this intelligence.

After this Alcibiades set to work to persuade Tissaphernes to become
the friend of the Athenians. Tissaphernes, although afraid of the
Peloponnesians because they had more ships in Asia than the Athenians,
was yet disposed to be persuaded if he could, especially after
his quarrel with the Peloponnesians at Cnidus about the treaty of
Therimenes. The quarrel had already taken place, as the Peloponnesians
were by this time actually at Rhodes; and in it the original argument
of Alcibiades touching the liberation of all the towns by the
Lacedaemonians had been verified by the declaration of Lichas that it
was impossible to submit to a convention which made the King master of
all the states at any former time ruled by himself or by his fathers.

While Alcibiades was besieging the favour of Tissaphernes with an
earnestness proportioned to the greatness of the issue, the Athenian
envoys who had been dispatched from Samos with Pisander arrived at
Athens, and made a speech before the people, giving a brief summary
of their views, and particularly insisting that, if Alcibiades were
recalled and the democratic constitution changed, they could have the
King as their ally, and would be able to overcome the Peloponnesians.
A number of speakers opposed them on the question of the democracy, the
enemies of Alcibiades cried out against the scandal of a restoration to
be effected by a violation of the constitution, and the Eumolpidae
and Ceryces protested in behalf of the mysteries, the cause of his
banishment, and called upon the gods to avert his recall; when Pisander,
in the midst of much opposition and abuse, came forward, and taking each
of his opponents aside asked him the following question: In the face
of the fact that the Peloponnesians had as many ships as their own
confronting them at sea, more cities in alliance with them, and the King
and Tissaphernes to supply them with money, of which the Athenians had
none left, had he any hope of saving the state, unless someone could
induce the King to come over to their side? Upon their replying that
they had not, he then plainly said to them: "This we cannot have unless
we have a more moderate form of government, and put the offices into
fewer hands, and so gain the King's confidence, and forthwith restore
Alcibiades, who is the only man living that can bring this about. The
safety of the state, not the form of its government, is for the moment
the most pressing qu