Kitap 8
"That Tissaphernes shall, according to the rates agreed on, maintain the present fleet till the king's fleet arrive.
"That when the king's navy shall be come, the Lacedaemonians and their confederates shall maintain their own navy themselves, if they please; or if they will have Tissaphernes to maintain it, he shall do it; and that the Lacedaemonians and their confederates, at the end of the war, repay Tissaphernes whatsoever money they shall have received of him.
When the king's galleys shall be arrived, both they and the galleys of the Lacedaemonians and their confederates shall make the war jointly, according as to Tissaphernes and the Lacedaemonians and their confederates shall seem good; and if they will give over the war against the Athenians, they shall give it over in the same manner.
Such were the articles. After this Tissaphernes prepared for the fetching in of the Phoenician fleet, according to the agreement, and to do whatsoever else he had undertaken, desiring to have it seen, at least, that he went about it.
In the end of this winter, the Boeotians took Oropus by treason. It had in it a garrison of Athenians. They that plotted it were certain Eretrians and some of Oropus itself, who were then contriving the revolt of Euboea. For the place being built to keep Eretria in subjection, it was impossible, as long as the Athenians held it, but that it would much annoy both Eretria and the rest of Euboea.
Having Oropus in their hands already, they came to Rhodes to call the Peloponnesians into Euboea. But the Peloponnesians had a greater inclination to relieve Chios now distressed, and putting to sea, departed out of Rhodes with their whole fleet.
When they were come about Triopium, they described the Athenian fleet in the main sea going from Chalce. And neither side assaulting other, they put in, the one fleet at Samos, the other at Miletus; for the Peloponnesians saw they could not pass to relieve Chios without a battle. Thus ended this winter, and the twentieth year of this war written by Thucydides.
The next summer, in the beginning of the spring, Dercylidas, a Spartan, was sent by land into Hellespont with a small army to work the revolt of Abydos, a colony of the Milesians. And the Chians at the same time, whilst Astyochus was at a stand how to help them, were compelled by the pressure of the siege to hazard a battle by sea.
Now whilst Astyochus lay at Rhodes, they had received into the city of Chios, after the death of Pedaritus, one Leon, a Spartan, that came along with Antisthenes as a private soldier, and with him twelve galleys that lay at the guard of Miletus, whereof five were Thurians, four Syracusians, one of Anaea, one of Miletus, and one of Leon's own.
Whereupon the Chians, issuing forth with the whole force of the city, seized a certain place of strength and put forth thirty-six galleys against thirty-two of the Athenians and fought. After a sharp fight, wherein the Chians and their associates had not the worst, and when it began to be dark, they retired again into the city.
Presently after this, Dercylidas being arrived now in Hellespont from Miletus by land, Abydos revolted to him and to Pharnabazus; and two days after revolted Lampsacus.
Strombichides, having intelligence of this, made haste thither from Chios with four-and-twenty sail of Athenians, those being also of that number which transported his men of arms. And when he had overcome the Lampsacenes that came out against him, and taken Lampsacus, being an open town, at the first shout of their voices, and made prize of all the goods they found and of the slaves, he placed the freemen there again and went against Abydos.
But when that city neither yielded nor could be taken by assault, he crossed over from Abydos to the opposite shore; and in Sestos, a city of Chersonesus, possessed heretofore by the Medes, he placed a garrison for the custody of the whole Hellespont.
In the meantime not only the Chians had the sea at more command, but Astyochus also and the army at Miletus, having been advertised of what passed in the fight by sea, and that Strombichides and those galleys with him were gone away, took heart.
And Astyochus, going to Chios with two galleys, fetched away the galleys that were there, and with the whole fleet now together went against Samos. But seeing they of Samos, by reason of their jealousy one towards another, came not against him, he went back again to Miletus.
For it was about this time that the democracy was put down at Athens. For after that Pisander and his fellow-ambassadors that had been with Tissaphernes were come to Samos, they both assured their affairs yet better in the army and also provoked the principal men of the Samians to attempt with them the erecting of the oligarchy, though there were then an insurrection amongst them against the oligarchy.
And withal the Athenians at Samos, in a conference amongst themselves, deliberated how, since Alcibiades would not, to let him alone; for indeed they thought him no fit man to come into an oligarchy; but for themselves, seeing they were already engaged in the danger, to take care both to keep the business from a relapse and withal to sustain the war and to contribute money and whatsoever else was needful with alacrity out of their private estates, and no more to toil for other than themselves.
Having thus advised, they sent Pisander with half the ambassadors presently home, to follow the business there, with command to set up the oligarchy in all the cities they were to touch at by the way; the other half they sent about, some to one part [of the state] and some to another.
And they sent away Diotrephes to his charge, who was now about Chios, chosen to go governor of the cities upon Thrace. He, when he came to Thasos, deposed the people.
And within two months at most after he was gone, the Thasians fortified their city, as needing no longer an aristocracy with the Athenians but expecting liberty every day by the help of the Lacedaemonians. For there were also certain of them with the Peloponnesians driven out by the Athenians;
and these practised with such in the city as were for their purpose to receive galleys into it and to cause it to revolt. So that it fell out for them just as they would have it, and that estate of theirs was set up without their danger and that the people was deposed that would have withstood it.
