Thus perished, or seemed to perish, the democracy of Athens, after an uninterrupted existence of nearly one hundred years since the revolution of Kleisthenês. So incredible did it appear that the numerous, intelligent, and constitutional citizens of Athens should suffer their liberties to be overthrown by a band of four hundred conspirators, while the great mass of them not only loved their democracy, but had arms in their hands to defend it, that even their enemy and neighbor Agis, at Dekeleia, could hardly imagine the revolution to be a fact accomplished. We shall see presently that it did not stand,—nor would it probably have stood, had circumstances even been more favorable,—but the accomplishment of it at all, is an incident too extraordinary to be passed over without some words in explanation.

We must remark that the tremendous catastrophe and loss of blood in Sicily had abated the energy of the Athenian character generally, but especially had made them despair of their foreign relations; of the possibility that they could make head against enemies, increased in number by revolts among their own allies, and farther sustained by Persian gold. Upon this sentiment of despair is brought to bear the treacherous delusion of Alkibiadês, offering them the Persian aid; that is, means of defence and success against foreign enemies, at the price of their democracy. Reluctantly the people are brought, but they are brought, to entertain the proposition: and thus the conspirators gain their first capital point, of familiarizing the people with the idea of such a change of constitution. The ulterior success of the conspiracy—when all prospect of Persian gold, or improved foreign position, was at an end—is due to the combinations, alike nefarious and skilful, of Antiphon, wielding and organizing the united strength of the aristocratical classes at Athens; strength always exceedingly great, but under ordinary circumstances working in fractions disunited and even reciprocally hostile to each other,—restrained by the ascendant democratical institutions,—and reduced to corrupt what it could not overthrow. Antiphon, about to employ this anti-popular force in one systematic scheme, and for the accomplishment of a predetermined purpose, keeps still within the same ostensible constitutional limits. He raises no open mutiny: he maintains inviolate the cardinal point of Athenian political morality, respect to the decision of the senate and political assembly, as well as to constitutional maxims. But he knows well that the value of these meetings, as political securities, depends upon entire freedom of speech; and that, if that freedom be suppressed, the assembly itself becomes a nullity, or rather an instrument of positive imposture and mischief. Accordingly, he causes all the popular orators to be successively assassinated, so that no man dares to open his mouth on that side; while on the other hand, the anti-popular speakers are all loud and confident, cheering one another on, and seeming to represent all the feeling of the persons present. By thus silencing each individual leader, and intimidating every opponent from standing forward as spokesman, he extorts the formal sanction of the assembly and the senate to measures which the large majority of the citizens detest. That majority, however, are bound by their own constitutional forms; and when the decision of these, by whatever means obtained, is against them, they have neither the inclination nor the courage to resist. In no part of the world has this sentiment of constitutional duty, and submission to the vote of a legal majority, been more keenly and universally felt, than it was among the citizens of democratical Athens.[53] Antiphon thus finds means to employ the constitutional sentiment of Athens as a means of killing the constitution: the mere empty form, after its vital and protective efficacy has been abstracted, remains simply as a cheat to paralyze individual patriotism.

It was this cheat which rendered the Athenians indisposed to stand forward with arms in defence of that democracy to which they were attached. Accustomed as they were to unlimited pacific contention within the bounds of their constitution, they were in the highest degree averse to anything like armed intestine contention. This is the natural effect of an established free and equal polity, to substitute the contests of the tongue for those of the sword, and sometimes, even to create so extreme a disinclination to the latter, that if liberty be energetically assailed, the counter-energy necessary for its defence may probably be found wanting. So difficult is it for the same people to have both the qualities requisite for making a free constitution work well in ordinary times, together with those very different qualities requisite for upholding it against exceptional dangers and under trying emergencies. None but an Athenian of extraordinary ability, like Antiphon, would have understood the art of thus making the constitutional feeling of his countrymen subservient to the success of his conspiracy, and of maintaining the forms of legal dealing towards assembled and constitutional bodies, while he violated them in secret and successive stabs directed against individuals. Political assassination had been unknown at Athens, as far as our information reaches, since it was employed, about fifty years before, by the oligarchical party against Ephialtês, the coadjutor of Periklês.[54] But this had been an individual case, and it was reserved for Antiphon and Phrynichus to organize a band of assassins working systematically, and taking off a series of leading victims one after the other. As the Macedonian kings in after-times required the surrender of the popular orators in a body, so the authors of this conspiracy found the same enemies to deal with, and adopted another way of getting rid of them; thus reducing the assembly into a tame and lifeless mass, capable of being intimidated into giving its collective sanction to measures which its large majority detested.

