Chapter LXII (3)

But though violence and aggressive insult were thus seasonably checked, the sentiment of the armament was too ardent and unanimous to be satisfied without some solemn, emphatic, and decisive declaration against the oligarchs at Athens. A great democratical manifestation, of the most earnest and imposing character, was proclaimed, chiefly at the instance of Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus. The Athenian armament, brought together in one grand assembly, took an oath by the most stringent sanctions: to maintain their democracy; to keep up friendship and harmony with each other; to carry on the war against the Peloponnesians with energy; to be at enmity with the Four Hundred at Athens, and to enter into no amicable communication with them whatever. The whole armament swore to this compact with enthusiasm, and even those who had before taken part in the oligarchical movements were forced to be forward in the ceremony.[58] What lent double force to this touching scene was, that the entire Samian population, every male of the military age, took the oath along with the friendly armament. Both pledged themselves to mutual fidelity and common suffering or triumph, whatever might be the issue of the contest. Both felt that the Peloponnesians at Milêtus, and the Four Hundred at Athens, were alike their enemies, and that the success of either would be their common ruin.

[58] Thucyd. viii, 75. Μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο, λαμπρῶς ἤδη ἐς δημοκρατίαν
βουλόμενοι μεταστῆσαι τὰ ἐν τῇ Σάμῳ ὅ τε Θρασύβουλος καὶ
Θράσυλλος, ὥρκωσαν πάντας τοὺς στρατιώτας τοὺς μεγίστους ὅρκους,
καὶ αὐτοὺς τοὺς ἐκ τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας μάλιστα, ἦ μὴν δημοκρατήσεσθαι
τε καὶ ὁμονοήσειν, καὶ τὸν πρὸς Πελοποννησίους πόλεμον προθύμως
διοίσειν, καὶ τοῖς τετρακοσίοις πολέμιοί τε ἔσεσθαι καὶ οὐδὲν
ἐπικηρυκεύεσθαι. Ξυνώμνυσαν δὲ καὶ Σαμίων πάντες τὸν αὐτὸν ὅρκον
οἱ ἐν τῇ ἡλικίᾳ, καὶ τὰ πράγματα πάντα καὶ τὰ ἀποβησόμενα ἐκ τῶν
κινδύνων ξυνεκοινώσαντο οἱ στρατιῶται τοῖς Σαμίοις, νομίζοντες
οὔτε ἐκείνοις ἀποστροφὴν σωτηρίας οὔτε σφίσιν εἶναι, ἀλλ᾽ ἐάν
τε οἱ τετρακόσιοι κρατήσωσιν ἐάν τε οἱ ἐκ Μιλήτου πολέμιοι,
διαφθαρήσεσθαι.

Pursuant to this resolution,—of upholding their democracy and at the same time sustaining the war against the Peloponnesians, at all cost or peril to themselves,—the soldiers of the armament now took a step unparalleled in Athenian history. Feeling that they could no longer receive orders from Athens under her present oligarchical rulers, with whom Charmînus and others among their own leaders were implicated, they constituted themselves into a sort of community apart, and held an assembly as citizens to choose anew their generals and trierarchs. Of those already in command, several were deposed as unworthy of trust; others being elected in their places, especially Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus. Nor was the assembly held for election alone; it was a scene of effusive sympathy, animating eloquence, and patriotism generous as well as resolute. The united armament felt that _they_ were the real Athens; the guardians of her constitution, the upholders of her remaining empire and glory, the protectors of her citizens at home against those conspirators who had intruded themselves wrongfully into the senate-house; the sole barrier, even for those conspirators themselves, against the hostile Peloponnesian fleet. “_The city has revolted from us_,” exclaimed Thrasybulus and others in pregnant words, which embodied a whole train of feeling.[59] “But let not this abate our courage: for they are only the lesser force, we are the greater and the self-sufficing. We have here the whole navy of the state, whereby we can insure to ourselves the contributions from our dependencies just as well as if we started from Athens. We have the hearty attachment of Samos, second in power only to Athens herself, and serving us as a military station against the enemy, now as in the past. We are better able to obtain supplies for ourselves, than those in the city for themselves; for it is only through our presence at Samos that they have hitherto kept the mouth of Peiræus open. If they refuse to restore to us our democratical constitution, we shall be better able to exclude them from the sea than they to exclude us. What, indeed, does the city do now for us to second our efforts against the enemy? Little or nothing. We have lost nothing by their separation. They send us no pay, they leave us to provide maintenance for ourselves; they are now out of condition for sending us even good counsel, which is the great superiority of a city over a camp.[60] As counsellors, we here are better than they; for they have just committed the wrong of subverting the constitution of our common country, while we are striving to maintain it, and will do our best to force them into the same track. Alkibiadês, if we insure to him a safe restoration, will cheerfully bring the alliance of Persia to sustain us; and, even if the worst comes to the worst, if all other hopes fail us, our powerful naval force will always enable us to find places of refuge in abundance, with city and territory adequate to our wants.”

[59] Thucyd. viii, 76. Καὶ παραινέσεις ἄλλας τε ἐποιοῦντο ἐν
σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ἀνιστάμενοι, καὶ ὡς οὐ δεῖ ἀθυμεῖν ὅτι ~ἡ πόλις
αὐτῶν ἀφέστηκε~· τοὺς γὰρ ἐλάσσους ~ἀπὸ σφῶν τῶν~ πλεόνων καὶ ἐς
πάντα ποριμωτέρων ~μεθεστάναι~.

[60] Thucyd. viii, 76. Βραχὺ δέ τι εἶναι καὶ οὐδενὸς ἄξιον, ᾧ
πρὸς τὸ περιγίγνεσθαι τῶν πολεμίων ἡ πόλις χρήσιμος ἦν, καὶ
οὐδὲν ἀπολωλεκέναι, οἵ γε μήτε ἀργύριον ἔτι εἶχον πέμπειν, ἀλλ᾽
αὐτοὶ ἐπορίζοντο οἱ στρατιῶται, μήτε βούλευμα χρηστὸν, οὗπερ
ἕνεκα πόλις στρατοπέδων κρατεῖ· ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τούτοις τοὺς μὲν
ἡμαρτηκέναι, τοὺς πατρίους νόμους καταλύσαντας, αὐτοὶ δὲ σώζειν
καὶ ἐκείνους πειράσεσθαι προσαναγκάζειν. Ὥστε οὐδὲ τούτους, οἵπερ
ἂν βουλεύοιέν τι χρηστὸν, παρὰ σφίσι χείρους εἶναι.

