Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/410

 402 THE MALCONTENT OLIGARCHS [vill Aristocrates the son of Scellius. They had been among the chief authors of the revolution, " but now, fearing, as they urged, the army at Samos, and being in good earnest afraid of Alcibiades, fearing also lest their colleagues, who were sending envoys to Lacedaemon ^, might, unauthorised by the majority, betray the city, they did not indeed openly profess* that they meant to get rid of extreme oligarchy, but they maintained that the Five Thousand should be established in reality and not in name, and the constitution made more equal. This was the political phrase of which they availed themselves, but the truth was that most of them were given up to private ambition of that sort which is more fatal than anything to an oligarchy succeeding a democracy. For the instant an oligarchy is established the promoters of it disdain mere equality, and everybody thinks that he ought to be far above everybody else. "Whereas in a democracy, when an election is made, a man is less disappointed at a failure because he has not been competing with his equals. The influence which most sensibly aftected them were the great power of Alcibiades at Samos, and an impression that the oligarchy was not likely to be permanent. Accordingly every one was struggling hard to be the first champion of the people himself, go The leading men among the Four Hundred most violently opposed to the restoration of democracy were Phrynichus, who had been general at Samos, and had there come into antagonism with Alcibiades c, Aristarchus, a man who had always been the most thorough-going enemy of the people, Peisander, and Antiphon. These and the other leaders, both at the first establishment of the oligarchy ^J, and again later when the army at Samos declared for the » Or, retaining tittti-nov : ' and now fearing, as they urged, the army at Samos, and being in good earnest afraid of Alcibiades, they joined in sending envoys to Lacedaemon, but only lest, if left to themselves, the envoys should betray the city. They did not openly profess' etc. '' Cp. viii. 90 init. <= Cp. viii. 48. ^ Cp. viii. 71 fin.