As Grecian history has been usually written, we are instructed to believe that the misfortunes, and the corruption, and the degradation of the democratical states are brought upon them by the class of demagogues, of whom Kleon, Hyperbolus, Androklês, etc., stand forth as specimens. These men are represented as mischief-makers and revilers, accusing without just cause, and converting innocence into treason. Now the history of this conspiracy of the Four Hundred presents to us the other side of the picture. It shows that the political enemies—against whom the Athenian people were protected by their democratical institutions, and by the demagogues as living organs of those institutions—were not fictitious but dangerously real. It reveals the continued existence of powerful anti-popular combinations, ready to come together for treasonable purposes when the moment appeared safe and tempting. It manifests the character and morality of the leaders, to whom the direction of the anti-popular force naturally fell. It proves that these leaders, men of uncommon ability, required nothing more than the extinction or silence of the demagogues, to be enabled to subvert the popular securities and get possession of the government. We need no better proof to teach us what was the real function and intrinsic necessity of these demagogues in the Athenian system, taking them as a class, and apart from the manner in which individuals among them may have performed their duty. They formed the vital movement of all that was tutelary and public-spirited in democracy. Aggressive in respect to official delinquents, they were defensive in respect to the public and the constitution. If that anti-popular force, which Antiphon found ready-made, had not been efficient, at a much earlier moment, in stifling the democracy, it was because there were demagogues to cry aloud, as well as assemblies to hear and sustain them. If Antiphon’s conspiracy was successful, it was because he knew where to aim his blows, so as to strike down the real enemies of the oligarchy and the real defenders of the people. I here employ the term demagogues because it is that commonly used by those who denounce the class of men here under review: the proper neutral phrase, laying aside odious associations, would be to call them popular speakers, or opposition speakers. But, by whatever name they may be called, it is impossible rightly to conceive their position in Athens, without looking at them in contrast and antithesis with those anti-popular forces against which they formed the indispensable barrier, and which come forth into such manifest and melancholy working under the organizing hands of Antiphon and Phrynichus.

As soon as the Four Hundred found themselves formally installed in the senate-house, they divided themselves by lot into separate prytanies,—probably ten in number, consisting of forty members each, like the former senate of Five Hundred, in order that the distribution of the year to which the people were accustomed might not be disturbed,—and then solemnized their installation by prayer and sacrifice. They put to death some political enemies, though not many: they farther imprisoned and banished others, and made large changes in the administration of affairs, carrying everything with a strictness and rigor unknown under the old constitution.[55] It seems to have been proposed among them to pass a vote of restoration to all persons under sentence of exile. But this was rejected by the majority in order that Alkibiadês might not be among the number; nor did they think it expedient, notwithstanding, to pass the law, reserving him as a special exception.

They farther despatched a messenger to Agis at Dekeleia, intimating their wish to treat for peace; which, they affirmed, he ought to be ready to grant to them, now that “the faithless Demos” was put down. Agis, however, not believing that the Athenian people would thus submit to be deprived of their liberty, anticipated that intestine dissension would certainly break out, or at least that some portion of the Long Walls would be found unguarded, should a foreign army appear. While therefore he declined the overtures for peace, he at the same time sent for reinforcements out of Peloponnesus, and marched with a considerable army, in addition to his own garrison, up to the very walls of Athens. But he found the ramparts carefully manned: no commotion took place within: even a sally was made, in which some advantage was gained over him. He therefore speedily retired, sending back his newly-arrived reinforcements to Peloponnesus; while the Four Hundred, on renewing their advances to him for peace, now found themselves much better received, and were even encouraged to despatch envoys to Sparta itself.[56]

As soon as they had thus got over the first difficulties, and placed matters on a footing which seemed to promise stability, they despatched ten envoys to Samos. Aware beforehand of the danger impending over them in that quarter from the known aversion of the soldiers and seamen to anything in the nature of oligarchy, they had, moreover, just heard, by the arrival of Chæreas and the paralus, of the joint attack made by the Athenian and Samian oligarchs, and of its complete failure. Had this event occurred a little earlier, it might perhaps have deterred even some of their own number from proceeding with the revolution at Athens, which was rendered thereby almost sure of failure, from the first. Their ten envoys were instructed to represent at Samos that the recent oligarchy had been established with no views injurious to the city, but on the contrary for the general benefit; that though the Council now installed consisted of Four Hundred only, yet the total number of partisans who had made the revolution, and were qualified citizens under it, was Five Thousand; a number greater, they added, than had ever been actually assembled in the Pnyx under the democracy, even for the most important debates,[57] in consequence of the unavoidable absences of numerous individuals on military service and foreign travel.

