Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/246

 224 HISTORY OF GREECE. The leading philo- Athenians, too, at Thasus, Byzantium, and other dependent cities, 1 were forced to abandon their homes in the like state of destitution, and to seek shelter at Athens. Every thing thus contributed to aggravate the impoverishment, and the manifold suffering, physical as well as moral, within her walls Notwithstanding the pressure of present calamity, however, and yet worse prospects for the future, the Athenians prepared, as best they could, for an honorable resistance. It was one of their first measures to provide for the restoration of harmony, and to interest all in the defence of the city, by re- moving every sort of disability under which individual citizens might now be suffering. Accordingly, Patrokleides having first obtained special permission from the people, without which it would have been unconstitutional to make any proposition for abrogating sentences judically passed, or releasing debtors regu- larly inscribed in the public registers submitted a decree such as had never been mooted since the period when Athens was in a condition equally desperate, during the advancing march of Xerxes. All debtors to the state, either recent or of long stand- ing ; all official persons now under investigation by the Logistae, or about to be brought before the dikastery on the usual accoun- tability after office ; all persons who were liquidating by instal ment debts due to the public, or had given bail for sums thus owing; all persons who had been condemned either to total disfranchise- ment, or to some specific disqualification or disability ; nay, even all those who, having been either members or auxiliaries of the Four Hundred, had stood trial afterwards, and had been con- demned to any one of the above-mentioned penalties, all these persons were pardoned and released ; every register of the penalty or condemnation being directed to be destroyed. From this comprehensive pardon were excepted : Those among the Four Hundred who had fled from Athens without standing their A great number of new proprietors acquired land in the Chersonese through the Lacedaemonian sway, doubtless in place of these dispossessed Athenians ; perhaps by purchase at a low price, but most probably by appropriation without purchase (Xcnoph. Hellen. iv, 8, 5). 1 Xenoph. Hellen. i, 2, 1 ; Demosthen. cont. Leptin. c. 14, p. 474. Ek phantus and the other Thasian exiles received the grant of areheia, o, immunity from the pecrliar charges imposed upon metics at Ather.