101.
87
To sustain his belief that the second letter was a ruse intended to produce the result
that it did, Westlake (}HS LXXVI [1956], IOI-IOl) is compelled to make assumptions
not justified by the evidence. The first is that Phrynichus gave Astyochus instructions
for the attack, which would bring about a Pcloponnesian defeat, Thucydides says
nothing of this. A second assumption is that from the first, Phrynichus meant to warn
the Athenians of the impending attack and urge them to build defensive fortifications.
But this directly contradicts Thucydidcs' account, which makes it clear that he warned
of the attack only after learning that Astyochus was working against him and that a
second letter from Alcibiades was on the way (8.51.1; see HCT V, 119-120). Thucydides
clearly thought that Phrynichus would have kept silent and allowed the attack
had he not been warned of the second betrayal by Astyochus.
88 Westlake,JHS LXXVI (1956), 102-IOJ.