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But Phrynichus, though successful in extricating himself, failed thoroughly in his manoeuvre against the influence and life of Alkibiad?s; in whose favor the oligarchical movement not only went on, but was transferred from Samos to Athens. On arriving at the latter place, Peisander and his companions laid before the public assembly the projects which had been conceived by the oligarchs at Samos. The people were invited to restore Alkibiad?s and renounce their democratical constitution; in return for which, they were assured of obtaining the Persian king as an ally, and of overcoming the Peloponnesians. Violent was the storm which these propositions raised in the public assembly. Many speakers rose in animated defence of the democracy; few, if any, distinctly against it. The opponents of Alkibiad?s indignantly denounced the mischief of restoring him, in violation of the laws, and in reversal of a judicial sentence, while the Eumolpidae and Kerykes, the sacred families connected with the Eleusinian mysteries which Alkibiad?s had violated, entered their solemn protest on religious grounds to the same effect. Against all these vehement opponents, whose impassioned invectives obtained the full sympathy of the assembly, Peisander had but one simple reply. He called them forward successively by name, and put to each the question: "What hope have you of salvation for the city, when the Peloponnesians have a naval force against us fully equal to ours, together with a greater number of allied cities, and when the king as well as Tissaphern?s are supplying them with money, while we have no money left? What hope have you of salvation, unless we can persuade the king to come over to our side?" The answer was a melancholy negative, or perhaps not less melancholy silence. "Well, then, rejoined Peisander, that object cannot possibly be attained, unless we conduct our political affairs for the future in a more moderate way, and put the powers of government more in the hands of a few, and unless we recall Alkibiad?s, the only man now living who is competent to do the business. Under present circumstances, we surely shall not lay greater stress upon our political constitution than upon the salvation of the city; the rather as what we now enact may be hereafter modified, if it be found not to answer."

This is thoroughly incorrect, a specimen of the loose assertion of speakers in regard to facts even not very long past. At the moment when Theramen?s said this, the question, what political constitution at Athens the Lacedaemonians would please to tolerate, was all-important to the Athenians. Theramen?s transfers the feelings of the present to the incidents of the past.

Against the proposed oligarchical change, the repugnance of the assembly was alike angry and unanimous. But they were silenced by the imperious necessity of the case, as the armament at Samos had been before; and admitting the alternative laid down by Peisander, as I have observed already, the most democratical citizen might be embarrassed as to his vote. Whether any speaker, like Phrynichus at Samos, arraigned the fallacy of the alternative, and called upon Peisander for some guarantee, better than mere asseveration, of the benefits to come, we are not informed. But the general vote of the assembly, reluctant and only passed in the hope of future change, sanctioned his recommendation. He and ten other envoys, invested with full powers of negotiating with Alkibiad?s and Tissaphern?s, were despatched to Ionia immediately. Peisander at the same time obtained from the assembly a vote deposing Phrynichus from his command; under the accusation of having traitorously caused the loss of Iasus and the capture of Amorg?s, after the battle of Mil?tus, but from the real certainty that he would prove an insuperable bar to all negotiations with Alkibiad?s. Phrynichus, with his colleague Skironid?s, being thus displaced, Leon and Diomedon were sent to Samos as commanders in their stead; an appointment of which, as will be presently seen, Peisander was far from anticipating the consequences.

Thucyd. viii, 54. ? ?? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ?????? ??????? ????? ?? ???? ??? ??????????? ????? ?? ???????????? ??? ??? ?????????? ?? ????? ????? ????????, ~??????, ??? ??? ??????? ?? ??? ????????????, ???????~.

"Atheniensibus, imminente periculo belli, major salutis quam dignitatis cura fuit. Itaque, permittente populo, imperium ad Senatum transfertur," .