Insomuch as at Thasos it fell out contrary to what those Athenians thought which erected the oligarchy; and so, in my opinion, it did in many other places of their dominion. For the cities, now grown wise and withal resolute in their proceedings, sought a direct liberty and preferred not before it that outside of a well-ordered government introduced by the Athenians.
They with Pisander, according to the order given them, entering into the cities as they went by, dissolved the democracies; and having in some places obtained also an aid of men of arms, they came to Athens, and found the business, for the greatest part, dispatched to their hands by their accomplices before their coming.
For certain young men, combining themselves, had not only murdered Androcles privily, a principal patron of the popular government and one that had his hand the farthest in the banishment of Alcibiades (whom they slew for two causes: for the sway he bare amongst the people, and to gratify Alcibiades, who they thought would return and get them the friendship of Tissaphernes), but had also made away divers men unfit for their design in the same manner.
They had withal an oration ready made, which they delivered in public, wherein they said that there ought none to receive wages but such as served in the wars, nor to participate of the government more than five thousand, and those, such as by their purses and persons were best able to serve the commonwealth.
And this with the most carried a good shew, because they that would set forward the alteration of the state were to have the managing of the same. Yet the people and the Council of the Bean met still, but debated nothing, save what the conspirators thought fit; nay, all that spake were of that number, and had considered before what they were to say.
Nor would any of the rest speak against them, for fear, because they saw the combination was great; and if any man did, he was quickly made away by one convenient means or other, and no inquiry made after the deed-doers, nor justice prosecuted against any that was suspected. But the people were so quiet and so afraid that every man thought it gain to escape violence though he said never a word.
Their hearts failed them because they thought the conspirators more indeed than they were; and to learn their number, in respect of the greatness of the city and for that they knew not one another, they were unable.
For the same cause also was it impossible for any man that was angry at it to bemoan himself, whereby to be revenged on them that conspired; for he must have told his mind either to one he knew not or to one he knew and trusted not.
For the popular approached each other, every one with jealousy, as if they thought him of the plot. For indeed there were such amongst them as no man would have thought would ever have turned to the oligarchy; and those were they that caused in the many that diffidence, and by strengthening the jealousy of the popular one against another, conferred most to the security of the few.
During this opportunity, Pisander and they that were with him, coming in, fell in hand presently with the remainder of the business. And first they assembled the people and delivered their opinion for ten men to be chosen with power absolute to make a draught of laws, and having drawn them, to deliver their opinion at a day appointed before the people, touching the best form of government for the city.
Afterwards, when that day came, they summoned the assembly to Colonus, which is a place consecrated to Neptune without the city, about two furlongs off. And they that were appointed to write the laws, presented this, and only this: That it should be lawful for any Athenian to deliver whatsoever opinion he pleased; imposing of great punishments upon whosoever should either accuse any that so spake of violating the laws or otherwise do him hurt.
Now here indeed it was in plain terms propounded that not any magistracy of the form before used might any longer be in force, nor any fee belong unto it; but that five Prytanes might be elected, and these five choose a hundred, and every one of this hundred take unto him three others; and these four hundred, entering into the council-house, might have absolute authority to govern the state as they thought best and to summon the five thousand as oft as to them it should seem good.
He that delivered this opinion was Pisander, who was also otherwise openly the forewardest to put down the democracy. But he that contrived the whole business, how to bring it to this pass, and had long thought upon it, was Antiphon, a man for virtue not inferior to any Athenian of his time, and the ablest of any man both to devise well and also to express well what he had devised; and though he came not into the assemblies of the people nor willingly to any other debatings, because the multitude had him in jealousy for the opinion they had of the power of his eloquence, yet when any man that had occasion of suit, either in the courts of justice or in the assembly of the people, came to him for his counsel, this one man was able to help him most.
The same man, when afterwards the government of The Four Hundred went down and was vexed of the people, was heard plead for himself, when his life was in question for that business, the best of any man to this day.
Phrynichus also shewed himself an earnest man for the oligarchy, and that more earnestly than any other, because he feared Alcibiades and knew him to be acquainted with all his practices at Samos with Astyochus, and thought in all probability that he would never return to live under the government of the few. And this man, in any matter of weight, appeared the most sufficient to be relied on.
Also Theramenes, the son of Agnon, an able man both for elocution and understanding, was another of the principal of those that overthrew the democracy. So that it is no marvel if the business took effect, being by many and wise men conducted, though it were a hard one. For it went sore with the Athenian people, almost a hundred years after the expulsion of the tyrants, to be now deprived of their liberty, having not only not been subject to any, but also for the half of this time been inured to dominion over others.
When the assembly, after it had passed these things, no man contradicting, was dissolved, then afterwards they brought The Four Hundred into the council-house in this manner. The Athenians were evermore partly on the walls and partly at their arms in the camp in regard of the enemy that lay at Deceleia.
Therefore, on the day appointed, they suffered such as knew not their intent to go forth as they were wont. But to such as were of the conspiracy they quietly gave order not to go to the camp itself but to lag behind at a certain distance, and if any man should oppose what was in doing, to take arms and keep them back.
They to whom this charge was given were [the] Andrians, Tenians, three hundred Carystians, and such of the colony of Aegina which the Athenians had sent thither to inhabit, as came on purpose to this action with their own arms.