but Phrynichus, who was still general, was not at all pleased with them, but thought that Alcibiades (as was really the case) had no more desire for an oligarchy than for a democracy, or considered any thing else but how, by bringing the state to change its present constitution, he might obtain his recall by the invitation of his associates. What they themselves, however, should most especially look to, was, he said, to avoid being rent by factions. That it was not for the king's advantage, when the Peloponnesians were now on an equality at sea, and held none of the least cities in his dominion, to incur trouble by siding with the Athenians, whom he did not trust, when he might have made the Peloponnesians his friends, by whom he had never yet been injured.
As for the allied states, again, to whom, forsooth, they had promised an oligarchy, because they themselves also would cease to be under a democracy, he well knew that neither those which had revolted would any the more on that account come over to them, nor those that were left be more staunch to them; for they would not wish to be slaves with either an oligarchy or a democracy, rather than to be free, under whichever of those two forms of govern ment they might obtain their liberty.