Before his departure for Asia, he took a step yet more important. He was well aware that the recent vote--a result of fear inspired by the war, representing a sentiment utterly at variance with that of the assembly, and only procured as the price of Persian aid against a foreign enemy--would never pass into a reality by the spontaneous act of the people themselves. It was, indeed, indispensable as a first step; partly as an authority to himself, partly also as a confession of the temporary weakness of the democracy, and as a sanction and encouragement for the oligarchical forces to show themselves. But the second step yet remained to be performed; that of calling these forces into energetic action, organizing an amount of violence sufficient to extort from the people actual submission in addition to verbal acquiescence, and thus, as it were, tying down the patient while the process of emasculation was being consummated. Peisander visited all the various political clubs, conspiracies, or hetaeries, which were habitual and notorious at Athens; associations, bound together by oath, among the wealthy citizens, partly for purposes of amusement, but chiefly pledging the members to stand by each other in objects of political ambition, in judicial trials, in accusation or defence of official men after the period of office had expired, in carrying points through the public assembly, etc. Among these clubs were distributed most of "the best citizens, the good and honorable men, the elegant men, the well known, the temperate, the honest and moderate men," etc., to employ that complimentary phraseology by which wealthy and anti-popular politicians have chosen to designate each other, in ancient as well as in modern times. And though there were doubtless individuals among them who deserved these appellations in their best sense, yet the general character of the clubs was not the less exclusive and oligarchical. In the details of political life, they had different partialities as well as different antipathies, and were oftener in opposition than in co?peration with each other. But they furnished, when taken together, a formidable anti-popular force; generally either in abeyance or disseminated in the accomplishment of smaller political measures and separate personal successes; but capable, at a special crisis, of being evoked, organized, and put in conjoint attack, for the subversion of the democracy. Such was the important movement now initiated by Peisander. He visited separately each of these clubs, put them into communication with each other, and exhorted them all to joint aggressive action against their common enemy the democracy, at a moment when it was already intimidated and might be finally overthrown.

?? ?????????, ?? ???????????, ?? ?????????, ?? ????????, ?? ????????, etc.: le parti honn?te et mod?r?, etc.

About these ?????????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????, political and judicial associations, see above, in this History, vol. iv, ch. xxxvii, pp. 399, 400; vol. vi, ch. li. pp. 290, 291: see also Hermann B?ttner, Geschichte der politischen Hetaerieen zu Athen. pp. 75, 79, Leipsic, 1840.

There seem to have been similar political clubs or associations at Carthage, exercising much influence, and holding perpetual banquets as a means of largess to the poor, Aristotel. Polit. ii, 8, 2; Livy, xxxiii, 46; xxxiv, 61; compare Kluge, ad Aristotel. De Polit. Carthag. pp. 46-127, Wratisl. 1824.

As an example of these clubs or conspiracies for mutual support in ?????????? ??? ?????? , we may cite the association called ?? ????????, made known to us by an Inscription recently discovered in Attica, and published first in Dr. Wordsworth's Athens and Attica, p. 223; next in Ross, Die Demen von Attica, Preface, p. v. These ???????? are an association, the members of which are bound to each other by a common oath, as well as by a curse which the mythical hero of the association, Eikadeus, is supposed to have imprecated ; they possess common property, and it was held contrary to the oath for any of the members to enter into a pecuniary process against the ??????: compare analogous obligations among the Roman Sodales, Mommsen, p. 4. Some members had violated their obligation upon this point: Polyxenus had attacked them at law for false witness: and the general body of the Eikadeis pass a vote of thanks to him for so doing, and choose three of their members to assist him in the cause before the dikastery : compare the ???????? alluded to in Demosthen?s as assisting Theokrin?s before the dikastery, and intimidating the witnesses.

Having taken other necessary measures towards the same purpose, Peisander left Athens with his colleagues to enter upon his negotiation with Tissaphern?s. But the co?peration and aggressive movement of the clubs which he had originated was prosecuted with increased ardor during his absence, and even fell into hands more organizing and effective than his own. The rhetorical teacher Antiphon, of the deme Rhamnus, took it in hand especially, acquired the confidence of the clubs, and drew the plan of campaign against the democracy. He was a man estimable in private life, and not open to pecuniary corruption: in other respects, of pre?minent ability,--in contrivance, judgment, speech, and action. The profession to which he belonged, generally unpopular among the democracy, excluding him from taking rank as a speaker either in the public assembly or the dikastery: for a rhetorical teacher, contending in either of them against a private speaker, to repeat a remark already once made, was considered to stand at the same unfair advantage, as a fencing-master fighting a duel with a gentleman would be held to stand in modern times. Thus debarred himself from the showy celebrity of Athenian political life, Antiphon became only the more consummate, as a master of advice, calculation, scheming, and rhetorical composition, to assist the celebrity of others; insomuch that his silent assistance in political and judicial debates, as a sort of chamber-counsel, was highly appreciated and largely paid. Now such were precisely the talents required for the present occasion; while Antiphon, who hated the democracy for having hitherto kept him in the shade, gladly bent his full talents towards its subversion.

