The Byzantines at first fought with great vigour, being confident that Achaeus would come to help them and trusting by bringing Tiboetes from <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Macedonia&groupId=723&placeId=428">Macedonia</a> to throw Prusias in his turn into alarm and peril.
For Prusias having begun the war with the feelings I have indicated had taken the place called "The Holy Place" on the Bosporus,
which a few years previously they had acquired by purchase for a large sum, owing to its favourable situation, as they did not wish to leave anyone any base from which to attack traders with the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Pontus&groupId=910&placeId=1634">Pontus</a> or interfere with the slave-trade or the fishing.
He had also seized their Asiatic territory, a part of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Mysia&groupId=782&placeId=1417">Mysia</a> which had long been in their possession. The Rhodians, manning six ships and getting four others from the allies, appointed Xenophantus admiral and sailed for the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Hellespont&groupId=620&placeId=1141">Hellespont</a> with the ten ships.
Anchoring the rest off <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sestos&groupId=969&placeId=1717">Sestos</a> to prevent the passage of vessels bound for the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Pontus&groupId=910&placeId=1634">Pontus</a>, the admiral left in one to find out if the Byzantines were already sufficiently alarmed at the war to have changed their minds.
But as they paid no attention to his overtures, he sailed away and picking up the rest of his ships, left for <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rhodes&groupId=931&placeId=1665">Rhodes</a> with the whole squadron. The Byzantines kept on sending to Achaeus, demanding succour, and sent a mission to bring Tiboetes from <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Macedonia&groupId=723&placeId=428">Macedonia</a>;
for Tiboetes was considered to have just as good a claim to the throne of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Bithynia&groupId=402&placeId=748">Bithynia</a> as Prusias, as he was his uncle on the father\'s side.
The Rhodians seeing that the Byzantines stood firm, thought of a plan for attaining their purpose likely to prove very efficient.
Walbank Commentary