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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Among the many intrigues described by Thucydides in Book viii one of the strangest and most obscure is the episode in which Phrynichos, while serving as one of the commanders of the Athenian fleet at Samos, twice sent messages to Astyochos, the Spartan ναύαρχος. Because the intrigue was conducted with the utmost secrecy, detailed information about it cannot have been easily obtainable, and the motives of all the persons involved, who included Alkibiades and Tissaphernes, were perhaps fully known to nobody. The account given by Thucydides (50–1) leaves much unexplained: it gives the impression that he has recorded what he has ascertained from a single informant without adding much comment or interpretation of his own. Had he lived to revise Book viii, he would scarcely have left these chapters as they stand. The object of this paper is to examine these chapters and to suggest that the intrigues of Phrynichos described in them were less exclusively personal in aim, and had somewhat more important consequences, than is generally believed.
The picture of Phrynichos drawn by Thucydides presents him from the outset as a man of exceptional shrewdness who held strong views and did not hesitate to press vigorously for their acceptance even where they were not shared by others. The arguments whereby he dissuaded his colleagues, immediately after their victorious land operations at Miletos, from risking a sea-battle against the newly reinforced Peloponnesian fleet are recorded in some detail (27. 1–4) and with explicit approval (27. 5). Shortly before the episode of his communications with Astyochos he opposed in outspoken terms the plan of the Athenian trierarchs and others who were negotiating with Alkibiades with the intention of overthrowing the democracy and obtaining Persian support. Thucydides devotes a long passage of oratio obliqua to the objections of Phrynichos (48. 4–7). He maintained that Alkibiades was indifferent to the proposed change of constitution and was interested only in securing his own recall; that to Persia the existing alliance with the Peloponnesians was more advantageous than an alliance with Athens could be; that the establishment of an oligarchy would not improve, and might well damage, Athenian relations with the allies. Thucydides expressly concurs with the first of these arguments (48. 4, ὅπερ καὶ ἦν), and his approval of the other two may perhaps be inferred from his subsequent narrative, which confirms their validity.
1 Woodhead, A. G., AJP lxxv (1954), pp. 141–2Google Scholar, argues that the policy of Peisandros was preferable to that of Phrynichos. It must have been difficult even for contemporaries, if they were disinterested, to make up their minds on the question. The real issue was one that recurred at intervals towards the end of the fifth century (and for the last time in the Frogs), namely how far, and how long, to rely upon Alkibiades. It is at least arguable that Peisandros and Phrynichos may with equal sincerity have reached their diametrically opposed conclusions on this problem. Thucydides does not state or imply that Phrynichos was at this stage influenced by personal antipathy towards Alkibiades.
2 The report (ὠς ἐλέγετο) mentioned by Thucydides at this point that Astyochos was in the pay of Tissaphernes will be considered below (p. 102).
3 The versions of this story by Plutarch, (Alkib. 25. 6–13)Google Scholar and Polyainos (iii. 6) have no independent value.
4 Alcibiade (1940), pp. 235–6.
5 Apparently he means that no messages were in fact sent by Phrynichos to Astyochos and not that the two messages were received by Astyochos, but had been forged by Alkibiades. The latter possibility can surely be dismissed because it was certainly not in the interests of Alkibiades that his schemes should become known to the Peloponnesians.
6 τὸ μήνυμα is clearly that of Alkibiades (Steup, n. ad loc.).
7 68. 3, 
8 Steup, n. ad loc., is surely right in interpreting 
as the enemies of Phrynichos in the Athenian army at Samos.
9 Cf. 50. 3, 
10 48. 4, 
11 Especially 50. 3, 
12 The chronology of this winter (412–11) is obscure, but it seems probable that the flight of Alkibiades took place in November and the intrigues of Phrynichos, which must have occupied two or three weeks, in December (cf. Ferguson, W. S., CAHv. (1927), pp. 319 and 323Google Scholar).
13 There is no reference to his flight in 47. 2–49, where his first contacts with them are described.
14 Cf. 51. 3, from which it is clear that the Athenians at Samos, when they received the message from Alkibiades dis closing the offer of Phrynichos to betray their base, assumed that the former was still receiving full information about Peloponnesian plans.
15 Cf. Hatzfeld, op. cit., p. 235. Another objection raised by Hatzfeld, op. cit. p. 236 n. 1, namely that Phrynichos was not impeached for treason after his return to Athens, is invalid. Peisandros secured the dismissal of Phrynichos from his command by accusing him of having betrayed Iasos (54. 3). Thucydides states that this charge was false, and it seems to have rested only on the fact that the Athenian withdrawal from Miletos, for which Phrynichos was responsible, left Amorges to defend lasos unaided (28. 2–4). The charge was evidently dropped, and Phrynichos soon afterwards reappears as one of the leading oligarchs (68. 3, cf. Arist., Pol. v. 1305b). Peisandros could not have accused him of having communicated with Astyochos without revealing his own intrigues with Alkibiades, who was a public enemy (cf. Woodhead, op. cit., p. 142).