The person described by Krito, in the Euthyd?mus of Plato , as having censured Sokrat?s for conversing with Euthyd?mus and Dionysodorus, is presented exactly like Antiphon in Thucydid?s: ?????? ?? ??? ??? ?????? ???? ????? ?????? ????? ??? ??????????? ????????????? ???? ??????? ????? ???? ???? ??? ?????????, ?? ??? ???, ??? ?????? ????? ??? ??????? ?????? ??????????.

Heindorf thinks that Isokrat?s is here meant: Groen van Prinsterer talks of Lysias; Winkelmann, of Thrasymachus. The description would fit Antiphon as well as either of these three: though Stallbaum may perhaps be right in supposing no particular individual to have been in the mind of Plato.

?? ????????? ???????????, whom Xenophon specifies as being so eminently useful to a person engaged in a lawsuit, are probably the persons who knew how to address the dikastery effectively in support of his case .

Such was the man to whom Peisander, in departing, chiefly confided the task of organizing the anti-popular clubs, for the consummation of the revolution already in immediate prospect. His chief auxiliary was Theramen?s, another Athenian, now first named, of eminent ability and cunning. His father , Agnon, was one of the prob?li, and had formerly been founder of Amphipolis. Even Phrynichus--whose sagacity we have already had occasion to appreciate, and who, from hatred towards Alkibiad?s, had pronounced himself decidedly against the oligarchical movement at Samos--became zealous in forwarding the movement at Athens, after his dismissal from the command. He brought to the side of Antiphon and Theramen?s a contriving head not inferior to theirs, coupled with daring and audacity even superior. Under such skilful leaders, the anti-popular force of Athens was organized with a deep skill, and directed with a dexterous wickedness, never before witnessed in Greece.

At the time when Peisander and the other envoys reached Ionia, seemingly about the end of January or beginning of February 411 B.C., the Peloponnesian fleet had already quitted Mil?tus and gone to Knidus and Rhodes, on which latter island Leon and Diomedon made some hasty descents, from the neighboring island of Chalk?. At the same time the Athenian armament at Chios was making progress in the siege of that place and the construction of the neighboring fort at Delphinium. Pedaritus, the Lacedaemonian governor of the island, had sent pressing messages to solicit aid from the Peloponnesians at Rhodes, but no aid arrived; and he therefore resolved to attempt a general sally and attack upon the Athenians with his whole force, foreign as well as Chian. Though at first he obtained some success, the battle ended in his complete defeat and death, with great slaughter of the Chian troops, and with the loss of many whose shields were captured in the pursuit. The Chians, now reduced to greater straits than before, and beginning to suffer severely from famine, were only enabled to hold out by a partial reinforcement soon afterwards obtained from the Peloponnesian guardships at Mil?tus. A Spartan named Leon, who had come out in the vessel of Antisthen?s as one of the epibatae, or marines, conducted this reinforcing squadron of twelve triremes, chiefly Thurian and Syracusan, succeeding Pedaritus in the general command of the island.

Thucyd. viii, 55, 56.

Thucyd. viii, 61. ?????? ?? ??? ?? ???? ????? ???????? ?? ??? ??????? ?????? ?? ????? ??????????, ~?? ?????????? ????????~ ????????, ?????? ???????????? ???? ??? ????????? ??????? ???????, etc.