What satisfaction might have been given, by this allusion to the fictitious Five Thousand, or by the fallacious reference to the numbers, real or pretended, of the past democratical assemblies, had these envoys carried to Samos the first tidings of the Athenian revolution, we cannot say. They were forestalled by Chæreas, the officer of the paralus; who, though the Four Hundred tried to detain him, made his escape and hastened to Samos to communicate the fearful and unexpected change which had occurred at Athens. Instead of hearing that change described under the treacherous extenuations prescribed by Antiphon and Phrynichus, the armament first learned it from the lips of Chæreas, who told them at once the extreme truth, and even more than the truth. He recounted, with indignation, that every Athenian who ventured to say a word against the Four Hundred rulers of the city, was punished with the scourge; that even the wives and children of persons hostile to them were outraged; that there was a design of seizing and imprisoning the relatives of the democrats at Samos, and putting them to death, if the latter refused to obey orders from Athens. The simple narrative of what had really occurred would have been quite sufficient to provoke in the armament a sentiment of detestation against the Four Hundred. But these additional details of Chæreas, partly untrue, filled them with uncontrollable wrath, which they manifested by open menace against the known partisans of the Four Hundred at Samos, as well as against those who had taken part in the recent oligarchical conspiracy in the island. It was not without difficulty that their hands were arrested by the more reflecting citizens present, who remonstrated against the madness of such disorderly proceedings when the enemy was close upon them.

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.

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.”

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]

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.

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.

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]

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.

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]

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.

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.

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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.

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]

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.

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.

The perilous excitement of this temporary crisis, which brought into full daylight every man’s real political sentiments, proved the oligarchical faction, hitherto exaggerated in number, to be far less powerful than had been imagined by their opponents. And the Four Hundred had found themselves too much embarrassed how to keep up the semblance of their authority even in Athens itself, to be able to send down any considerable force for the protection of their citadel at Ectioneia; though they were reinforced, only eight days before their fall, by at least one supplementary member, probably in substitution for some predecessor who had accidentally died.[89] Theramenês, on reaching Peiræus, began to address the mutinous hoplites in a tone of simulated displeasure, while Aristarchus and his oligarchical companions spoke in the harshest language, and threatened them with the force which they imagined to be presently coming down from the city. But these menaces were met by equal firmness on the part of the hoplites, who even appealed to Theramenês himself, and called upon him to say whether he thought the construction of this citadel was for the good of Athens, or whether it would not be better demolished. His opinion had been fully pronounced beforehand; and he replied, that if they thought proper to demolish it, he cordially concurred. Without farther delay, hoplites and unarmed people mounted pell-mell upon the walls, and commenced the demolition with alacrity; under the general shout, “Whoever is for the Five Thousand in place of the Four Hundred, let him lend a hand in this work.” The idea of the old democracy was in every one’s mind, but no man uttered the word; the fear of the imaginary Five Thousand still continuing. The work of demolition seems to have been prosecuted all that day, and not to have been completed until the next day; after which the hoplites released Alexiklês from arrest, without doing him any injury.[90]

Two things deserve notice, among these details, as illustrating the Athenian character. Though Alexiklês was vehemently oligarchical as well as unpopular, these mutineers do no harm to his person, but content themselves with putting him under arrest. Next, they do not venture to commence the actual demolition of the citadel, until they have the formal sanction of Theramenês, one of the constituted generals. The strong habit of legality, implanted in all Athenian citizens by their democracy,—and the care, even in departing from it, to depart as little as possible,—stand plainly evidenced in these proceedings.

