Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/257

 SEIZURE OF STROMBICHUES. 233 pliment to the Lacedaemonians, to direct the general proceedings of the party ; to convene meetings when needful, to appoint s ab- ordinate managers for the various tribes, and to determine what propositions were to be submitted to the public assembly. 1 Among these five ephors were Kritias and Eratosthenes ; probably The- ramenes also. But the oligarchical party, though thus organized and ascen- dant, with a compliant senate and a dispirited people, and with an auxiliary enemy actually in possession, still thought them- selves not powerful enough to carry their intended changes without seizing the most resolute of the democratical leaders. Accordingly, a citizen named Theokritus tendered an accusation to the senate against the general Strombichides, together with several others of the democratical generals and taxiarchs ; sup- ported by the deposition of a slave, or lowborn man, named Agoratus. Although Nikias and several other citizens tried to prevail upon Agoratus to leave Athens, furnished him with the means of escape, and offered to go away with him themselves from Munychia, until the political state of Athens should come into a more assured condition, 2 yet he refused to retire, appeared 1 Lysias cont. Eratosth. Or. xii, s. 44, p. 124. 'Eneidr) 6e i'/ vavpax'ia /cat # avfifyopil TJJ nofai iyevero, djjfiOKpanaf ITL ovoqc, odev rijf aruoeuf ^pfav, trevre uvtipee eQopoi KarfartfOHV inr6 rdtv KO^OV [JLEVUV er ai- p u v, (Tvj'ayuyeif /utv TUV TTO^ITCJV, up%ovT de TUV avvu/toruv, ivuvria (5e uiaavref 6i>o nXola tilovvv^iuaiv, ideovro aiirov ('Ayoparov) navrl Tponu uire?.&tiv 'dijvridev, Kal avrol tyaaav avvKir%.evad(r&ai i eue rd irpuy- fiara K a TO. a TO, i q, etc. Lysias represents this accusation of the generals, and this behavior of Agoratus, as having occurred before the surrender of the city, but after the return of Theramcnes, bringing back the final terms imposed by the Lace- daemonians. He thus so colors it, that Agoratus, by getting the generals out of the way, was the real cause why the degrading peace brought by The- ramcncs was accepted. Had the generals remained at large, he affirms, they would have prevented the acceptance of this degrading peace, and would have been able to obtain better terms from the Lacedaemonians (see Lysias cont. Agor. sects. 16-20). Without questioning generally the matters of fact set forth by Lysias in liiis oration (delivered a long time afterwards, see s. 90), I believe that h
 * Lysias cont. Agorat. Or. xiii, s. 28 (p. 132) ; s. 35, p. 133. Kal irapop-