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In 411 B.C., King Agis at Decelea and the Spartan fleet at Miletus waited on Athenian political events in hopes that pro-Spartan oligarchs would betray Athens, while the oligarchic conspirators instigated revolts in the Athenian Empire. But the abortive coup galvanized Athenians into united action: The fleet at Samos recalled Alcibiades from exile and elected him general. Alcibiades adroitly precipitated the downfall of the Four Hundred without a civil war, and he and Thrasybulus cooperated in containing the Spartan fleet at Miletus. The new Spartan navarch, Mindarus, had shifted the theater of operations to the Hellespont in hopes of cutting off the Athenian grain supply. In early 410 B.C., Alcibiades and Thrasybulus won a decisive battle over the Peloponnesian fleet at Cyzicus. Mindarus went down with the entire fleet. Over the next three years, Alcibiades and Thrasybulus secured the Hellespontine and northern Aegean waters. The Spartans, with assistance from the satrap Pharnabazus, constructed a new fleet at Antandrus, but the Athenians held the initiative. In 408 B.C., Alcibiades was received in triumph at Athens, and in the next year he set out with major forces to engage the new Spartan navarch, Lysander. However, the strategic situation changed for Athens with the arrival at Sardis of the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger.