The events of this day gave a fatal shock to the ascendency of the Four Hundred; yet they assembled on the morrow as usual in the senate-house; and they appear now, when it was too late, to have directed one of their members to draw up a real list, giving body to the fiction of the Five Thousand.[91] Meanwhile the hoplites in Peiræus, having finished the levelling of the new fortifications, took the still more important step of entering, armed as they were, into the theatre of Dionysus hard by, in Peiræus, but on the verge of Munychia, and there holding a formal assembly; probably under the convocation of the general Theramenês, pursuant to the forms of the anterior democracy. They here took the resolution of adjourning their assembly to the Anakeion, or temple of Castor and Pollux, the Dioskuri, in the city itself and close under the acropolis; whither they immediately marched and established themselves, still retaining their arms. So much was the position of the Four Hundred changed, that they who had on the preceding day been on the aggressive against a spontaneous outburst of mutineers in Peiræus, were now thrown upon the defensive against a formal assembly, all armed, in the city, and close by their own senate-house. Feeling themselves too weak to attempt any force, they sent deputies to the Anakeion to negotiate and offer concessions. They engaged to publish the list of The Five Thousand, and to convene them for the purpose of providing for the periodical cessation and renewal of the Four Hundred, by rotation from the Five Thousand, in such order as the latter themselves should determine. But they entreated that time might be allowed for effecting this, and that internal peace might be maintained, without which there was no hope of defence against the enemy without. Many of the hoplites in the city itself joined the assembly in the Anakeion, and took part in the debates. The position of the Four Hundred being no longer such as to inspire fear, the tongues of speakers were now again loosed, and the ears of the multitude again opened, for the first time since the arrival of Peisander from Samos, with the plan of the oligarchical conspiracy. Such renewal of free and fearless public speech, the peculiar life-principle of the democracy, was not less wholesome in tranquillizing intestine discord than in heightening the sentiment of common patriotism against the foreign enemy.[92] The assembly at length dispersed, after naming an early future time for a second assembly, to bring about the reëstablishment of harmony in the theatre of Dionysus.[93]

On the day, and at the hour, when this assembly in the theatre of Dionysus was on the point of coming together, the news ran through Peiræus and Athens, that the forty-two triremes under the Lacedæmonian Agesandridas, having recently quitted the harbor of Megara, were sailing along the coast of Salamis in the direction towards Peiræus. Such an event, while causing universal consternation throughout the city, confirmed all the previous warnings of Theramenês as to the treasonable destination of the citadel recently demolished, and every one rejoiced that the demolition had been accomplished just in time. Foregoing their intended assembly, the citizens rushed with one accord down to Peiræus, where some of them took post to garrison the walls and the mouth of the harbor; others got aboard the triremes lying in the harbor: others, again, launched some fresh triremes from the boat-houses into the water. Agesandridas rowed along the shore, near the mouth of Peiræus; but found nothing to promise concert within, or tempt him to the intended attack. Accordingly, he passed by and moved onward to Sunium, in a southerly direction. Having doubled the Cape of Sunium, he then turned his course along the coast of Attica northward, halted for a little while between Thorikus and Prasiæ, and presently took station at Orôpus.[94]

Though relieved, when they found that he passed by Peiræus without making any attack, the Athenians knew that his destination must now be against Eubœa; which to them was hardly less important than Peiræus, since their main supplies were derived from that island. Accordingly, they put to sea at once with all the triremes which could be manned and got ready in the harbor. But from the hurry of the occasion, coupled with the mistrust and dissension now reigning, and the absence of their great naval force at Samos, the crews mustered were raw and ill-selected, and the armament inefficient. Polystratus, one of the members of the Four Hundred, perhaps others of them also, were aboard; men who had an interest in defeat rather than victory.[95] Thymocharês, the admiral, conducted them round Cape Sunium to Eretria in Eubœa, where he found a few other triremes, which made up his whole fleet to thirty-six sail.