Such was the encouraging language of Thrasyllus and Thrasybulus, which found full sympathy in the armament, and raised among them a spirit of energetic patriotism and resolution, not unworthy of their forefathers when refugees at Salamis under the invasion of Xerxês. To regain their democracy and to sustain the war against the Peloponnesians, were impulses alike ardent and blended in the same tide of generous enthusiasm; a tide so vehement as to sweep before it the reluctance of that minority who had before been inclined to the oligarchical movement. But besides these two impulses, there was also a third, tending towards the recall of Alkibiadês; a coadjutor, if in many ways useful, yet bringing with him a spirit of selfishness and duplicity uncongenial to the exalted sentiment now all-powerful at Samos.[61]

[61] The application of the Athenians at Samos to Alkibiadês,
reminds us of the emphatic language in which Tacitus
characterizes an incident in some respects similar. The Roman
army, fighting in the cause of Vitellius against Vespasian, had
been betrayed by their general Cæcina, who endeavored to carry
them over to the latter: his army, however, refused to follow
him, adhered to their own cause, and put him under arrest. Being
afterwards defeated by the troops of Vespasian, and obliged to
capitulate in Cremona, they released Cæcina, and solicited his
intercession to obtain favorable terms. “Primores castrorum nomen
atque imagines Vitellii amoliuntur; catenas Cæcinæ (nam etiam
tum vinctus erat) exsolvunt, orantque, ut causæ suæ deprecator
adsistat: aspernantem tumentemque lacrymis fatigant. _Extremum
malorum, tot fortissimi viri, proditoris opem invocantes._”
(Tacitus, Histor. iii, 31.)

This exile had been the first to originate the oligarchical conspiracy, whereby Athens, already scarcely adequate to the exigencies of her foreign war, was now paralyzed in courage and torn by civil discord, preserved from absolute ruin only by that counter-enthusiasm which a fortunate turn of circumstances had raised up at Samos. Having at first duped the conspirators themselves, and enabled them to dupe the sincere democrats, by promising Persian aid, and thus floating the plot over its first and greatest difficulties,—Alkibiadês had found himself constrained to break with them as soon as the time came for realizing his promises. But he had broken off with so much address as still to keep up the illusion that he _could_ realize them if he chose. His return by means of the oligarchy being now impossible, he naturally became its enemy, and this new antipathy superseded his feeling of revenge against the democracy for having banished him. In fact he was disposed, as Phrynichus had truly said about him,[62] to avail himself indifferently of either, according as the one or the other presented itself as a serviceable agency for his ambitious views. Accordingly, as soon as the turn of affairs at Samos had made itself manifest, he opened communication with Thrasybulus and the democratical leaders,[63] renewing to them the same promises of Persian alliance, on condition of his own restoration, as he had before made to Peisander and the oligarchical party. Thrasybulus and his colleagues either sincerely believed him, or at least thought that his restoration afforded a possibility, not to be neglected, of obtaining Persian aid, without which they despaired of the war. Such possibility would at least infuse spirit into the soldiers; while the restoration was now proposed without the terrible condition which had before accompanied it, of renouncing the democratical constitution.

[62] Thucyd. viii, 48.

[63] Thucydidês does not expressly mention this communication,
but it is implied in the words Ἀλκιβιάδην—~ἄσμενον παρέξειν~,
etc. (viii, 76.)

It was not without difficulty, however, nor until after more than one assembly and discussion,[64] that Thrasybulus prevailed on the armament to pass a vote of security and restoration to Alkibiadês. As Athenian citizens, the soldiers probably were unwilling to take upon them the reversal of a sentence solemnly passed by the democratical tribunal, on the ground of irreligion with suspicion of treason. They were, however, induced to pass the vote, after which Thrasybulus sailed over to the Asiatic coast, brought across Alkibiadês to the island, and introduced him to the assembled armament. The supple exile, who had denounced the democracy so bitterly, both at Sparta, and in his correspondence with the oligarchical conspirators, knew well how to adapt himself to the sympathies of the democratical assembly now before him. He began by deploring the sentence of banishment passed against him, and throwing the blame of it, not upon the injustice of his countrymen, but upon his own unhappy destiny.[65] He then entered upon the public prospects of the moment, pledging himself with entire confidence to realize the hopes of Persian alliance, and boasting, in terms not merely ostentatious but even extravagant, of the ascendant influence which he possessed over Tissaphernês. The satrap had promised him, so the speech went on, never to let the Athenians want for pay, as soon as he once came to trust them, not even if it were necessary to issue out his last daric or to coin his own silver couch into money. Nor would he require any farther condition to induce him to trust them, except that Alkibiadês should be restored and should become their guarantee. Not only would he furnish the Athenians with pay, but he would, besides, bring up to their aid the Phenician fleet, which was already at Aspendus, instead of placing it at the disposal of the Peloponnesians.

[64] Thucyd. viii, 81. Θρασύβουλος, ~ἀεί τε τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης
ἐχόμενος~, ἐπειδὴ μετέστησε τὰ πράγματα, ὥστε κατάγειν
Ἀλκιβιάδην, καὶ ~τέλος~ ἐπ᾽ ἐκκλησίας ἔπεισε τὸ πλῆθος τῶν
στρατιωτῶν, etc.

[65] Thucyd. viii, 81. γενομένης δὲ ἐκκλησίας τήν ~τε ἰδίαν
ξυμφορὰν τῆς φυγῆς ἐπῃτιάσατο καὶ ἀνωλοφύρατο~ ὁ Ἀλκιβιάδης, etc.

Contrast the different language of Alkibiadês, vi, 92: viii, 47.

For the word ξυμφορὰν, compare i, 127.

Nothing can be more false and perverted than the manner in which
the proceedings of Alkibiadês, during this period, are presented
in the Oration of Isokratês de Bigis, sects. 18-23.