It was while Chios seemed thus likely to be recovered by Athens--and while the superior Peloponnesian fleet was paralyzed at Rhodes by Persian intrigues and bribes--that Peisander arrived in Ionia to open his negotiations with Alkibiad?s and Tissaphern?s. He was enabled to announce that the subversion of the democracy at Athens was already begun, and would soon be consummated: and he now required the price which had been promised in exchange, Persian alliance and aid to Athens against the Peloponnesians. But Alkibiad?s knew well that he had promised what he had not the least chance of being able to perform. The satrap had appeared to follow his advice,--or had rather followed his own inclination, employing Alkibiad?s as an instrument and auxiliary,--in the endeavor to wear out both parties, and to keep them nearly on an equality until each should ruin the other. But he was no way disposed to identify himself with the cause of Athens, and to break decidedly with the Peloponnesians, especially at a moment when their fleet was both the greater of the two, and in occupation of an island close to his own satrapy. Accordingly Alkibiad?s, when summoned by the Athenian envoys to perform his engagement, found himself in a dilemma from which he could only escape by one of his characteristic manoeuvres.

Thucyd. viii, 56. ?????? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ????????, ??? ????? ?????? ?? ??????????? ~??? ????~, ??? ??? ????????????? ??? ????????, etc.

Thucyd. viii, 56. ???? ????? ??? ??????? ?????????, ??? ????????? ??? ~??????~ ???, ??? ?? ??? ????? ?? ????????.

In my judgment ?????? is decidedly the proper reading here, not ??????. I agree in this respect with Dr. Arnold, Bekker, and G?ller.

In a former volume of this History, I have shown reasons for believing, in opposition to Mitford, Dahlmann, and others, that the treaty called by the name of Kallias, and sometimes miscalled by the name of Kimon, was a real fact and not a boastful fiction: see vol. v, ch. xlv, p. 340.

The note of Dr. Arnold, though generally just, gives an inadequate representation of the strong reasons of Athens for rejecting and resenting this third demand.

Thucyd. viii, 63. ??? ?? ?????? ?????? ??? ?? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???????? ??????????????? ?????????, ?????????? ???, ~????????? ?? ????????~, ??? , etc.

Immediately after the rupture of the negotiations, however, the satrap took a step well calculated to destroy the hopes of the Athenians altogether, so far as Persian aid was concerned. Though persisting in his policy of lending no decisive assistance to either party and of merely prolonging the war so as to enfeeble both, he yet began to fear that he was pushing matters too far against the Peloponnesians, who had now been two months inactive at Rhodes, with their large fleet hauled ashore. He had no treaty with them actually in force, since Lichas had disallowed the two previous conventions; nor had he furnished them with pay or maintenance. His bribes to the officers had hitherto kept the armament quiet; yet we do not distinctly see how so large a body of men found subsistence. He was now, however, apprized that they could find subsistence no longer, and that they would probably desert, or commit depredations on the coast of his satrapy, or perhaps be driven to hasten on a general action with the Athenians, under desperate circumstances. Under such apprehensions he felt compelled to put himself again in communication with them, to furnish them with pay, and to conclude with them a third convention, the proposition of which he had refused to entertain at Knidus. He therefore went to Kaunus, invited the Peloponnesian leaders to Mil?tus, and concluded with them near that town a treaty to the following effect:--

Thucyd. viii, 44-57. In two parallel cases, one in Chios, the other in Korkyra, the seamen of an unpaid armament found subsistence by hiring themselves out for agricultural labor. But this was only during the summer , while the stay of the Peloponnesians at Rhodes was from January to March.

"In this thirteenth year of the reign of Darius, and in the ephorship of Alexippidas at Lacedaemon, a convention is hereby concluded by the Lacedaemonians and their allies, with Tissaphern?s and Hieramen?s and the sons of Pharnak?s, respecting the affairs of the king and of the Lacedaemonians and their allies. The territory of the king, as much of it as is in Asia, shall belong to the king. Let the king determine as he chooses respecting his own territory. The Lacedaemonians and their allies shall not approach the king's territory with any mischievous purpose, nor shall the king approach that of the Lacedaemonians and their allies with any like purpose. If any one among the Lacedaemonians or their allies shall approach the king's territory with mischievous purpose, the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall hinder him: if any one from the king's territory shall approach the Lacedaemonians or their allies with mischievous purpose, the king shall hinder him. Tissaphern?s shall provide pay and maintenance, for the fleet now present, at the rate already stipulated, until the king's fleet shall arrive; after that, it shall be at the option of the Lacedaemonians to maintain their own fleet, if they think fit; or, if they prefer, Tissaphern?s shall furnish maintenance, and at the close of the war the Lacedaemonians shall repay to him what they have received. After the king's fleet shall have arrived, the two fleets shall carry on war conjointly, in such manner as shall seem good to Tissaphern?s and the Lacedaemonians and their allies. If they choose to close the war with the Athenians, they shall close it only by joint consent."

