So perished Thrasybulus, (31) a good and great man by all admission. In room of him the Athenians chose Agyrrhius, (32) who was despatched to take command of the fleet. And now the Lacedaemonians--alive to the fact that the sale of the Euxine tithe-dues had been negotiated in Byzantium by Athens; aware also that as long as the Athenians kept hold on Calchedon the loyalty of the other Hellespontine cities was secured to them (at any rate while Pharnabazus remained their friend)--felt that the state of affairs demanded their serious attention. They attached no blame indeed to Dercylidas. Anaxibius, however, through the friendship of the ephors, contrived to get himself appointed as governor, on a mission to Abydos. With the requisite funds and ships, he promised to exert such hostile pressure upon Athens that at least her prospects in the Hellespont would cease to be so sunny. His friends the ephors granted him in return for these promises three ships of war and funds to support a thousand mercenaries, and so they despatched him on his mission. Reaching Abydos, he set about improving his naval and military position. First he collected a foreign brigade, by help of which he drew off some of the Aeolid cities from Pharnabazus. Next he set on foot a series of retaliatory expeditions against the states which attacked Abydos, marching upon them and ravaging their territories; and lastly, manning three vessels besides those which he already held in the harbour of Abydos, he intercepted and brought into port all the merchant ships of Athens or of her allies which he could lay hands on. (31) "Thus perished the citizen to whom, more than any one else, Athens owed not only her renovated democracy, but its wise, generous, and harmonious working, after renovation."--Grote, "H. G." ix. 509. (32) For this statesman, see Demosth. "c. Timocr." 742; Andoc. "de Myst." 133; Aristot. "Ath. Pol." 41, and Mr. Kenyon's notes ad loc.; Aristoph. "Eccles." 102, and the Schol. ad loc.; Diod. xiv. 99; Curtius, "H. G." Eng tr. iv. 280. Getting wind of these proceedings, the Athenians, fearing lest the fair foundation laid for them by Thrasybulus in the Hellespont should be ruined, sent out Iphicrates with eight vessels and twelve hundred peltasts. The majority of them (33) consisted of troops which he had commanded at Corinth. In explanation it may be stated that the Argives, when once they had appropriated Corinth and incorporated it with Argos, gave out they had no further need of Iphicrates and his troops; the real fact being that he had put to death some of the partisans of Argos. (34) And so it was he turned his back on Corinth and found himself at home in Athens at the present crisis. (33) Or, "The mass of them." (34) See Grote, "H. G." ix. p. 491 note. The "Argolising" or philo- Argeian party, as opposed to the philo-Laconian party. See above, "Hell." IV. iv. 6.