In the communications of Alkibiadês with Peisander and his coadjutors, Alkibiadês had pretended that the Great King could have no confidence in the Athenians unless they not only restored him, but abnegated their democracy. On this occasion, the latter condition was withdrawn, and the confidence of the Great King was said to be more easily accorded. But though Alkibiadês thus presented himself with a new falsehood, as well as with a new vein of political sentiment, his discourse was eminently successful. It answered all the various purposes which he contemplated; partly of intimidating and disuniting the oligarchical conspirators at home, partly of exalting his own grandeur in the eyes of the armament, partly of sowing mistrust between the Spartans and Tissaphernês. It was in such full harmony with both the reigning feelings of the armament,—eagerness to put down the Four Hundred, as well as to get the better of their Peloponnesian enemies in Ionia,—that the hearers were not disposed to scrutinize narrowly the grounds upon which his assurances rested. In the fulness of confidence and enthusiasm, they elected him general along with Thrasybulus and the rest, conceiving redoubled hopes of victory over their enemies both at Athens and at Milêtus. So completely, indeed, were their imaginations filled with the prospect of Persian aid, against their enemies in Ionia, that alarm for the danger of Athens under the government of the Four Hundred became the predominant feeling; and many voices were even raised in favor of sailing to Peiræus for the rescue of the city. But Alkibiadês, knowing well—what the armament did not know—that his own promises of Persian pay and fleet were a mere delusion, strenuously dissuaded such a movement, which would have left the dependencies in Ionia defenceless against the Peloponnesians. As soon as the assembly broke up, he crossed over again to the mainland, under pretence of concerting measures with Tissaphernês to realize his recent engagements.

Relieved substantially, though not in strict form, from the penalties of exile, Alkibiadês was thus launched in a new career. After having first played the game of Athens against Sparta, next, that of Sparta against Athens, thirdly, that of Tissaphernês against both, he now professed to take up again the promotion of Athenian interests. In reality, however, he was and had always been playing his own game, or obeying his own self-interest, ambition, or antipathy. He was at this time eager to make a show of intimate and confidential communication with Tissaphernês, in order that he might thereby impose upon the Athenians at Samos, to communicate to the satrap his recent election as general of the Athenian force, that his importance with the Persians might be enhanced, and lastly, by passing backwards and forwards from Tissaphernês to the Athenian camp, to exhibit an appearance of friendly concert between the two, which might sow mistrust and alarm in the minds of the Peloponnesians. In this tripartite manœuvring, so suitable to his habitual character, he was more or less successful, especially in regard to the latter purpose. For though he never had any serious chance of inducing Tissaphernês to assist the Athenians, he did, nevertheless, contribute to alienate him from the enemy, as well as the enemy from him.[66]

[66] Thucyd. viii, 82, 83, 87.

Without any longer delay in the camp of Tissaphernês than was necessary to keep up the faith of the Athenians in his promise of Persian aid, Alkibiadês returned to Samos, where he was found by the ten envoys sent by the Four Hundred from Athens, on their first arrival. These envoys had been long in their voyage; having made a considerable stay at Delos, under alarm from intelligence of the previous visit of Chæreas, and the furious indignation which his narrative had provoked.[67] At length they reached Samos, and were invited by the generals to make their communication to the assembled armament. They had the utmost difficulty in procuring a hearing, so strong was the antipathy against them, so loud were the cries that the subverters of the democracy ought to be put to death. Silence being at length obtained, they proceeded to state that the late revolution had been brought to pass for the salvation of the city, and especially for the economy of the public treasure, by suppressing the salaried civil functions of the democracy, and thus leaving more pay for the soldiers;[68] that there was no purpose of mischief in the change, still less of betrayal to the enemy, which might already have been effected, had such been the intention of the Four Hundred, when Agis advanced from Dekeleia up to the walls; that the citizens now possessing the political franchise, were not Four Hundred only, but Five Thousand in number, all of whom would take their turn in rotation for the places now occupied by the Four Hundred;[69] that the recitals of Chæreas, affirming ill-usage to have been offered to the relatives of the soldiers at Athens, were utterly false and calumnious.

[67] Thucyd. viii, 77-86.

[68] Thucyd. viii, 86. Εἰ δὲ ἐς εὐτέλειάν τι ξυντέτμηται, ὥστε
τοὺς στρατιώτας ἔχειν τροφὴν, πάνυ ἐπαινεῖν.

This is a part of the answer of Alkibiadês to the envoys, and
therefore indicates what they had urged.

[69] Thucyd. viii, 86. τῶν τε πεντακισχιλίων ὅτι πάντες ἐν τῷ
μέρει μεθέξουσιν, etc. I dissent from Dr. Arnold’s construction
of this passage, which is followed both by Poppo and by Göller.
He says, in his note: “The sense must clearly be, ‘that all the
citizens should be of the five thousand in their turn,’ however
strange the expression may seem, μεθέξουσι τῶν πεντακισχιλίων.
But without referring to the absurdity of the meaning, that all
the Five Thousand should partake of the government _in their
turn_,—for they _all_ partook of it as being the sovereign
assembly,—yet μετέχειν, in this sense, would require τῶν
πραγμάτων after it, and would be at least as harsh, standing
alone, as in the construction of μεθέξουσι τῶν πεντακισχιλίων.”

Upon this remark, 1. Μετέχειν may be construed with a genitive
case not actually expressed, but understood out of the words
preceding; as we may see by Thucyd. ii, 16, where I agree with
the interpretation suggested by Matthiæ (Gr. Gr. § 325), rather
than with Dr. Arnold’s note.

2. In the present instance, we are not reduced to the necessity
of gathering a genitive case for μετέχειν by implication out of
previous phraseology: for the express genitive case stands there
a line or two before—~τῆς πόλεως~, the idea of which is carried
down without being ever dropped: οἱ δ᾽ ἀπήγγελλον, ὡς οὔτε ἐπὶ
διαφθορᾷ ~τῆς πόλεως~ ἡ μετάστασις γένοιτο, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ,
οὔθ᾽ ἵνα τοῖς πολεμίοις παραδοθῇ (i. e., ἡ πόλις) ... τῶν τε
πεντακισχιλίων ὅτι πάντες ~ἐν τῷ μέρει μεθέξουσιν~ (i. e., τῆς
πόλεως).

There is therefore no harshness of expression; nor is there any
absurdity of meaning, as we may see by the repetition of the very
same in viii, 93, λέγοντες τούς τε πεντακισχιλίους ἀποφανεῖν,
καὶ ~ἐκ τούτων ἐν μέρει~, ᾗ ἂν τοῖς πεντακισχιλίοις δοκῇ, ~τοὺς
τετρακοσίους ἔσεσθαι~, etc.

Dr. Arnold’s designation of these Five Thousand as “the sovereign
assembly,” is not very accurate. They were not an assembly at
all: they had never been called together, nor had anything
been said about an intention of calling them together: in
reality, they were but a fiction and a name; but even the Four
Hundred themselves pretended only to talk of them as partners
in the conspiracy and revolution, not as _an assembly_ to be
convoked—πεντακισχίλιοι—~οἱ πράσσοντες~ (viii, 72).

As to the idea of bringing all the remaining citizens to equal
privileges, in rotation, with the Five Thousand, we shall see
that it was never broached until considerably after the Four
Hundred had been put down.