Thucyd. viii, 58.

Thucyd. viii, 58. ????? ??? ????????, ~??? ??? ????? ????~, ???????? ?????? ??? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ????????? ???????? ???? ????????.

Thucyd. viii, 59.

The Peloponnesian fleet was now ordered to move from Rhodes. Before it quitted that island, however, envoys came thither from Eretria and from Or?pus; which latter place, a dependency on the northeastern frontier of Attica, though protected by an Athenian garrison, had recently been surprised and captured by the Boeotians. The loss of Or?pus much increased the facilities for the revolt of Euboea; and these envoys came to entreat aid from the Peloponnesian fleet, to second that island in that design. The Peloponnesian commanders, however, felt themselves under prior obligation to relieve the sufferers at Chios, towards which island they first bent their course. But they had scarcely passed the Triopian cape, when they saw the Athenian squadron from Chalk? dogging their motions. Though there was no wish on either side for a general battle, yet they saw evidently that the Athenians would not permit them to pass by Samos, and get to the relief of Chios, without one. Renouncing, therefore, the project of relieving Chios, they again concentrated their force at Mil?tus, while the Athenian fleet was also again united at Samos. It was about the end of March, 411 B.C., that the two fleets were thus replaced in the stations which they had occupied four months previously.

Thucyd. viii, 60.

After the breach with Alkibiad?s, and still more after this manifest reconciliation of Tissaphern?s with the Peloponnesians, Peisander and the oligarchical conspirators at Samos had to reconsider their plan of action. They would not have begun the movement at first, had they not been instigated by Alkibiad?s, and furnished by him with the treacherous delusion of Persian alliance to cheat and paralyze the people. They had, indeed, motives enough, from their own personal ambition, to originate it of themselves, apart from Alkibiad?s; but without the hopes--equally useful for their purpose, whether false or true--connected with his name, they would have had no chance of achieving the first step. Now, however, that first step had been achieved, before the delusive expectation of Persian gold was dissipated. The Athenian people had been familiarized with the idea of a subversion of their constitution, in consideration of a certain price: it remained to extort from them at the point of the sword, without paying the price, what they had thus consented to sell. Moreover, the leaders of the scheme felt themselves already compromised, so that they could not recede with safety. They had set in motion their partisans at Athens, where the system of murderous intimidation, though the news had not as yet reached Samos, was already in full swing: so that they felt constrained to persevere, as the only chance of preservation to themselves. At the same time, all that faint pretence of public benefit, in the shape of Persian alliance, which had been originally attached to it, and which might have been conceived to enlist in the scheme some timid patriots, was now entirely withdrawn; and nothing remained except a naked, selfish, and unscrupulous scheme of ambition, not only ruining the freedom of Athens at home, but crippling and imperiling her before the foreign enemy, at a moment when her entire strength was scarcely adequate to the contest. The conspirators resolved to persevere, at all hazards, both in breaking down the constitution and in carrying on the foreign war. Most of them being rich men, they were content, Thucydid?s observes, to defray the cost out of their own purses, now that they were contending, not for their country, but for their own power and profit.

See Aristotel. Politic. v, 3, 8. He cites this revolution as an instance of one begun by deceit and afterwards consummated by force: ???? ??? ??? ??????????? ??? ????? ??????????, ????????? ??? ??????? ??????? ???????? ???? ??? ??????? ??? ???? ??????????????? ?????????? ??, ???????? ????????? ??? ?????????.

Thucyd. viii, 63. ?????? ?? ??? ???? ?????, ~?? ??? ??? ?????????????~, ???? ??? ????? ?? ?????????? ?? ????????, ??? ?? ??? ??????? ??? ????????, ??? ???????? ?????? ???????? ??????? ??? ?? ?? ???? ???, ?? ?????? ~?????? ? ?????? ??????~ ??????????????.

