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Lines 1.45-1.48
Greek and Roman Historians, The Peloponnesian War 1.45-48
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12. 1. 18. The restoration of democracy
With Alcibiades as one of the commanders, the revived Athenian fleet won a great victory over the Spartans in 410 at Cyzicus on the southern shore of the Black Sea. The Athenians intercepted the plaintive and typically brief dispatch sent by the defeated Spartans to their leaders at home: "Ships lost. Commander dead. Men starving. Do not know what to do." The pro-democratic fleet now demanded the restoration of full democracy at Athens, and in this year Athenian government returned to the form and membership that it had possessed before the oligarchic coup of 411. It also, according to a later source, returned to the same uncompromising bellicosity that had characterized the decisions of the Athenian assembly in the mid-420s. ust as after the defeat at Pylos in 425, the Spartans offered peace after their defeat at Cyzicus in 410. Athens refused. In any case, the Athenian fleet went on to reestablish the safety of the grain routes to Athens and to compel some of the allies who had revolted to return to the alliance.
12. 1. 19. The end of the war
The aggressive Spartan commander Lysander ultimately doomed Athenian hopes in the war by using Persian money to rebuild the Spartan fleet and by ensuring that it was well led. When in 406 he inflicted a defeat on an Athenian fleet at Notion, near Ephesus on the Anatolian coast, Alcibiades, who had not been present but was held to have been reponsible for the safety of the Athenian forces, was forced into exile for the last time. The Athenian fleet nevertheless won a victory off the islands of Arginusai, south of the island of Lesbos, later in 406, but a storm prevented the rescue of the crews of wrecked ships. The Athenian commanders were condemned to death for alleged negligence in a mass trial at Athens that contradicted the normal guarantee of individual trials. Once again the assembly rejected a Spartan offer of peace on the basis of the status quo. Lysander thereupon secured more Persian funds, strengthened the Spartan naval forces still further, and decisively eliminated the Athenian fleet in 405 in a battle at Aegospotami, near Lampsacus on the coast of Anatolia. He subsequently blockaded Athens and finally compelled Athens to surrender in 404 B. C. After twenty-seven years of near-continuous war, the Athenians were at the mercy of their enemies.