[458] Thucyd. viii, 48.
[459] “I confess, gentlemen, that this appears to me as bad in the principle, and far worse in the consequences, than an universal suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act.... Far from softening the features of such a principle, and thereby removing any part of the popular odium or natural terrors attending it, I should be sorry that anything framed in contradiction to the spirit of our constitution did not instantly produce, in fact, the grossest of the evils with which it was pregnant in its nature. It is by lying dormant a long time, or being at first very rarely exercised, that arbitrary power steals upon a people. On the next unconstitutional act, all the fashionable world will be ready to say: Your prophecies are ridiculous, your fears are vain; you see how little of the misfortunes which you formerly foreboded is come to pass. Thus, by degrees, that artful softening of all arbitrary power, the alleged infrequency or narrow extent of its operation, will be received as a sort of aphorism; and Mr. Hume will not be singular in telling us that the felicity of mankind is no more disturbed by it, than by earthquakes or thunder, or the other more unusual accidents of nature.” (Burke, Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, 1777: Burke’s Works, vol. iii, pp. 146-150 oct. edit.)
[460] Aristot. Polit. v, 7, 19. Καὶ τῷ δήμῳ κακόνους ἔσομαι, καὶ βουλεύσω ὅ,τι ἂν ἔχω κακόν.
The complimentary epitaph upon the Thirty, cited in the Schol. on Æschinês,—praising them as having curbed, for a short time, the insolence of the accursed Demos of Athens,—is in the same spirit: see K. F. Hermann, Staats-Alterthümer der Griechen, s. 70, note 9.
[461] Plato, Epistol. vii, p. 324. Καὶ ὁρῶν δή που τοὺς ἄνδρας ἐν χρόνῳ ὀλίγῳ χρυσὸν ἀποδείξαντας τὴν ἔμπροσθεν πολιτείαν, etc.
[462] Andokidês de Mysteriis, s. 90.
[463] All this may be collected from various passages of the Orat. xii, of Lysias. Eratosthenês did not stand alone on his trial, but in conjunction with other colleagues; though of course, pursuant to the psephism of Kannônus, the vote of the dikasts would be taken about each separately: ἀλλὰ παρὰ Ἐρατοσθένους καὶ τῶν τουτουῒ συναρχόντων δίκην λαμβάνειν.... μηδ᾽ ἀποῦσι μὲν τοῖς τριάκοντα ἐπιβουλεύετε, παρόντας δ᾽ ἀφῆτε· μηδὲ τῆς τύχης, ἣ τούτους παρέδωκε τῇ πόλει, κάκιον ὑμῖν αὐτοῖς βοηθήσητε (sects. 80, 81): compare s. 36.
The number of friends prepared to back the defence of Eratosthenês, and to obtain his acquittal, chiefly by representing that he had done the least mischief of all the Thirty; that all that he had done had been under fear of his own life; that he had been the partisan and supporter of Theramenês, whose memory was at that time popular, may be seen in sections 51, 56, 65, 87, 88, 91.
There are evidences also of other accusations brought against the Thirty before the senate of Areopagus (Lysias, Or. xi, cont. Theomnest. A. s. 31, B. s. 12).
[464] Lysias, Or. xii, cont. Eratosth. s. 36.