Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/290

 268 HISTORY OP GREECE- pointed to a spot immediately before him and in his view, ing each man to deposit upon it his pebble of condemnation visibly to every one. 1 I have before remarked that at AthenSj open voting was well known to be the same thing as voting under constraint ; there was no security for free and genuine suffrage except by making it secret as well as numerous. Kritias was obeyed, without reserve or exception ; probably any dissentient would have been put to death on the spot. All the prisoners, seemingly three hundred in number, 2 were condemned by the same vote, and executed forthwith. Though this atrocity gave additional satisfaction and confidence to the most violent friends of Kritias, it probably alienated a greater number of others, and weakened the Thirty instead of strengthening them. It contributed in part, we can hardly doubt, to the bold and decisive resolution now taken by Thrasy- bulus, five days after his late success, of marching by night from Phyle to Peiraeus. 3 His force, though somewhat increased, was still no more than one thousand men ; altogether inadequate by itself to any considerable enterprise, had he not counted on positive support and junction from fresh comrades, together with a still greater amount of negative support from disgust or indifference towards the Thirty. He was indeed speedily joined by many sympathizing countrymen ; but few of them, since the general disarming manoeuvre of the oligarchs, had heavy armor. Some had light shields and darts, but others were wholly unarmed, and could merely serve as throwers of stones. 4 Peiraeus was at this moment an open town, deprived of its fortifications as well as of those Long Walls which had so long connected it with Athens. It was however of large compass, and required an ampler force to defend it than Thrasybulus could 1 Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 9. Aetfaf 6e n x&piov, i? TOVTO kn&.evaE (j>a v e- puv tjiepeiv TJJV iprjijtov. Compare Lysias, Or. xiii, cont. Agorat. s. 40, and Thucyd. iv, 74, about the conduct of the Megarian oligarchical loaders: icai TOVTUV mpl uvayKuaavres TbvSij/j.ov il>qov avep$v etc. 4 Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 12.
 * Lysias (Orat. xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 53) gives this number.
 * Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4. 10, 13. rj^epav Ke^rijv, etc.