communication, it will be seen, no blame was laid on any person. The weather, and the weather alone, was given as the cause of the disaster that had occurred. But in their private communications with friends at home the generals were not so reticent. They had commissioned, they said, Theramenes and Thrasybulus to save[Pg 89] the shipwrecked men. If all that was possible had not been done to execute this commission it was they and they only who were to be blamed. Such words, even if they are intended only for the private reading of the people to whom they are written, seldom fail sooner or later to get out. In this case so many people were profoundly and personally interested in the matter that they got out very soon. And, of course, among the first persons whom they reached were the two incriminated officers, Theramenes and Thrasybulus. It was a charge, hinted at if not exactly made, which no man would allow to be made against him without at least an attempt to refute it. Theramenes, who had come back on leave not many days after the battle, at once bestirred himself in his own defense. He was an able speaker, all the more able because he was utterly unscrupulous; and he had a large following of personal friends and partisans. On the present occasion he was reinforced by the many citizens who had lost relatives or friends in the late engagement. These were furious and not without some cause. What had been at first represented as a great victory had at length turned out to be as fatal as a great defeat. They loudly demanded a victim. Somebody, they said, must be punished for so scandalous, so deadly a neglect. Theramenes had the advantage of being on the spot, and of being able to guide these feelings in a way that suited his own personal interests. “I was commissioned,” he said, “to do the work; I do not deny it. But the charge was given me when it was almost too late to execute it, and I hadn’t the proper means at hand. I could not get hold of the ships that were told off for this task, or of the crews who should have[Pg 90] manned them. If one of the ten had come himself to help me, things might have been different. As it was, the men either could not be found, or refused to come. A subordinate must not be blamed for failing in what ought to have been undertaken by a chief in command.” [Pg 89] [Pg 90] These representations, in which, as has been seen, there was a certain measure of truth, had a great effect. An assembly was held to consider the contents of the second despatch, and at this it was resolved, with scarcely an opposing voice, that the generals should be recalled. They were publicly thanked
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