Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/225

Rh Athens renouncing all authority over other states, possessing only twelve ships of war, recalling oligarchical exiles, pulling down the long walls, and dismantling the Piraeus (Spring of B.C. 404). Lysander sailed into the Piraeus and superintended the destruction of the long walls and the fortifications of the harbour. He then withdrew, leaving the oligarchical party—now in the ascendent—to arrange a revolution in the constitution.

After a short time he returned, and under his influence and in obedience to a threatening speech, the Assembly voted the appointment of Thirty Commissioners, who were to draw up a new constitution and meanwhile to conduct the government. The city was then relieved, not only of the presence of Lysander, but of the army of occupation at Decelea and in the Academy. Athens was left free from actual foreign control, but a shadow of its former self. The Thirty governed tyrannically, filled their coffers with the confiscated property of their opponents, whom they either drove into exile or put to death, and in a few months had rendered themselves hateful to all classes. Theramenes, who was one of them, incurred the enmity of his colleagues by counselling moderation and opposing the proposition that the New Assembly should consist of a definite number (3,000). He argued that it should be composed of all citizens of good character, and that the arbitrary execution of respectable men should cease. Critias, however, who took the lead among the Thirty, had no difficulty in getting rid of him. In a meeting of the Council he struck his name off the list of the