Such were the topics on which the envoys insisted, in an apologetic strain, at considerable length, but without any effect in conciliating the soldiers who heard them. The general resentment against the Four Hundred was expressed by several persons present in public speech, by others in private manifestation of feeling against the envoys: and so passionately was this sentiment aggravated,—consisting not only of wrath for what the oligarchy had done, but of fear for what they might do,—that the proposition of sailing immediately to the Peiræus was revived with greater ardor than before. Alkibiadês, who had already once discountenanced this design, now stood forward to repel it again. Nevertheless, all the plenitude of his influence, then greater than that of any other officer in the armament, and seconded by the esteemed character as well as the loud voice of Thrasybulus,[70] was required to avert it. But for him, it would have been executed. While he reproved and silenced those who were most clamorous against the envoys, he took upon himself to give to the latter a public answer in the name of the collective armament. “We make no objection (he said) to the power of the Five Thousand: but the Four Hundred must go about their business, and reinstate the senate of Five Hundred as it was before. We are much obliged for what you have done in the way of economy, so as to increase the pay available for the soldiers. Above all, maintain the war strenuously, without any flinching before the enemy. For if the city be now safely held, there is good hope that we may make up the mutual differences between us by amicable settlement; but if once either of us perish, either we here or you at home, there will be nothing left for the other to make up with.”[71]

[70] Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 26.

[71] Thucyd. viii. 86. Καὶ τἄλλα ἐκέλευεν ἀντέχειν, καὶ μηδὲν
ἐνδιδόναι τοῖς πολεμίοις· πρὸς μὲν γὰρ σφᾶς αὐτοὺς σωζομένης τῆς
πόλεως πολλὴν ἐλπίδα εἶναι καὶ ξυμβῆναι, εἰ δὲ ἅπαξ τὸ ἕτερον
σφαλήσεται ἢ τὸ ἐν Σάμῳ ἢ ἐκεῖνοι, οὐδὲ ὅτῳ διαλλαγήσεταί τις ἔτι
ἔσεσθαι.

With this reply he dismissed the envoys; the armament reluctantly abandoning their wish of sailing to Athens. Thucydidês insists much on the capital service which Alkibiadês then rendered to his country, by arresting a project which would have had the effect of leaving all Ionia and the Hellespont defenceless against the Peloponnesians. His advice doubtless turned out well in the result; yet if we contemplate the state of affairs at the moment when he gave it, we shall be inclined to doubt whether prudential calculation was not rather against him, and in favor of the impulse of the armament. For what was to hinder the Four Hundred from patching up a peace with Sparta, and getting a Lacedæmonian garrison into Athens to help them in maintaining their dominion? Even apart from ambition, this was their best chance, if not their only chance, of safety for themselves; and we shall presently see that they tried to do it; being prevented from succeeding, partly, indeed, by the mutiny which arose against them at Athens, but still more by the stupidity of the Lacedæmonians themselves. Alkibiadês could not really imagine that the Four Hundred would obey his mandate delivered to the envoys, and resign their power voluntarily. But if they remained masters of Athens, who could calculate what they would do,—after having received this declaration of hostility from Samos,—not merely in regard to the foreign enemy, but even in regard to the relatives of the absent soldiers? Whether we look to the legitimate apprehensions of the soldiers, inevitable while their relatives were thus exposed, and almost unnerving them as to the hearty prosecution of the war abroad, in their utter uncertainty with regard to matters at home,—or to the chance of irreparable public calamity, greater even than the loss of Ionia, by the betrayal of Athens to the enemy,—we shall be disposed to conclude that the impulse of the armament was not merely natural, but even founded on a more prudent estimate of the actual chances, and that Alkibiadês was nothing more than fortunate in a sanguine venture. And if, instead of the actual chances, we look to the chances as Alkibiadês represented, and as the armament conceived them upon his authority,—namely, that the Phenician fleet was close at hand to act against the Lacedæmonians in Ionia,—we shall sympathize yet more with the defensive movement homeward. Alkibiadês had an advantage over every one else, simply by knowing his own falsehoods.

At the same assembly were introduced envoys from Argos, bearing a mission of recognition and an offer of aid to the Athenian Demos in Samos. They came in an Athenian trireme, navigated by the parali who had brought home Chæreas in the paralus from Samos to Athens, and had been then transferred into a common ship of war and sent to cruise about Eubœa. Since that time, however, they had been directed to convey Læspodias, Aristophon, and Melêsias,[72] as ambassadors from the Four Hundred to Sparta. But when crossing the Argolic gulf, probably under orders to land at Prasiæ, they declared against the oligarchy, sailed to Argos, and there deposited as prisoners the three ambassadors, who had all been active in the conspiracy of the Four Hundred. Being then about to depart for Samos, they were requested by the Argeians to carry thither their envoys, who were dismissed by Alkibiadês with an expression of gratitude, and with a hope that their aid would be ready when called for.

[72] Thucyd. viii. 86. It is very probable that the Melêsias here
mentioned was the son of that Thucydidês who was the leading
political opponent of Periklês. Melêsias appears as one of the
_dramatis personæ_ in Plato’s dialogue called Lachês.

Meanwhile the envoys returned from Samos to Athens, carrying back to the Four Hundred the unwelcome news of their total failure with the armament. A little before, it appears, some of the trierarchs on service at the Hellespont had returned to Athens also,—Eratosthenês, Iatroklês, and others, who had tried to turn their squadron to the purposes of the oligarchical conspirators, but had been baffled and driven off by the inflexible democracy of their own seamen.[73] If at Athens, the calculations of these conspirators had succeeded more triumphantly than could have been expected beforehand, everywhere else they had completely miscarried; not merely at Samos and in the fleet, but also with the allied dependencies. At the time when Peisander quitted Samos for Athens, to consummate the oligarchical conspiracy even without Alkibiadês, he and others had gone round many of the dependencies and had effected a similar revolution in their internal government, in hopes that they would thus become attached to the new oligarchy at Athens. But this anticipation, as Phrynichus had predicted, was nowhere realized. The newly-created oligarchies only became more anxious for complete autonomy than the democracies had been before. At Thasos, especially, a body of exiles who had for some time dwelt in Peloponnesus were recalled, and active preparations were made for revolt, by new fortifications as well as by new triremes.[74] Instead of strengthening their hold on the maritime empire, the Four Hundred thus found that they had actually weakened it; while the pronounced hostility of the armament at Samos, not only put an end to all their hopes abroad, but rendered their situation at home altogether precarious.

