History of the Peloponnesian War

But the members of the conspiracy who had assembled went on as they had originally determined and accepted the present proposals, and prepared to send Peisander and others as envoys to Athens, that they might negotiate both about the return of Alcibiades and the overthrow of the democracy in that city and might make Tissaphernes a friend to the Athenians.

But Phrynichus, knowing that there would be a proposal for the recall of Alcibiades and that the Athenians would accept it, and also fearing, in view of the opposition he had shown in his own speech, that if Alcibiades came back he would do him injury as one who had been in his way, now had recourse to the following device.

He sent to Astyochus, the Lacedaemonian admiral, who was at this time still in the neighbourhood of Miletus, secret information by letter that Alcibiades was ruining the Lacedaemonian cause by making Tissaphernes a friend of the Athenians, and also wrote an explicit account of his other doings; he added that it was pardonable in himself to devise evil for an enemy, even though this involved detriment to his state.[*](cf. 6.92.2 for similar excuse.)