History of the Peloponnesian War

When the ambassadors sent from the Four Hundred arrived at Athens from Samos, and delivered the message from Alcibiades, namely, that he begged them to hold out, and not submit at all to the enemy; and that he had great hopes of reconciling the army to those at home, and of getting the better of the Peloponnesians; they gave much more courage to the greater part of those implicated in the oligarchy, who had even before been discontented with it, and would gladly have been quit of the business by any safe means.

Accordingly they now united, and found fault with the present state of things, having as their leaders some of the most influential generals and men in office, such as Theramenes the son of Hagnon, Aristocrates the son of Scellias, and others; who, though amongst the first members of the government, were yet afraid, as they alleged, of the army at Samos, and of Alcibiades most especially, as also of those whom they were sending as ambassadors to Lacedaemon, lest without the authority of the greater part of them they might do the state some harm; [*](φοβούμενοι δ᾽, ὡς ἔφασαν, κ. τ. λ.] This passage, as it stands in Arnold's text, being utterly untranslatable, I was compelled either to omit it altogether, or to adopt such corrections as would at any rate give some sense to it, whether the true one or not. I have therefore, with Göller, changed τούς into οὕς taken away the comma after πρεσβευομένους, and substituted ἀπαλλαξείειν for ἀπαλλάξειν. With regard to the τό before that infinitive, I am disposed to think that it is not so hopeless a reading as has been considered; but that this may be added to those instances given by Jelf, Gr. Gr. §670, in which the article shows that especial emphasis is laid on the notion expressed by the infinitive. Compare especially II. 53. 4, καὶ τὸ μὲν προσταλαιπωρεῖν τῷ δόξαντι καλῷ οὐδεὶς πρόθυμος ἦν; Xen. Apol. Soc. 13, τὸ προειδέναι τὸν θεὸν τὸ μέλλον πάντες λέγουσι Id. Symp. III. 3, οὐδεὶς σοι, ἐφη, ἀντιλέγει τὸ μὴ οὐ λέξειν. The last two quotations prove that this construction is common after verbs of ' saying;' and in the present instance I suppose the infinitive to depend upon such a verb understood from ὡς ἔφασαν in the preceding part of the paragraph. There seems therefore to be no reason for changing τό into τοί as I was once led by the various reading τῷ to conjecture, before I knew that Göller had done the same.) and so they declared, not that they wished to escape from the administration falling into too few hands, but that they ought to establish the Five Thousand in reality, not in mere name, and to settle the government on a more equal basis.

This, however, was but a public profession made by them in word; but it was from private ambition that most or them pursued that very method by which an oligarchy formed out of a democracy is most sure to be overturned. For all at once not only claim to be equal, but every one decidedly the first man. [And in such a case failure is intolerable:] whereas, when an election is made under a democracy, [*](ῥᾶον τὰ ἀποβαίνοντα ... φέρει.] Because, as Arnold observes, they know that the weight of the government is against them, and are thus spared the peculiar pain of being beaten in a fair race, when they and their competitors start with equal advantages, and there is nothing therefore to lessen the mortification of defeat. ) a man more easily submits to the result, as he does not think himself beaten on equal terms.

But what most evidently encouraged them was the interest of Alcibiades being so strong in the army, and their not thinking that the power of the oligarchy would be permanent. Each one therefore strove to be himself the first to take the lead of the commons.