[73] Lysias cont. Eratosthen. sect. 43, c. 9, p. 411, Reisk.
οὐ γὰρ νῦν πρῶτον (Eratosthenês) τῷ ὑμετέρῳ πλήθει τὰ ἐναντία
ἔπραξεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν Τετρακοσίων ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδῳ ὀλιγαρχίαν
καθιστὰς ἔφευγεν ἐξ Ἑλλησπόντου τριηράρχος καταλιπὼν τὴν ναῦν,
μετὰ Ἰατροκλέους καὶ ἑτέρων ... ἀφικόμενος δὲ δεῦρο τἀναντία τοῖς
βουλομένοις δημοκρατίαν εἶναι ἔπραττε.

[74] Thucyd. viii, 64.

From the moment when the coadjutors of Antiphon first learned, through the arrival of Chæreas at Athens, the proclamation of the democracy at Samos, discord, mistrust, and alarm began to spread even among their own members; together with a conviction that the oligarchy could never stand except through the presence of a Peloponnesian garrison in Athens. While Antiphon and Phrynichus, the leading minds who directed the majority of the Four Hundred, despatched envoys to Sparta for concluding peace,—these envoys never reached Sparta, being seized by the parali and sent prisoners to Argos, as above stated—, and commenced the erection of a special fort at Ectioneia, the projecting mole which contracted and commanded, on the northern side, the narrow entrance of Peiræus, there began to arise even in the bosom of the Four Hundred an opposition minority affecting popular sentiment, among whom the most conspicuous persons were Theramenês and Aristokratês.[75]

[75] Thucyd. viii, 89, 90. The representation of the character
and motives of Theramenês, as given by Lysias in the Oration
contra Eratosthenem (Orat. xii, sects. 66, 67, 79; Orat. xiii,
cont. Agorat. sects. 12-17), is quite in harmony with that of
Thucydidês (viii, 89): compare Aristophan. Ran. 541-966; Xenoph.
Hellen. ii, 3, 27-30.

Though these men had stood forward prominently as contrivers and actors throughout the whole progress of the conspiracy, they now found themselves bitterly disappointed by the result. Individually, their ascendency with their colleagues was inferior to that of Peisander, Kallæschrus, Phrynichus, and others; while, collectively, the ill-gotten power of the Four Hundred was diminished in value, as much as it was aggravated in peril, by the loss of the foreign empire and the alienation of their Samian armament. Now began the workings of jealousy and strife among the successful conspirators, each of whom had entered into the scheme with unbounded expectations of personal ambition for himself, each had counted on stepping at once into the first place among the new oligarchical body. In a democracy, observes Thucydidês, contentions for power and preëminence provoke in the unsuccessful competitors less of fierce antipathy and sense of injustice, than in an oligarchy; for the losing candidates acquiesce with comparatively little repugnance in the unfavorable vote of a large miscellaneous body of unknown citizens; but they are angry at being put aside by a few known comrades, their rivals as well as their equals: moreover, at the moment when an oligarchy of ambitious men has just raised itself on the ruins of a democracy, every man of the conspirators is in exaggerated expectation; every one thinks himself entitled to become at once the first man of the body, and is dissatisfied if he be merely put upon a level with the rest.[76]

[76] Thucyd. viii, 89. ἦν δὲ τοῦτο μὲν σχῆμα πολιτικὸν τοῦ λόγου
αὐτοῖς, κατ᾽ ἰδίας δὲ φιλοτιμίας οἱ πολλοὶ αὐτῶν τῷ τοιούτῳ
προσέκειντο, ἐν ᾧπερ καὶ μάλιστα ὀλιγαρχία ἐκ δημοκρατίας
γενομένη ἀπόλλυται. Πάντες γὰρ αὐθημερὸν ἀξιοῦσιν οὐχ ὅπως ἴσοι,
ἀλλὰ καὶ πολὺ πρῶτος αὐτὸς ἕκαστος εἶναι· ἐκ δὲ δημοκρατίας
αἱρέσεως γιγνομένης, ῥᾷον τὰ ἀποβαίνοντα, ὡς οὐκ ἀπὸ τῶν ὁμοίων,
ἐλασσούμενός τις φέρει.

I give in the text what appears to me the proper sense of this
passage, the last words of which are obscure: see the long notes
of the commentators, especially Dr. Arnold and Poppo. Dr. Arnold
considers τῶν ὁμοίων as a neuter, and gives the paraphrase of
the last clause as follows: “Whereas under an old-established
government, they (ambitious men of talent) are prepared to fail:
they know that the weight of the government is against them, and
are thus spared the peculiar pain of being beaten in a fair race,
when they and their competitors start with equal advantages, and
there is nothing to lessen the mortification of defeat. Ἀπὸ τῶν
ὁμοίων ἐλασσούμενος, is, _being beaten when the game is equal,
when the terms of the match are fair_.”

I cannot concur in Dr. Arnold’s explanation of these words, or
of the general sense of the passage. He thinks that Thucydidês
means to affirm what applies generally “to an opposition minority
when it succeeds in revolutionizing the established government,
whether the government be a democracy or a monarchy; whether
the minority be an aristocratical party or a popular one.” It
seems to me, on the contrary, that the affirmation bears only
on the special case of an oligarchical conspiracy subverting a
democracy, and that the comparison taken is applicable only to
the state of things as it stood under the preceding democracy.

Next, the explanation given of the words by Dr. Arnold, assumes
that “to be beaten in a fair race, or when the terms of the
match are fair,” causes to the loser _the maximum_ of pain and
offence. This is surely not the fact: or rather, the reverse is
the fact. The man who loses his cause or his election through
unjust favor, jealousy, or antipathy, is _more_ hurt than if he
had lost it under circumstances where he could find no injustice
to complain of. In both cases, he is doubtless mortified; but
if there be injustice, he is offended and angry as well as
mortified: he is disposed to take vengeance on men whom he looks
upon as his personal enemies. It is important to distinguish
the mortification of simple failure, from the discontent and
anger arising out of belief that the failure has been unjustly
brought about: it is this discontent, tending to break out in
active opposition, which Thucydidês has present to his mind in
the comparison which he takes between the state of feeling which
precedes and follows the subversion of the democracy.

