The oligarchs were overthrown and a democracy was restored by Thrasybulus in 403 BC.

Thrasybulus (; ' brave-willed '; died 388 BC ) was an Athenian general and democratic leader.

By 411 BC, Thrasybulus was clearly established to some degree as a pro-democracy politician, as events discussed below make clear.

Donald Kagan has suggested that Thrasybulus was one of the founding members of the scheme and was willing to support moderate oligarchy, but was alienated by the extreme actions taken by the plotters.

R. J. Buck, on the other hand, maintains that Thrasybulus was probably never involved in the plot, possibly because he was absent from Samos at the time of its inception.

One of the first actions Thrasybulus took as general was to bring about the recall of Alcibiades, a policy that he had supported since before the coup.

Alcibiades was elected as general alongside Thrasybulus and the others.

Thrasybulus was either removed from command on the spot by Alcibiades or not reelected at the end of his term ; either way, he was out of office from then until the end of the war.

That battle was a major Athenian victory ; after the battle, the generals in charge took the majority of their ships to attack the Peloponnesian fleet blockading Conon, leaving behind a force under Thrasybulus and his fellow trierarch Theramenes to rescue the survivors.

When the Spartan garrison of Athens, supported by Athenian cavalry, was sent out to oppose him, Thrasybulus led his force, now 700 strong, in a surprise daybreak raid on their camp, killing 120 Spartans and putting the rest to flight.

For his actions, Thrasybulus was awarded an olive crown by his countrymen.

In the revived democracy established in 403 BC, Thrasybulus became a major and prestigious leader, although he was soon superseded at the head of the state by Archinus.

Thrasybulus seems to have advocated a more radically democratic policy than the populace was willing to accept at the time ; he called for reinstating pay for political service, and sought to extend citizenship to all the metics and foreigners who had fought alongside him against the Thirty.

Thrasybulus largely faded from view for several years as Conon led the Athenian fleet to a series of victories, but in 392 BC Conon was imprisoned by the Persian satrap Tiribazus while attending a peace conference at Sardis ; although released, he died in Cyprus without returning to Athens.

In retaliation, the Aspendians raided the Athenian camp by night ; Thrasybulus was killed in his tent.

Peace was quickly concluded, on the same terms that the Athenians had rejected in 392 BC ; Thrasybulus ' campaigns, though impressively successful in spreading Athenian influence, had little long-term effect, since they prompted Persia to force the Athenians to give up what they had gained.

Most of the major ancient historians assigned credit for the dramatic Athenian victories of 411 BC to Alcibiades, but a few, such as Cornelius Nepos, pointed to the decisive role that was played in these battles by Thrasybulus.

Thrasybulus was a capable general, particularly successful in naval warfare, and a competent speaker, but was frequently overshadowed or pushed aside by more charismatic or spectacularly successful leaders.

Throughout his two decades of prominence, whether in or out of leadership, Thrasybulus remained a steady advocate of traditional Athenian imperial democracy, and he died fighting for the same cause he was advocating on his first appearance in 411.

Shortly afterwards Thrasybulus again commanded a wing of the Athenian fleet at Abydos, another Athenian victory.

In 411 BC, at the time of the oligarchical revolution at Athens, Thasos again revolted from Athens and received a Lacedaemonian governor ; but in 407 BC the partisans of Lacedaemon were expelled, and the Athenians under Thrasybulus were admitted.

In this battle, the Athenians drew the Spartan fleet out to pursue a small force led by Alcibiades ; when the Spartans had gotten a good distance from land, two squadrons under the command of Thrasybulus and Theramenes appeared in their rear to cut off their retreat.

In 409 and 408, Thrasybulus remained in command, but his actions are difficult to trace.

Accordingly, Thrasybulus, assuming overall command, led the fleet to Elaeus on the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula, where the Athenians spent five days preparing to challenge the 86 Spartan ships at Abydos with their 76 ships.

Because of term limits on the position of navarch, Lysander was replaced by Callicratidas ; on the Athenian side, the fall of Alcibiades also brought down his friends Thrasybulus and Theramenes, and the overall command was given to Conon.

Donald Kagan, meanwhile, has suggested that the most important effect of the battle on the Athenian side was the removal from command of Thrasybulus, the talented commander who had helped plan all the Athenian naval victories of 411 and 410 BC.

