Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/265

 INCREASING VIOLENCES. 243 These successive acts of vengeance and violence were warn Iy opposed by Theramenes, both in the council of Thirty and in the senate. The persons hitherto executed, he said, had deserved their death, because they were not merely noted politicians under the democracy, but also persons of marked hostility to oligarchi- cal men. But to inflict the same fate on others, who had mani- fested no such hostility, simply because they had enjoyed influence under the democracy, would be unjust : " Even you and I (he reminded Kritias) have both said and done many things for the sake of popularity." But Kritias replied : " We cannot afford to be scrupulous ; we are engaged in a scheme of aggressive am- bition, and must get rid of those who are best able to hinder us. Though we are Thirty in number, and not one, our government is not the less a despotism, and must be guarded by the same jealous precautions. If you think otherwise, you must be simple- minded indeed." Such were the sentiments which animated the majority of the Thirty, not less than Kritias, and which prompted them to an endless string of seizures and executions. It was not merely the less obnoxious democratical politicians who became their victims, but men of courage, wealth, and station, in every vein of political feeling : even oligarchical men, the best and most high-principled of that party, shared the same fate. Among the most distinguished sufferers were, Lykurgus, 1 belonging to one of the most eminent sacred gentes in the state ; a wealthy man named Antiphon, who had devoted his fortune to the public service with exemplary patriotism during the last years of the war, and had furnished two well-equipped triremes at his own cost; Leon, of Salamis ; and even Nikeratus, son of Nikias, who had perished at Syracuse ; a man who inherited from his father not only a large fortune, but a known repugnance to democratical politics, together with his uncle Eukrates, brother of the same Nikias. 2 These were only a few among the numer- ous victims, who were seized, pronounced to be guilty by the senate or by the Thirty themselves, handed over to Satyrus and the Eleven, and condemned to perish by the customary draught of hemlock. 1 Plutarch, Vit. x, Orator, p. 838. tris, wets. 5-8.
 * Xcnoph. llcllcn. ii, 3, 39-41 ; Ly-sias, Orat. xviii, DC Bonis Niciia Fr