The oligarchy of Four Hundred at Athens, installed in the senate-house about February or March 411 B.C., and deposed about July of the same year, after four or five months of danger and distraction such as to bring her almost within the grasp of her enemies, has now been terminated by the restoration of her democracy; with what attendant circumstances, has been amply detailed. I now revert to the military and naval operations on the Asiatic coast, partly contemporaneous with the political dissensions at Athens, above described. It has already been stated that the Peloponnesian fleet of ninety-four triremes,[132] having remained not less than eighty days idle at Rhodes, had come back to Milêtus towards the end of March; with the intention of proceeding to the rescue of Chios, which a portion of the Athenian armament under Strombichidês had been for some time besieging, and which was now in the greatest distress. The main Athenian fleet at Samos, however, prevented Astyochus from effecting this object, since he did not think it advisable to hazard a general battle. He was influenced partly by the bribes, partly by the delusions, of Tissaphernês, who sought only to wear out both parties by protracted war, and who now professed to be on the point of bringing up the Phenician fleet to his aid. Astyochus had in his fleet the ships which had been brought over for coöperation with Pharnabazus at the Hellespont, and which were thus equally unable to reach their destination. To meet this difficulty, the Spartan Derkyllidas was sent with a body of troops by land to the Hellespont, there to join Pharnabazus, in acting against Abydos and the neighboring dependencies of Athens. Abydos, connected with Milêtus by colonial ties, set the example of revolting from Athens to Derkyllidas and Pharnabazus; an example followed, two days afterwards, by the neighboring town of Lampsakus. [132] Thucyd. viii, 44, 45.