History of the Peloponnesian War

There went with them also an ambassador from Tissaphernes, who was governor of the sea-coast under king Darius, son of Artaxerxes. For Tissaphernes also was inviting the Lacedaemonians to co-operate with him, and promised to furnish them with supplies.

For he had lately been called on by the king for the tribute due from his government, for which he was in arrears, as he could not raise it from the Greek cities because of the Athenians. He thought, therefore, that he should both get in his tribute more effectually, if he reduced the power of the Athenians; and at the same time should gain for the king the alliance of the Lacedaemonians; and either take alive, or put to death, as the king had commanded him to do, Amorges, the natural son of Pisuthnes, who was in rebellion on the coast of Caria. The Chians and Tissaphernes, then, were negotiating this business in concert.

About the same time Calligitus son of Laophon, a Megarean, and Timagoras son of Athenagoras, a Cyzicene, both of them exiles from their country, and living at the court of Pharnabazus son of Pharnaces, arrived at Lacedaemon, being sent by Pharnabazus to bring a fleet despatched to the Hellespont; and that he himself, if possible, might, for the sake of the tribute, cause the cities in his government to revolt from the Athenians—the same object as Tissaphernes had in view—and gain for the king, by his own agency, the alliance of the Lacedaemonians.

While these negotiations were severally carried on by each party, by the emissaries both of Pharnabazus and of Tissaphernes, there was great competition between them at Lacedaemon, the one striving to prevail on them to send a navy and army to Ionia and Chios first, the other, to the Hellespont.