Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/55

 RETURN OF 1'EISANDER TO ATHENS. 33 universally prevalent. Nor did any one dare even to cxprtsa indignation at the murders going on, much less to talk about redress or revenge, for fear that he might be communicating with one of the unknown conspirators. In the midst of this terrorism, all opposition ceased in the senate and public assembly, so that the speakers of the conspiring oligarchy appeared to carry an unanimous assent. 1 Such was the condition to which things had been brought in Athens, by Antiphon and the oligarchical conspirators acting under his direction, at the time when Peisander and the five envoys arrived thither returning from Samos. It is probable that they had previously transmitted home from Samos news of the rupture with Alkibiades, and of the necessity of prosecuting the conspiracy without farther view either to him or to the Persian alliance. Such news would probably be acceptable both to Anti- phon and Phrynichus, both of them personal enemies of Alkibi- ades ; especially Phrynichus, who had pronounced him to be incapable of fraternizing with an oligarchical revolution. 2 At any rate, the plans of Antiphon had been independent of all view to Persian aid, and had been directed to carry the revolu- tion by means of naked, exorbitant, and well-directed fear, with- out any intermixture of hope or any prospect of public benefit. Peisander found the reign of terror fully matured. He had not come direct from Samos to Athens, but had halted in his voyage at various allied dependencies, while the other five envoys, as well as a partisan named Diotrephes, had been sent to Thasos and elsewhere; 3 all for the same purpose, of putting down racy ; upon which the oligarchical conspirators, incensed at his refusal, got np the charge of irreligion against him and procured his banishment. Though Droysen and Wattenbach ( De Quadringcntorum Athenis Fac- tione, pp. 7, 8, Berlin, 1842) place confidence, to a considerable extent, in this manner of putting the facts, I consider it to be nothing better than complete perversion ; irreconcilable with Thucydides, confounding together facts unconnected in themselves as well as separated by a long interval of time, and introducing unreal caiises, for the purpose of making out, what was certainly not true, that Alkibiades was a faithful friend of the democ- racy, and even a sufferer in its behalf. 1 Thucyd. viii, 66. VJT' AXtyapxiac Kare^eh> } etc. * Thucyd. viii, 64. VOL. viii. 2* 3oc.
 * Thucyd. viii, 68. vopi&v O'VK av TTOTE avrbv (Alkibiades) Kara rd 'd/