The expression, τὴν δεκάτην, implies that this tithe was something known and preëstablished. Polybius (iv, 44) gives credit to Alkibiadês for having been the first to suggest this method of gain to Athens. But there is evidence that it was practised long before, even anterior to the Athenian empire, during the times of Persian preponderance (see Herodot. vi, 5). See a striking passage, illustrating the importance to Athens of the possession of Byzantium, in Lysias, Orat. xxviii, cont. Ergokl. sect. 6. The remaining fleet went partly to the Hellespont, partly to Thrace, where the diminished maritime strength of the Lacedæmonians already told in respect to the adherence of the cities. At Thasus, especially,[178] the citizens, headed by Ekphantus, expelled the Lacedæmonian harmost Eteonikus with his garrison, and admitted Thrasybulus with an Athenian force. It will be recollected that this was one of the cities in which Peisander and the Four Hundred conspirators (early in 411 B.C.) had put down the democracy and established an oligarchical government, under pretence that the allied cities would be faithful to Athens as soon as she was relieved from her democratical institutions. All the calculations of these oligarchs had been disappointed, as Phrynichus had predicted from the first: the Thasians, as soon as their own oligarchical party had been placed in possession of the government, recalled their disaffected exiles,[179] under whose auspices a Laconian garrison and harmost had since been introduced. Eteonikus, now expelled, accused the Lacedæmonian admiral Pasippidas of being himself a party to the expulsion, under bribes from Tissaphernês; an accusation which seems improbable, but which the Lacedæmonians believed, and accordingly banished Pasippidas, sending Kratesippidas to replace him. The new admiral found at Chios a small fleet which Pasippidas had already begun to collect from the allies, to supply the recent losses.[180] [178] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 32; Demosthen. cont. Leptin. s. 48, c. 14, p. 474. [179] Thucyd. viii, 64. [180] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 1, 32.