16 Grote, , History of Greece viii.3 (1855) p. 17Google Scholar, seems to have been the originator of this explanation, cf. Lenschau, T., RE xx (1941) col. 908Google Scholar, and Brunt, P. A.REG lxv (1952), p. 76.Google Scholar
17 It is tempting to accept the explanation of 
in 51. I given by Steup, n. ad loc.: ‘nach der gemachten Erfahrung sah Phryn. voraus, dass Astyochos abermals Verrat üben werde.’ The words, however, surely mean ‘when Phrynichos learned in advance’ (i.e. in time to take the action described in the main clause, cf. 16. 2 and 79. 3 where 
is similarly used) ‘that he was doing him an injury’ (i.e. the injury men tioned in the preceding sentence, 
). The second participle dependent upon 
namely 
shows that this interpretation is correct.
18 39. 2. He was also perhaps already unpopular with his own troops, whose insubordination later almost cost him his life (78; 83.3–84. 3).
19 It was also desirable that this attack should take place before the arrival of a substantial reinforcement which, as the Athenians may have learned, was shortly to sail from the Peloponnese (39. 1).
20 It is not clear from the somewhat confused narrative of Thucydides whether he played any part in the conclusion of the second treaty between the Peloponnesians and Persia (36. 1–2) unofficially known as the treaty of Therimenes (52).
21 The most elaborate defence is that of Fabrizio, G., Contributo storiografico-storico allo studio della guerra deceleica (1946), pp. 5–17Google Scholar, who concludes, rightly in my opinion, that the refusal of Astyochos to engage the enemy on three occasions was justified on military grounds and was not the outcome of bribery by Tissaphernes.
22 83. 3, cf. 78. Fabrizio, op. cit., pp. 12–13, maintains that the words 
to 
in 50. 3 are a later insertion in the account of this episode, being added by Thucydides after he had written 83. 3, which was derived from a different source.
23 Examples include his treatment of Nikias, (as I have attempted to show in CQ xxxv (1941), pp. 58–65)Google Scholar and of Agis (in v).
24 Cf. the fears of Tissaphernes mentioned in 57. 1. I cannot agree with the contention of Fabrizio, op. cit., pp. 13–14, that Astyochos ‘si trovava con quella lettera in mano in una situazione diplomatica fortissima’. It is true that the message from Phrynichos supplied evidence of disunity at the Athenian headquarters at Samos, but Phrynichos must have stated that he expected the oligarchical plot to succeed if Alkibiades were not removed, and that its success would lead to the conclusion of an agreement with Tissaphernes.
25 Busolt, G., Gr. Gesch. iii. 2. p. 1469.Google Scholar This view is apparently based on the fact that Endios was ephor in the same year (412–11) in which Astyochos was ναύαρχος. The further suggestion (Busolt, loc. cit. and p. 1437 n. 6, cf. Grote, op. cit., viii3, p. 3) that Astyochos warned Alkibiades of the order for his death is much more questionable, though possibly Astyochos deferred action until he should himself have reached Miletos and could investigate the complaints against Alkibiades.
26 Cf. the argument of Phrynichos in 48. 4.
27 The contention of Wilamowitz, , Hermes xliii (1908), pp. 594–5Google Scholar, that there is an inconsistency between Chapters 56 and 57, in which these reasons are stated, is rightly rejected by Brunt, op. cit., pp. 87–8.
28 50. 2, cf. 48. 1, 
29 Brunt, op. cit., p. 86 (though the argument of Alkibiades in 46. 3 seems to me to amount to more than a hint).
30 It is significant that the posthumous condemnation of Phrynichos was for treasonable conduct while in command at Samos, (F Gr Hist 342 F 17)Google Scholar and not, as might have been expected, for any of his activities as a leader of the Four Hundred, such as his participation in the embassy to Sparta (90. 2, cf. [Plut.], Mor. 833 e–f). The proposer of the decree was Kritias (Lykourg. 113), who was apparently at the time an agent of Alkibiades at Athens (Plut., Alkib. 33. 1). Alkibiades thus seems to have instigated this prosecution of an enemy whose action had indirectly frustrated one of his most promising schemes.
31 I am much indebted to Professor A. W. Gomme, whose criticisms of this paper have been of the greatest value to me.
