But though these joint assassinations served as a pledge to each section of the conspirators for the fidelity of the other, in respect to farther operations, they at the same time gave warning to opponents. Those leading men at Samos who remained attached to the democracy, looking abroad for defence against the coming attack, made earnest appeal to Leon and Diomedon, the two generals most recently arrived from Athens in substitution for Phrynichus and Skironidês,—men sincerely devoted to the democracy, and adverse to all oligarchical change, as well as to the trierarch Thrasyllus, to Thrasybulus, son of Lykus, then serving as an hoplite, and to many others of the pronounced democrats and patriots in the Athenian armament. They made appeal not simply in behalf of their own personal safety and of their own democracy, now threatened by conspirators of whom a portion were Athenians, but also on grounds of public interest to Athens; since, if Samos became oligarchized, its sympathy with the Athenian democracy and its fidelity to the alliance would be at an end. At this moment the most recent events which had occurred at Athens, presently to be told, were not known, and the democracy was considered as still subsisting there.[33]
To stand by the assailed democracy of Samos, and to preserve the island itself, now the mainstay of the shattered Athenian empire, were motives more than sufficient to awaken the Athenian leaders thus solicited. Commencing a personal canvass among the soldiers and seamen, and invoking their interference to avert the overthrow of the Samian democracy, they found the general sentiment decidedly in their favor, but most of all, among the parali, or crew of the consecrated public trireme, called the paralus. These men were the picked seamen of the state,—each of them not merely a freeman, but a full Athenian citizen, receiving higher pay than the ordinary seamen, and known as devoted to the democratical constitution, with an active repugnance to oligarchy itself as well as to everything which scented of it.[34] The vigilance of Leon and Diomedon on the defensive side, counteracted the machinations of their colleague Charmînus, along with the conspirators, and provided for the Samian democracy faithful auxiliaries constantly ready for action. Presently, the conspirators made a violent attack to overthrow the government; but though they chose their own moment and opportunity, they still found themselves thoroughly worsted in the struggle, especially through the energetic aid of the parali. Thirty of their number were slain in the contest, and three of the most guilty afterwards condemned to banishment. The victorious party took no farther revenge, even upon the remainder of the three hundred conspirators, granted a general amnesty, and did their best to reëstablish constitutional and harmonious working of the democracy.[35]
Chæreas, an Athenian trierarch, who had been forward in the contest, was sent in the paralus itself to Athens, to make communication 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 Five 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 Peiræus, 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 forthwith and to cruise near Eubœa. The commander, Chæreas, found means to escape, and returned back to Samos to tell the unwelcome news.[36]
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 Alkibiadês and Tissaphernês,—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 Theramenês, afterwards aided by Phrynichus. All the members of that Board of Elders called Probûli, who had been named after the defeat in Sicily, with Agnon, father of Theramenês, at their head,[37]—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 purpose of overawing the actual authorities. He permitted the senate and the public assembly to go on meeting and debating as usual; but his partisans, neither the names nor the numbers of whom were publicly known, received from him instructions both when to speak and what language to hold. The great topic upon which they descanted, was the costliness of democratical institutions in the present distressed state of the finances, the heavy tax imposed upon the state by paying the senators, the dikasts, the ekklesiasts, or citizens who attended the public assembly, etc. The state could now afford to pay only those soldiers who fought in its defence, nor ought any one else to touch the public money. It was essential, they insisted, to exclude from the political franchise all except a select body of Five Thousand, composed of those who were best able to do service to the city by person and by purse.
The extensive disfranchisement involved in this last proposition was quite sufficiently shocking to the ears of an Athenian assembly. But in reality the proposition was itself a juggle, never intended to become reality, and representing something far short of what Antiphon and his partisans intended. Their design was to appropriate the powers of government to themselves simply, without control or partnership, leaving this body of Five Thousand not merely unconvened, but non-existent, as a mere empty name to impose upon the citizens generally. Of this real intention, however, not a word was as yet spoken. The projected body of Five Thousand was the theme preached upon by all the party orators; yet without submitting any substantive motion for the change, which could not be yet done without illegality.
