History of the Peloponnesian War

Now Theramenes had been freely talking about these proceedings for some time, and after the ambassadors came back from Lacedaemon without having accomplished anything toward an agreement for the people as a whole, he kept saying that this fort would in all probability bring ruin upon the city.

For at this very time it so happened that, on the invitation of the Euboeans, ships from the Peloponnesus to the number of forty-two, among which were Italian vessels from Tarentum and Locri and some from Sicily, were already lying off Las in Laconia and preparing for their passage to Euboea, under the command of Hegesandridas son of Hegesander, a Spartan; and Theramenes declared that these were on their way, not to Euboea, but to Eetioneia to help the men who were fortifying it, adding that unless they immediately took precautions their cause would be lost before they knew it.

And in fact there was something of the kind afoot on the part of those whom he thus accused, and what he said was not altogether mere calumny. For the persons in question wished above all, preserving their oligarchy, to rule both Athens and the allies, but, failing in that, to keep their ships at least and their fortifications and be independent; and if they were debarred from this course also, at any rate not to be themselves the first to meet with destruction at the hands of the restored democracy, but actually to bring in the enemy and, giving up walls and ships, make any sort of terms as to the fate of the city, if only they might have immunity for their own persons.