Mindaros had collected ships and men from the islands and from home. He was again at the head of over sixty triremes, and was backed up from the shore by the army of Pharnabazos, and by Pharnabazos himself. As fast as wind and oars could carry him, Alkibiades made for Kardia, on the western coast of the Thrakian Chersonesos. There he collected all the Athenian strength. Thrasyboulos and Theramenes joined him. Thrasyllos was still doing his utmost to collect reinforcements at Athens. When all were told, the Athenian fleet was but little superior in numbers to the Spartan, and they had no army on shore to cover them. In April Mindaros sailed for the island of Kyzikos, on the Propontis. Pharnabazos marched his troops along the coast of Mysia to the same point. The joint force took Kyzikos, the chief town of the island, at its southern extremity, where it was joined to the mainland by a bridge. On hearing of this attack, Alkibiades set sail from Kardia, doubled the Chersonesos, passed up the Hellespont, cleverly eluding the Spartan look-out at Abydos, and, on a dark, rainy night anchored off the island of Prokonnesos. Next day he assembled his men on shore, taking care that the enemy should have no intelligence of his arrival, and animated them by a stirring harangue. Though inferior in strength, they must, he said, fight at once. Delay would be ruin to them, as they could expect no more help from Athens, while the Lakedaimonians were fed and paid by their rich allies. They must fight, then, as they never fought before, against ships, against men, against stone walls, and conquer this unholy alliance of Greek and barbarian, or die like heroes. He was not afraid to engage the whole Spartan force at sea. But his difficulty was to get them out into the open, away from their Persian protection ashore. With this view he concealed the strength of his fleet. The night was dark; under cover of the darkness he sailed in three separate divisions from Prokonnesos. Theramenes he stationed with one division to the west, behind the small island of Alone; Thrasyboulos he sent with another to the east, round the north point of the island of Kyzikos; while he himself, with a picked squadron of twenty triremes, took the centre or front line, and made straight for the fleet of Mindaros at the capital of the island. Mindaros, seeing the centre division only coming against him in the early morning, advanced in line to meet it with his whole fleet of sixty triremes. Alkibiades retreated, the Spartan admiral, with all his force, following him into the straits between Kyzikos and Alone. Then Alkibiades wheeled round upon them, the Athenian sailors managing their long ships splendidly, and at that moment, on a given signal, Thrasyboulos, with his division, came round the north point of Kyzikos, and Theramenes from behind Alone, taking the Spartan fleet on either flank.