Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/388

366 HISTORY OF GREECE. first lo the Hellespont ; probably from extreme want of money to pay his men. Derkyllidas was still in occupation of Abydos, yet there was no Lacedaemonian fleet in the strait ; so that Thrasybu- lus was enabled to extend the alliances of Athens both on the Eu- ropean and the Asiatic side, the latter being under the friendly Batrap, Pharnabazus. Reconciling the two Thracian princes, Seu- thes and Amadokus, whom he found at war, he brought both of them into amicable relations with Athens, and then moved forward to Byzantium. That city was already in alliance with Athens ; but on the arrival of Thrasybulus, the alliance was still further cemented by the change of its government into a democracy. Having established friendship with the opposite city of Chalkedon, and being thus master of the Bosphorus, he sold the tithe of the commercial ships sailing out of the Euxine ; J leaving doubtless an adequate force to exact it. This was a striking evidence of revived Athenian maritime power, which seems also to have been now ex- tended more or less to Samothrace, Thasus, and the coast of Thrace.2 From Byzantium, Thrasybulus sailed to Mitylene, which was already in friendship with Athens, though Methymna and the other cities in the island were still maintained by a force under the Lacedaemonian harmost, Therimachus. With the aid of the Mitylenaeans, and of the exiles from other Lesbian cities, Thrasybu- lus marched to the borders of Methymna, where he was met by Therimachus ; who had also brought together his utmost force, but was now completely defeated and slain. The Athenians thus be- came masters of Antissa and Eresus, where they were enabled to levy a valuable contribution, as well as to plunder the refractory territory of Methymna. Nevertheless, Thrasybulus, in spite of farther help from Chios and Mitylene, still thought himself not hi a situation to go to Rhodes with advantage. Perhaps he was not sure of pay in advance, and the presence of unpaid troops in an 1 Xen. Hellen. iv, 8, 25-27. Polybius (iv, 38-47) gives instructive remarks and information about the importance of Byzantium and its very peculiar position, in the ancient world, as well as about the dues charged on the merchant vessels going Into, or coming out of, the Euxine, and the manner in which these dues pressed upon general trade. 1 Zen. Hellen. T, 1,7.