It appears to me that the words τῶν ὁμοίων are masculine, and
that they have reference, like πάντες and ἴσοι, in the preceding
line, to the privileged minority of equal confederates who are
supposed to have just got possession of the government. At
Sparta, the word οἱ ὅμοιοι acquired a sort of technical sense,
to designate the small ascendent minority of wealthy Spartan
citizens, who monopolized in their own hands political power, to
the practical exclusion of the remainder (see Xenoph. Hellen.
iii. 3, 5; Xenoph. Resp. Lac. x, 7; xiii, 1; Demosth. cont. Lept.
s. 88). Now these ὅμοιοι, or peers, here indicated by Thucydidês
as the peers of a recently-formed oligarchy, are not merely equal
among themselves, but rivals one with another, and personally
known to each other. It is important to bear in mind all these
attributes as tacitly implied, though not literally designated or
_connoted_ by the word ὅμοιοι, or peers; because the comparison
instituted by Thucydidês is founded on all the attributes taken
together; just as Aristotle (Rhetoric, ii, 8; ii, 13, 4), in
speaking of the envy and jealousy apt to arise towards τοὺς
ὁμοίους, considers them as ἀντεράστας and ἀνταγωνίστας.

The Four Hundred at Athens were all peers,—equals, rivals,
and personally known among one another,—who had just raised
themselves by joint conspiracy to supreme power. Theramenês,
one of the number, conceives himself entitled to preëminence,
but finds that he is shut out from it, the men who shut him
out being this small body of known equals and rivals. He is
inclined to impute the exclusion to personal motives on the part
of this small knot; to selfish ambition on the part of each; to
ill-will, to jealousy, to wrongful partiality; so that he thinks
himself injured, and the sentiment of injury is embittered by
the circumstance that those from whom it proceeds are a narrow,
known, and definite body of colleagues. Whereas, if his exclusion
had taken place under the democracy, by the suffrage of a large,
miscellaneous, and personally unknown collection of citizens, he
would have been far less likely to carry off with him a sense of
injury. Doubtless he would have been mortified; but he would not
have looked upon the electors in the light of jealous or selfish
rivals, nor would they form a definite body before him for his
indignation to concentrate itself upon. Thus Nikomachidês—whom
Sokratês (see Xenophon, Memor. iii, 4) meets returning mortified
because the people had chosen another person and not him as
general—would have been not only mortified, but angry and
vindictive besides, if he had been excluded by a few peers and
rivals.

Such, in my judgment, is the comparison which Thucydidês wishes
to draw between the effect of disappointment inflicted by the
suffrage of a numerous and miscellaneous body of citizens,
compared with disappointment inflicted by a small knot of
oligarchical peers upon a competitor among their own number,
especially at a moment when the expectations of all these peers
are exaggerated, in consequence of the recent acquisition of
their power. I believe the remark of the historian to be quite
just; and that the disappointment in the first case is less
intense, less connected with the sentiment of injury, and less
likely to lead to active manifestation of enmity. This is one
among the advantages of a numerous suffrage.

I cannot better illustrate the jealousies pretty sure to break
out among a small number of ὅμοιοι, or rival peers, than by
the description which Justin gives of the leading officers of
Alexander the Great, immediately after that monarch’s death
(Justin, xii, 2):—

“Cæterum, occiso Alexandro, non, ut læti, ita et securi fuere,
omnibus unum locum competentibus: nec minus milites invicem se
timebant, quorum et libertas solutior et favor incertus erat.
_Inter ipsos vero æqualitas discordiam augebat_, nemine tantum
cæteros excedente, ut ei aliquis se submitteret.”

Compare Plutarch, Lysander, c. 23.

Haack and Poppo think that ὁμοίων cannot be masculine, because
~ἀπὸ~ τῶν ὁμοίων ἐλασσούμενος would not then be correct, but
ought to be ~ὑπὸ~ τῶν ὁμοίων ἐλασσούμενος. I should dispute,
under all circumstances, the correctness of this criticism: for
there are quite enough parallel cases to defend the use of ἀπὸ
here, (see Thucyd. i, 17; iii, 82; iv, 115; vi, 28, etc.) But
we need not enter into the debate; for the genitive τῶν ὁμοίων
depends rather upon τὰ ἀποβαίνοντα which precedes, than upon
ἐλασσούμενος which follows; and the preposition ἀπὸ is what we
should naturally expect. To mark this, I have put a comma after
ἀποβαίνοντα as well as after ὁμοίων.

To show that an opinion is not correct, indeed, does not afford
_certain_ evidence that Thucydidês may not have advanced it: for
he might be mistaken. But it ought to count as good presumptive
evidence, unless the words peremptorily bind us to the contrary,
which in this case they do not.

Such were the feelings of disappointed ambition, mingled with despondency, which sprung up among a minority of the Four Hundred, immediately after the news of the proclamation of the democracy at Samos among the armament. Theramenês, the leader of this minority,—a man of keen ambition, clever but unsteady and treacherous, not less ready to desert his party than to betray his country, though less prepared for extreme atrocities than many of his oligarchical comrades, began to look out for a good pretence to disconnect himself from a precarious enterprise. Taking advantage of the delusion which the Four Hundred had themselves held out about the fictitious Five Thousand, he insisted that, since the dangers that beset the newly-formed authority were so much more formidable than had been anticipated, it was necessary to popularize the party by enrolling and producing these Five Thousand as a real instead of a fictitious body.[77] Such an opposition, formidable from the very outset, became still bolder and more developed when the envoys returned from Samos, with an account of their reception by the armament, as well as of the answer, delivered in the name of the armament, whereby Alkibiadês directed the Four Hundred to dissolve themselves forthwith, but at the same time approved of the constitution of the Five Thousand, coupled with the restoration of the old senate. To enroll the Five Thousand at once, would be meeting the army half way; and there were hopes that, at that price, a compromise and reconciliation might be effected, of which Alkibiadês had himself spoken as practicable.[78] In addition to the formal answer, the envoys doubtless brought back intimation of the enraged feelings manifested by the armament, and of their eagerness, uncontrollable by every one except Alkibiadês, to sail home forthwith and rescue Athens from the Four Hundred. Hence arose an increased conviction that the dominion of the latter could not last: and an ambition, on the part of others as well as Theramenês, to stand forward as leaders of a popular opposition against it, in the name of the Five Thousand.[79]

[77] Thucyd. viii, 86, 2. Of this sentence, from φοβούμενοι down
to καθιστάναι, I only profess to understand the last clause.
It is useless to discuss the many conjectural amendments of a
corrupt text, none of them satisfactory.

[78] Thucyd. viii, 86-89. It is alleged by Andokidês (in an
oration delivered many years afterwards before the people of
Athens, De Reditu suo, sects. 10-15), that during this spring
he furnished the armament at Samos with wood proper for the
construction of oars, only obtained by the special favor of
Archelaus king of Macedonia, and of which the armament then stood
in great need. He farther alleges, that he afterwards visited
Athens, while the Four Hundred were in full dominion; and that
Peisander, at the head of this oligarchical body, threatened his
life for having furnished such valuable aid to the armament, then
at enmity with Athens. Though he saved his life by clinging to
the altar, yet he had to endure bonds and manifold hard treatment.