Even thus indirectly advocated, the project of cutting down the franchise to Five Thousand, and of suppressing all the paid civil functions, was a change sufficiently violent to call forth abundant opponents. For such opponents Antiphon was fully prepared. Of the men who thus stood forward in opposition, either all, or at least all the most prominent, were successively taken off by private assassination. The first of them who thus perished was Androklês, distinguished as a demagogue, or popular speaker, and marked out to vengeance not only by that circumstance, but by the farther fact that he had been among the most vehement accusers of Alkibiadês before his exile. For at this time, the breach of Peisander with Tissaphernês and Alkibiadês had not yet become known at Athens, so that the latter was still supposed to be on the point of returning home as a member of the contemplated oligarchical government. After Androklês, 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,[38] 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 unknown 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 instituted, 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 accounted hearty democrats,[39] so at last dismay and mistrust became universally prevalent. Nor did any one dare even to express 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.[40]
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 Alkibiadês, 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 Antiphon and Phrynichus, both of them personal enemies of Alkibiadês; especially Phrynichus, who had pronounced him to be incapable of fraternizing with an oligarchical revolution.[41] At any rate, the plans of Antiphon had been independent of all view to Persian aid, and had been directed to carry the revolution by means of naked, exorbitant, and well-directed fear, without 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 Diotrephês, had been sent to Thasos and elsewhere;[42] all for the same purpose, of putting down democracies in those allied cities where they existed, and establishing oligarchies in their room. Peisander made this change at Tênos, Andros, Karystus, Ægina, and elsewhere; collecting from these several places a regiment of three hundred hoplites, which he brought with him to Athens as a sort of body-guard to his new oligarchy.[43] He could not know until he reached Peiræus the full success of the terrorism organized by Antiphon and the rest; so that he probably came prepared to surmount a greater resistance than he actually found. As the facts stood, so completely had the public opinion and spirit been subdued, that he was enabled to put the finishing stroke at once, and his arrival was the signal for consummating the revolution, first, by an extorted suspension of the tutelary constitutional sanction, next, by the more direct employment of armed force.
First, he convoked a public assembly, in which he proposed a decree, naming ten commissioners with full powers, to prepare propositions for such political reform as they should think advisable, and to be ready by a given day.[44] According to the usual practice, this decree must previously have been approved in the senate of Five Hundred, before it was submitted to the people. Such was doubtless the case in the present instance, and the decree passed without any opposition. On the day fixed, a fresh assembly met, which Peisander and his partisans caused to be held, not in the usual place, called the Pnyx, within the city walls, but at a place called Kolônus, ten stadia, rather more than a mile, without the walls,[45] north of the city. Kolônus was a temple of Poseidon, within the precinct of which the assembly was inclosed for the occasion. Such an assembly was not likely to be numerous, wherever held,[46] since there could be little motive to attend, when freedom of debate was extinguished; but the oligarchical conspirators now transferred it without the walls; selecting a narrow area for the meeting, in order that they might lessen still farther the chance of numerous attendance, an assembly which they fully designed should be the last in the history of Athens. They were thus also more out of the reach of an armed movement in the city, as well as enabled to post their own armed partisans around, under color of protecting the meeting against disturbance by the Lacedæmonians from Dekeleia.
The proposition of the newly-appointed commissioners—probably Peisander, Antiphon, and other partisans themselves—was exceedingly short and simple. They merely moved the abolition of the celebrated Graphê Paranomôn; that is, they proposed that every Athenian citizen should have full liberty of making any anti-constitutional proposition that he chose, and that every other citizen should be interdicted, under heavy penalties, from prosecuting him by graphê paranomôn indictment on the score of informality, illegality, or unconstitutionality, or from doing him any other mischief. This proposition was adopted without a single dissentient. It was thought more formal by the directing chiefs to sever this proposition pointedly from the rest, and to put it, singly and apart, into the mouth of the special commissioners; since it was the legalizing condition of every other positive change which they were about to move afterwards. Full liberty being thus granted to make any motion, however anti-constitutional, and to dispense with all the established formalities, such as preliminary authorization by the senate, Peisander now came forward with his substantive propositions to the following effect:—
1. All the existing democratical magistracies were suppressed at once, and made to cease for the future. 2. No civil functions whatever were hereafter to be salaried. 3. To constitute a new government, a committee of five persons were named forthwith, who were to choose a larger body of one hundred; that is, one hundred including the five choosers themselves. Each individual out of this body of one hundred, was to choose three persons. 4. A body of Four Hundred was thus constituted, who were to take their seat in the senate-house, and to carry on the government with unlimited powers, according to their own discretion. 5. They were to convene the Five Thousand, whenever they might think fit.[47] All was passed without a dissentient voice.