k fresh courage.
Coasting along with two vessels to Chios, Astyochus took the ships from
that place, and now moved with the whole fleet upon Samos, from whence,
however, he sailed back to Miletus, as the Athenians did not put out
against him, owing to their suspicions of one another. For it was about
this time, or even before, that the democracy was put down at Athens.
When Pisander and the envoys returned from Tissaphernes to Samos they at
once strengthened still further their interest in the army itself, and
instigated the upper class in Samos to join them in establishing an
oligarchy, the very form of government which a party of them had
lately risen to avoid. At the same time the Athenians at Samos, after a
consultation among themselves, determined to let Alcibiades alone, since
he refused to join them, and besides was not the man for an oligarchy;
and now that they were once embarked, to see for themselves how they
could best prevent the ruin of their cause, and meanwhile to sustain the
war, and to contribute without stint money and all else that might be
required from their own private estates, as they would henceforth labour
for themselves alone.

After encouraging each other in these resolutions, they now at once
sent off half the envoys and Pisander to do what was necessary at Athens
(with instructions to establish oligarchies on their way in all the
subject cities which they might touch at), and dispatched the other half
in different directions to the other dependencies. Diitrephes also, who
was in the neighbourhood of Chios, and had been elected to the command
of the Thracian towns, was sent off to his government, and arriving
at Thasos abolished the democracy there. Two months, however, had not
elapsed after his departure before the Thasians began to fortify their
town, being already tired of an aristocracy with Athens, and in daily
expectation of freedom from Lacedaemon. Indeed there was a party of them
(whom the Athenians had banished), with the Peloponnesians, who with
their friends in the town were already making every exertion to bring
a squadron, and to effect the revolt of Thasos; and this party thus saw
exactly what they most wanted done, that is to say, the reformation of
the government without risk, and the abolition of the democracy which
would have opposed them. Things at Thasos thus turned out just the
contrary to what the oligarchical conspirators at Athens expected; and
the same in my opinion