Of these claims, which Andokidês prefers to the favor of the
subsequent democracy, I do not know how much is true.

[79] Thucyd. viii, 89. σαφέστατα δὲ αὐτοὺς ἐπῆρε τὰ ἐν τῇ Σάμῳ
τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου ἰσχυρὰ ὄντα, καὶ ὅτι αὐτοῖς οὐκ ἐδόκει μόνιμον τὸ
τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας ἔσεσθαι. ἠγωνίζετο οὖν εἷς ἕκαστος ~προστάτης τοῦ
δήμου ἔσεσθαι~.

This is a remarkable passage, as indicating what is really meant
by προστάτης τοῦ δήμου: “the leader of a popular opposition.”
Theramenês, and the other persons here spoken of, did not even
mention the name of the democracy,—they took up simply the name
of the Five Thousand,—yet they are still called πρόσταται τοῦ
δήμου, inasmuch as the Five Thousand were a sort of qualified
democracy, compared to the Four Hundred.

The words denote the leader of a popular party, as opposed to
an oligarchical party (see Thucyd. iii, 70; iv, 66; vi, 35), in
a form of government either entirely democratical, or at least,
in which the public assembly is frequently convoked and decides
on many matters of importance. Thucydidês does not apply the
words to any Athenian except in the case now before us respecting
Theramenês: he does not use the words even with respect to Kleon,
though he employs expressions which seem equivalent to it (iii,
36; iv, 21)—ἀνὴρ δημαγωγὸς κατ᾽ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον ὢν καὶ τῷ
πλήθει πιθανώτατος, etc. This is very different from the words
which he applies to Periklês—ὢν γὰρ ~δυνατώτατος~ τῶν καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν
καὶ ~ἄγων τὴν πολιτείαν~ (i, 127). Even in respect to Nikias, he
puts him in conjunction with Pleistoanax at Sparta, and talks of
both of them as σπεύδοντες τὰ μάλιστα ~τὴν ἡγεμονίαν~ (v, 16).

Compare the note of Dr. Arnold on vi, 35.

Against this popular opposition, Antiphon and Phrynichus exerted themselves, with demagogic assiduity, to caress and keep together the majority of the Four Hundred, as well as to uphold their power without abridgment. They were noway disposed to comply with this requisition that the fiction of the Five Thousand should be converted into a reality. They knew well that the enrollment of so many partners[80] would be tantamount to a democracy, and would be, in substance at least, if not in form, an annihilation of their own power. They had now gone too far to recede with safety; while the menacing attitude of Samos, as well as the opposition growing up against them at home, both within and without their own body, served only as instigation to them to accelerate their measures for peace with Sparta, and to secure the introduction of a Spartan garrison.

[80] Thucyd. viii, 92. τὸ μὲν καταστῆσαι μετόχους τοσούτους,
ἄντικρυς ἂν δῆμον ἡγούμενοι, etc.

Aristotle (Polit. v, 5, 4) calls Phrynichus the _demagogue_ of
the Four Hundred; that is, the person who most strenuously served
_their_ interests and struggled for _their_ favor.

With this view, immediately after the return of their envoys from Samos, the two most eminent leaders, Antiphon and Phrynichus, went themselves with ten other colleagues in all haste to Sparta, prepared to purchase peace and the promise of Spartan aid almost at any price. At the same time, the construction of the fortress at Ectioneia was prosecuted with redoubled zeal; under pretence of defending the entrance of Peiræus against the armament from Samos, if the threat of their coming should be executed, but with the real purpose of bringing into it a Lacedæmonian fleet and army. For this latter object every facility was provided. The northwestern corner of the fortification of Peiræus, to the north of the harbor and its mouth, was cut off by a cross wall reaching southward so as to join the harbor: from the southern end of this cross wall, and forming an angle with it, a new wall was built, fronting the harbor and running to the extremity of the mole which narrowed the mouth of the harbor on the northern side, at which mole it met the termination of the northern wall of Peiræus. A separate citadel was thus inclosed, defensible against any attack either from Peiræus or from the harbor; furnished, besides, with distinct broad gates and posterns of its own, as well as with facilities for admitting an enemy within it.[81] The new cross wall was carried so as to traverse a vast portico, or open market-house, the largest in Peiræus: the larger half of this portico thus became inclosed within the new citadel; and orders were issued that all the corn, both actually warehoused and hereafter to be imported into Peiræus, should be deposited therein and sold out from thence for consumption. As Athens was sustained almost exclusively on corn brought from Eubœa and elsewhere, since the permanent occupation of Dekeleia, the Four Hundred rendered themselves masters by this arrangement of all the subsistence of the citizens, as well as of the entrance into the harbor; either to admit the Spartans or exclude the armament from Samos.[82]

[81] Thucyd. viii, 90-92. τὸ τεῖχος τοῦτο, καὶ πυλίδας ἔχον, καὶ
ἐσόδους, καὶ ἐπεισαγωγὰς τῶν πολεμίων, etc.

I presume that the last expression refers to facilities for
admitting the enemy either from the sea-side, or from the
land-side; that is to say, from the northwestern corner of the
old wall of Peiræus, which formed one side of the new citadel.

See Leake’s Topographie Athens, pp. 269, 270, Germ. transl.

[82] Thucyd. viii, 90. διῳκοδόμησαν δὲ καὶ στοὰν, etc.

I agree with the note in M. Didot’s translation, that this
portico, or _halle_, open on three sides, must he considered as
preëxisting; not as having been first built now; which seems
to be the supposition of Colonel Leake, and the commentators
generally.

Though Theramenês, himself one of the generals named under the Four Hundred, denounced, in conjunction with his supporters, the treasonable purpose of this new citadel, yet the majority of the Four Hundred stood to their resolution, and the building made rapid progress under the superintendence of the general Alexiklês, one of the most strenuous of the oligarchical faction.[83] Such was the habit of obedience at Athens to an established authority, when once constituted,—and so great the fear and mistrust arising out of the general belief in the reality of the Five Thousand unknown auxiliaries, supposed to be prepared to enforce the orders of the Four Hundred,—that the people, and even armed citizen hoplites, went on working at the building, in spite of their suspicions as to its design. Though not completed, it was so far advanced as to be defensible, when Antiphon and Phrynichus returned from Sparta. They had gone thither prepared to surrender everything,—not merely their naval force, but their city itself,—and to purchase their own personal safety by making the Lacedæmonians masters of Peiræus.[84] Yet we read with astonishment that the latter could not be prevailed on to contract any treaty, and that they manifested nothing but backwardness in seizing this golden opportunity. Had Alkibiadês been now playing their game, as he had been doing a year earlier, immediately before the revolt of Chios,—had they been under any energetic leaders, to impel them into hearty coöperation with the treason of the Four Hundred, who combined at this moment both the will and the power to place Athens in their hands, if seconded by an adequate force,—they might now have overpowered their great enemy at home, before the armament at Samos could have been brought to the rescue.

