History of the Peloponnesian War

The ship Paralus, having on board Chaereas son of Archestratus, an Athenian, who had zealously worked for the change in government, was sent by the Samians and the Athenian soldiers with all speed to Athens to announce what had been done; for they did not yet know that the Four Hundred were in power.

As soon as they came to port the Four Hundred at once threw some two or three of the crew into prison, and depriving the rest of their ship and transferring them to another vessel, a troop-ship, they assigned them to guard duty in the neighbourhood of Euboea.

But Chaereas, on seeing the present state of affairs, immediately managed in some way to get off unobserved and returned to Samos, where he gave the soldiers an account of the situation in Athens, going beyond the facts in making them worse than they were. He said that they were scourging everybody by way of punishment, that it was not permitted to say a word against those who controlled the government, that the wives and children of citizens were being insulted, and that the oligarchy intended to seize and keep in confinement the relatives of all the men serving in the army at Samos who were not of their way of thinking, in order that, if they did not submit to their authority, these might be put to death; and he added many other false statements.