History of the Peloponnesian War

But Alcibiades roundly objected to their leaving behind them their nearer enemies and sailing against the Peiraeus, though many insisted upon that course; his first business, he said, since he had been elected general, would be to sail to Tissaphernes and arrange with him the conduct of the war.

So after this assembly he at once went away to Tissaphernes, in order that he might be thought to be in communication with him about everything; at the same time he wished to be held in greater honour by him and to show him that he had now been elected general and was therefore in a position to do him either good or evil. And thus it fell out that Alcibiades was merely using Tissaphernes to frighten the Athenians and the Athenians to frighten Tissaphernes.

When the Peloponnesians at Miletus heard of the recall of Alcibiades, although they were before this distrustful of Tissaphernes, they were now filled with a still greater suspicion of him.

For they had had this experience of him, that after they had refused to go out against the Athenians and fight when these made their advance against Miletus, Tissaphernes became far more slack in the matter of giving them their pay and thus intensified the hatred in which even before these events he was held by them on account of Alcibiades.

So the soldiers would gather in groups, as had been their wont—and not the soldiery only, but also some of the others, who were men of consideration—and would cast up their accounts with one another, proving that they had never yet received their pay in full, but that what was given was short and even that not paid regularly; and they declared that unless they were either to have a decisive battle or get away to some place where they could get subsistence the crews would desert the ships; and for all this, they held, Astyochus was to blame, because he bore with Tissaphernes' whims for the sake of his private gain.