History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides. The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Hobbes, Thomas. translator. London: John Bohn, 1843.

When the assembly, after it had passed these things, no man contradicting, was dissolved, then afterwards they brought The Four Hundred into the council-house in this manner. The Athenians were evermore partly on the walls and partly at their arms in the camp in regard of the enemy that lay at Deceleia.

Therefore, on the day appointed, they suffered such as knew not their intent to go forth as they were wont. But to such as were of the conspiracy they quietly gave order not to go to the camp itself but to lag behind at a certain distance, and if any man should oppose what was in doing, to take arms and keep them back.

They to whom this charge was given were [the] Andrians, Tenians, three hundred Carystians, and such of the colony of Aegina which the Athenians had sent thither to inhabit, as came on purpose to this action with their own arms.

These things thus ordered, The Four Hundred, with every man a secret dagger, accompanied with one hundred and twenty young men of Greece, whom they used for occasions of shedding of blood, came in upon the Counsellers of the Bean as they sat in the council-house and commanded them to take their salary and be gone, which also they brought ready with them, for the whole time they were behind, and paid it to them as they went out.