They lost no time in proceeding to execution, immediately after returning to Samos from the abortive conference with Alkibiad?s. While they despatched Peisander with five of the envoys back to Athens, to consummate what was already in progress there, and the remaining five to oligarchize the dependent allies, they organized all their partisan force in the armament, and began to take measures for putting down the democracy in Samos itself. That democracy had been the product of a forcible revolution, effected about ten months before, by the aid of three Athenian triremes. It had since preserved Samos from revolting like Chios: it was now the means of preserving the democracy at Athens itself. The partisans of Peisander, finding it an invincible obstacle to their views, contrived to gain over a party of the leading Samians now in authority under it. Three hundred of these latter, a portion of those who ten months before had risen in arms to put down the pre?xisting oligarchy, now enlisted as conspirators along with the Athenian oligarchs, to put down the Samian democracy, and get possession of the government for themselves. The new alliance was attested and cemented, according to genuine oligarchical practice, by a murder without judicial trial, or an assassination, for which a suitable victim was at hand. The Athenian Hyperbolus, who had been ostracized some years before by the coalition of Nikias and Alkibiad?s, together with their respective partisans,--ostracized as Thucydid?s tells us, not from any fear of his power and over-ascendent influence, but from his low character, and from his being a disgrace to the city, and thus ostracized by an abuse of the institution,--was now resident at Samos. As he was not a Samian, and had, moreover, been in banishment during the last five or six years, he could have had no power either in the island or the armament, and therefore his death served no prospective purpose. But he represented the demagogic and accusatory eloquence of the democracy, the check upon official delinquency; so that he served as a common object of antipathy to Athenian and Samian oligarchs. Some of the Athenian partisans, headed by Charm?nus, one of the generals, in concert with the Samian conspirators, seized Hyperbolus and put him to death, seemingly with some other victims at the same time.

Thucyd. viii, 73. ??? ????????? ?? ???? ??? ????????, ???????? ????????, ????????????? ?? ??? ???????? ??? ????????? ?????, ???? ??? ???????? ??? ???????? ??? ??????, ???????????? ???? ???????? ?? ???? ??? ????????? ??? ????? ??? ???? ?????? ????????, ?????? ???????? ??????, ~??? ???? ???? ????? ??????? ??????????~, ???? ?? ???????? ??????? ???????????.

I presume that the words, ???? ??????? ??????????, must mean that other persons were assassinated along with Hyperbolus.

The incorrect manner in which Mr. Mitford recounts these proceedings at Samos has been properly commented on by Dr. Thirlwall . It is the more surprising, since the phrase ???? ????????, which Mr. Mitford has misunderstood, is explained in a special note of Duker.

But though these joint assassinations served as a pledge to each section of the conspirators for the fidelity of the other, in respect to farther operations, they at the same time gave warning to opponents. Those leading men at Samos who remained attached to the democracy, looking abroad for defence against the coming attack, made earnest appeal to Leon and Diomedon, the two generals most recently arrived from Athens in substitution for Phrynichus and Skironid?s,--men sincerely devoted to the democracy, and adverse to all oligarchical change, as well as to the trierarch Thrasyllus, to Thrasybulus, son of Lykus, then serving as an hoplite, and to many others of the pronounced democrats and patriots in the Athenian armament. They made appeal not simply in behalf of their own personal safety and of their own democracy, now threatened by conspirators of whom a portion were Athenians, but also on grounds of public interest to Athens; since, if Samos became oligarchized, its sympathy with the Athenian democracy and its fidelity to the alliance would be at an end. At this moment the most recent events which had occurred at Athens, presently to be told, were not known, and the democracy was considered as still subsisting there.

Thucyd. viii, 73, 74. ??? ?????? ????????? ?????? ???? ?? ????????????, ??? ????? ????????? ??????????????, etc.

... ?? ??? ?????? ?? ???? ???????????? ????????, etc.

