The first exploit of Alkibiadês was to proceed to Andros, now under a Lacedæmonian harmost and garrison. Landing on the island, he plundered the fields, defeated both the native troops and the Lacedæmonians, and forced them to shut themselves up within the town; which he besieged for some days without avail, and then proceeded onward to Samos, leaving Konon in a fortified post, with twenty ships, to prosecute the siege.[224] At Samos, he first ascertained the state of the Peloponnesian fleet at Ephesus, the influence acquired by Lysander over Cyrus, the strong anti-Athenian dispositions of the young prince, and the ample rate of pay, put down even in advance, of which the Peloponnesian seamen were now in actual receipt. He now first became convinced of the failure of those hopes which he had conceived, not without good reason, in the preceding year,—and of which he had doubtless boasted at Athens,—that the alliance of Persia might be neutralized at least, if not won over, through the envoys escorted to Susa by Pharnabazus. It was in vain that he prevailed upon Tissaphernês to mediate with Cyrus, to introduce to him some Athenian envoys, and to inculcate upon him his own views of the true interests of Persia; that is, that the war should be fed and protracted so as to wear out both the Grecian belligerent parties, each by means of the other. Such a policy, uncongenial at all times to the vehement temper of Cyrus, had become yet more repugnant to him since his intercourse with Lysander. He would not consent even to see the envoys, nor was he probably displeased to put a slight upon a neighbor and rival satrap. Deep was the despondency among the Athenians at Samos, when painfully convinced that all hopes from Persia must be abandoned for themselves; and farther, that Persian pay was both more ample and better assured, to their enemies, than ever it had been before.[225] [224] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 4, 22; i, 5, 18; Plutarch, Alkib. c. 35; Diodor. xiii, 69. The latter says that Thrasybulus was left at Andros, which cannot be true. [225] Xenophon, Hellen. i, 5, 9; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 4. The latter tells us that the Athenian ships were presently emptied by the desertion of the seamen; a careless exaggeration.