He had scarcely reached the harbor and disembarked, when, without allowing time for his men to procure refreshment, he found himself compelled to fight a battle with the forty-two ships of Agesandridas, who had just sailed across from Orôpus, and was already approaching the harbor. This surprise had been brought about by the anti-Athenian party in Eretria, who took care, on the arrival of Thymocharês, that no provisions should be found in the market-place, so that his men were compelled to disperse and obtain them from houses at the extremity of the town; while at the same time a signal was hoisted, visible at Orôpus on the opposite side of the strait, less than seven miles broad, indicating to Agesandridas the precise moment for bringing his fleet across to the attack, with their crews fresh after the morning meal. Thymocharês, on seeing the approach of the enemy, ordered his men aboard; but, to his disappointment, many of them were found to be so far off that they could not be brought back in time, so that he was compelled to sail out and meet the Peloponnesians with ships very inadequately manned. In a battle immediately outside of the Eretrian harbor, he was, after a short contest, completely defeated, and his fleet driven back upon the shore. Some of his ships escaped to Chalkis, others to a fortified post garrisoned by the Athenians themselves, not far from Eretria; yet not less than twenty-two triremes, out of the whole thirty-six, fell into the hands of Agesandridas, and a large proportion of the crews were slain or made prisoners. Of those seamen who escaped, too, many found their death from the hands of the Eretrians, into whose city they fled for shelter. On the news of this battle, not merely Eretria, but also all Eubœa,—except Oreus in the north of the island, which was settled by Athenian kleruchs,—declared its revolt from Athens, which had been intended more than a year before, and took measures for defending itself in concert with Agesandridas and the Bœotians.[96]

Ill could Athens endure a disaster, in itself so immense and aggravated, under the present distressed condition of the city. Her last fleet was destroyed, her nearest and most precious island torn from her side; an island, which of late had yielded more to her wants than Attica itself, but which was now about to become a hostile and aggressive neighbor.[97] The previous revolt of Eubœa, occurring thirty-four years before, during the maximum of Athenian power, had been even then a terrible blow to Athens, and formed one of the main circumstances which forced upon her the humiliation of the Thirty years’ truce. But this second revolt took place when she had not only no means of reconquering the island, but no means even of defending Peiræus against the blockade by the enemy’s fleet. The dismay and terror excited by the news at Athens was unbounded, even exceeding what had been felt after the Sicilian catastrophe, or the revolt of Chios. Nor was there any second reserve now in the treasury, such as the thousand talents which had rendered such essential service on the last-mentioned occasion. In addition to their foreign dangers, the Athenians were farther weighed down by two intestine calamities in themselves hardly supportable,—alienation of their own fleet at Samos, and the discord, yet unappeased, within their own walls; wherein the Four Hundred still held provisionally the reins of government, with the ablest and most unscrupulous leaders at their head. In the depth of their despair, the Athenians expected nothing less than to see the victorious fleet of Agesandridas—more than sixty triremes strong, including the recent captures—off the Peiræus, forbidding all importation, and threatening them with approaching famine, in combination with Agis and Dekeleia. The enterprise would have been easy for there were neither ships nor seamen to repel him; and his arrival at this critical moment would most probably have enabled the Four Hundred to resume their ascendency, with the means as well as the disposition to introduce a Lacedæmonian garrison into the city.[98] And though the arrival of the Athenian fleet from Samos would have prevented this extremity, yet it could not have arrived in time, except on the supposition of a prolonged blockade: moreover, its mere transfer from Samos to Athens would have left Ionia and the Hellespont defenceless against the Lacedæmonians and Persians, and would have caused the loss of all the Athenian empire. Nothing could have saved Athens, if the Lacedæmonians at this juncture had acted with reasonable vigor, instead of confining their efforts to Eubœa, now an easy and certain conquest. As on the former occasion, when Antiphon and Phrynichus went to Sparta prepared to make any sacrifice for the purpose of obtaining Lacedæmonian aid and accommodation, so now, in a still greater degree, Athens owed her salvation only to the fact that the enemies actually before her were indolent and dull Spartans, not enterprising Syracusans under the conduct of Gylippus.[99] And this is the second occasion, we may add, on which Athens was on the brink of ruin in consequence of the policy of Alkibiadês in retaining the armament at Samos.

