1While he was working at this and asking Pharnabazus to send him to the king, at the same time Critias and the other tyrants of the Athenians had sent reliable men to Lysander in Asia to inform him that unless he got rid of Alcibiades, none of the arrangements he himself had made at Athens would stand: therefore, if he wanted his achievements to last, he should hunt him down. 2Stirred by this, the Spartan decided that he must deal more firmly with Pharnabazus; so he declares to him that what had been agreed between the king and the Spartans would be void unless he handed Alcibiades over to him alive or dead.
3The satrap could not hold out against this, and preferred to violate humanity rather than see the king's power diminished. 3So he sent Susamithres and Bagaeus to kill Alcibiades, while he was in Phrygia and preparing his journey to the king. 4Those sent secretly charge the neighbourhood in which Alcibiades then was with the task of killing him. 4Since they did not dare to attack him with the sword, by night they piled wood around the cottage in which he was sleeping and set it alight, to destroy by fire one whom they had no confidence of overcoming by force. 5But when he was woken by the sound of the flames, although his sword had been stolen from him, he snatched the dagger that a friend of his carried under his arm.
5For there was with him a certain guest-friend from Arcadia, who had never been willing to leave him. 5He orders him to follow, and snatches up whatever clothing was at hand. 5Throwing these onto the fire, he passed through the force of the flames. 6When the barbarians saw that he had escaped the fire, they killed him with missiles thrown from a distance and took his head back to Pharnabazus. 6But the woman who had been living with him covered his body with her own woman's clothing and cremated him in the fire of the building that had been prepared to destroy him alive. 6So Alcibiades met his last day at about forty years of age.