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

THE FOUR HUNDRED IN POWER 179
in his relationship with Tissaphernes, and only he knew how shaky
was his influence over the satrap. When last at Tissaphernes' side,
Alcibiades had been a man without a country whose safety depended
on the goodwill of the Persian, a mere tool of the satrap's. Now he
wanted to show Tissaphernes that he was once again an Athenian
general in control of a powerful fleet and "able to do him good or ill."
Alcibiades, according to Thucydides, "was using the Athenians to
frighten Tissaphernes and Tissaphernes to frighten the Athenians. " 77
Although we know that events proved him overconfident, we need
not doubt that Alcibiades expected that the new circumstances would
allow him to bring Tissaphernes over to the Athenians.
We do not know if Alcibiades knew of conditions in the Peloponnesian
camp at Miletus, but the situation there certainly made his hopes
seem plausible. The soldiers grumbled ever more loudly against the
iniquities of Tissaphernes, and now their officers joined in the dissatisfaction.
The satrap had used their failure to go out and fight the
Athenians at sea as an excuse for being even more remiss in paying
their salaries, and the officers feared that unless they fought a decisive
battle or went somewhere else to get support, the crews would desert.
They focused their resentment, naturally enough, on the navarch Astyochus.
He had always been reluctant to fight the Athenians, and
they thought he was not tough enough with Tissaphernes; now they
suspected him of having been bribed by the sa trap to act in that way.
Finally, the contingents from Thurii and Syracuse confronted Astyochus
and demanded their pay. He answered with the tactlessness that
usually marked the behavior of Spartans to foreigners and even raised
his swagger-stick to threaten Dorieus, the great athlete and commander
of the Thurian force. In a rage, his crews were about to stone the
navarch, who escaped only by fleeing to an altar.'"
The Milesians were quick to take advantage of the discomfiture of
Astyochus and of the soldiers' anger at Tissaphernes. They captured
the fort the satrap had built in their city and drove his garrison from
it to the approval of the allies and the Syracusans in particular." In
77 8.82.2.
78 8.84.1-3. I have translated (3aK'M'IpLav as "swagger-stick" to convey in modem
terms what I take to be its significance in Sparta. See HCT V, 279.
79
8.84+ It is noteworthy that Lichas, the E'Uj.1.(3ouAo"i who protested so bitterly against
the second draft-treaty between Sparta and the Persians, chided the Milesians and told
them that they and the other Greeks of Asia Minor should submit quietly to the Great
King's rule until the war had been won. The Milesians were so irked that they later