Passing by the doubts of Phrynichos as unworthy of consideration, Peisandros and his colleagues announced to the sailors and hoplites the joyful news that the great king was about to desert their enemies and make a grand alliance with them and pay them an enormous subsidy, and that Alkibiades was to be recalled. The people could not be restrained on hearing it. As each item of the news was told it was difficult to keep them still enough to listen to the next. It was almost too good to be true. When they came to the recall of Alkibiades their generous emotion overcame them; many a hard sailor’s face was moist with tears. Most of these common sailors, indeed, showed some dismay when, at the end, Peisandros told them of the one condition—that the democracy must be abolished, or at least greatly modified, for a time. ‘But, after all, what mattered the form of government,’ they began to think, ‘if they could but be extricated from their present dangers, and the great Alkibiades be back again to manage everything? He was the wisest. If he did not mind the change, who need care? He must be right.’ It was then resolved amongst the chiefs to send Peisandros and ten other deputies to Athens to prepare the way for a peaceful revolution. The deputies set off upon their mission, not unaware of the strength of the prejudices they would have to overcome. Phrynichos was trembling with rage and terror; his cunning was not allowed to sleep. He determined to destroy Alkibiades by the hand of Astyochos, and scrupled not, in order to carry out his intended murder, to betray secrets of the state which had come to his knowledge as strategos, to this country’s enemy. He wrote privately to the Spartan admiral at Miletos, telling him who it was that was stopping the Persian payment of the Spartan fleet, and was endeavouring to dissolve the alliance between Persia and Lakedaimôn, and to bring about a treaty between the Persian king and Athens, and advised him to get rid, by any practicable means, of such a dangerous enemy as Alkibiades had become. Astyochos, who, like every other honest man who knew him, loved his old friend and comrade, refused to take advantage of this odious treachery, by which Phrynichos, while entrusted with his country’s interests, was doing all he could to stop the services Alkibiades was rendering to Athens. He sent the treacherous letter on to Alkibiades. Alkibiades in turn sent it back to the other leaders at Samos, and so convicted Phrynichos. The soldiers when they heard of the base deed would have slain their general then and there but for their inbred Athenian respect for the due formalities of law. The criminal was reserved for future trial by the proper courts.