In that battle, Alcibiades ( who had been recalled from exile by the fleet at Samos shortly after the coup ) led a decoy force that drew the Spartan fleet out into open water, while Thrasybulus and Theramenes, each commanding an independent squadron, cut off the Spartans ' retreat.

* 403 BC: Thrasybulus restores the Athenian democracy and grants an almost general amnesty.

* The Athenian general Thrasybulus is exiled by the Thirty ( the oligarchy of Athens ), and he retires to Thebes.

The Athenian general Thrasybulus, who had been exiled from Athens by the Spartans ' puppet government, led the democratic resistance to the new oligarchic government.

* The Athenian general Thrasybulus recaptures Abdera and Thasos.

In 411 and 410, Thrasybulus commanded along with Alcibiades and others at several critical Athenian naval victories.

In the months following these events, Thrasybulus commanded the Athenian fleet in several major engagements.

The Spartans, however, with the assistance of a Persian army, began to drive this Athenian force into the sea ; seeing this, Thrasybulus landed his own force to temporarily relieve pressure on Alcibiades, and meanwhile ordered Theramenes to join up with Athenian land forces nearby and bring them to reinforce the sailors and marines on the beach.

Thrasybulus, leading the faction that sought to reject the peace offer, regained his position atop Athenian politics.

On this campaign, Thrasybulus relaid much of the framework for an Athenian empire on 5th century BC model ; he captured Byzantium, imposed a duty on ships passing through the Hellespont, and collected tribute from many of the islands of the Aegean.

More recent historians, such as Donald Kagan and R. J. Buck, have tended to support this analysis, pointing to the role that Thrasybulus played in crafting Athenian strategy in all these battles, and specifically to the decisive action he took at Cyzicus, which saved Alcibiades's force from being swamped, and turned a potential Athenian defeat into a stunning victory.

Thus Thrasybulus won praise as an Athenian patriot and staunch, principled democrat.

* Commanding 20 ships, the Athenian generals Theramenes and Thrasybulus collaborate with Alcibiades and the main Athenian fleet in inflicting a major defeat on the Spartan navy commanded by Mindarus and its supporting Persian land army near Cyzicus on the shore of the Propontis ( Sea of Marmara ).

A Spartan fleet in the Hellespont at Cynossema is then defeated by an Athenian fleet commanded by Thrasybulus and Alcibiades.

* Pharnabazus dispatches Conon with substantial funds and a large part of the fleet to Attica, where he joins in the rebuilding of the long walls from Athens to Piraeus, a project that had been initiated by Thrasybulus in the previous year.

By 387 BC, the central front of the Corinthian War had shifted from the Greek mainland to the Aegean, where an Athenian fleet under Thrasybulus had successfully placed a number of cities across the Aegean under Athenian control, and was acting in collaboration with Evagoras, the king of Cyprus.

He then took his fleet to Macedon, where he assisted the Macedonian king Archelaus in his siege of Pydna, but, with that siege dragging on, he sailed on to join Thrasybulus in Thrace.

Accordingly, all eight generals, with the larger part of the fleet, set out for Mytilene, while a rescue force under Thrasybulus and Theramenes, both of whom were trierarchs in this battle but had served as generals in prior campaigns, remained behind to pick up the survivors and retrieve corpses for burial.

In the battle, an Athenian fleet commanded by Alcibiades, Thrasybulus, and Theramenes routed and completely destroyed a Spartan fleet commanded by Mindarus.

The Athenian fleet in the Hellespont withdrew from its base at Sestos to Cardia to avoid the superior Spartan force, and ships under Alcibiades, Theramenes, Thrasybulus that had been dispatched to raise money combined with this force, creating a fleet of 86 ships.

The Athenian fleet then divided, with 20 ships under Alcibiades advancing towards Cyzicus while two other divisions under Thrasybulus and Theramenes lurked behind.

In the battle, an Athenian fleet commanded by Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, although initially thrown on the defensive by a numerically superior Spartan fleet, won a narrow victory.

To address both of these concerns, the generals decided that all eight of them would sail with the majority of the fleet to Mytilene, where they would attempt to relieve Conon, while the trierarchs Thrasybulus and Theramenes would remain behind with a smaller detachment to rescue the survivors ; both of these missions, however, were thwarted by the sudden arrival of a storm which drove the ships back into port ; the Spartan fleet at Mytilene escaped, and rescuing the drowning sailors proved impossible.