Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/54

 32 HISTORY OF GREECE. time, the breach of Peisander with Tissaphernes and Alkiuiadei had not yet become known at Athens, so that the latter was stil! supposed to be on the point of returning home as a member of the contemplated oligarchical government. After Androkles, many other speakers of similar sentiments perished in the same way, by unknown hands. A band of Grecian youths, strangers, and got together from different cities, 1 was organized for the business : the victims were all chosen on the same special ground, and the deed was so skilfully perpetrated that neither director nor instrument ever became known. After these assassinations sure, special, secret, and systematic, emanating from an un- known directory, like a Vehmic tribunal had continued for some time, the terror which they inspired became intense and universal. No justice could be had, no inquiry could be insti- tuted, even for the death of the nearest and dearest relative. At last, no man dared to demand or even to mention inquiry, looking upon himself as fortunate that he had escaped the same fate in his own person. So finished an organization, and such well-aimed blows, raised a general belief that the conspirators were much more numerous than they were in reality. And as it turned out that there were persons among them who had before been ac counted hearty democrats, 2 so at last dismay and mistrust became 1 Thucyd. viii, 69. Ol el/coat xal enarbv //er' avruv (that is, along with the Four Hundred) "EA/tjyvef veaviaKoi, olf EXP&VTO el ri TTOV Seoi ^etpoupyetv Dr. Arnold explains the words "EA/U/vff vsavianoi to mean some of the memhers of the aristocratical clubs, or unions, formerly spoken of. But I cannot think that Thncydides would use such an expression to designate Athenian citizens : neither is it probable that Athenian citizens would be employed in repeated acts of such a character. 2 Even Peisander himself had professed the strongest attachment to the democracy, coupled with exaggerated violence against parties suspected of oligarchical plots, four years before, in the investigations which followed on the mutilation of the Hermae at Athens (Andokides de Myster. c. 9, 10, sects. 36-43). It is a fact that Peisander was one of the prominent movers on both these two occasions, four years apart. And if we could believe Isokrates (d? Bigis, sects. 4-7, p. 347), the second of the two occasions was merely the continuance and consummation of a. plot which had been projected and begun on the first, and in which the conspirators had endeavored to enlist Alkibiades. The latter refused, so his son, the speaker in the above-men joned oration, contends, in consequence of his attachment to the Jemoc