Fortunately for the Athenians, no Agesandridas appeared off Peiræus; so that the twenty triremes, which they contrived to man as a remnant for defence, had no enemy to repel.[100] Accordingly, the Athenians were allowed to enjoy an interval of repose which enabled them to recover partially both from consternation and from intestine discord. It was their first proceeding, when the hostile fleet did not appear, to convene a public assembly; and that too in the Pnyx itself, the habitual scene of the democratical assemblies, well calculated to reinspire that patriotism which had now been dumb and smouldering for the four last months. In this assembly, the tide of opinion ran vehemently against the Four Hundred:[101] even those, who, like the Board of elders entitled probûli had originally counselled their appointment, now denounced them along with the rest, though severely taunted by the oligarchical leader Peisander for their inconsistency. Votes were finally passed: 1. To depose the Four Hundred; 2. To place the whole government in the hands of The Five Thousand; 3. Every citizen, who furnished a panoply, either for himself or for any one else, was to be of right a member of this body of The Five Thousand; 4. No citizen was to receive pay for any political function, on pain of becoming solemnly accursed, or excommunicated.[102] Such were the points determined by the first assembly held in the Pnyx. The archons, the senate of Five Hundred, etc., were renewed: after which many other assemblies were also held, in which nomothetæ, dikasts, and other institutions essential to the working of the democracy, were constituted. Various other votes were also passed; especially one, on the proposition of Kritias, seconded by Theramenês,[103] to restore Alkibiadês and some of his friends from exile; while messages were farther despatched, both to him and to the armament at Samos, doubtless confirming the recent nomination of generals, apprizing them of what had recently occurred at Athens, as well as bespeaking their full concurrence and unabated efforts against the common enemy.

Thucydidês bestows marked eulogy upon the general spirit of moderation and patriotic harmony which now reigned at Athens, and which directed the political proceedings of the people.[104] But he does not countenance the belief, as he has been sometimes understood, nor is it true in point of fact, that they now introduced a new constitution. Putting an end to the oligarchy, and to the rule of the Four Hundred, they restored the old democracy seemingly with only two modifications, first, the partial limitation of the right of suffrage; next, the discontinuance of all payment for political functions. The impeachment against Antiphon, tried immediately afterwards, went before the senate and the dikastery exactly according to the old democratical forms of procedure. But we must presume that the senate, the dikasts, the nomothetæ, the ekklesiasts, or citizens who attended the assembly, the public orators who prosecuted state-criminals, or defended any law when it was impugned, must have worked for the time without pay.

Moreover, the two modifications above mentioned were of little practical effect. The exclusive body of Five Thousand citizens, professedly constituted at this juncture, was neither exactly realized, nor long retained. It was constituted, even now, more as a nominal than as a real limit; a nominal total, yet no longer a mere blank, as the Four Hundred had originally produced it, but containing, indeed, a number of individual names greater than the total, and without any assignable line of demarkation. The mere fact, that every one who furnished a panoply was entitled to be of the Five Thousand,—and not they alone, but others besides,[105]—shows that no care was taken to adhere either to that or to any other precise number. If we may credit a speech composed by Lysias,[106] the Four Hundred had themselves, after the demolition of their intended fortress at Ectioneia, and when power was passing out of their hands, appointed a committee of their number to draw up for the first time a real list of The Five Thousand; and Polystratus, a member of that committee, takes credit with the succeeding democracy for having made the list comprise nine thousand names instead of five thousand. As this list of Polystratus—if, indeed, it ever existed—was never either published or adopted, I merely notice the description given of it, to illustrate my position that the number Five Thousand was now understood on all sides as an indefinite expression for a suffrage extensive, but not universal. The number had been first invented by Antiphon and the leaders of the Four Hundred, to cloak their own usurpation and intimidate the democracy: next, it served the purpose of Theramenês and the minority of the Four Hundred, as a basis on which to raise a sort of dynastic opposition, to use modern phraseology, within the limits of the oligarchy; that is, without appearing to overstep principles acknowledged by the oligarchy themselves: lastly, it was employed by the democratical party generally as a convenient middle term to slide back into the old system, with as little dispute as possible; for Alkibiadês and the armament had sent word home that they adhered to the Five Thousand, and to the abolition of salaried civil functions.[107]

But exclusive suffrage of the so-called Five Thousand, especially with the expansive numerical construction now adopted, was of little value either to themselves or to the state;[108] while it was an insulting shock to the feelings of the excluded multitude, especially to brave and active seamen like the parali. Though prudent as a step of momentary transition, it could not stand, nor was any attempt made to preserve it in permanence, amidst a community so long accustomed to universal citizenship, and where the necessities of defence against the enemy called for energetic efforts from all the citizens.

Even as to the gratuitous functions, the members of the Five Thousand themselves would soon become tired, not less than the poorer freemen, of serving without pay, as senators or in other ways; so that nothing but absolute financial deficit would prevent the reëstablishment, entire or partial, of the pay.[109] And that deficit was never so complete as to stop the disbursement of the diobely, or distribution of two oboli to each citizen on occasion of various religious festivals. Such distribution continued without interruption; though perhaps the number of occasions on which it was made may have been lessened.