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365 ALLIES OF ATHENS. -PEflSI A. 3G5 be despatched across to the island as harmost. Having a force permanently at his disposal, with full liberty of military action, the Spartan king at Dekeleia was more influential even than the authorities at home, so that the disaffected allies of Athens ad- dressed themselves in preference to him. It was not long before envoys from Lesbos visited him for this purpose. So powerfully was their claim enforced by the Boeotians (their kinsmen of the -ZEolic race), who engaged to furnish ten triremes for their aid, provided Agis would send ten others, that he was induced to postpone his promise to the Euboeans, and to direct Alkamenes as harmost to Lesbos instead of Eubcea, 2 without at all consulting the authorities at Sparta. The threatened revolt of Lesbos and Euboca, especially the latter, was a vital blow to the empire of Athens. But this was not the worst. At the same time that these two islands were negotiating with Agis, envoys from Chios, the first and most pow- erful of all Athenian allies, had gone to Sparta for the same purpose. The government of Chios, an oligarchy, but dis- tinguished for its prudent management and caution in avoiding risks, considering Athens to be now on the verge of ruin, even in the estimation of the Athenians themselves, thought itself safe, together with the opposite city of Erythrse, in taking measures for achieving independence. 2 . Besides these three great allies, whose example in revolting was sure to be followed by others, Athens was now on the point of being assailed by other enemies yet more unexpected, the two Persian satraps of the Asiatic seaboard, Tissaphernes and Phar- nabazus. No sooner was the Athenian Catastrophe in Sicily known at the court of Susa, than the Great King claimed from these two satraps the tribute due from the Asiatic Greeks on the coast ; for which they had always stood enrolled in the tribute records, though it had never been actually levied since the com- plete establishment of the Athenian empire. The only way to realize this tribute, for which the satraps were thus made debtors, was to detach the towns from Athens, and break up her empire ; 3 1 Thucyd. viii, 5. * Thucyd. viii, 7-24. 3 Thucyd. viii, 5. 'Tirti BaaiTieu^ yup vsuarl trvyxave irETrpayiiivot (Tissaphernes) rovf IK r^f tavrov upx?/s fopovf, ovf <V 'A.-drjvaiov<; uird rut