Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/52

 80 HISTORY OF GREECE. Chaereds, an Athenian trierarch, who had been forward in th< contest, was sent in the paralus itself to Athens, to make commu- nication of what had occurred. But this democratical crew, on reaching their native city, instead of being received with that welcome which they doubtless expected, found a state of things not less odious than surprising. The democracy of Athens had been subverted : instead of the senate of Fiv3 Hundred, and the assembled people, an oligarchy of Four Hundred self-installed persons were enthroned with sovereign authority in the senate- house. The first order of the Four Hundred, on hearing that the paralus had entered Peiraeus, was to imprison two or three of the crew, and to remove all the rest from their own privileged trireme aboard a common trireme, with orders to depart forth with and to cruise near Euboea. The commander, Chasreas, found means to escape, and returned back to Samos to tell the unwelcome news. 1 The steps, whereby this oligarchy of Four Hundred had been gradually raised up to their new power, must be taken up from the time when Peisander quitted Athens, after having obtained the vote of the public assembly authorizing him to treat with Alkibiades and Tissaphernes, and after having set on foot a joint organization and conspiracy of all the anti-popular clubs, which fell under the management especially of Antiphon and Theramenes, afterwards aided by Phrynichus. All the members of that Board of Elders called Probuli, who had been named after the defeat in Sicily, with Agnon, father of Theramenes, at their head, 2 together with many other leading citizens, some of whom had been counted among the firmest friends of the democracy, joined the conspiracy ; while the oligarchical and the neutral rich came into it with ardor ; so that a body of partisans was formed both numerous and well provided with money. Antiphon did not attempt to bring them together, or to make any public demonstration, armed or unarmed, for the pur- pose of overawing the actual authorities. He permitted the sen 1 Thucyd. viii, 74. 2 Thucyd. viii, 1. About the countenance which all these probuli lent to the conspiracy, see Aristotle, Rhetoric, iii, 18, 2. Respscting the activity of Agnon, as one of the probuli, in the sama sanee, &ee Lysias, Orat. xii, cont. Eratosthcn. c. II, p. 426, Reisk. sect. 66.