sans, who had been on the point
of betraying their city to him, were afraid that their treason would be
known, and urged that he should be put to death with his fellow-general;
and the brave, honest, upright old man was therefore slain with his
companion Demosthenes.

For seventy days the rest remained in the dismal quarry, scorched by the
sun, half-starved, and rapidly dying off, until they were publicly sold
as slaves, when many of the Athenians gained the favour of their masters
by entertaining them by repeating the poetry of their tragedians,
especially of Euripides, whose works had not yet been acted in Sicily.
Some actually thus gained their freedom from their masters, and could
return to Athens to thank the poet whose verses, stored in their memory,
had been their ransom.

All the history of the Peloponnesian war is written by Thukydides,
himself a brave Athenian soldier and statesman, who had a great share in
all the affairs of the time, and well knew all the men whom he describes.

[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]

CHAP. XXI.--THE SHORE OF THE GOAT'S RIVER. B.C. 406-402.

Still the war went on, the Athenians holding out steadily, but the
Spartans beginning to care more for leadership than for Greece, and so
making league with the Persians. Alkibiades was forgiven and called back
again after a time, and he gained numerous towns and islands back again
for the Athenians, so that he sailed into the Piraeus with a fleet, made
up by his own ships and prizes to full two hundred sail, all decked with
purple, gold, and silver, and doubling what had been lost in the unhappy
Sicilian enterprise; but his friends were sorry that it was what they
called an unlucky day--namely, that on which every year the statue of
Pallas Athene was stripped of its ornaments to be dusted, washed, and
repaired, and on which her worshippers always avoided beginning anything
or doing any business.

A very able man named Lysander, of the royal line, though not a king, had
come into command at Sparta, and he had a sea-fight at Notium, just
opposite to Ephesus, with the Athenians, and gained no very great
advantage, but enough to make the discontent and distrust always felt for
Alkibiades break out again, so that he was removed from the command and
sailed away to the Chersonese, where in the time of his exile he had
built himself a sort of little castle looking out on the strait.

Konon was the name of the n