[83] Thucyd. viii, 91, 92. Ἀλεξικλέα, στρατηγὸν ὄντα ἐκ τῆς
ὀλιγαρχίας καὶ μάλιστα πρὸς τοὺς ἑταίρους τετραμμένον, etc.

[84] Thucyd. viii, 91. Ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς πολεμίους ἐσαγαγόμενοι ἄνευ
τειχῶν καὶ νεῶν ξυμβῆναι, καὶ ὁπωσοῦν τὰ τῆς πόλεως ἔχειν, εἰ
τοῖς γε σώμασι σφῶν ἄδεια ἔσται.

_Ibid._ ἐπειδὴ οἱ ἐκ τῆς Λακεδαίμονος πρέσβεις οὐδὲν πράξαντες
ἀνεχώρησαν τοῖς πᾶσι ξυμβατικὸν, etc.

Considering that Athens was saved from capture only by the slackness and stupidity of the Spartans, we may see that the armament at Samos had reasonable excuse for their eagerness previously manifested to come home; and that Alkibiadês, in combating that intention, braved an extreme danger which nothing but incredible good fortune averted. Why the Lacedæmonians remained idle, both in Peloponnesus and at Dekeleia, while Athens was thus betrayed, and in the very throes of dissolution, we can render no account: possibly, the caution of the ephors may have distrusted Antiphon and Phrynichus, from the mere immensity of their concessions. All that they would promise was, that a Lacedæmonian fleet of forty-two triremes, partly from Tarentum and Lokri, now about to start from Las in the Laconian gulf, and to sail to Eubœa on the invitation of a disaffected party in that island, should so far depart from its straight course as to hover near Ægina and Peiræus, ready to take advantage of any opportunity for attack laid open by the Four Hundred.[85]

[85] Thucyd. viii, 91. ἦν δέ τι καὶ τοιοῦτον ἀπὸ τῶν τὴν
κατηγορίαν ἐχόντων, καὶ ~οὐ πάνυ διαβολὴ μόνον~ τοῦ λόγου.

The reluctant language, in which Thucydidês admits the
treasonable concert of Antiphon and his colleagues with the
Lacedæmonians, deserves notice; also c. 94. ~τάχα μέν τι καὶ~ ἀπὸ
ξυγκειμένου λόγου, etc.

Of this squadron, however, even before it rounded Cape Malea, Theramenês obtained intelligence, and denounced it as intended to operate in concert with the Four Hundred for the occupation of Ectioneia. Meanwhile Athens became daily a scene of greater discontent and disorder, after the abortive embassy and return from Sparta of Antiphon and Phrynichus. The coercive ascendency of the Four Hundred was silently disappearing, while the hatred which their usurpation had inspired, together with the fear of their traitorous concert with the public enemy, became more and more loudly manifested in men’s private conversations as well as in gatherings secretly got together within numerous houses; especially the house of the peripolarch, the captain of the peripoli, or youthful hoplites, who formed the chief police of the country. Such hatred was not long in passing from vehement passion into act. Phrynichus, as he left the senate-house, was assassinated by two confederates, one of them a peripolus, or youthful hoplite, in the midst of the crowded market-place and in full daylight. The man who struck the blow made his escape, but his comrade was seized and put to the torture by order of the Four Hundred:[86] he was however a stranger, from Argos, and either could not or would not reveal the name of any directing accomplice. Nothing was obtained from him except general indications of meetings and wide-spread disaffection. Nor did the Four Hundred, being thus left without special evidence, dare to lay hands upon Theramenês, the pronounced leader of the opposition, as we shall find Kritias doing six years afterwards, under the rule of the Thirty. The assassins of Phrynichus remaining undiscovered and unpunished, Theramenês and his associates became bolder in their opposition than before. And the approach of the Lacedæmonian fleet under Agesandridas,—which, having now taken station at Epidaurus, had made a descent on Ægina, and was hovering not far off Peiræus, altogether out of the straight course for Eubœa,—lent double force to all their previous assertions about the imminent dangers connected with the citadel at Ectioneia.

[86] Thucyd. viii, 91. The statement of Plutarch is in many
respects different (Alkibiadês, c. 25).

Amidst this exaggerated alarm and discord, the general body of hoplites became penetrated with aversion,[87] every day increasing, against the new citadel. At length the hoplites of the tribe in which Aristokratês, the warmest partisan of Theramenês was taxiarch, being on duty and engaged in the prosecution of the building, broke out into absolute mutiny against it, seized the person of Alexiklês, the general in command, and put him under arrest in a neighboring house; while the peripoli, or youthful military police, stationed at Munychia, under Hermon, abetted them in the proceeding.[88] News of this violence was speedily conveyed to the Four Hundred, who were at that moment holding session in the senate-house, Theramenês himself being present. Their wrath and menace were at first vented against him as the instigator of the revolt, a charge against which he could only vindicate himself by volunteering to go among the foremost for the liberation of the prisoner. He forthwith started in haste for the Peiræus, accompanied by one of the generals, his colleague, who was of the same political sentiment as himself. A third among the generals, Aristarchus, one of the fiercest of the oligarchs, followed him, probably from mistrust, together with some of the younger knights, horsemen, or richest class in the state, identified with the cause of the Four Hundred. The oligarchical partisans ran to marshal themselves in arms, alarming exaggerations being rumored, that Alexiklês had been put to death, and that Peiræus was under armed occupation; while at Peiræus the insurgents imagined that the hoplites from the city were in full march to attack them. For a time all was confusion and angry sentiment, which the slightest untoward accident might have inflamed into sanguinary civil carnage. Nor was it appeased except by earnest intreaty and remonstrance from the elder citizens, aided by Thucydidês of Pharsalus, proxenus or public guest of Athens, in his native town, on the ruinous madness of such discord when a foreign enemy was almost at their gates.

[87] Thucyd. viii, 92. τὸ δὲ μέγιστον, τῶν ὁπλιτῶν τὸ στῖφος
ταῦτα ἐβούλετο.