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All this was prevented by Alkibiades alone, who not only persuaded the populace, and pointed out the folly of such proceedings in public speeches, but even entreated and commanded each individual man to remain at Samos. He was assisted in this by Thrasybulus, of the township of Steiria, who was present, and spoke in his loud voice, which was said to be the loudest of any Athenian of his time.
Then Thrasybulus and other exiles, coming home, helped to shake off their yoke and establish the old democracy; but even then Athens was in a weak, wretched state, and Sparta had all the power. Just as Greece was quieted by the end of the Peloponnesian war, the old King of Persia, Darius Nothus, died, and his eldest son, Artaxerxes Mnemon, came to the throne.
He was much assisted, however, by Thrasybulus of Stiria, who, having the loudest voice, as we are told of all the Athenians, went along with him, and cried out to those who were ready to be gone.
The struggle now was between the army trying to force a democracy upon the city, and the Four Hundred an oligarchy upon the camp. Meanwhile the soldiers forthwith held an assembly, in which they deposed the former generals and any of the captains whom they suspected, and chose new captains and generals to replace them, besides Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, whom they had already.
But what the tone of Philip's utterance was, and how greatly he was confounded by what had happened, you can learn from his letter, which he sent to the Peloponnese. You have had, as you know, many great and famous orators, men of Athens, before my time Callistratus himself, Aristophon, Cephalus, Thrasybulus, and a vast number of others.
For which reason those who hate a tyranny and find fault with the advice which Periander gave to Thrasybulus, must not think there was nothing to be said in its defence; for the story goes, that Periander said nothing to the messenger in answer to the business he was consulted about, but striking off those ears of corn which were higher than the rest, reduced the whole crop to a level; so that the messenger, without knowing the cause of what was done, related the fact to Thrasybulus, who understood by it that he must take off all the principal men in the city.
Many of the Athenian exiles had found refuge in Boeotia: and one of them Thrasybulus, with the aid of Ismenias and other Theban citizens, starting from Thebes at the head of a small band of exiles, seized the fortress of Phyle in the passes of Mount Parnes and on the direct road to Athens.
This action so closely resembling that of Thrasybulus, in the courage of the actors, the danger, the encounters, and equally crowned with success, was called the sister of it by the Greeks. For we can scarcely find any other examples where so small and weak a party of men by bold courage overcame such numerous and powerful enemies, or brought greater blessings to their country by so doing.
On seeing this the squadron of Thrasybulus discontinued their lateral movement and, facing about, attacked and routed the ships opposed to them, and next fell roughly upon the scattered vessels of the victorious Peloponnesian division, and put most of them to flight without a blow.
This adventure was called by the Greeks the "sister" of that of Thrasybulus, as it resembled it in the bravery and personal risk of its chief actors, and was, like the other, favoured by fortune.
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