To stand by the assailed democracy of Samos, and to preserve the island itself, now the mainstay of the shattered Athenian empire, were motives more than sufficient to awaken the Athenian leaders thus solicited. Commencing a personal canvass among the soldiers and seamen, and invoking their interference to avert the overthrow of the Samian democracy, they found the general sentiment decidedly in their favor, but most of all, among the parali, or crew of the consecrated public trireme, called the paralus. These men were the picked seamen of the state,--each of them not merely a freeman, but a full Athenian citizen, receiving higher pay than the ordinary seamen, and known as devoted to the democratical constitution, with an active repugnance to oligarchy itself as well as to everything which scented of it. The vigilance of Leon and Diomedon on the defensive side, counteracted the machinations of their colleague Charm?nus, along with the conspirators, and provided for the Samian democracy faithful auxiliaries constantly ready for action. Presently, the conspirators made a violent attack to overthrow the government; but though they chose their own moment and opportunity, they still found themselves thoroughly worsted in the struggle, especially through the energetic aid of the parali. Thirty of their number were slain in the contest, and three of the most guilty afterwards condemned to banishment. The victorious party took no farther revenge, even upon the remainder of the three hundred conspirators, granted a general amnesty, and did their best to re?stablish constitutional and harmonious working of the democracy.

Thucyd. viii, 73. ??? ??? ?????? ???? ????????, ?????? ????????? ?? ??? ?????????? ?????? ?? ?? ??? ????????, ??? ~??? ?????? ????????? ??? ?? ??????? ????????????~.

Peitholaus called the paralus ??????? ??? ?????, "the club, staff, or mace of the people."

Thucyd. viii, 73. ??? ????????? ??? ????? ?????????? ??? ??????????, ????? ?? ???? ??????????? ???? ?????????? ???? ?? ?????? ?? ?????????????? ??????????????? ?? ?????? ?????????????.

Chaereas, an Athenian trierarch, who had been forward in the contest, was sent in the paralus itself to Athens, to make communication of what had occurred. But this democratical crew, on reaching their native city, instead of being received with that welcome which they doubtless expected, found a state of things not less odious than surprising. The democracy of Athens had been subverted: instead of the senate of Five Hundred, and the assembled people, an oligarchy of Four Hundred self-installed persons were enthroned with sovereign authority in the senate-house. The first order of the Four Hundred, on hearing that the paralus had entered Peiraeus, was to imprison two or three of the crew, and to remove all the rest from their own privileged trireme aboard a common trireme, with orders to depart forthwith and to cruise near Euboea. The commander, Chaereas, found means to escape, and returned back to Samos to tell the unwelcome news.

Thucyd. viii. 74.

The steps, whereby this oligarchy of Four Hundred had been gradually raised up to their new power, must be taken up from the time when Peisander quitted Athens,--after having obtained the vote of the public assembly authorizing him to treat with Alkibiad?s and Tissaphern?s,--and after having set on foot a joint organization and conspiracy of all the anti-popular clubs, which fell under the management especially of Antiphon and Theramen?s, afterwards aided by Phrynichus. All the members of that Board of Elders called Prob?li, who had been named after the defeat in Sicily, with Agnon, father of Theramen?s, at their head,--together with many other leading citizens, some of whom had been counted among the firmest friends of the democracy, joined the conspiracy; while the oligarchical and the neutral rich came into it with ardor; so that a body of partisans was formed both numerous and well provided with money. Antiphon did not attempt to bring them together, or to make any public demonstration, armed or unarmed, for the purpose of overawing the actual authorities. He permitted the senate and the public assembly to go on meeting and debating as usual; but his partisans, neither the names nor the numbers of whom were publicly known, received from him instructions both when to speak and what language to hold. The great topic upon which they descanted, was the costliness of democratical institutions in the present distressed state of the finances, the heavy tax imposed upon the state by paying the senators, the dikasts, the ekklesiasts, or citizens who attended the public assembly, etc. The state could now afford to pay only those soldiers who fought in its defence, nor ought any one else to touch the public money. It was essential, they insisted, to exclude from the political franchise all except a select body of Five Thousand, composed of those who were best able to do service to the city by person and by purse.

Respecting the activity of Agnon, as one of the prob?li, in the same cause, see Lysias, Orat. xii, cont. Eratosthen. c. 11, p. 426, Reisk. sect. 66.

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