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 NIKIAS AND KLEON. 291 and position must have been essential to the social harmony of the members : in some towns, it appears that such political asso- ciations existed under the form of gymnasia, 1 for the mutual exercise of the members, or of syssitia for joint banquets. At Athens they were numerous, and doubtless not habitually in friendship with each other, since the antipathies among different oligarchical men were exceedingly strong, and the union brought about between them at the time of the Four Hundred arose only out of common desire to put down the democracy, and lasted but a little while. But the designation of persons to serve in the capacity of strategus and other principal offices greatly depended upon them, as well as the facility of passing through that trial of accountability to which every man was liable after his year of office. Nikias, and men generally of his rank and fortune, helped by these clubs, and lending help in their turn, composed what may be called the ministers, or executive individual functionaries of Athens : the men who acted, gave orders to individual men as to from Athens to Samos : on his return, he finds that these hetaeries have been very actively employed, and had made great progress towards the sub- version of the democracy : they had assassinated the demagogue Andro- kles and various other political enemies, ot 6e aii^l rbv lidaavdpov ty&ov if ruf 'Atf^vaf, Kal Kara^afi^dvovai ra Tr/letara rotf iraipoif irpoe- rp/afffieva, etc. (viii, 65.) The political iraipeta to which Alkibiades belonged is mentioned in Isokrates, De Bigis, Or. xvi, p. 348, sect. 6. Aeyovrff uf 6 traTr/p avvayo i TT)V irai.pei.av inl veuripoif irpdypaai. Allusions to these iraipElai and to their well-known political and judicial purposes (unfortu- nately they are only allusions), are found in Plato, Theaetet. c. 79, p. 173. airovtial de traipeiuv iir j upxag, etc. : also Plato, Legg. ix, c. 3, p. 856 ; Plato, Republic, ii, c. 8, p. 365, where they are mentioned in conjunction with mivufj.6ai.ai im yap rb hav&dveiv ^vvufioaiaf TS Kal iraipsia^ avvdl-onsv also in Pseudo-Andokidfis cont. Alkibiad. c. 2, p. 112. Compare the genera) remarks of Thucydides, iii, 82, and Demosthenes cont. Stephan. ii, p. 1157 Two Dissertations, by Messrs. Vischer and Biittner, collect the scanty indications respecting these hetaeries. together with some attempts to en- large and speculate upon them, which are more ingenious than trustworthy (Die Oligarchische Partei und die Hetairien in Athen. von W. Vischer. Basel, 1836 ; Geschichte der politischen Hetairien zu Athen. von Hermann Biittner. Leipsic, 1840). 1 About the political workings of the Syssitia and Gymnasia, see Plato Legg. i, p. 636 ; Polybius, xx. 6.